High up in the Andes mountain range, two rivers begin their journeys. Starting in the El Plomo hill, one becomes the Mapocho river travelling though Chile into Santiago, dividing the city in two. The other makes its way from the Peruvian Andes and develops into a complex network of waters and rivers to become the Amazon basin, one of the longest rivers in the world. Rivers such as these shape and are shaped by the cities they meet.

In this month’s feature Tom and Beth are joined by Dr Olivia Casagrande and Professor Roberto Monte-Mór to ask:

• What can urbanists learn from studying the Mapocho and Amazon rivers?
• How does thinking with rivers challenge our categories of urbanization, racialization and indigeneity?
• How do creative and visual methods enable us to see or dream with the river differently?

Together they take a fascinating tour, diving into concepts of ‘extended naturalization’ and ‘fluvial epistemic alternatives’; following what river/city intersections mean for metropolitan green-blue planning; unpacking the implications of giving legal rights to rivers and the meanings of indigenous narratives; and how storytelling with and through rivers helps us dream of alternative ways of being and doing.

Guests

Olivia Casagrande is a social anthropologist engaged in interdisciplinary and collaborative research on inequalities, political and racial violence, the (post)colonial city and alternative urban epistemologies. She is a Lecturer at the School of Geography and Planning, University of Sheffield. She has recently completed an ESRC project with the Epew Collective in Santiago, Chile, which led to multiple creative outputs developed along the Mapocho River, available on Fillke Pewma. Recent works concern questions of authorship and engagements in collaborative research with indigenous groups.

Roberto Monte-Mór is a Professor at the Centre for Development and Regional Planning and Graduate Centre for Architecture and Urbanism at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. His teaching and research focus on economics and urbanism, particularly urbanization, and planning theories, metropolitan and regional planning, urban and regional economics, solidarity economies, spatial organization, and development alternatives in the Amazon. His photography is the basis of a new work with Junia Mortimer on Urban-Nature Archives, which is also discussed in this paper.

From our archives:

Seeing the City: A discussion with Junia Mortimer and Felipe Magalhaes (Episode 20)

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester. His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441)

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: urbanradarpod@gmail.com

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast.

In this episode Beth and Tom are joined by Dr Lotte Hargrave from the University of Manchester to discuss whether psephology - the study of elections and voting behaviour - can predict the next Prime Minister of the UK.

All eyes are turned on the town of Makerfield in Greater Manchester, where Andy Burnham is making a play to win the constituency and head south - back to Westminster, and (probably) a leadership contest to replace Keir Starmer as UK PM.

With Lotte we discuss whether we can predict the results of the election, the potential outcomes of a win for Burnham for the Greater Manchester mayoralty and why hyperlocal factors suggest it is all still to play for.

Go to 27:56 for this discussion.

Also on our radar:

• Whether the UK needs to introduce maximum indoor temperatures for workplaces as urban heat rises
• Rising concern about Ebola in African cities in the shadow of global aid cuts
• Activism and urban organising for domestic workers
• How urbanization is driving the global sand crisis
• The many faces and contradictions of datacentre resistance
• Housing and the World Urban Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan

Guest:

Dr Lotte Hargrave is a Lecturer in Quantitative Political Science at the University of Manchester and a contracted psephologist for the BBC Elections Programme. Her research focuses on political behaviour, public opinion, gender and stereotyping in politics, and electoral politics. Before joining Manchester, she was Head of Data Science at the polling company Deltapoll. Website: Dr Lotte Hargrave

From our archives:

Interview with Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram (Episode 6)

The Manchester Model - with Adam Leaver and Rich Goulding (Episode 2)

Read more:

sand — RareEarth_KateDawson

AI Data Centers Are The New Plantations Unless We Build Them Differently - Honolulu Civil Beat

Building Climate Resilient Housing - World Cities Report

Late deciders, higher turnout - The Conversation

Political favourability ratings, May 2026

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester. His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441)

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: urbanradarpod@gmail.com

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast.

In this episode - recorded on location in Kampala, Uganda during an African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) workshop in late April - we delve into questions of how urban communities in informal settlements can build power through their own forms of knowledge and data collection, and how two-way exchanges between cities can strengthen this process.

For the main discussion, Tom was there in person with two of the research programme’s ‘City Manager’s - Jack Makau (City Manager for Nairobi) and Temilade Sesan (City Manager for Lagos). The discussion is first introduced by Beth and Tom who set the scene and provide some background, and following the main conversation they also offer concluding reflections.

In this episode, we explore:

• How can community-led data collection and analysis help to shift the levers of urban power?
• What role can action research play in changing the attitudes of governments towards the urban poor?
• How can we move from individual to collective solutions through community action and transnational learning?

Along the way, we consider how co-produced urban research with communities changes the kinds of questions we ask as researchers; the challenges of bringing government to the table to take community priorities seriously; and the role of civil society organizations and universities as intermediaries in this process.

Those interested in the issues and processes discussed here can delve further into the history through our discussion with Diana Mitlin in Episode 12 on 'Urban Informality and Translocal Learning'.

Jack Makau is Associate director of Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) Kenya, and ACRC City Manager for Nairobi. In the course of his decades of work with SDI, he has worked to support communities collect data in over 400 informal settlements in cities across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Ghana, and Bukina Faso.

DR. Temilade Sesan is a Lecturer and Researcher at the Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics and Law (CPEEL), University of Ibadan, Nigeria - and the ACRC City Manager for Lagos. Her research examines the socioeconomic dimensions of the food-energy-waste nexus in Africa, especially as they intersect with issues of the environment, gender, health and urban planning.

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester. His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441)

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: urbanradarpod@gmail.com

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast.