Neil Brenner
Director, Urban Theory Lab
; Lucy Flower Professor of Urban Sociology
The University of Chicago
Neil Brenner is the Lucy Flower Professor of Urban Sociology and Director of the Urban Theory Lab (UTL) at the University of Chicago. He is one of the founding faculty members and former Chair (2021-2026) of the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU).
Brenner is a critical urban theorist, sociologist, and geographer who is interested in all aspects of research on cities and urbanization within the social sciences, the environmental humanities, the design disciplines, and environmental studies. His writing and teaching focus on the theoretical, conceptual and methodological dimensions of urban questions, and especially on the challenges of reinventing our approach to urbanization in relation to the planetary socioenvironmental crises of our time.
Over the last 25 years, Brenner has made influential contributions to scholarly debates on critical urban theory, the critique of capitalist urbanization, urban restructuring, state space, the political economy of rescaling, variegated neoliberalization, and, most recently, planetary urbanization. Brenner previously served as Professor of Urban Theory at the Graduate School of Design (GSD), Harvard University, and as Professor of Sociology and Metropolitan Studies, New York University. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (University of Chicago, 1999), an MA in Geography (UCLA, 1996), and a BA in Philosophy, summa cum laude (Yale, 1991).
Brenner is the author of New Urban Spaces: Urban Theory and the Scale Question (Oxford, 2019), Critique of Urbanization: Selected Essays (Bauwelt Fundamente, 2016), and New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood (Oxford, 2004) and the editor of Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization (Jovis, 2014), Cities for People, Not for Profit: Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City (with Peter Marcuse and Margit Mayer; Routledge, 2011); and Spaces of Neoliberalism (with Nik Theodore; Blackwell, 2002).
Two new books by Brenner and his collaborators in the Urban Theory Lab appeared in Fall 2025: Data-Spheres of Planetary Urbanization (with Grga Bašić, Mariano Gomez-Luque, and Nikos Katsikis; Jovis, 2025) and Environments of Planetary Urbanization (with Swarnabh Ghosh and Nikos Katsikis; Jovis, 2025). Spanish translations of both books are forthcoming in 2026 with Ediciones ARQ, Santiago (Chile). Brenner’s current work, undertaken in collaboration with Swarnabh Ghosh of Harvard University, is focused on planetary urbanization, the spatial metabolism of fossil energy, and biospheric collapse.
Brenner is a 2026-27 Guggenheim Fellow in Architecture, Planning and Design.
For a more complete listing of Brenner’s publications over the last three decades, including translations into Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Turkish, Farsi, and other languages, please see his Academia.edu page (open access, but login required).
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Selected public lectures and dialogues
Neil Brenner, Samuel Zipp
On the Urban in the Capitalocene. Planetary Climate Emergencies and the Hinterland Question
Urban Studies Program, Brown University / September 20, 2022
September 20, 2022
Neil Brenner, Nikos Katsikis, Aristide Athanassiadis
Planetary urbanization and operational landscapes (podcast with Neil Brenner and Nikos Katsikis)
Circular metabolism podcast / June 1, 2022
June 1, 2022
Neil Brenner, Stuart Elden
Design Agency within Earth Systems: Planetary Urbanization
Design Agency within Earth Systems, AA School of Architecture, London / October 26, 2018
October 26, 2018
Neil Brenner, Álvaro Sevilla-Buitrago
Global crisis and critical urban theory: lecture and discussion with Neil Brenner and Álvaro Sevilla Buitrago
Espais critics / book launch of Teoría urbana crítica y políticas de escala / October 3, 2017
October 3, 2017
Neil Brenner
Towards a New Epistemology of the Urban
Deans Lecture Series, Melbourne School of Design / March 17, 2015
March 17, 2015
Neil Brenner
Urban Governance, But at What Scale? Keynote lecture at Urban Age conference
Urban Age Conference, “Governing Urban Futures,” Delhi, India / November 14, 2014
November 14, 2014
Neil Brenner
Urban Theory Without an Outside
“On Architecture” series, Department of Architecture, ETH Zurich / November 14, 2013
November 14, 2013
Selected visualizations + diagrams
Selected publications
Neil Brenner, Swarnabh Ghosh / Article
“Environments of urbanization”
Urban Political Ecology, 2, 1 (2026): 14-29.
Article
Grga Bašić, Neil Brenner, Mariano Gomez-Luque, Nikos Katsikis / Book
Data-Spheres of Planetary Urbanization
Berlin: Jovis, 2026.
Book
Neil Brenner, Swarnabh Ghosh, Nikos Katsikis / Book
Environments of Planetary Urbanization
Berlin: Jovis, 2025.
Book
Neil Brenner, Swarnabh Ghosh / Article
“The Monster ‘Within’: Capitalist Urbanization as Geometabolic Escalation”
Development and Change 56, 4–5 (2025): 668–728.
Article
Swarnabh Ghosh, Neil Brenner, Nikos Katsikis / Chapter
The Global Industrial Feedlot Matrix: A Metabolic Monstrosity
in Jeffrey S. Nesbit and Charles Waldheim eds., Technical Lands: A Critical Primer (Berlin: Jovis, 2023), 132-155.
