Urban Studies

Research

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Research

Research is an important aspect of Urban Studies, particularly within the rapidly altering landscape of the 21st Century urban setting. We encourage you to explore a diverse amount of organizations, student groups, and periodicals that will give insight to the many challenging topics that you may encounter while exploring or conducting your research.

Research Funding

The Urban Studies Program offers funding for concentrators pursuing research projects, especially honors theses. Students can complete a research funding application for either of the following opportunities, both of which are reviewed and awarded on a rolling basis: 

The fund will provide two or more students research support ranging from $500 up to $3000, depending on the project. The student projects must be on an urban topic and the research can take place in Providence or in other cities.

Undergraduate students interested in applying for funding to conduct urban research should submit a 1-2 page proposal which describes their project, a letter of support from a faculty advisor, and a brief budget of project expenses. The award may be used to support direct research expenses on books, supplies, research-related travel to another city, etc., or to partly defray living expenses in Providence while pursuing research there during the summer. (Note: Direct research costs are tax deductible, unlike living allowances, which are taxable.)  Priority is given to students intending to do an Honors Thesis in Urban Studies.  

Professor Sandy Zipp, Director of the Urban Studies Program, will review all the applications and will be in touch with you soon after.  Please submit proposals by email to Matthew_Roth@brown.edu or campus mail Box 1833, or by dropping it off at the Urban Studies front office in Maxcy 103.

The fund will provide 1 or more students research support ranging from $500 up to $3000, depending on the project. Concentrators in Urban Studies should propose a study that addresses urban environmental issues, preferably in the city of Providence, and/or which affect low-income communities and/or affect the developing world.  Students shall study the interconnections between built and natural systems and consider ways to reconcile the two.  While environmental issues should be addressed, the analysis can center on larger issues of economic or community development, social justice, public health, and so on.  The winner of the award will submit the final paper from the project for the donor and the program.

Undergraduate students interested in applying for funding to conduct urban environmental research should submit a 1-2 page proposal which describes their project, a letter of support from a faculty advisor, and a brief budget of project expenses. The award may be used to support direct research expenses on books, supplies, research-related travel to another city, etc.  

Research will typically be conducted over the summer, but proposals are reviewed on an ongoing basis.  Professor Sandy Zipp, Director of the Urban Studies Program, will review all the applications and will be in touch with you soon after.  Please submit proposals by email to Matthew_Roth@brown.edu or campus mail Box 1833, or by dropping it off at the Urban Studies front office in Maxcy 103.

Research Resources

Atlas of Urban Expansion

Part of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Atlas provides the geographic and quantitative dimensions of urban expansion and its key attributes in cities the world over.

Brookings Institute Metropolitan Policy Program

The Brookings Institute provides decision makers with timely trend analysis, cutting-edge research and policy ideas for improving the health and prosperity of cities and metropolitan areas.

Center for Urban Policy Research

Center for Urban Policy Research provides Basic and applied research on a broad spectrum of public policy issues.

Center for Urban Research

The Center for Urban Research housed at CUNY, organizes basic research on the critical issues that face New York and other large cities in the U.S. and abroad.

Cities Today

Cities Today is the only global magazine containing analysis, comment and best practices on sustainable urban development, connecting local governments with public and private sector solutions.

City Observatory

City Observatory is a website and think tank devoted to data-driven analysis of cities and the policies that shape them. The website will feature posts that tackle misconceptions about cities, break down the latest urban research, and highlight the innovative ideas that strengthen our communities.

Flaneur

Flaneur is a nomadic, independent magazine focussing on one street per issue. The magazine embraces the street’s complexity, its layers and fragmented nature with a literary approach. The content of the magazine is produced with and for Flaneur by artists of all disciplines while the team spends two months on location. It is made using a collaborative, impulsive and unconventional approach. The magazine attempts to use a single microcosm to tell universal stories.

Global Urban History

Global Urban History is a Blog both global and urban history. Taking into consideration recent charges that global history is in danger of an imperial overstretch, we aim at grounding our interest in historical connectedness in analyses of concrete local processes. This combination, we hope, illuminates the inherently uneven outgrowths of urbanized globalization. While treating cities as nerve centers of long-distance connections and engines of momentous historical developments, we therefore also explore how they produced segmented, unequal, and unmixed cityscapes. Our blog works closely with the Global Urban History Project, whose aims we share and which we encourage our readers to join.

Greater Places

Greater Places is creating a new platform to showcase the best in community design: placemaking, planning, policies and public participation. GreaterPlaces features the  We connect people looking for ideas with civic innovators around the globe.

H-Urban

H-Urban is a moderated multi-disciplinary forum for discussion and dissemination of scholarship on urban history and urban studies. H-Urban has no geographical or chronological boundaries. Thus, we welcome the involvement of scholars, professionals, and graduate students who are interested in urban places and processes across the globe and in all eras.

Places

Places Journal is an essential and trusted resource on the future of architecture, landscape, and urbanism. The journal harnesses the power of public scholarship to promote equitable cities and resilient landscapes. In Places you will find writers, designers, and artists who are responding to the profound challenges of our time: environmental health and social inequity, climate change, resource scarcity, human migration, rapid technological innovation, and the erosion of the public sphere.These challenges demand that we rethink how we plan, design, construct, and maintain the built environment. They also demand that ambitious design research and practice move from the margins to the center of cultural discussion.

Side Walk Labs

Side Walk Labs is an Alphabet company that imagines, designs, tests, and builds urban innovations to help cities meet their biggest challenges. We work with cities to develop products and tools that can address existing problems and drive toward the city of the future.

The Metropole

The Metropole is the Official Blog of the Urban History Association.

The Why Factory

The Why Factory is a global think-tank and research institute, run by MVRDV and Delft University of Technology and led by professor Winy Maas. It explores possibilities for the development of our cities by focusing on the production of models and visualizations for cities of the future.

The World Bank - Sustainable Cities

The Sustainable Cities blog is a space for urban development professionals to exchange ideas and engage some of the central questions of sustainable cities: What makes a sustainable city? How do we measure a city's sustainability? 

Urban Cultural Studies

Urban Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary, multi-authored blog dedicated to the culture(s) of cities…space, time and urban everyday life the world over.

Urban Ecology

Urban Ecology is published to provide information and encourage dialogue on issues related to the urban environment, city and regional planning, and metropolitan affairs.

Urban Institute

The Urban Institute is the United States’ leading research organization dedicated to developing evidence-based insights that improve people’s lives and strengthen communities. With nearly 50 years of expertise, Urban is a trusted resource for timely, nuanced analysis of social and economic policy.

Urban Land Institute

ULI is the oldest and largest network of cross-disciplinary real estate and land use experts in the world. ULI is its members. Through our members' dedication to the mission and their shared expertise, the Institute has been able to set standards of excellence in development practice.

Urban Omnibus

Urban Omnibus is an online publication dedicated to defining and enriching the culture of citymaking. We explore projects and perspectives in architecture, art, policy, and activism – tried and tested in New York City – that offer new ways of understanding, representing, and improving urban life and landscape worldwide.

urbanNext

urbanNext’s main goal is to generate a global network to produce content focused on rethinking architecture through the contemporary urban milieu — urbanity that is conditioned by the specificities of the information society, sustainable awareness, globalized knowledge and leisure.

WebUrbanist

WebUrbanist is a city-centric, visual-oriented online publication about art, design and built environments. Our compliment of veteran authors cover global stories about architecture, technology, travel and more.