The post CITY Faculty Affiliate Professor Lyndsey Rolheiser's research on AI Data Centres coming to Canada: Interview on CBC News (04 June 2026) appeared first on The City Institute at 91ÑÇÉ« (CITY).

The post CITY Director Harris Ali - Television Interview on the Urban & Social Dimensions of Ebola: CP24 (24 May 2026) appeared first on The City Institute at 91ÑÇÉ« (CITY).

The post CITY Director Harris Ali radio interview about Ebola on 105.9 The Region appeared first on The City Institute at 91ÑÇÉ« (CITY).

This talk examines how mis/disinformation and conspiracy theories spread through social media have transformed at an unprecedented rate, the very nature of culture and politics in contemporary society. What is involved in these transformations? What are the implications of these transformations for the development of an impending democratic crisis in North America? We will discuss how this crisis in democracy is evident in terms of the polarization of society and the development of a crisis politics; enhanced conditions for encouraging the expression of political violence; the development of a post-truth society, and the dominance of politics by a small number of business and technical elites (that is, oligarchy), as well as the rise of authoritarian tendencies.

The post Talk by CITY Director Harris Ali on "Social Media and the Democratic Crisis in North America" appeared first on The City Institute at 91ÑÇÉ« (CITY).

Read the full YFile here.

The post Research spotlight on the "Seeing Crisis Governance like a City" project appeared first on The City Institute at 91ÑÇÉ« (CITY).

A new published in the Journal of Canadian Studies by CITY Institute Director, Harris Ali, explores how populism, conspiracy theories and social media work together to weaken democratic systems in Canada and the United States.

Read more about the new study here.

The post New research published by CITY Institute Director exploring social media, populism, and threats to democracy in the Canadian context appeared first on The City Institute at 91ÑÇÉ« (CITY).

New article by S. Harris Ali, Creighton Connolly, and Roger Keil

The post New research on pandemic risk in the urban outskirts appeared first on The City Institute at 91ÑÇÉ« (CITY).

Pictured below from left to right are CITY members:  Roger Keil, Harris Ali, Sébastien Lambelet

(CITY participants not pictured: Ute Lehrer, Natalya Murzenko)

Congratulations to Roger and Sébastien who gave papers based on CITY-based research projects supported by CIFAR and SNRF funding on Future-Proofing Climate Boomtowns: Public Policies and Community Actions in Chicago, Toronto, Geneva and Zurich.Ìý

The post Great to see the CITY Institute represented at the International Sociological Association meetings that took place in Rabat, Morocco on 6-11 July 2025. appeared first on The City Institute at 91ÑÇÉ« (CITY).

Please visit the link below to read some poignant accounts and reflections on the work of Prof Warren Magnusson (1947-2025) –  an important figure in urban thought who has had a tremendous influence on many at CITY (and beyond) throughout the years.

This collection of touching yet intellectually inspiring essays appearing in Urban Affairs Review has been edited by Roger Keil and Zack Taylor.

The post Warren Magnusson - Urban Political Scholar appeared first on The City Institute at 91ÑÇÉ« (CITY).

Please click HERE to view the Spanish Version

Vertical Peripheries: Housing and Urban Transformation at the Metropolitan Margins

August 21–22, 2025 | Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia

As part of the SSHRC-funded research collaboration between 91ÑÇÉ« (Toronto, Canada) and CIDER at Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia), titled , we invite advanced and early-career scholars to participate in a two-day workshop to be held at Universidad de los Andes on August 21–22, 2025. The workshop will explore the emerging phenomenon of vertical peripheries — high-rise housing developments located on the expanding edges of cities, particularly (but not exclusively) in the Global South. The workshop will also serve as a platform to shape contributions for a forthcoming special issue in a high-impact academic journal dedicated to this theme.

Over the past two decades, verticalization has become a central strategy in mass housing programs, promoted as a response to housing deficits, land scarcity, and informal urban expansion. This model has produced a distinctive urban form: large-scale, often state-subsidized towers situated on the urban fringe, frequently on former rural, informal, or environmentally sensitive land. These vertical peripheries reflect planning logics that promise formalization and modernity, while relocating low-income populations further from jobs, services, and political visibility.

Far from marginal in function, however, vertical peripheries are increasingly central to how cities manage land, housing demand, and the political project of inclusion. At the intersection of housing policy, modest public investment, and speculative development, they produce new geographies of density, ecological stress, and social fragmentation. Framed as instruments of integration, they often reproduce inequality—delivering legal tenure without access, infrastructure without services, and housing without full urban citizenship. Therefore, the effects of this type of housing on the well-being of the people who live there are mixed.

This workshop approaches vertical peripheries not simply as policy failures or technical challenges, but as contested terrains where planning, capital, and everyday life collide. These are sites of both state intervention and resident improvisation—zones of aspiration and struggle, where people redefine what it means to live, and live well, at the urban margins.

We welcome contributions that explore these tensions across diverse contexts and that critically examine vertical peripheries as sites of urban transformation, governance, and everyday negotiation. Selected papers will be considered for inclusion in the special issue Vertical Peripheries: Housing and Urban Transformation at the Metropolitan Margins, with an eye toward deepening comparative, theoretical, and empirical conversations around this global (yet uneven) phenomenon.

This workshop is especially intended for those in the final stages of their research projects. Participants are expected to submit a complete draft of their contribution by December 15, 2025.

Submission Guidelines

We welcome proposals for paper presentations:

• Abstracts (~400 words) should include a brief description of the research question, theoretical framework, background, methods, and relevance to the workshop theme.
• Please include a brief bio (maximum 100 words) along with your abstract.
• Submit proposals to Luisa Sotomayor at sotomay@yorku.ca and Clara Gómez clara24@yorku.ca by July 1, 2025.
• Limited travel support may be available for participants based in Latin America or the Caribbean.
  The workshop will be conducted in both English and Spanish, with simultaneous translation provided.
• Hotel accommodation and meals will be provided for all accepted participants during the workshop.

Organizers

Luisa Sotomayor, Associate Professor and Director, CITY Institute, 91ÑÇÉ«, Toronto.  sotomay@yorku.ca

Lina Brand Correa, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change,91ÑÇÉ«, Toronto. brand@yorku.ca

Adriana Hurtado Tarazona, Associate Professor, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá a.hurtado10@uniandes.edu.co

Friederike Fleischer, Associate Professor,  Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá. f.fleischer406@uniandes.edu.co.

With the support of:

• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
• Interdisciplinary Centre for Development Studies – CIDER, Faculty of Social Sciences, Universidad de los Andes
• The City Institute at 91ÑÇÉ«
• Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, 91ÑÇÉ«

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