This is where I think in public — about urbanism, political economy, and often just the view from wherever I happen to be standing. New here? The reading guides below are the best way in. Otherwise, scroll down for the latest blog posts.

Curated reading guides
Redesign
I started this blog in 2012. Fourteen years later, there are more than 400 posts and 250,000 words,…
Teaching at TUJ reading guide
Here’s an overview of the classes I developed and taught at TUJ a few years ago. They ranged…
Rest of world architectural (reading) guide
My architecture writing heyday between 2012-2015 was the pre-kids period when I was traveling a lot more than…
North America architectural (reading) guide
In what feels like half an eternity away, I lived in the States for two years from 2013-2015.…
Tokyo architectural (reading) guide
Architecture has been a big passion of mine since I have lived in Tokyo. Iconic buildings from the…

Latest posts

Fleshing out the papers

This is a strange time in one’s academic career I suppose. With the PhD just handed in, pending final approval by my university’s committee, I am beginning to think seriously about where and what to publish. Below some initial thoughts that will hopefully guide me in my next steps. Continue reading

Hiatus

Fatherhood and the final stretches of my PhD have taken a toll on my posting performance here. Hard to believe it’s been more than half a year since the last blog post. Long gone seem the days when my aim was to have two entries up each week. I do intend to continue writing here, especially to get some structure into my post-PhD thinking as well as reflect on my teaching. A few updates and ideas after the jump.

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January update

This blog has been silent for over a month (for a variety of very good reasons), and before substantial posting resumes very shortly, herewith just a few notes for my records.

Shinjuku 24 December 2017

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City size and inequality

Comparisons across cities are notoriously hard. For one, data availability is a huge problem given our methodological bias on the nation state. But there is also the problem on how we delineate municipalities. Nonetheless, I found this graph on city size and inequality very interesting.

Click here for original

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