I lead an inter-departmental Urban Research Hub at UCL’s Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment. Since 2022, we have been interrogating the concept of ‘Urban Prosperity’. In a series of forthcoming working papers and an edited volume, we show that Urban Prosperity is too often understood as grounded in economic value and measured in money-metric ways — instead, we argue, other urban value(s) must be included in our conceptualisations, research methods, and measures of urban quality of life. To achieve a city that works for everyone, we must be aware of the ideologies and politics underpinning various notions and metrics of a ‘good city’.

Funded by a UCL Grand Challenges grant.

The postgraduate module I designed and lead, Urban Futures & Prosperity, is also concerned with differing visions of what makes a good city and how to achieve it. Students are encouraged to critically examine the ideologies underpinning seemingly incontestable ‘urban goods’ and to consider how cities can negotiate between various actors’ ambitions for urban futures.