Rowland Atkinson
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qurbanist.bsky.social
Rowland Atkinson
@qurbanist.bsky.social

Chair in Inclusive Societies, University of Sheffield

Economics 42%
Political science 23%
Pinned
Alpha City - paperback editions, available at Verso and at Nanjing University Press.

Verso - tinyurl.com/45fs2pjf
Nanjing - book.douban.com/subject/3698...

Reposted by Rowland Atkinson

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 ...

Reposted by Rowland Atkinson

Reposted by Rowland Atkinson

Invisible fish: The selective (dis)connection of elite Chinese gated community residents from urban public space by Yixin Liu and @qurbanist.bsky.social

Out now in #UrbanStudies February issue:
https://buff.ly/4hKqiBx

#mobilities #ActivitySpace #GatedCommunities #China

Reposted by Rowland Atkinson

This forms part of 10 days of action our branch has called.

Whilst we have had somewhat productive negotiations with HR, our Vice Chancellor still refuses to meet with us.

This is not good enough. We hope the show of strength tomorrow will encourage him to show some leadership.

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.
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.

Reposted by Rowland Atkinson

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.

Reposted by Rowland Atkinson

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.....

Reposted by Rowland Atkinson

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.
This forms part of 10 days of action our branch has called.

Whilst we have had somewhat productive negotiations with HR, our Vice Chancellor still refuses to meet with us.

This is not good enough. We hope the show of strength tomorrow will encourage him to show some leadership.

Reposted by Rowland Atkinson

Three years since Fortress London hit the bookshops.

Still in love with this front cover. No idea why we changed it for the paperback

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
The Gated City
The Gated City - Planning Practice and the Challenges of Urban Fragmentation in Mexico; The book tells the story of the proliferation of gated communities in Mexico over the last three decades. Weavin...
policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk

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...
Statecraft as catharsis: The mobilisation of social anger in politics
Donald Trump announces the 2020 re-election campaign in Orlando, Florida. Source: Executive Office of the President of the United States, A while ago I was very interested in how policymaking in ci…
alphacity.blog

Reposted by Rowland Atkinson

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.

Reposted by Rowland Atkinson

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”
Financial TimesFinancial Times
News, analysis and opinion from the Financial Times on the latest in markets, economics and politics
FT.com

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...
America’s Constitutional Crisis (w/ Katherine Franke) | The Chris Hedges Report
YouTube video by The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel
www.youtube.com

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

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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...
Reichtum | Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte
docupedia.de

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.

Reposted by Beth Perry

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
Festival for Social Action
Welcome to the Festival of Social Action, a week of collaborative events to inspire people to get involved and drive positive change in their local communities. All of the events are free and open to...
shorturl.at

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...
'Trump Gaza' AI video creators say they don't want to be the president's 'propaganda machine'
Co-creators Solo Avital and Ariel Vromen said they’re not sure how their video made its way to the president and that the video was meant to be satirical.
www.nbcnews.com

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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.

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-...
Complete batshit lunacy on the president's Truth Social account. Yes, he really posted this.
Complete batshit lunacy on the president's Truth Social account. Yes, he really posted this.

Good journalism is something we should be prepared to pay for, if you don't believe that go and do YOUR job for free.

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
Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! is a viewer-supported independent, global weekday news hour anchored by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González. The show is broadcast on more than 1,500 TV, radio and i...
www.youtube.com