Hot, dry weather, exacerbated by climate change, shrinks the soil under buildings. In London this means a million properties will be at risk of subsidence by 2030 according to Aviva Plc.

The climate squeeze is getting tighter

Just read Edward Said's essay "traveling theory". It is mind-expanding. A worldly cruise through Lukacs, Williams, Foucault and more exploring what happens when a theory, produced in a particular time and place, travels. Guaranteed to jolt your neurons to a higher state of critical consciousness.

Even when Ehrlich's "the population bomb" was published in the 1960's, the ticking time bomb was the opposite of what he diagnosed: a degrowing population, aging societies and how to sustain intergenerational reproduction. Wrapping our heads around this late capitalist clusterfuck seems essential.

Microdosing retirement by living a no push notification life.

Urban planning, Urban geography, Urban political science

Here is our panel with colleagues from @bcnuej.bsky.social, consider sending your presentation proposal by DEC 5th via the link below, for the @pollenetwork.bsky.social conference to be held in Barcelona end of June 2026!

nomadit.co.uk/conference/p...

I'm writing the last chapter for my PHD thesis, a "discussion" chapter which summarises findings from the empirical chapters, how the thesis answers the research questions and it's contribution to debates in critical urban geography. Would love to see examples of recent theses that did this well!

Also looking forward to getting this one!

Speaking of abundance, this new book looks excellent

We can't afford the rich. Wealth taxes would degrow their crass, wasteful and ostentatious displays of private wealth and fund efficient, quality and beautiful universal public services.

The results are in on the UK's experiment in extreme privatization. It's costing the British public a lot and one of the main reasons everythings so expensive and doesn't work anymore.

Huw Lemmey makes a case that anyone committed to the principles of democracy can't deny without becoming an authoritarian. The UK government has recently taken a huge stride towards a totally authoritarian state. How long until protest is banned altogether?

A necessary remedy to the lack of ambition when it comes to rethinking public services.

Flattered to get a small footnote in this. My point is that capital's metabolism works across commodified and informal (minimally commodified) economic activities not only in "cities of the global South" but explicitly in the so-called "advanced economies" aswell. doi.org/10.1111/anti...

Brilliant description of global production chains by Phil Neel in Brooklyn Rail.
brooklynrail.org/2024/12/fiel...

The Portuguese artist Xavier Almeida drew from my article about informal recycling in Barcelona in his recent residency at B-Murals Centre d’Art Urba. A liitle description of the work including some pictures of the accompanying comic is here: benjaminirvineresearch.wordpress.com/2024/12/10/x...