The Urban Theory Lab (UTL) seeks to develop new ways of conceptualizing capitalist urbanization and its increasingly planetary environmental impacts. Our work combines explorations of urban theory with diverse forms of research on urbanization in historical-geographical, political-economic, and biospheric perspective, generally in close conjunction with the development of new approaches to geographic visualization that advance—and often transform—our inquiries. We are equally interested in strategies and struggles to create “alter-urbanizations”—alternative forms of urbanization, social reproduction, and ecological repair.
The UTL was founded by Neil Brenner in 2012 at the Graduate School of Design (GSD), Harvard University, and is now based in the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU) at the University of Chicago. Our work reflects a broad range of scholarly and pedagogical activities undertaken at these institutions, and builds upon a vibrant network of collaborations with colleagues in North America, South America, Western Europe, and beyond. Our research network includes scholars at all stages—from Ph.D. students and early-career academics to more seasoned researchers, writers, cartographers, and designers. Our work takes many forms, including research, publication, teaching, exhibitions, and various forms of public communication.
While all UTL researchers are interested in urban questions, broadly construed, and approach them from a range of disciplinary perspectives, we also build upon transdisciplinary knowledge drawn from, among other fields, environmental social science, geographical political economy, global political ecology, agrarian studies, energy history and geography, environmental and public humanities, infrastructure studies, waste and discard studies, sustainability science, critical/forensic cartography, philosophy and political theory, climate justice law, Black geographies and ecologies, Chicago studies, media and sound studies, urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture, and territorial design.
Much of our current work focuses on a range of questions related to planetary urbanization, fossil energy metabolism, the remaking of non-city territories and environments, and proliferating climate and nature emergencies. In pursuing such explorations, we seek to investigate the patterns and pathways–both historical and emergent–of urban transformation across the Earth while developing–and stress-testing–new conceptual frameworks for understanding them. Our research is equally focused on concrete forms of urban/environmental restructuring and on the critical interrogation of the evolving knowledge-formations through which such processes are studied, shaped, and contested.
Through these initiatives, the UTL seeks to contribute to the collective project of imagining new spaces of solidarity and emancipatory forms of urbanization for the flourishing of human and non-human life on Earth.
Support
Since 2020, the UTL has been based in the Division of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, which has offered generous support for our work. Our core intellectual home at the University of Chicago is in the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU). The UTL was previously based at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, which provided a vibrant intellectual home and financial support from 2012-2020. Although we are constantly seeking large-scale, longer term forms of support, much of our work is funded through project- or publication-based grants from our home institutions and/or external foundations. Most of our researchers also secure funding through their home institutions and through grants tied to their individual research projects. Since our work began in 2012, our researchers or research teams have received generous support from the following organizations, fellowships and grants:
- Aga Khan Program, Harvard University
- American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
- Amherst College Rufus B. Kellogg University Fellowship
- The Black Midwest Initiative, University of Illinois Chicago
- Berkeley Black Geographies, University of California, Berkeley
- The Black Studies Collaboratory, University of California, Berkeley
- Canadian Center for Architecture (CCA), Doctoral Student Residency
- Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, SSHR Doctoral Fellowship
- CEGU Redekop Family Environmental Research Grant, University of Chicago
- Centro de Estudios Interculturales e Indígenas (CIIR)
- Cincinnati Sounds: Exploring a Musical City’s Spaces, Places, and Sounds
- Critical Media Practice, Harvard University
- Doctor of Design Program (DDes), Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
- Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University
- FirstRand Foundation, Laurie Dippenaar Scholarship
- FORMAS (Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development)
- Foundation for Urban and Regional Studies, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
- Fulbright Commission
- Gauteng City-Region Observatory
- Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), Harvard University
- Graduate Student Fund, Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory (3CT), University of Chicago
- Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts
- Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute, Faculty Research Grant, Harvard University
- Henderson Research Grant, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago
- International Institute of Research in Paris, University of Chicago
- Institute for the Formation of Knowledge, University of Chicago
- Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University
- La Caixa Foundation
- Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph Field Research Award, Center for International Social Science Research, University of Chicago
- Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (MPI-MMG)
- Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, University of Chicago
- Mellon Urban Initiative, Harvard University
- Milton Fund, Harvard Medical School
- Minmin Zeng Innovative Doctoral Research Award, Harvard University
- National Science Foundation, Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research ProjectV– Social-Ecological Landscape Working Group
- The Newberry Library, Chicago
- Nigerian Fellowships for Distinguished African Students, Harvard University
- Office of the Dean, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
- Oppenheimer Memorial Trust
- Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study, University of California, Berkeley
- Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig-Maxmillian Universität, Munich
- Real Estate Academic Inititiative (REAI), Harvard University
- Research Council of Norway
- Shapiro Initiative on Environment and Society Pre-Dissertation Travel Grant, Department of History, University of Chicago
- South African National Research Foundation
- Spanish Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte
- Urban Studies Foundation (USF)
- Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
- Wilfrid Laurier University, Laurier Archives, Joan Mitchell Travel Award
The UTL welcomes inquiries from individuals and organizations interested in learning more about, and contributing to our work.