Urban Ecology

Research

Urban Ecology

Global commitments to combat climate change and attain more equitable urban environments have thus been given new urgency by the Paris Accord and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It is increasingly clear, however, that ostensibly neutral concepts like “sustainable urbanism” obscure issues of power and inequality. The research therefore interrogates the meaning of “sustainability” amidst […]

Mobilities

Mobilities is a research field that has developed from transport studies in the social sciences and cultural studies. It opened up the ‘black box’ of traditional transport studies by adding more complex and contextualized understandings of the meaning of movements and flows of people, artefacts, capital and risks, in space. Dimensions of power are deeply […]

Urban Economics

Urban economics is a research field that focus on how households, firms, and capital integrate across space in metropolitan areas. Digitalisation, globalisation and educational upgrading have, for many, led to increased wages, less routine work, and, over all, increased wealth. There are also less desirable outcomes, such as divergence between urban and rural locations, labour […]

Urban Migration

We live in an era of human mobility that is markedly urban. Migrants, internal and international, move to cites and urban areas; they bring diversity and connect localities within and across state borders. Migration and migrants are shaping cities, and the life of migrants are in turn shaped by cities, their people, organizations and rules. […]

Social Sustainability

The Institute for Urban Research seeks to consolidate existing research on vulnerable groups in the city, conflicts emanating from ethnic, gender and class inequalities, and conflicts and vulnerabilities stemming from recent immigration. The current wave of urbanization has given rise to a range of new urban visions that increasingly inform policy-making practices: smart city, resilient […]

Housing and Urban Renewal

The housing question is arguably the largest contemporary urban challenge in northern countries. The current housing crisis is generally described as a housing shortage. According to the Swedish Housing Board there is a need for 440 000 additional dwellings between 2016 and 2020 – the size of another Stockholm municipality – or 88 000 additional dwellings per […]

Smart Cities

The bulk of research on corporate smart urbanization has primarily concentrated on the technological aspects, alongside the markets and products of global corporations active in urban development. We need to question what the political, social and environmental consequences of smart urbanisation, and what they imply for the workings of city authorities and the interests of […]