Urban Transformations & Transitions

The Urban Transformations & Transitions research and scholarship cluster is concerned with the processes, policies and politics that are consistently shaping lived experiences of our built environments.

Staff

Publications

2025

Dauvergne, P., Allan, J. I., Beaudoin, S., Carney Almroth, B., Clapp, J., Cowan, E., de Groot, B., Farrelly, T., Grilli, N. d. M., Mah, A., Mendenhall, E., Paik, R., Ralston, R., Stoett, P., Stöfen-O'Brien, A., Taggart, J., Tiller, R., Villarrubia-Go mez, P., Vince, J. (2025) Competing axes of power in the global plastics treaty: understanding the politics of progress and setbacks in negotiating a high-ambition agreement. Marine Policy, 181, (doi: 10.1016/j.marpol.2025.106820)

Zhu, J. (2025) A ‘space-order’ publicness model: interpreting public space development in Shanghai’s people-oriented urban regeneration. Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, (doi: 10.1080/17549175.2025.2570536)

Zhu, J., Wang, Y., White, J., Inch, A., Payne, S. (2025) Urban Retrofit: A Systematic Evidence Review.

Earley, A., Marsh, A., Gibb, K. (2025) The policy and politics of improving standards in the English private rented sector. Political Quarterly, (doi: 10.1111/1467-923X.13572)

Mah, A. (2025) Red Pockets: An Offering. Allen Lane (Penguin Books)

Mah, A. (2025) Anticipating just transitions: ecological crisis and future deindustrialization. Routledge

White, J., Inch, A. (2025) Starmer’s plan to ‘build baby build’ risks more American-style car-dominated sprawl. Conversation (Online), (doi: 10.64628/AB.jcvy6sy5u)

Earley, A. (2025) The Policy and Politics of Improving Standards in the English Private Rented Sector.

2024

Earley, A. (2024) Achieving Urban Regeneration without Gentrification? Community Enterprises and Community Assets in the UK.

Gibb, K., Young, G., Earley, A. (2024) Responding to Scottish Housing to 2040: Developing Credible Policy Proposals to Support the Affordable Supply Programme.

Gibb, K., Marsh, A., Orr, D., Earley, A. (2024) Homes for All: A Vision for England’s Housing System.

Gibb, K., Young, G., Earley, A. (2024) Sustainable Housing Policy in Scotland: Re-Booting the Affordable Housing Supply Programme.

2023

Mah, A. (2023) Petrochemical Planet: Multiscalar Battles of Industrial Transformation. Duke University Press

Earley, A. (2023) Community Enterprises, Community Assets and Processes of Urban Regeneration and Gentrification in Tumultuous Times of Crisis.

Earley, A. (2023) Achieving urban regeneration without gentrification? Community enterprises and community assets in the UK. Journal of Urban Affairs, (doi: 10.1080/07352166.2023.2229459)

Mah, A. (2023) Foreword. Routledge

Hastings, A., Mackenzie, M., Earley, A., Fleming, J. (2023) In Parallel or in Dialogue? Recent Housing and Domestic Abuse Policy Change in Scotland.

Earley, A., James, G., Stephens, M., Sakalasuriya, M. (2023) The Contested Politics of Residential Space.

Earley, A. (2023) Community Enterprises, Community Assets and Processes of Urban Regeneration and Gentrification in Tumultuous Times.

2022

Tilsted, J. P., Mah, A., Nielson, T. D., Finkill, G., Bauer, F. (2022) Petrochemical transition narratives: Selling fossil fuel solutions in a decarbonizing world. Energy Research and Social Science, 94, (doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2022.102880)

Brown, D., Mah, A., Walker, G. (2022) The tenacity of trust in petrochemical communities: reckoning with risk on the Fawley Waterside (1997–2019) Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 5, pp. 997-1696. (doi: 10.1177/25148486211045367)

Stephens, M., O'Brien, P., Earley, A. (2022) Resilience in the housing system: Market institutions from the global financial crisis to COVID-19.

Hastings, A., Mackenzie, M., Earley, A. (2022) Domestic Abuse and Housing: Policy in Focus Since the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Earley, A. (2022) Community Enterprises, Community Assets and Processes of Urban Regeneration and Gentrification in Tumultuous Times.

Earley, A. (2022) Community Enterprises, Community Assets and Processes of Urban Regeneration and Gentrification in Extraordinary Times.

Earley, A. (2022) Community Enterprise, Community Assets and Regeneration.

Earley, A. (2022) Exploring the Role of Community Enterprises and their Assets in Urban Regeneration and Gentrification: Bristol Case Study Findings.

Feltrin, L., Mah, A., Brown, D. (2022) Noxious deindustrialization: experiences of precarity and pollution in Scotland’s petrochemical capital. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 40, pp. 781-986. (doi: 10.1177/23996544211056328)

Mah, A. (2022) Plastic Unlimited: How Corporations are Fuelling the Ecological Crisis and What We Can Do About It. Polity Press

Earley, A. (2022) PhD Research Findings and Recommendations: Community Enterprises, Community Assets and Processes of Regeneration and Gentrification.

Earley, A. (2022) Balancing Structure and Agency when Analysing and Writing Up Research About Place-based Community Organisations.

2021

Earley, A. (2021) Exploring the role of Community Enterprises and their Community Assets in Processes of Urban Regeneration and Gentrification.

Earley, A. (2021) Reflecting on the PhD Experience.

Earley, A. (2021) Using and Approaching Theory in Doctoral Research.

Earley, A. (2021) Housing Systems, their Institutions and their Resilience.

