Hosted by Professor Beth Perry (±¬ÁÏTV) and Professor Tom Goodfellow (University of Manchester), the series filters current global events and emerging societal trends through the unique lens of urban environments. From shifting socio-economic landscapes to the future of metropolitan living, Urban Radar provides listeners with deep, research-backed insights into how global events actively shape—and are shaped by—our cities.
River/City
High up in the Andes mountain range, two rivers begin their journeys. Starting in the El Plomo hill, one becomes the Mapocho river travelling though Chile into Santiago, dividing the city in two. The other makes its way from the Peruvian Andes and develops into a complex network of waters and rivers to become the Amazon basin, one of the longest rivers in the world. Rivers such as these shape and are shaped by the cities they meet.
In this month’s feature Tom and Beth are joined by Dr Olivia Casagrande and Professor Roberto Monte-Mór to ask:
- What can urbanists learn from studying the Mapocho and Amazon rivers?
- How does thinking with rivers challenge our categories of urbanization, racialization and indigeneity?
- How do creative and visual methods enable us to see or dream with the river differently?
Together they take a fascinating tour, diving into concepts of ‘extended naturalization’ and ‘fluvial epistemic alternatives’; following what river/city intersections mean for metropolitan green-blue planning; unpacking the implications of giving legal rights to rivers and the meanings of indigenous narratives; and how storytelling with and through rivers helps us dream of alternative ways of being and doing.
Making a Prime Minister in Makerfield?
In this episode Beth and Tom are joined by Dr Lotte Hargrave from the University of Manchester to discuss whether psephology - the study of elections and voting behaviour - can predict the next Prime Minister of the UK.
All eyes are turned on the town of Makerfield in Greater Manchester, where Andy Burnham is making a play to win the constituency and head south - back to Westminster, and (probably) a leadership contest to replace Keir Starmer as UK PM.
With Lotte they discuss whether we can predict the results of the election, the potential outcomes of a win for Burnham for the Greater Manchester mayoralty and why hyperlocal factors suggest it is all still to play for.
Comparative Learning Through Community Exchange
In this episode - recorded on location in Kampala, Uganda during an (ACRC) workshop in late April – Beth and Tom delve into questions of how urban communities in informal settlements can build power through their own forms of knowledge and data collection, and how two-way exchanges between cities can strengthen this process.
For the main discussion, Tom was there in person with two of the research programme’s ‘City Manager’s - Jack Makau (City Manager for Nairobi) and Temilade Sesan (City Manager for Lagos). The discussion is first introduced by Beth and Tom who set the scene and provide some background, and following the main conversation they also offer concluding reflections.
In this episode, they explore:
- How can community-led data collection and analysis help to shift the levers of urban power?
- What role can action research play in changing the attitudes of governments towards the urban poor?
- How can we move from individual to collective solutions through community action and transnational learning?
Asymmetric Urbanism
In this episode, Beth and Tom are joined by Ryan Bellinson, researcher/civil servant living in Portland, Oregon, US, to discuss how residents and community groups can mobilise their power to resist democratic backsliding.
From Minneapolis to Portland federal immigration enforcement agents have been deploying hostile tactics to identify and seek to deport migrants, even those of legal status. Meanwhile federal programmes of support from housing to environmental protection are being slashed in part to finance massive increases in defence spending. The asymmetry between authoritarian and progressive forces is increasing. In this context, what powers and levers remain for grassroots groups and public bodies to push back?
Chaos and Desire in the City
Come with Beth and Tom to Johannesburg and Dhaka in this month's feature. Visit the markets and stalls of Jeppe, in inner city Johannesburg, a dynamic ecosystem of informal traders, sometimes called Africa’s shopping Mecca. Head with them to Korail, an informal settlement of 300,000 dwellers, sometimes called Bangladesh’s largest slum.
In this double book talk, Beth and Tom are joined by two critically-acclaimed authors. With Tanya Zack we discuss her book , a narrative of how migrant Ethiopians have shaped this trading post in the inner city. With Tanzil Shafique they explore his book which challenges what and how we know the different desires of settlement-dwellers.
The New Urban Geopolitics
In this first episode of Series 2 of Urban Radar, Beth and Tom start to tackle some of the many ways in which the current moment of geopolitical turmoil is filtering down into in cities and towns across the world.
They make the most of their new Sheffield-Manchester partnership by bringing on Dr. Erika Garcia Fermin (29:45 minutes onwards) from the University of Manchester's Global Development Institute, for an in-depth conversation on the Venezuala crisis and its urban dimensions. With Erika they delve into Venezuela's recent history and how Hugo Chavez's distinctly urban populist project of redistribution morphed over two decades into extreme authoritarianism, mass population exodus and dysfunctional, disempowered city governments under Maduro.
They then consider whether and how the dramatic US intervention and removal of Maduro might serve as a window of opportunity for opposition forces in the cities to reverse the tide of authoritarian, centralizing governance.