Associate Professor of Geography Dr Austin Zeiderman has recently published an article entitled ‘Urban futures: Idealization, capitalization, securitization’ in City Journal. Co-authored with LSE ESRC Fellow Dr Kathrine Dawson, the paper offers an analytical reflection on how urban futures have been imagined throughout history and into the present.

Considering this question at a global scale, it examines the place of urbanization within the development of the modern/colonial order, accounting for the imagined futures that have supported this world-historical process. Three thematic sections—idealization, capitalization, and securitization—frame the discussion. This lays the groundwork
for the critical analysis of urban futures that identifies what is at stake
in imagining the future of cities in one way rather than another.

The article is available with open access here.