AFFINITY

Great workshop today at Antwerp on Moral Psychology & The City! Elisabetta Gobbo talked about affect & gentrification; Jamie Draper presented his expressive theory of spatial inequality; Marian Counihan gave a super useful taxonomy of urban diversity & I shared my wip on affective rights to the city

This is probably already obvious to all the urban planning nerds, but I don't feel like it has broken through to normies like myself. Among many reasons why street parking is bad is that—especially with giant cars nowadays—it's bad for pedestrian visibility at intersections!

Very happy about this— I’ve learned a lot from Bennett School’s (and its predecessor institute’s) research on place and identity over the years, and it’s directly influenced how I conceived my project on emotion and urban justice. Excited to be part of it and to expand the phil of urban policy!

Back to reading about litter and waste in anticipation for this talk:

Photo by Kaique Rocha for Pexels.

Does living near a #park reduce your risk of chronic disease?

Join Georgia Tech's School of #Architecture for Episode 50 of Redesigning #Cities hosted by Ellen Dunham-Jones & feat. Dr. Larry Frank — renowned #urban scholar behind the term #walkability

Feb 13 | 3:30 PM ET

Register: bit.ly/4kvs6ko

Events SPRING 2026

The NYU Wild Animal Welfare Program is thrilled to be hosting an event on how cities can manage human-wildlife conflict! Join us for a preview of our upcoming report and discussion with Colin Jerolmack and Adalene Minelli.

Feb 23, 4pm ET, followed by a reception.

sites.google.com/nyu.edu/wild...

Brilliant and exhaustive thread on the 15-minute city and the latest astonishing disinformation about the concept, this time applied to a proposed restriction of road use *to cars* in Oxford.

An “overhaul of England’s planning policy” that does not tackle simply what people can *do* in the built environment, but also how people *feel*, is doomed and dead on arrival—particularly if those who are the most affectively powerless, like women, are ignored/& 4

In turn, policy makers can be traced as the main responsible party for what philosophers like David Spurrett and others call “hostile scaffolding”, in this case the design of spaces that are directly and clearly damaging for women cognitive and affective processing/3

Women and girls cannot shaped and be shaped by life in cities if they do not feel safe, and they cannot feel safe if policy makers don’t remedy the increase danger women face in cities in virtue of being women. Krueger calls this “affective powerlessness”/2

This is a depressing but very accurate example of what philosopher Joel Krueger calls “ecological affective injustice”—ways in which the environment can disrupt emotional well-being and spatial agency, built on & building upon oppressive and unequal social relationships/1

Number of US-style ‘battering ram’ pickup trucks on UK roads has nearly doubled in a decade Exclusive: Campaigners say ‘menacing vehicles’ are putting children at risk owing to their large front blind zones

⚠️Registrations of the most commonly-sold pick-up trucks have nearly doubled in just over a decade!

📈Our new analysis has found a major increase in the number of large, US-style pick-up trucks on UK roads over the past decade - with serious implications for pedestrian safety, particularly children.

Flyer with USF logo for the seminar "Urbicide in Palestine. – A Sociological, Historical and Architectural Approach" on a Photo by Yousef Zaanoun/Activestills. And the text "The seminar will focus on the concept of urbicide in the Palestinian context, combining approaches from sociology, history, and architecture that put colonial planning at the centre of the analysis. Presentations: Urban and Architectural Genocide in Gaza: A Socio-Historical Reading Abaher El-Sakka, Birzeit University Disrupted Urbanity in Colonial Settlement: Planning as Urbicide Abdullah Al Bayyari, Institute for Palestine Studies, and the American University in Cairo. Systematic Dispossession: Towards Urbicide in Jerusalem Maha Samman, Al-Quds University Moderated by Himmat Zoubi, Mada al-Carmel 29th Jan 2026 17:00 - 19:00 (GMT+2) Online"

Flyer with USF logo for the seminar "Urbicide in Palestine. – A Sociological, Historical and Architectural Approach" on a Photo by Yousef Zaanoun/Activestills. And the text "The seminar will focus on the concept of urbicide in the Palestinian context, combining approaches from sociology, history, and architecture that put colonial planning at the centre of the analysis. Presentations: Urban and Architectural Genocide in Gaza: A Socio-Historical Reading Abaher El-Sakka, Birzeit University Disrupted Urbanity in Colonial Settlement: Planning as Urbicide Abdullah Al Bayyari, Institute for Palestine Studies, and the American University in Cairo. Systematic Dispossession: Towards Urbicide in Jerusalem Maha Samman, Al-Quds University Moderated by Himmat Zoubi, Mada al-Carmel 29th Jan 2026 17:00 - 19:00 (GMT+2) Online"

📢 Upcoming Seminar: Urbicide in Palestine
Join the #USFSeminarSeries event on Jan 29, 17:00 (GMT+2)! 📢
It explores colonial planning and spatial violence with Abaher El-Sakka, Abdullah Al Bayyari & Maha Samman. Co-organised with Mada al-Carmel.
📍 Online 🌐 Arabic/English 🔗 ow.ly/Wpm450Y44vb

Just came accross the concept of ‘motonormativity’, which will be the subject of this very interesting workshop at #OUVEMA. I will sadly miss the event, but these reseaechers rise several philosophically interesting questions to think about in the future

El Ayuntamiento de Madrid suspende el derribo del edificio del antiguo Baobab en Lavapiés después de la denuncia del PSOE El Gobierno de Almeida retira la licencia de demolición a la espera de un pronunciamiento de la Comunidad de Madrid, en el día en el que el Grupo Municipal Socialista había presentado una denuncia ant...

