Another fascinating duo of guests joining us on this episode to discuss @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social's rise in #NYC and whether we need a #wealthtax on the super rich Thanks @katiepruszynski.bsky.social and @qurbanist.bsky.social Listen to #urbanradar now ...

A reminder that this live event on the global capitalist class is at 4pm tomorrow at the University of Sheffield. All welcome. This particular event in our series will not be recorded.

#freedomflotilla #madleen #gaza #palestine #greta

We don’t need to increase productivity. We need to abolish socially unproductive work. That’s the starting point for improving social well-being.

Men are extremely keen to explain to me that Britain *needs* a domestic steel production plant and doesn't necessarily *need* universities. Okay. Steel contributed about £1.7bn to the UK economy in 2024. Universities contributed more than £200bn.

Richard Littlejohn mostly lives in a gated mansion in Florida. Andrew Neil mostly lives in Grasse in the South of France.

Keir Starmer hands out excellent prospective book titles to critical sociologists too eagerly - Island of Strangers: Emulation, Inequality and Despair in British Politics perhaps.....

This is the Labour MP for Pendle & Clitheroe who hilariously believes in "a very powerful higher education lobby" (that will be why thousands of university staff are being made redundant this year presumably). With 'friends' like this who needs Farage & Badenoch as enemies?

Its hard to fathom the logic of senior management going to ground and avoiding discussion with its own professional association. Dialogue is always the answer and the easiest means of dissipating anxiety over institutional change.

Three years since Fortress London hit the bookshops. Still in love with this front cover. No idea why we changed it for the paperback

Lecture 3 of Urban Riches, with Katie Higgins, 18 June at 4pm. Details in the attached image, cutting-edge global study from one of the core urban riches team, please share. We hope to circulate a live link in due course.

The Gated City - this is a timely book, strongly recommend for anyone doing work around gating, walls, fortification, segregation: policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-gated-city

I have written a short piece based on an article from ten years ago to discuss how the model used there might help us today to interpret politics in the USA as one of 'social catharsis': alphacity.blog/2025/04/24/s...

One for the diary. Another inspiring discussion from the Urban Riches team planned for June ... @invisiblemapper.bsky.social @qurbanist.bsky.social

Lecture 3 of Urban Riches, with Katie Higgins, 18 June at 4pm. Details in the attached image, cutting-edge global study from one of the core urban riches team, please share. We hope to circulate a live link in due course.

Trumps attack on the elites - Rufo has frequently denounced what he calls the left’s “ideological capture” of America’s universities...said his goal was to change the way the federal government funds universities “in a way that puts them in an existential terror”

The canary in the mine? This excellent interview a must-watch for academics looking at the Columbia university horror-show, fascism arrives noisily but not all are noticing. Deportation is the start. www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgx2...

Word of the day is ultracrepidate - to criticize beyond the sphere of one's knowledge (Chambers Thesaurus, 5th edition).

Felix Römer and I take a deep dive into the term and concept of wealth in Docupedia —worth a read! docupedia.de/zg/gajek_roe...

Even the cards can be against you...

It is an unfortunate sign of where we are that, in an attention economy, hiding your humanity becomes a winning strategy.

Festival of Social Action is a series of public events being organised by Change Lab, an initiative being run within Sheffield Student Union. Event list: shorturl.at/72XK0 I will be speaking on Jets, Planes, and Rocketmobiles 25th March, free registration here - shorturl.at/Z2Afb

Spent a while last night picking out the planets in the beautiful clear sky, but after a while the most striking thing was quite how many starlink satellites there are. That guy is really taking over everything.

So the makers of the 'Trump Gaza' video are bemused that their work was broadcast by Trump 'out of context', leaving many questions still unanswered about the purpose of the video - www.nbcnews.com/tech/interne...

A real-estate president's AI vision of the future of Gaza. From horror, $$$$ This did not possibly seem to be credible, but now reported on Sky here: news.sky.com/story/trump-...

