As Rachel Kleinfeld and Robert Muggah note, levels of state-to-state conflict in the world are now at historic lows. The world’s big powers confront one another by other means, whether that be proxy war in third countries, punitive trade tariffs, or digital subversion.

The Globe and Mail – ROBERT MUGGAH Published Jun. 17, 2017 The world is buckling under multiple pressures, including climate change, inequality, migration, pandemics and terrorism. Yet, at precisely the moment collective action is most pressing, international co-operation is coming unstuck. Twentieth-century supranational entities such…

    What Explains Criminal Violence in Mexico City? A Test of Two Theories of Crime There are competing theories of what drives crime in cities and neighbourhoods. Two widely cited theoretical approaches focused on social disorganization and institutional anomie propose different explanations for the…

Devex – It is hard to know with certainty where and why cities will falter and fail in the 21st century

After more than a century of steady city expansion in northern countries, the direction of twenty-first century population growth is shifting southwards. Over the next five decades, Africans, Arabs, and Asians will migrate in unprecedented numbers to cities, especially to their slums. Many of these…

Deconstructing the fragile city: exploring insecurity, violence and resilience An emerging social category – the fragile city – can be described as a discrete metropolitan unit whose governance arrangements exhibit a declining ability and/or willingness to deliver on the social contract. Fragility is thus no…

Humanitarian agencies are questioning when and how to engage with violent urban settings. This article presents possible ways to solve this question.

15/04/2014 Violent disorder in Ciudad Juarez: a spatial analysis of homicide This article considers the extent to which specific demographic and socioeconomic factors correlate with homicidal violence in the context of Mexico’s “war” on organized crime. We draw on Ciudad Juarez as a case study…

The world has entered its urban age. More than half of the globe’s population currently resides in cities as compared to

A new social category recently emerged on the security and development landscape: the “fragile city”. This article debates the term and challenges to improve their autonomy.