Urban areas are critical for human development. They are often viewed as key places for the pursuit of economic growth, for addressing epidemics, for modern day warfare, or for adapting to and mitigating for climate change hazards, amongst others.
An oft cited UN statistic noted that in 2007, for the first time, half the world population lived in urban areas. Current predictions for this reach 70%, by 2050.
And yet, it often seems that there is a lingering hesitation to engage the urban. Many major donors have no specific urban departments or specialist programmes. National urban poverty policies are scant. And humanitarian responses to displacement need a stronger emphasis on urban environments. In some ways, this is a hangover from three decades of intellectual, policy and programming history characterised by a distinct anti-urbanisation bias, starting in the 1970s.
Today, achieving the promise of sustainable and inclusive cities requires development scholars to not only to conduct research in, but also to take account of the particularities of ‘the urban’. This demands a firm embrace of a rich body of urban studies, to better make sense of the social, political, economic and cultural life of cities and towns unfolds, including through interlinkages to rural areas.
IDS research seeks to gain new knowledge of development in, and of cities and towns, drawing on plural knowledges, spanning diverse sectors and traditions of enquiry. Many of our research and engagement projects connect academics, practitioners, local authorities, and resident (co-researchers) through cross country and within country collaborations, to effectively inform policy, practice and the general public.
Read more about our work in social and economic justice
We have found that transdisciplinary engagement with urban oriented disciplines such as urban studies, urban geography, architecture and others offers important theoretical and conceptual contributions to development studies. Exhibitions emerging out of transdisciplinary research spanning arts and humanities and social sciences, such as the British Academy Flagship Summer Showcase, and in the Venice architectural Biennale 2021, have reached out to new popular audiences.
We cannot assume that historic observations of the developmental pathways of cities in the global North can help us to understand the trajectories, conditions and lives within postcolonial towns and cities. Accordingly, our research is inspired by the ethos of Southern Urbanism, with grounded analysis of local and historically significant dynamics offering new empirical, conceptual and theoretical perspectives that may have resonance for development in and of cities elsewhere. Engaging with these themes, a forthcoming special issue (2025) for the International Planning Studies Journal co-edited by IDS researchers brings together 14 articles discussing urbanism of and from the global South.
Our investigations show the significance of locally specific, and sometimes hybrid governance set ups, involving the state and other actors, and connect these to development outcomes for different demographics. Work in Bangladesh and India thus explained how wellbeing priorities and outcomes of inhabitants of 14 urban informal settlements in six cities related to locally specific governance arrangements.
Urban displacement and placemaking
Urban displacement and placemaking is an important current area of IDS research.
A series of projects has explored residents’ wellbeing in relation to displacement. These look across urban-specific and forced displacement dynamics, with analyses traversing regional, city and neighbourhood scales. A book entitled Forced Migration and Urban Transformation in South Asia – Displacement, Resettlement, and Poverty was published in 2023. In December 2024, a Special Issue of Wellbeing, Space and Society investigated planned and everyday placemaking, and explored their connections to wellbeing across cities in Pakistan, Türkiye, India, Norway, Denmark and the UK. Other investigations investigate the role of non-state (armed) actors in governing cities and displacement in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, analyse social assistance in protracted displacement contexts, recipients’ assistance preferences, and note the intersections between climate displacement and urban evictions.
Spatial analysis also takes a pertinent position in our work. Adopting a complex urban systems lens allows our research to provide new insights into the social, political and material conditions of specific urban spaces, ranging from informal settlements to public spaces, and peri-urban encampments. We have for instance analysed the role that political graffiti and wall murals play in placemaking, territoriality and identity building amongst Karachi’s migrant communities.
Other research shows the transformation of housing in a medium-sized Turkish city due to the specific ways in which the governance of Syrian refugee labour mobilities, and humanitarian intervention meets urban planning, land use, residential and housing regulations.
A recent systematic review underlines the importance of public space for the wellbeing of displaced populations, yet their access and use is rarely free and equal for all, and significantly shaped by a wide range of public, private and other actors. This and another article further highlight the role of policy discourse in shaping urban inequalities.
Important contributions from PhD researchers
Our PhD researchers also make important contributions to our urban displacement research agenda. PhD projects examine the significance of mutual support in Syrian refugees’ efforts to survive in Tripoli, Lebanon; the politics of resistance to large infrastructure projects in Lahore, Pakistan, and the effects of humanitarian interventions on the formation of informal settlements and state society relations in the aftermath of a major earthquake in Haiti.
We welcome applications from prospective PhD researchers. Displacement, space, place, informality and urbanisation and data in urban settings are all key topics in lectures in the Development in Cities optional module that MA students can take at IDS.
Discover our postgraduate programmes
Other IDS research explores how urban infrastructures shape unequal food and nutrition outcomes, support non-sewered faecal waste systems for protecting public health, and assess accountability for health in low-income urban areas. IDS researchers also support programmatic learning across multi-country projects that focus on young people’s health and wellbeing in intermediate cities.
Some of our newer work has interrogated large automated mega-data sets such as Google’s GDELT database, to explore their potential for humanitarian programming and early warning systems. It has adopted a drone-based survey methodology in Haiti; a netnography analysis of Facebook groups to understand migrant digital placemaking in London and analysed satellite imagery to assess seasonal settlement patterns of refugee farm workers in Türkiye.
We work collaboratively with local partners in academia, in civil society, with humanitarian NGOs, city governments and, where possible, with local co-researchers such as residents of informal settlements. These collaborations, and the use of heterodox approaches and methods vitally enable a plurality of perspectives to inform analyses of development ‘in’ and ‘of’ the urban.