Die Linke and me

The recent German elections were a turning point for me: I cast my vote for the progressive-left Die Linke for the first time in my life. I took the decision on the heels of filling in Wahl-O-Mat, which saw my values and opinions align most with the party’s election program (with the Social Democrats coming in a close second).

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Tokyo inequalities in numbers

One of the unused datasets from the Cities article was on average taxable income per capita across the 23 wards between 1985 and 2022 (kindly provided by the authors of this great article).

For the period I worked on for my PhD (1950/55-1975), this data was not available so I had to look at proxy indicators, primarily living space per capita. This came with its own limitations but provided opportunities to transcend a purely economic measurement of living standards.

My analysis found a compression in inter-ward inequalities between the 1950s and 1970s. What happened since then?

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Neoliberal Tokyo

I am putting up a few posts on Tokyo in the coming days. They are about my recent work on residential redevelopments outside of the yamanote ring that I have carried out with Jessica Illunga and Jorge Almazan of Keio University.

It’s a tad ironic that I have become so engaged in this contemporary urban development issue. My first home in Tokyo was ARK Hills in Roppongi 1-chome, where we lived for half a year between 2012-13. ARK Hills opened its gates in the 1980s and is arguably the ground zero of neoliberal Tokyo.

Until ten or so years ago, these massive mixed-use developments still had a relatively unique aura. They were concentrated in the center and lured their well-heeled inhabitants with distinct architecture, upscale dining and retail, as well as cultural venues. This is the Mori Tokyo.

I put up quite a few Instagram posts back in 2012 (which, the Luddite I am, was the only time I really used the platform) and paste some below, with a few other reflections, for nostalgic reference.

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Return to India

We finally visited India again after an eternity. The last time we went was in 2014. With our move to Japan, having kids and then COVID, it just wasn’t possible earlier.

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Sovereign-bank nexus

Further to my post on debt in South Asia from November last year, I have been thinking more deeply about potential research ideas. I have returned to the “sovereign bank nexus” (SBN) and in particular how it manifests itself in Pakistan.

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Post-political planning

A slow-motion trainwreck has been unfolding on our doorstep here in Balmain, Sydney. We live about a kilometer as the crow flies from one of the world’s biggest infrastructure developments, the WestConnex and its newly opened Rozelle Interchange. WestConnex is a huge underground road network built and operated as a public private partnership (PPP) that has been under planning and construction since the early 2010s.

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