I am Professor of Urban Governance and Planning at the UvA Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Research Group Leader of the Urban Planning Group at Department of Geography, Planning, and International Development Studies at UvA. I chair UGoveRN (Urban Governance Research Network), a research platform I founded within the Urban Planning Group at UvA. In the last few years (2020-2024), I also served as Chair of the IJURR Foundation, which provides scholarships to Ph.D. researchers with the surplus generated by the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
I am an urban geographer and planner. I hold a BA in City and Regional Planning, a M.Sc. in Regional Planning, and a PhD in Social Geography. During my PhD, I was awarded a FURS (Foundation for Urban and Regional Research) Grant and a SYLFF (The Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund) Grant. Subsequently, I took up researcher and lectureship positions at the Universities of Leuven (2005-2007), TU Delft, OTB Research for the Built Environment (2007-2015), and University College Roosevelt (2011-2014), before taking up my current position in the Department of Geography, Planning and International Development at the University of Amsterdam in 2015.
My research examines the regulation of urban development and change from multiple angles, focusing on urban governance, property-led urban development dynamics, and spatial organization through social relations. I'm particularly interested in how diverse actors are involved and how their interests are regulated in specific projects, processes, and developments in cities. A central strand of my recent research concerns the relationships among public regulators, property investors, developers, financial actors, and market intermediaries. I examine how these actors exchange and mobilise knowledge through property-market intelligence channels, how their interactions influence planning decisions and investment geographies, and how fragmented governance architectures redistribute power, value, risk and public accountability. Empirically, much of this work has focused on Amsterdam and its metropolitan region, whose sophisticated planning tradition, acute housing pressures and concentrated investment flows provide a particularly revealing setting for studying contemporary state-market relations.
My emerging research brings these concerns into dialogue with climate urbanism. It examines how different land ownership regimes and land valuation processes shape climate governance and its socio-spatial consequences. Drawing on land rent theory, I am particularly interested in how climate-related policies and environmental transitions interact with property relations, development pressures and the distribution of costs and benefits. Across these research strands, my broader aim is to develop more transparent, accountable, and socially just approaches to governing the relationships among regulation, property, investment and urban transformation.
I have initiated, coordinated, and implemented several internationally and locally funded research projects and have attracted significant research funding. I served as the scientific coordinator of an ORA (Open Research Area for the Social Sciences)- funded research project (WHIG) on residential investment landscapes and the governance and regulation of housing production. As a consortium led by Prof.Dr. Mike Raco (UCL), with co-leadership from me and Prof. Dr.Patrick Le Gales (Sciences Po, Paris), we explored the complex governance landscapes created by property investment markets in Amsterdam, London and Paris. This research has resulted in several publications, including a monograph based on our findings, titled Spatial Governance Landscapes: Regulation, Property, and Planning. Prior to that, I led a jointly funded (NWO-ESRC-FAPESP) research project (PARCOUR) as the scientific co-coordinator. PARCOUR (Public Accountability to Residents in Contractual Urban Redevelopment) focuses on the extent to which, and how, governance forms associated with the use of contractual approaches in regeneration projects dealing with previously developed land impact on inequalities and the implications for sustainable urban development. We argue that public accountability may decline where regulatory arrangements involve the private sector as a facilitator of the regeneration of previously developed urban land. This may undermine the authority of public agencies and residents’ interests, and thus negatively affect sustainable urban development. The DIVERCITIES (Governing Urban Diversity: Creating social cohesion, social mobility and economic performance in today’s hyperdiversified cities) project, funded by the European Commission in 2013 (see: http://www.urbandivercities.eu/), examines the relationships between urban policy and diversity in European cities. The principal aim of this project is to provide evidence for the range of social and socio-economic outcomes that may emerge from greater urban diversity, particularly its positive aspects, and to document and highlight the significant role that urban policy and local governance arrangements can play in developing and stimulating those positive outcomes. My research within DIVERCITIES project focused on the case of Toronto. Another project, Sustainable Land Use Policies for Resilient Cities (SUPER-CITIES), financed by Urban-Net (European funds, national NICIS organization), has examined the adaptive governance system in the Netherlands, Sweden, Turkey and Portugal.
2021-present Contemporary Urban Transformation. Research Master in Urban Studies, University of Amsterdam
2015-present Contemporary Approaches in Property-Led Urban Planning. MSc Urban and Regional Planning, University of Amsterdam
2019-2023 Urban Planning: Building the City. BA Urban Planning, University of Amsterdam
2017-2024 Introduction to Urban Planning. BA Human Geography and Planning, University of Amsterdam
2017-2022 Academic Trajectory Coordinator. BA Urban Planning, University of Amsterdam
2010-2013 Human Geography Track Coordinator. University College Roosevelt, Utrecht University
PhD thesis and research supervision
2021- 2025 (Degree conferred) Ebru Kurt Ozman (UvA, The Netherlands) Pathways of Entrepreneurial Governance: Spatial Dynamics and Community Politics in Istanbul’s Regeneration co-supervision with Prof. Dr. Gulden Erkut (ITU)
2019- 2024 (Degree conferred) Francesca Ranalli (UvA, The Netherlands) Towards a Sense of Community: Citizen Participation and Space in the Fringes of Cities co-supervision with Dr. Federico Savini
2017-2024 (Degree conferred) Ying-Tzu Lin (UvA, The Netherlands) Planning with everyday life chaos: An exploration of urban street markets and innovative urban planning tools for inclusive street space, co-supervision with Prof. Dr. Luca Bertolini and Dr. Nanke Verloo (UvA)
2017-2019 (Degree Conferred) Sara Ozogul (UvA, The Netherlands) Transformative place-making for diverse communities in neoliberalising urban contexts: Toronto and Amsterdam, co-supervision with Prof. Dr. Luca Bertolini (UvA)
2014-2019 (Degree Conferred) Igor Pessoa (TUDelft, The Netherlands) Creating urban resilience: the development of coping mechanisms for Brazilian fragmented metropolitan systems, Co-supervision with Willem Korthals Altes (TUDelft)
2012-2014 (Degree conferred) Aleksandra Djurasovic (Haven University, Germany) From a planning doctrine towards development strategy approach: The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, co-supervision with Prof. Dr. Joerg Knieling (Haven University)
Ongoing
Sean Lewis (UvA, The Netherlands) The University as the New Asset Class: An analysis of Institutional Property Development, Spatial Transformation and Reinvention, co-supervision with Dr. Tim Verlaan (UvA)
Andre Legarza (UvA, The Netherlands) [Re]valuing Property? A Claims-Driven and Regulatory Landscapes Approach to the Configuration Real Property: Zooming into Crisis Periods co-supervision with Dr. Sara Ozogul
Nagwa Kady (Uva, The Netherlands) Capturing social value creation in property development through corporate social responsibility co-supervision with Dr. Sara Ozogul and Dr. Gert-Joost Peek (ASRE)
Amal Barre (UvA, The Netherlands) Geographies of Displacement - A Comparative Analysis of Homeowner Displacement Trajectories in Historically Low-Income and Minority Neighbourhoods of Des Moines and Amsterdam (1950 - 2022), co-supervision with Prof. Dr. Maria Kaika (UvA)
Caroline van Campen. Social Impact in Urban Development: How is Social Impact Achieved in Urban Development? with Dr. Michiel Stapper
Ceren Say. Effect of the Planning Process on The Governance of Inclusive Public Spaces: Case Studies in Istanbul and Amsterdam, with Dr. Nanke Verloo