Mah, A. (2021) Future-proofing capitalism: the paradox of the circular economy for plastics. Global Environmental Politics, 21, pp. 121-142. (doi: 10.1162/glep_a_00594)

Hastings, A., Mackenzie, M., Earley, A. (2021) Domestic Abuse and Housing: Connections and Disconnections in the Pre-Covid 19 Policy World.

Mah, A. (2021) Ecological crisis, decarbonisation, and degrowth: the dilemmas of just petrochemical transformations. Stato e Mercato, 121, pp. 51-78. (doi: 10.1425/101444)

Stephens, M., O'Brien, P., Earley, A. (2021) Resilience in the housing system: The mortgage and housebuilding industries from the global financial crisis to Covid-19.

Hastings, A., Mackenzie, M., Earley, A. (2021) Domestic Abuse and Housing: Connections and Disconnections in the Pre-Covid-19 Policy World.

2020

Jephcote, C., Brown, D., Verbeek, T., Mah, A. (2020) A systematic review and meta-analysis of haematological malignancies in residents living near petrochemical facilities. Environmental Health, 19, (doi: 10.1186/s12940-020-00582-1)

Gibb, K., Foye, C., Stephens, M., Earley, A. (2020) Improving Opportunities: How to Support Social Housing Tenants into Sustainable Employment – Report to the APPG on Housing and Social Mobility.

Verbeek, T., Mah, A. (2020) Integration and isolation in the global petrochemical industry: a multiscalar corporate network analysis. Economic Geography, 96, pp. 363-387. (doi: 10.1080/00130095.2020.1794809)

Mah, A. (2020) Toxic legacies and environmental justice. Routledge

(2020) Toxic Truths: Environmental Justice and Citizen Science in a Post-Truth Age. (doi: 10.7765/9781526137005)

2019

Mah, A., Wang, X. (2019) Accumulated injuries of environmental injustice: living and working with petrochemical pollution in Nanjing, China. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 109, pp. 1961-1977. (doi: 10.1080/24694452.2019.1574551)

Jephcote, C., Mah, A. (2019) Regional inequalities in benzene exposures across the European petrochemical industry: a Bayesian multilevel modelling approach. Environment International, 132, (doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2019.05.006)

Mah, A. (2019) A layover stop in the African American great migration: identity, ruination, and memory. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42, pp. 2326-2332. (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2019.1605090)

Earley, A. (2019) Exploring the Role of Community Enterprises and their Assets in Regeneration/ Gentrification: Preliminary Findings, Glasgow Case Study.

Earley, A. (2019) Space Means You Can Do Amazing Things!’: An Exploration of the Role of an Asset-managing Community Enterprise Within Regeneration and Gentrification.

Earley, A. (2019) Exploring the role of Community Enterprises and their Assets in Gentrifying/gentrified Neighbourhoods: Preliminary Findings.

2018

Earley, A. (2018) What Role do Asset-managing Community Enterprises Play Within Processes of Regeneration and Gentrification?: A Scottish Case Study.

2017

Mah, A. (2017) Ruination and post-industrial urban decline. Sage

Mah, A. (2017) Environmental justice in the age of big data: challenging toxic blind spots of voice, speed, and expertise. Environmental Sociology, 3, pp. 122-133. (doi: 10.1080/23251042.2016.1220849)

Mah, A., Wang, X. (2017) Research on environmental justice in China: limitations and possibilities. Chinese Journal of Environmental Law, 1, pp. 263-272. (doi: 10.1163/24686042-12340016)

2015

Mah, A. (2015) Dangerous cargo and uneven toxic risks: petrochemicals in the [ort of New Orleans. Routledge

Postgraduate research students

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About the Cluster

We seek to develop diverse understandings of the role of place and the built environment from variegated perspectives through interdisciplinary research within urban studies, tying in with current and emerging research and knowledge exchange agendas.

The cluster focuses on collaborations within the school and external partners to enhance connections with industry, communities and government.

Our broader agenda also considers pedagogical approaches to better communicating understandings of our cluster, its research and scholarship to a wider audience, within and beyond academia.


Some of our Research Projects

Map with pins in it

Place-Based Research Programme

Place is an important focus for current and future government research and development strategy. Place is also a research topic at the heart of many arts and humanities disciplines, from archaeology and architecture to history and literature.

An outline of buildings in blue lines with blue hearts and 'thumbs up' over some of the buildings. One building has a red heart above it.

Why Do Historic Places Matter? Emotional Attachments to Urban Heritage

This research is looking at the emotional attachments that people have to their historic urban environment and identifying the factors that contribute to those feelings. The key questions are how, and to what extent, are emotional attachments to place considered during the designation and management of historic urban assets? 

Busy street in Seoul, South Korea

Creating Prosperous City Centres Post-Pandemic Through Repurposing Retail Space

This collaboration aims to share knowledge and experience of practice and research on the planning and regeneration of retail spaces in city centres in the UK and South Korea to identify current and future challenges and develop solutions

Ageing High-Rise in Japan and the UK

This collaborative research aims to share knowledge and experience of historic and current practice and research on ageing highrise neighbourhoods in the UK and Japan to identify future challenges and develop solutions.

Capturing Land Value from Developments

This project seeks to identify the potential impact that alternative land value capture mechanisms might have on the incidence and value of developer contributions in Britain.

REPAIR: Real Estate, Place Adaptation and Innovation within an integrated Retailing system ‌

Real Estate, Place Adaptation and Innovation within an integrated Retailing systems (REPAIR) is a multi-stream research project, running over three years,  that aims to analyse the creation of diversity, innovation and, thus, adaptive capacity within urban retail markets.