Explanation

As a critic of Marxism and postmodernism my research in Urban Studies focuses on poststructuralism, assemblage theory, and actor-network theory. My broad expertise in poststructuralist theory has enabled me to recast the conceptual apparatus and empirical approach of urban studies to effectively critique and overturn the neo-Marxist world city, global city, and interlocking world city network concepts (and the error of the ordinary cities notion) to understand cities not only as connected, but as always striving to prohibit and disguise their unbinding and destabilization as networked assemblages: e.g. see ‘World city actor-networks’ (2003) and ‘World city topologies’ (2003) in Progress in Human Geography; ‘Beyond the global city concept and the myth of “command and control”‘ (2014) and ‘Questioning the theoretical basis of current global city research: structures, networks, and actor-networks’ (2011) in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research; ‘The ordinary city trap’ in Environment and Planning A (2013);  etc. My latest research is concerned with skyscrapers and with introducing, explaining, developing, and inventing an approach to Urban Studies that is founded on the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard. See, for example, my entry on ‘Jean Baudrillard’ for The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies (2019).  [I have a long standing research interest in Jean Baudrillard’s philosophy and oeuvre – See BaudrillardStudies.com].

Publications

My research has been reported on extensively in the world’s print media (in >25 newspapers and magazines), and my journal papers are among the most highly-cited and reprinted in the world – a few examples: on ISI web of science my Cities (1999) paper – ‘A Roster of World Cities’ – has 540+ citations; my Annals of the Association of American Geographers (2000) paper – ‘World city network: a new meta-geography’ – has 280+ citations; one of my Progress in Human Geography (2003) papers – ‘World city actor-networks’ – has 100+ citations and is noted as one of the fifty most frequently cited. My research in Urban Studies is reprinted in no fewer than 8 edited collections, and has been translated into Chinese.

Publications

Poststructuralist Cities

Smith RG (2019) “Jean Baudrillard”, The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies

Smith RG (2014) “Beyond the global-city concept and the myth of ‘command and control’”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38 (1), January, 98–115 (published on-line June 19th [doi: 10.1111/1468-2427.12024])

Smith RG and Doel MA (2011) “Questioning the Theoretical Basis of Current Global-City Research: Structures, Networks and Actor-Networks”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35 (1), 24-39

Smith RG (2010) “City”, in Smith RG ed. The Baudrillard Dictionary (Edinburgh University Press), pp.30–32

Smith RG (2010) “Urban studies without ‘scale’: localizing the global through Singapore”, in Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies edited by Ignacio Farias and Thomas Bender (Routledge), pp. 73–90

Smith RG (2007) “Poststructuralism, Power and the Global City”, in Taylor P, Derudder B, Saey P and Witlox F eds. Cities in Globalization: Practices, Policies and Theories (Routledge, London), pp. 260–272

Smith RG (2006) “Place as network”, in Companion Encyclopedia of Geography (2nd Edition) edited by Ian Douglas, Richard Huggett and Chris Perkins (Routledge, London), pp. 57–69

Smith RG (2005) “The Poststructuralist City” in ICCG Conference Proceedings, Mexico City, January 8th to 12th, unpaginated

Smith RG (2003) “World city actor-networks”, Progress in Human Geography, 27 (1), 25–44

Smith RG (2003) “World city topologies”, Progress in Human Geography, 27 (5), 561–582

Smith RG (2002) “Criticising Political Economies: New Theoretical Approaches to Cities, Regions and the International Economy”, ICCG Conference Proceedings, Hungary, June 25-30, pages 264–271

World Cities

Smith RG (2021) ‘Why skyscrapers after Covid-19?’, Vol. 134 (December), Futures: The journal of policy, planning and futures studies: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1dnO%7E3jdJdMmG [Also: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8451974/]

Smith RG (2011) “NY-LON”, in International Handbook of Globalization and World Cities edited by Derudder B, Hoyler M, Taylor PJ & Witlox F (Edward Elgar), pp. 720–32 (Hbk)

Beaverstock JV, Smith RG & Taylor PJ (2003) “The global capacity of a world city: a relational study of London”, in Kofman E & Youngs G (eds) Globalization: theory and practice (Continuum, London), 2nd edition, pages 223–236

Beaverstock JV, Smith RG and Taylor PJ (2000) “World city network: a new metageography?”, millennial issue of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 90, March, 123–134

Beaverstock JV, Smith RG and Taylor PJ (2000) “Geographies of globalization: US law firms in world cities”, Urban Geography, 21 (2), 95–120

Beaverstock JV, Smith RG, Taylor PJ, Walker DFR and Lorimer HN (2000) “Globalization and world cities: some measurement methodologies”, Applied Geography, 20, 43–63

Beaverstock JV, Smith RG and Taylor PJ (1999) “The long arm of the law: London’s law firms in a globalizing world-economy”, Environment & Planning A, 31 (10), October, 1857–1876

Beaverstock JV, Smith RG and Taylor PJ (1999) “A roster of world cities”, Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 16 (6), 445–458

Interventions

Smith RG (2016) “London after Brexit: independence a non-starter but special status could protect global position”, theconversation.com, 25-06-2016 (Republished by Yahoo News, Google News, AllJournalist.com)

Smith RG (2016) “Favela Painting”, Links Magazine: Chamber of Industry & Commerce Ecuador & Great Britain, p.35 (Special issue for UNESCO Habitat III conference, Quito, October). Available: www.issuu.com/ciceb

Smith RG (2014) “Satellites: cities from space”, Theory, Culture & Society website (Special on-line issue on Mega-cities), December

Smith RG (2014) “Dubai in extremis”, Theory, Culture & Society 31(7/8), December, 291–296 [Published online before print September 17, 2014, doi: 10.1177/0263276414547775]

Smith RG (2013) “The ordinary city trap snaps back”, Environment and Planning A, 45 (10), October, 2318–2322

Smith RG (2013) “The ordinary city trap”, Environment and Planning A, 45 (10), October, 2290–2304