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[S3 E05] New

"Housing is a basic human need and the market tends to ignore social needs, as it prioritizes individual profit.” - Prof. Robles-Durán

There is a widespread belief that the central culprit of the housing crisis in most metropolitan regions around the world today is the lack of supply. This notion has been well spread by mainstream media outlets and urban professionals, such as urban planners, architects, housing developers, and real-estate agencies. For those disseminating this idea, ending the housing crisis is...

[S3 E04] New

In this episode of Cities After…, Prof. Robles-Durán discusses the growing prevalence of corporate landlords and their devastating impact on affordable housing and homeownership. The mass acquisition of single-family homes and apartment buildings by private investment companies, backed by global finance and, often, as Prof. Robles-Durán reveals our own...

[S3 E03] New

In this episode of Cities After…, Prof. Robles-Durán interviews Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman about their work with public institutions and community partners on both sides of the US/Mexico border, in San Diego and Tijuana. Tijuana, as Cruz reminds us, has always been a geography of conflict and of crisis. Cruz and Forman’s work is deliberately situated at the intersection of formal, often exclusionary, American institutions and grassroots community organizing. By building coalitions, the interplay between various groups—researchers/political scientists and migrants/community organizers becomes more...

[S3 E02] New

In this episode of Cities After…, Prof. Robles-Durán takes a closer look at the ever-growing migrant crisis along Mexico-US border cities and its critical socio-environmental implications. It is an issue of urgency, particularly given the humanitarian disaster, the heightened American security impositions, the neo-fascist retaliations from Texas and other Republican states, as well as the political ramifications at both sides of the border.

[S03 E01] New

Welcome to Season 3! In this episode of Cities After…, Prof. Robles-Durán presents a personal account of his life in Tijuana, Mexico to illustrate how cities are central to understanding the ways in which capitalism materializes into our daily lives. By tracing his earliest experiences with capitalism’s complexities, Robles-Durán reveals...

[S02 E19] New

This episode of Cities After… is a conversation between Prof. Robles-Durán and Silvia Federici, feminist activist and scholar, which took place at the New School in New York City. Silvia Federici has been shaking Marxist traditions to their core since the 1960s by posing critical questions about the role of women’s reproductive labor in the development of our human environment and social conditions under capitalism. In this conversation, Robles-Durán and Federici weave through Federici’s life and work in Italy, the US, Nigeria...

[S02 E18] New

In this fourth and final episode of the Cities After…Office Spaces as Home mini-series, Prof. Robles-Durán talks to Cea Weaver, a prominent housing organizer in New York City who coordinates Housing Justice for All. In 2019, Weaver coordinated a statewide coalition to pass what many consider the most progressive housing laws in recent decades. She is currently working with...

[S02 E17] New

This is part three of the Cities After…Office Spaces as Homes series. In the last podcast, Prof. Robles-Durán pictured a dystopian future where waged labor takes over the household and unfolded a seemingly despairing critique of the post-covid exploitative tendencies in...

[S02 E16] New

In Pt. 2 of the Cities After…Office Spaces as Homes series, Prof. Robles-Durán discusses the impacts of the hybrid work and work from home models which have exploded as a result of the pandemic. These seemingly unstoppable trends have rattled municipalities worldwide with...

[S02 E15] New

This episode of Cities After… is the first of a two-part series in which Prof. Robles-Durán will explore a post-covid urbanization trend taunting real estate developers and municipal governments across the globe: the adaptive reuse of vacant office spaces into homes. As businesses struggle to lure employees into the full-time occupation of their corporate cubicles and housing prices continue to rise, some champion the rezoning and transformation of office space into residential property as a win-win scenario for cities, while others...