The annual CRESC lecture at SOAS in London given by Professor Andrew Ross from New York University attracted an audience of around 100 people from across the UK. Andrew  Ross, who is Professor of  Social and Cultural Analysis and author of many publications including:

• Nice Work If You Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times (NYPress, 2009).
• Fast Boat to China: Corporate Flight and the Consequences of Free Trade-Lessons from Shanghai (Pantheon, 2006; Vintage, 2007).

Professor Ross gave a lecture entitled : Is Urban Sustainability possible in the Age of Climate Justice? Ross’ lecture provided a clear overview and critique of the different positions and politics of environmental social theory and politics. Through the notion of middle class environmental apartheid- ‘eco-apartheid’- he subjected current eco initiatives to close scrutiny and critique. Drawing on an ethnography of arguably one of the most environmentally damaged cities of the USA- Phoenix, he exposed the serious implications of extremely rapid urban and suburban growth, and the failure of market and governmental responses to it. Though largely a pessimistic account he concluded with identifying nodal points where positive changes and initiatives might occur in such spaces of environmental degradation. Notable here were the responses and involvement of the local indigenous community  in water issues.

Following the lecture Professor Stuart Hall launched the New Blackwell Companion to the Cityedited by Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson. He commended the breadth and range of the book which comprises 65 newly commissioned essays including 6 essays of reflections by the authors. The volume also comprises contributions from 10 CRESC researchers and affiliates.

During his talk Professor Hall described the contents of the six sections: City Materialities, City Mobilities, City Affect, City Divisions and Differences, City Publics and Cultures, and City Politics and Planning, and drew attention to the international range and scope of the essays, particularly the engagement with urban questions in China and India.  Hall’s view of the book chimed very strongly with the concerns of CRESC, when he commended the vigorous interdisciplinarity of the project, at the same time as stressing the importance of the different traditions- sociology, history, cultural studies, geography, and political economy- from which it draws. Hall identified the urban turn as an important feature of recent work in social and cultural theory and interdisciplinary study, which, although not his own central concern, he could see provided a valuable lens through which to explore socio-cultural change.