Chapter
Neil Brenner, Swarnabh Ghosh / Article
“Planetary Urbanization and the Political Ecologies of Emergent Infectious Disease”
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 54, 5 (2022): 867-910.
Article
Neil Brenner, Nikos Katsikis / Article
“Operational Landscapes: Hinterlands of the Capitalocene”
AD/Architectural Design, 90, 3 (2020): 22-31.
Article
Neil Brenner / Book
New Urban Spaces: Urban Theory and the Scale Question
New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Book
Neil Brenner / Book
新しい都市空間 都市理論とスケール問題 / New Urban Spaces: Urban Theory and the Scale Question (Japanese translation)
Tokyo: Hosei University Press, 2024.
Book
Neil Brenner / Book
城市，地域，星球：批判城市理论 / City, Territory, Planet: Studies in Critical Urban Theory
Beijing: Commercial Publishers, 2019 (Chinese).
Book
Neil Brenner / Article
“Debating Planetary Urbanization: For an Engaged Pluralism”
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 36, 3 (2018): 570-590.
Article
Neil Brenner / Book
Espaços de Urbanização: O urbano a partir da teoria crítica.
Observatório das Metrópoles series. Letra Capital Editora: Rio de Janeiro, 2018
Book
Neil Brenner / Book
Critique of Urbanization: Selected Essays
Basel and Berlin: Birkhäuser, 2016
Book
Neil Brenner / Book
Stato, spazio, urbanizzazione
Milan: Edizioni Angelo Guerini e Associati, 2016.
Book
Neil Brenner / Book
The Explosion of the Urban / La Explosión de la Urbano
Santiago de Chile: ARQ editiones, 2016.
Book
Neil Brenner / Essay
“Is Tactical Urbanism an Alternative to Neoliberal Urbanism?”
POST: notes on art in a global context (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2015).
Essay
Neil Brenner / Article
“The Hinterland, Urbanized?”
AD / Architectural Design, July/August (2016): 118-127.
Article
Neil Brenner, Christian Schmid / Essay
“Combat, Caricature, and Critique in the Study of Planetary Urbanization”
Urban Theory Lab Working Paper (Cambridge, Mass.: Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, 2015).
Essay
Neil Brenner, Christian Schmid / Article
“Towards a New Epistemology of the Urban?”
CITY, 19, 2-3 (2015): 151–182.
Article
Neil Brenner, Christian Schmid / Article
“The Urban Age in Question?”
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38, 3 (2014): 731-755.
Article
Neil Brenner / Edited Collection
Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization
Berlin: Jovis, 2015.
Edited Collection
Neil Brenner / Chapter
Urban Theory Without an Outside
in Neil Brenner ed., Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization (Berlin: Jovis, 2013), 14-35.
Chapter
Neil Brenner, Nikos Katsikis / Chapter
Is the Mediterranean urban?
in Neil Brenner ed., Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization (Berlin: Jovis, 2013), 428-459.
Chapter
Neil Brenner, Nikos Katsikis, Danika Cooper, Ghazal Jafari / Chapter
Visualizing an Urbanized Planet—Materials
in Neil Brenner ed., Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization (Berlin: Jovis, 2013), 460-475.
Chapter
Neil Brenner / Article
“Open City or the RIght to the City?”
TOPOS: The International Review of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, 85 (2013): 42-45.
Article
Neil Brenner / Article
“Theses on Urbanization”
Public Culture, 25, 1 (2013): 86-114.
Article
Neil Brenner, Christian Schmid / Chapter
Planetary Urbanization
in Matthew Gandy ed., Urban Constellations (Berlin: Jovis, 2012), 10-13.
Chapter
Neil Brenner, David J. Madden, David Wachsmuth / Article
“Assemblage Urbanism and the Challenges of Critical Urban Theory”
CITY, 15, 2 (2011): 225-240.
Article
Neil Brenner / Article
“What is Critical Urban Theory?”
CITY, 13, 2-3 (2009): 198-207.
Article
Neil Brenner / Book
New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood
New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Book
Teaching (selected courses)
Neil Brenner, Aaron Jakes
The Capitalocene in Theory and History
Winter 2026
Neil Brenner
Cities, Space, Power: Introduction to Urban Social Science
Autumn 2021, 2023, 2025–Ongoing
Neil Brenner, Fredrik Albritton Jonsson
Climate Change, History, and Social Theory
Autumn 2024–Ongoing
Neil Brenner
Planning Capitalist Urbanization: Theory, History, Critique
Winter 2022–Ongoing
Neil Brenner
Social Theory, Capitalism, Energy
Autumn 2022
Neil Brenner
Critical Urban Theory after 1968
Fall 2020–Ongoing
Neil Brenner, Sai Balakrishnan
Emergent Urbanizations: New Territories of Urban/Agrarian Transformation in the Global South
Spring 2019
Neil Brenner, Kiel Moe
Energetics of Urbanization
Spring 2018
Neil Brenner
Operational Landscapes: Towards an Alternative Cartography of World Urbanization
2013-2016