New Books in Urban Studies

This episode explores what China’s subnational climate experiments tell us about the possibilities and limits of climate leadership in an era of intensified geopolitics. We discuss how China’s domestic governance dynamics matter for international climate cooperation and competition, especially as Chinese actors become central in the global low-carbon transition. Thus, we turn our attention away from headline-grabbing climate summits and national pledges to examine the less visible, but often decisive, actors shaping China’s low-carbon transition. Implementing a Low-Carbon Future: Climate Leadership in Chinese Cities (Oxford University Press, 2025), a new book by Weila Gong, opens the black box of subnational climate governance in China and asks: who actually makes low-carbon policy work on the ground? Our guest, Weila Gong, is a visiting scholar at UC Davis’s Center for Environmental Policy and Behavior and a nonresident scholar at UC San Diego’s 21st Century China Center. She has held fellowships at Georgetown, Harvard, and UC Berkeley School of Law, and brings more than a decade of experience studying the politics and policies of low-carbon energy transitions in China. Her work is timely. Despite being the world’s largest carbon emitter, China has pledged to peak carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, commitments that place it at the center of global climate cooperation and competition. We’re recording this episode in November 2025 as COP30 unfolds in Brazil, and at a moment when China is stepping into a more assertive role as a climate-technology power. Chinese officials and firms increasingly frame the country’s dominance in renewables, electric vehicles, and clean-energy supply chains as central to the global transition. Yet, as Gong’s book shows, climate leadership is not only forged through clean technologies or in international negotiating rooms and national policy announcements. It is also built, often unevenly, across hundreds of cities and counties within China. At the heart of this variation, Gong identifies a pivotal group of actors: mid-level local bureaucrats. These officials function as “bridge leaders,” translating national directives into locally workable policies, mediating between political leadership changes, and sustaining experimentation over time. In doing so, they challenge top-down views of China’s climate governance and reveal how bottom-up dynamics shape both domestic outcomes and China’s role as a global climate leader. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Caribbean port city of Veracruz is many things. It is where the Spanish first settled and last left the colony that would go on to become Mexico. It is a destination boasting the “happiest Carnival in the world,” nightly live music, and public dancing. It is also where Blackness is an integral and celebrated part of local culture and history, but not of the individual self. In Local Color: Reckoning with Blackness in the Port City of Veracruz (University of California Press, 2025), anthropologist Karma F. Frierson follows Veracruzanos as they reckon with the Afro-Caribbean roots of their distinctive history, traditions, and culture. As residents learn to be more jarocho, or more local to Veracruz, Frierson examines how people both internalize and externalize the centrality of Blackness in their regional identity. Frierson provocatively asks readers to consider a manifestation of Mexican Blackness unconcerned with self-identification as Black in favor of the active pursuit and cultivation of a collective and regionalized Blackness. Karma F. Frierson is Assistant Professor of Black Studies at the University of Rochester. Reighan Gillam is Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today’s episode Julia Olsson continues her talk with Dr. Chiara Rita Napolitano from last episode, and they discuss the issue of overtourism and its effect on traditional urban neighbourhoods in Kyoto. Dr. Chiara Rita Napolitano is a JSPS Postdoctoral Researcher at Kyoto university. She got her PhD from the University of Naples in 2024. Her research focuses on Japanese traditional urban dwellings, known as "machiya" (町家), and the attached concept of "seikatsu bunka" (生活文化, culture of everyday life) shaped by living in traditional houses and neighbourhoods. Julia Olsson is a PhD student at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies at Lund University. Her dissertation project focuses on depopulation processes and the vacant house phenomenon in rural Japan. Links to Dr. Napolitano’s profiles and works: LinkedIn profile Meridiani giapponesi: Mappe, intersezioni, orientamenti Modern Kyoto research website The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: • Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia) • Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland) • Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania) • Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) • Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland) • Norwegian Network for Asian Studies Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Claudia Radiven and Saeed Khan were in conversation with Rosie Tapsfield, Director of Operations at City of Sanctuary UK. Rosie has been with the organisation since 2024 having worked on their initiatives in Newcastle before then. She leads the College of Sanctuary programme of work and has seen first-hand how implementing inclusive practices within FE providers can positively impact upon the mental health and wellbeing of people seeking sanctuary. The conversation covered a range of issues including the political climate in the UK surrounding immigration, the context of Islamophobia and the role of the nation state in creating refugees. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From canoes on the beach at Dzidzilalich to steamships and piers, Seattle's waterfront was the center of the city's economy and culture for generations. Its tumultuous history reflects a broader story of immigration, labor battles, and technological change. The 2001 Nisqually Earthquake brought fresh urgency and opportunity to remake this contested space, sparking intense debates over history preservation, the environment, and Indigenous connections long ignored.Today, the revitalized Waterfront Park offers a new chapter in this ongoing story. The removal of the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the reconstruction of the seawall have redefined how the city interacts with its shoreline. With its blend of historic structures and forward-looking public spaces, the waterfront will continue to shape Seattle's identity. Street signs now mark Dzidzilalich, acknowledging the presence of Coast Salish peoples, while restored piers recall the area's industrious past.In Where the City Meets the Sound: The Story of Seattle's Waterfront (HistoryLink, 2025), Dr. Jennifer Ott details the waterfront's history, from its deep past to its complex present. Her book reveals how battles over control, identity, and space have forged one of the city's most iconic places, with a history that mirrors Seattle itself—rich, diverse, and constantly evolving. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices