Susan Parnell

Meer

For many, Johannesburg resembles the imagined spectre of the urban future. Global anxieties about catastrophic urban explosion, social fracture, environmental degradation, escalating crime and violence, and rampant consumerism alongside grinding poverty, are projected onto this city as a microcosm of things to come. Meer

The renaissance in urban theory draws directly from a fresh focus on the neglected realities of cities beyond the west and embraces the global south as the epicentre of urbanism. Meer

Climate change impacts are scale and context specific, and cities are likely to bear some of the greatest costs. In recent years cities have begun to craft their own climate change responses against the backdrop of the reluctance displayed by nation-states in committing to emissions reductions and managing the consequences of climate change. Meer