My current research interests centre on two key planning issues. The first is how a combination of contextual factors (environmental, socio-economic and political) and the institutions and policies that shape them (re-)produce health inequities in fast-growing cities. Of particular interest are the links between health and environmental risks and the decision-making processes that determine the distribution of risk reducing services and land for housing options in urbanising populations. The aim is to inform efforts to reconnect urban planning and public health in response to urbanisation dynamics and governance conditions particular to the global South. The principles of socio-environmental justice lie at the heart of this work.

The second issue concerns the governance of different forms of urbanisation, specifically how rural settlements become urban, and how rural governance transforms in the process. The question is motivated by the renewed interest in small and intermediate urban centres given the significant contribution they are projected to make to the world’s future urban growth. Many of these smaller centres are emerging through in situ urbanisation, wherein a rural settlement becomes a small town. The aim is to explore and compare the institutional transformations unfolding in ‘transitional spaces’, the governance complexities these transformations present, and the consequences for establishing planning systems in historically rural settlements.