‼️El Ayuntamiento de Madrid suspende el derribo del edificio del antiguo Baobab en Lavapiés después de la denuncia del PSOE

More than Merely Present: Mobile Maps and Agency in the City - Volume 4, 2024 E-mapping technologies are a recent technological intervention promising to promote accessibility for disabled city residents. As part of their promise, they seem to position disabled people as agents...

Today's reading: Nathan Whelan-Jackson on disability and urban maps. V interesting claim that cities involve different 'stances' or ways to engage w the environment, & that disabled people often have to justify their presence--a threat to agency that is partially addressed through mapping technology

An easy to follow and accessible explanation of some of the main arguments for and against preservation of urban heritage (this is published in Think, a philosophy journal aimed at the wider public managed by @triphilosophy.bsky.social; highly recommend it to the non-philosophers in here)

Livability As climate change shrinks and shifts the human climate niche, millions face heightened risks of displacement, immobility, and loss of well-being. This essay argues for a justice-based framework of cli...

Sunday read: "Livability"

Simona Capisani argues for a justice-based framework of climate mobilities grounded in a right to livable locality, centering embodied human relationships to place with a capability approach.

#Philosophy #ClimateChange #housing
www.thephilosopher1923.org/post/the-new...

“From the perspective of young people …the cage is a piece of the city that is theirs: a space in which they can have greater autonomy and agency than perhaps anywhere else”.

European Affordable Housing Plan: Cities ready to deliver, but need the right tools - Eurocities Cities welcome the European Affordable Housing Plan, a timely recognition that the housing crisis is a European emergency. But does it gives cities the tools to act?

This week the EU announced plans to regulate housing: more availability, less short-term rentals. @eurocities.eu summarizes the news with reactions from city officials, and warns about the conditions that are needed to make the plans work: sufficient funding, practical tools, and city involvement

Why Egalitarian Philosophers (and the Rest of Us) Should Be More Concerned About Roads | Blog of the APA Traffic is trivial. Rules of the road are a basic necessity for a well-functioning society, but their design is largely a technical matter of logistics and optimization best left to technocratic polic...

“Marginalization in road regulation is an injustice, then—not just an inefficiency or poor design—because enclosure makes us dependent on roads, and that puts us in troublingly unequal and hierarchical relationships with each other”.

Cities aren’t built for older people – our study shows many can’t walk fast enough to beat a pedestrian crossing Many older people with reduced mobility say they feel ‘hurried’, ‘rushed’ and ‘unsafe" when walking around their city.

Cities aren’t built for older people – our study shows many can’t walk fast enough to beat a pedestrian crossing. Many older people with reduced mobility say they feel ‘hurried’, ‘rushed’ and ‘unsafe" when walking around their city. theconversation.com/cities-arent...

ETSC and partners urge European Commission to establish dedicated EU Road Safety Agency The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), alongside six major European civil society organisations, has sent a joint letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen…

🚦 Road transport remains the only major mode in Europe without a dedicated EU safety authority.

Establishing an EU Road Safety Agency would help move the EU closer to zero deaths on our roads, particularly as automated vehicles become more widespread.

etsc.eu/etsc-and-par... @etsc.eu

Flyer with USF logo for the Call for Applications "Urban Urgencies" on a picture of a grafitti via flickr by Julia Tulke and the text "The Urban Studies Foundation is launching a major new grant to support rapid-response collaborative research on the world’s most pressing urban challenges. Up to £35,000 per project Open to researchers globally Requires partnership with at least one non-academic organisation 23 March 2026 at 23:59 UTC +0 Apply online"

Flyer with USF logo for the Call for Applications "Urban Urgencies" on a picture of a grafitti via flickr by Julia Tulke and the text "The Urban Studies Foundation is launching a major new grant to support rapid-response collaborative research on the world’s most pressing urban challenges. Up to £35,000 per project Open to researchers globally Requires partnership with at least one non-academic organisation 23 March 2026 at 23:59 UTC +0 Apply online"

📢 New USF Funding: Urban Urgencies

The Urban Studies Foundation is launching a major new grant to support rapid-response collaborative research on the world’s most pressing urban challenges.

💷 Up to £35,000
🤝 Requires partnership with a non-academic organisation
🗓️ 23 Mar 2026

🔗 ow.ly/FUIn50XGtgz

Just discovered this NBER paper examining the safety dangers of car bloat:

"Being hit by a vehicle that is 1,000 pounds heavier results in a 47% increase in the baseline fatality probability."

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

This is nice but I wouldn’t have chosen a pic of Antwerp’s public bikes, which have the most disabled/injury unfriendly design I have ever seen for reasons I cannot comprehend. The whole bike needs to be lifted to release and to return, with a rather flimsy anchor. It hurts my wrists every time.

This is one of the many reasons why the liberalisation of US-EU vehicle trade can be terrible news for us. This report by the European Transport Security Council explains it well.

The slogan that Avner de-Shalit and I suggest sums up the idea of what we call a City of Equals is:

“I’m proud of my city and my city is proud of (people like) me.”

Affective Atmospheres
18–19 Feb 2026, Glasgow
Supported by Royal Institute of Philosophy

In-person conference bringing together philosophy, anthropology, geography, art, architecture & psychology.

Register forms.gle/Xv2ZXmbovtvK...

More info placememory.net/affective-at...

Art Jinjoon Lee ©2025

🎯Francesco Consiglio (University of Valencia): Urban narratives. Material engagement and scaffolded imagery in the city.

#VLCColloquium