In ten minutes a day Democracy Now's daily briefing has made me feel more informed (also depressed, angry and upset) than any other in recent years. Wonderful really. www.youtube.com/@DemocracyNow

This is half an hour well spent, I have been looking at a lot of stuff lately about the loss of ability to read and focus, this video considers rising acceptance of content selected for us by platforms. Thought-provoking and useful. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJp...

Despite my love of cinema I have ended Amazon prime and all subscriptions, not having ordered anything online for years felt like some kind of excuse. Inspired by a colleague, doing something that collectively could be highly destructive to the mad high cultists.

How to profit from war.

Word of the week - revanchism (and likely the next four years).

With Yixin (Eason) in the lead, our paper on the invisible dwellers of public space is formally out.

New report - an incisive and disturbing read: essential to understand the relationships between growth-led development, housing and local communities From @invisiblemapper.bsky.social, @richmgoulding.bsky.social and @adamleaver.bsky.social in @theurbaninstitute.bsky.social & School of Management

One of the unexpected things about having a social sciences PhD in the U.K. from 15 years ago is how often the Marxist reading list authors now pop up in British media explaining why universities need to make huge cuts (while they take home huge V-C and similar salaries).

We're delighted to be formally launching Sheffield Urbanism next week with a series of public events (alongside internal workshops to cook up future plans...) All of the below are open to the public, see below for details on how to sign up!

If anyone here is on X, please get off it, don't buy a Tesla and indeed engage in any other small act that may help to defang the great amplifier of hatred. There are no academic, commercial or social reasons left to be on X. X'it now.

Planning permissiion has been granted for what will be Sheffield's tallest building - 40 floor (430 flats) co-living project by Manchester developers Oppidan www.constructionenquirer.com/2024/01/16/g...

Next week, David Dodman of the Institute for Housing & Urban Development Studies at Erasmus Uni will give a public talk for Sheffield Urbanism: ‘(Urban) Infrastructures, informalities and Climate Policies' Tues 28 Jan Sign up below! In person - tinyurl.com/mfcr3rjj Online - tinyurl.com/ycytun9z

When Elon Musk says how excited he is to take Doge (coin) to Mars, does he realise that no consumers actually live there?

Looking forward to this, as part of our week celebrating the launch of @sheffieldurbanism.bsky.social later this month!

The next public event as part of the Urban Riches group sees our Sheffield launch of Isaac Rose's excellent analysis of Manchester - The Rentier City. All are very welcome! Registration for this free public event in Sheffield here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launc...

FTSE 100 CEO gets more in less than 3 days than average worker pay for a yr. Median CEO pay £4.22m, 113 times average worker. Nothing to do with performance. Shareholder objections ignored. Need worker-elected directors on boards. Let workers vote on exec pay. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

City capture, pol capture, social capture. An end of year wrap-up...

Machinedrum - Human energy (2017) - playing out the final work day of 2024... Shut down imminent, gmail extracted from phone, books selected, brain on standby.

Book talk coming up in Sheffield for Isaac Rose’s 'Rentier City' - a public event on the housing crisis and new finance in Manchester and Sheffield, w/ Sheff Tenants Union + org by the UI/Urban Riches (@qurbanist.bsky.social) Jan 30th, 6.30 (Venue TBC) www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launc...

I just pasted some non-bold text into another part of a word document which then appeared in bold. It is 2024.

Preparing for final urban theory class today, fortified with Yorkshire, tea, cardamom bun from Sheffield station and guide to a better world. It can only go downhill from here.

Year in an unequal and disturbing world - I wrote micro reviews of three books that inspired me this year. alphacity.blog/2024/12/11/t...

Engine of our times- Mayfair gallery's exhibition of Grayson Perry about 6 years ago. The world is turning upside down with the Telegraph's investigation into Musk's fund of Reform to tune of £100m. Work of the vengeful child rich. Not dark money, but fully operating in the light.