*This episode is being re-aired* In this episode of Cities After…, Prof. Robles-Duran breaks down the allure for many average working millennials of moving to the suburbs. Robles-Duran looks at five key contradictions of the contemporary American Suburban Divide: politics, wellbeing, remote work, climate change and economic opportunity. Speculating on dystopian and utopian post-covid scenarios, Robles-Duran ends with a call to action for everyone to join housing movements against sprawl and...

In this episode of Cities After…, Prof. Robles-Duran talks with Josep Bohigas, Barcelona’s Chief Urban Planner, about the international image and perspectives of the hegemony of American Suburbia in Western Europe. Bohigas traces Spain’s suburban development from the 1920s until today, highlighting the similarities and differences from American sprawl. As Robles-Duran concludes this short series on the American Suburban Divide, it is important to emphasize how its disastrous influence on...

In this episode of Cities After…, Prof. Robles-Duran breaks down the allure for many average working millennials of moving to the suburbs. Robles-Duran looks at five key contradictions of the contemporary American Suburban Divide: politics, wellbeing, remote work, climate change and economic opportunity. Speculating on dystopian and utopian post-covid scenarios, Robles-Duran ends with a call to action for everyone to join housing movements against sprawl and in favor of metropolitan...

In this episode of Cities After, Prof. Robles-Duran talks with Andrew Ross about his most recent book, Sunbelt Blues: The Failure of American Housing. Robles-Duran and Ross build on ideas from the previous episode by looking at the history of suburbanization in the United States and exploring how the entertainment fantasy industry has helped shape the utopian image of American Suburbia. This podcast zooms in on Central Florida, home of Walt Disney’s dreams for building perfect cities.

Welcome to Season Two of Cities After! Prof. Robles-Duran begins this season with a series of four episodes in which to make sense of the growing suburban divide in the United States by honing in on it's divisive politics, the consequential production of COVID-19 boomtowns, and the future of sprawl.  In this first episode, Prof. Robles-Duran gives a brief overview of the primitive accumulation that gave rise to American suburbia together with its racist, patriarchal and capitalist...

In this episode, Prof. Robles-Duran is joined by Andres Arauz, arguably, one of the most influential and intriguing political and economic thinkers of the new Latin-American left. This episode expands on the previous discussion on the contemporary effects of the Latin American economic shock therapy and how it has changed the territorial and political dynamics of the south. Robles-Duran and Arauz discuss the most recent privatization policies and the pandemic socio-political battles in Latin...

In this podcast, Prof. Robles-Duran's attempt is to revise and follow on the urbanization of shock therapy. Ten years after he first wrote on the topic, it is more relevant than ever, especially, as the shock of the pandemic becomes normalized and absorbed by capitalist forces. Looking at the evolution of the urbanization of shock therapy might allow us to foresee the coming urban transformations and thus, be more prepared and organized to resist and counteract them.

In todays episode, Prof. Robles-Duran continues to discuss the social, spatial and environmental effects of mass tourism by focusing on Barcelona, one of the worlds top tourist destinations and the first major city that developed important strategic policy to fight the predatory global tourism industry. For this discussion, he is joined by two very important personalities from Barcelona’s municipal government and urban social movements alike. 

In this episode, Prof. Robles-Duran talks about the startling urban and socio-environmental consequences of mass tourism before, during and after the pandemic. He emphasizes four key contradictions: 1) The global privatization of local cultures; 2) Labor, Technology and Digitalization; 3) Alienation in The production of Infinite spectacles; 4) Environmental needs and its Destruction.

In todays podcast, Prof. Robles-Duran will continue to discuss Post-pandemic urbanization trends by taking a deep dive in the speculative global rent markets and their exacerbating social ills. He is joined by Dr. Jaime Palomera from Barcelona’s radical research cooperative La Hidra who will help focus a conversation on a striking report that they published two months ago titled “The Social Impacts of the Rental Market.”

This podcast will be the first of four episodes where, together with future guests, Prof. Robles-Duran will slowly adopt the city of Barcelona as a sample to think through some of the tendencies of a post-pandemic neoliberal urbanization. He will do so by looking at three trending development drivers, the production of urban spectacle, the burdens of rental housing, and the limitless expansion of mass tourism.

In this episode, Prof. Robles-Duran is joined by the famed Marxist Urban Theorist Andy Merrifield to have a conversation about inter-urban competition, the socio-spatial consequences of late neoliberalism and the pervasive privatization of urban societies.

In this episode, Prof. Robles-Duran will attempt to shed some light on the impact of inter-urban competition as it is structured by supranational organizations, and how these organizations are the ones that are actually determining and deciding the contemporary urbanization patterns we all see around us, which include the dominant cultural strategies, property development trends, labor practices and the forms of municipal governance that make our cities today.

In this episode, Prof. Robles-Duran is joined by Palin Tan, Professor of Sociology, Art, Architecture History to talk the outmoded talks about the outmoded forms of knowledge that architecture and related urban design disciplines uphold.

In this episode, Prof. Robles-Durán talks about the outmoded forms of knowledge that architecture and related urban design disciplines uphold, as global populations face ever-growing social and environmental urgencies in their cities.

In this episode, Prof. Robles-Duran is joined by Leilani Farha, a Canadian human rights lawyer and Global Director of The Shift, to talk about the effects of the pandemic on housing markets. 

In this episode, Prof. Robles-Duran talks about contradictions that have emerged during the global pandemic all around the world. Job losses, loss of livelihoods, homelessness, and evictions have dramatically increased in cities across the globe. However, the coronavirus crisis has also effected the creation of a tremendous amount of wealth for a small minority. Prof. Robles-Duran explores both dystopian and utopian scenarios that can emerge from this new urban development paradigm.

In this episode, Prof. Robles and guest, the Marxist geographer David Harvey have a conversation about possible futures to the new empty spaces that now permeate our cities.  

In the first episode, Prof. Robles-Duran explores the urban shifts surrounding the dramatic rise of commercial and residential vacancies during the global pandemic.