Environment and Urbanization

Environment and Urbanization (E&U) seeks to advance a more socially just and environmentally sustainable urban world through the provision of knowledge. Our focus is the global South, where an estimated one in three of the urban population live in informal settlements and where more than half work within the informal economy. UN projections suggest that almost all the world’s growth in population in the next few decades will be in urban centres in the Global South.

Contributors to E&U include those engaging with critical social science to add theoretical and conceptual insights, those reporting innovative empirical findings that augment our understanding of context and solutions (and their significance for theories and concepts), and those able to share the voices of activist representative groups and movements that are rarely seen in the scholarly literature. In other words, our journal aims both to advance social justice and be the change we strive for by encouraging contributions that share the perspectives of disadvantaged and marginalized groups.

E&U particularly encourages researchers, NGO staff, professionals and activists in Africa, Asia and Latin America to write about their work, present their ideas and debate issues. We promote the work of French, Spanish and Portuguese-speaking authors by arranging for the translation of their work into English.

Papers commonly deal with poverty, inequality, and the power relations underpinning both disadvantage and transformation. Papers also report on trends, policies, programmes and practices related to urbanization, urban development and urban environments. We are concerned with processes of progressive change, while recognizing that these are contested, and that change is neither uni-linear nor necessarily progressive. Urbanization processes are often poorly understood and papers that contribute insights supporting an accurate understanding of grounded realities are important to us. We recognize that sustainable development, including needed responses to climate change, is critical to both current and future populations, and that ecosystems have a critical role in the wellbeing of urban populations and the resilience of their cities. We encourage contributions related to such themes.