ID055 Centre for Urban Research and the Future of the City

The Idea

My proposal is for a centre for Urban Research and the Future of the City based in Sociology, Politics, Criminology, and Geography. The city is currently undergoing radical transformations as a result of broader social change related to technology and demographics. While the largest cities are continuing to grow, there is an acute problem in medium-sized, de-industrialised cities that are struggling to articulate an identity in the face of a lack of work and lack of purpose. Given Keele's proximity to Stoke-on-Trent, which could be a laboratory for exploring these issues, the University is well placed to address this problem, potentially in collaboration with University of Staffordshire.

Why This Idea Should Be Considered

See above. Keele is based in North Staffordshire, where the closest town and city - Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent - are in a state of existential crisis, relating to identity, community, work / worklessness, opportunity for youth, addiction, debt, and mental ill health. These issues are not specific to the town / city in North Staffs, but rather represent a problem for small and medium-sized urban places (towns, cities) that do not have the scale to compete for large-scale investment on a national / global level. Given Keele's situation, it should support efforts to think through these problems with a view to rethinking the meaning and purpose of the small / medium-sized city. 

How We Would Implement This Idea

Keele could create a research centre, connected to KISI, focused on the above concerns and also run a PGT programme across Sociology, Politics, Criminology, Geography, Psychology, and Health  to consider key issues of urban theory, practice, and policy and the ways in which these connect to wider social policy. This work could support skills training in the North Staffs region and citizenship more widely by teaching methods and the critical skills to rethink regeneration policy and practice which is currently flawed because of its roots in neoliberal economic ideology. 

Regarding the PGT programme, I would envisage a programme comprising four 30-credit core modules: 

Semester 1 

Urban Futures: This module would provide an M-level introduction to the history of the city focusing specifically on industry, de-industrialisation, post-industrialisation, globalisation and the social, economic, political, and psychological consequences of these changes. Given that the industrial city was born in our city region – the corridor between Manchester and Birmingham – we are ideally placed to study the effects of the decline of industry, de-industrialisation and its effects, and post-industrialisation. Global impacts are also clearly visible – industry is replaced by low wage gig economy work – and it would be possible to explore this and the ways in which smaller cities are hollowed out. In this regard, the point of this module would be to sketch out the landscape of cities in the contemporary world and regional context and explore the problems that have emerged and are continuing to emerge from a long history of social and economic transformation. 

Foundations of Social Science Research: In order to produce research students would need to be taught M-level research techniques. This involves understanding principles of research design and theories of knowledge related to the types of data desired. This is an existing 30-credit module taught to all M-level social science students. 

Semester 2 

Urban Governance, Power, and Inequality: Given the challenges set out in the first module above, this module will specifically focus on issues around politics, pathways to change, and the kinds of inequalities that urban policy-makers need to address. These range from issues concerned with housing, the cost of housing, and homelessness to connectivity (road networks, tech), challenges around integration of diverse populations, through to concern around climate and sustainable futures.  

Qualitative and Quantitative Methods: Building upon the Foundations module above, it is essential that students possess the practical skills necessary to carry out qualitative and quantitative social research. The purpose of this existing 30-credit module is to ensure students have the high-level skills in order to deliver research to a professional standard which is valid, reliable, and ethically sound. 

Semester 1-3 

Dissertation / Research Project: The 60-credit Dissertation / Research Project would require students to write complete a piece of research / write 15000-word dissertation on a key aspect of contemporary urban studies. Given the focus on applied research skills, it is envisaged that this would involve fieldwork. Building upon the idea of the region as a laboratory for understanding transitions from industry to deindustrial or post-industrial futures, and connected to work undertaken in KISI, the dissertation / research project would enable students to work with local partners on issues relating to urban design / planning, community safety / crime, inequality, mental health provision, community cohesion / integration, and a range of other key issues. 

What Success Would Look Like

Success would look like the University fully engaged in issues relating to North Staffs urbanism based on critical social science, where this involves understanding issues around social relations, political participation and citizenship, crime and deviance, economy, inequality, and deprivation, and disability and psychological wellbeing. The standard model for regeneration that says that this can be achieved by culture and art may work for much larger cities, but it does not work on a smaller scale where it is often exclusionary and does not share benefits widely. In this regard, what is required is critical social science at the level of both research and education (a PGT programme).It is envisaged that the above PGT programme would enable the creation of a pipeline from UG programmes, where students are often keen to stay at Keele in order to further their career projects, to PG work centred upon the development of (a) community engaged student-led research, (b) potential PGR applications to the ESRC and AHRC that would be rooted in an understanding of the need to respond to real world challenges in the region, and (c) the emergence of organic research culture grounded in place.