Professor Andy Jonas

Professor Andy Jonas

Professor of Human Geography

Faculty and Department

  • Faculty of Science and Engineering
  • School of Environmental Sciences

Qualifications

  • BA (Durham University)
  • MA
  • PhD / DPhil

Summary

Andy Jonas is an urban political geographer whose research examines the politics, strategies and governance of urban and regional development in the USA, Europe and China. Andy has a First Class BA Hons. degree in Geography from Durham University in the UK and MA and PhD in Geography from The Ohio State University in the USA. He was recently ranked among the world's top 25 most productive and cited scholars in the field of Geography and Urban Studies and in the top 2% of global scientists. Andy is regarded to be one of the world's leading proponents of the idea that city-regions have become key spatial instruments of state internationalisation and geopolitical strategy in what some suggest is a 'post-national' era of economic globalisation.

Andy has published well over 150 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters in leading peer-reviewed outlets. Some of his better-known work has explored the geopolitics of city-regionalism, how cities around the world have engaged in the search for an urban 'sustainability fix' , and the emergence of new spaces of labour control and 'circuits of value' in capitalism. His books include: The Urban Growth Machine: Critical Perspectives Two Decades Later (SUNY Press, 1999); Interrogating Alterity (Ashgate, 2010); Territory, the State and Urban Politics (Ashgate, 2012); Urban Geography: A Critical Introduction (Wiley Blackwell, 2015); Handbook on Spaces of Urban Politics (Routledge, 2018); and Handbook on Changing Geographies of the State: New Spaces of Geopolitics (Edward Elgar, 2020).

Andy's current research examines the geopolitics and imaginaries of city-regionalism, urban sustainability and climate governance, and the local development of a more socially inclusive and redistributive urban circular economy.

He has been a visiting scholar at universities in the USA, Canada, Finland, Australia and China.

Andy is actively involved as researcher, adviser and consultant for a range of urban regeneration and community-based economic development projects and activities in Hull as well as in cities in the UK, Europe and the USA. His research on habitat conservation and suburban development in Southern California in the 1990s and early 2000s informed regional planning processes that have led to the set aside of thousands of acres of otherwise potentially developable public and private land for nature conservation purposes. He has also conducted evaluations of the new generation of public-private partnerships set up to finance mass transit infrastructure projects across US cities and regions. Working with urban service designers and public, private and third sector partners in the UK, he is currently involved in co-designing place-based approaches to the circular economy and sustainable urban living.

Recent outputs

View more outputs

Journal Article

The role of place in the development of a circular economy: a critical analysis of potential for social redistribution in Hull, UK

Deutz, P., Jonas, A., Newsholme, A., Pusz, M., Rogers, H., Affolderbach, J., …Ramos, T. (in press). The role of place in the development of a circular economy: a critical analysis of potential for social redistribution in Hull, UK. Cambridge journal of regions economy and society, Article rsae002. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsae002

Quality of Working Life in the Circular Economy: the Case of Self-employment in the Repair Sector

Rogers, H. A., Deutz, P., Ramos, T. B., & Jonas, A. E. (2024). Quality of Working Life in the Circular Economy: the Case of Self-employment in the Repair Sector. Circular Economy and Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-023-00343-5

Knitting Circular Ties: Empowering Networks for the Social Enterprise-led Local Development of an Integrative Circular Economy

Pusz, M., Jonas, A. E., & Deutz, P. (in press). Knitting Circular Ties: Empowering Networks for the Social Enterprise-led Local Development of an Integrative Circular Economy. Circular Economy and Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-023-00271-4

Small cities and towns in global city-centred regionalism: Observations from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, China

Jonas, A., & Li, Y. (in press). Small cities and towns in global city-centred regionalism: Observations from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, China. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research, https://doi.org/10.1177/27541223231157225

City-regionalism and (re)framing the urban question in China

Jonas, A., & Li, Y. (in press). City-regionalism and (re)framing the urban question in China. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research, https://doi.org/10.1177/27541223221116062

Research interests

Geopolitics and imaginaries of city-regionalism

Local development of the urban circular economy

The global financing of urban infrastructure

Local labour control regimes

Urban sustainability and climate governance

Race , segregation and urban development

Lead investigator

Project

Funder

Grant

Started

Status

Project

A ‘New Civil Politics’ of Climate Change? An examination of contemporary climate communication, actions and policies in the UK

Funder

British Academy

Grant

£1,500.00

Started

1 September 2019

Status

Complete

Project

Global infrastructure public-private partnerships and the geopolitics of city-regions

Funder

RSA Regional Studies Association

Grant

£7,500.00

Started

1 November 2015

Status

Complete

Project

Alderman Kneeshaw Park: the replenishment of a neglected urban public space

Funder

Wellcome Trust

Grant

£3,504.00

Started

1 October 2021

Status

Complete

Co-investigator

Project

Funder

Grant

Started

Status

Project

CiRcular Economy: SusTainability Implications and guidING progress

Funder

EC European Commission

Grant

£964,214.00

Started

1 January 2018

Status

Complete

Postgraduate supervision

Andy is happy to supervise a range of postgraduate research topics relating to his areas of research specialism, including

- city regionalism and its geopolitics

- sustainable cities and circular cities

- politics of urban and regional redevelopment

- alternative/diverse economic spaces

- geographies of labour control and regulation

Completed PhDs supervised/co-supervised

- Hang Vo, Bridging the Policy Implementation Gap through Public Projects: From Policy Aspiration to Implementation to Actual Policy Impacts

- Malgorzata Pusz, Social enterprise-led local development of the circular economy : socio-spatial networks and value-impact scaling pathways

- Enrico Tommarchi, A Critical Analysis of the Relation between Cultural Policies and Strategic Urban Planning in Port Cities (2021)

- Hesham Waddani, Urban Forests in Tripoli, Libya: Policies and Citizen Participation (2021)

- Mbali Pewa, Investigating the Sustainability of Waste Recycling in South Africa (2020)

- Hui Yang, The Evolution of Endogenous Traditional Industry Clusters: a Case Study of the Chinese Liquor Industry (2020)

- Samuel Ramsden, Supporting Pro-Environmental Behaviours in Deprived Urban British Communities: Who is Responsible and How Can it be Done? (2018)

- ​Muhammad Haji-Abdullah, Analysis of the Suitability of the Socio-Technical Transition to the Development of Low Carbon Transportation in Brunei Darussalam (2016)

- Sarinah Omar, Sungai Liang Industrial Park: can Brunei Achieve its Sustainable Industrial Development? (2016)

- Stephen Hall, Transportation and Low-Carbon Governance in City-Regions (2015)

- Erin DeMuynk, Farmers' Markets and Urban Sustainability, external committee member, University of Illinois, USA (2015)

- Marcela Mele, Suburban Development and Livelihood Strategies in Tirana City-Region (2011)

- Andrew Kythreotis, Sustainability Governance and Scalar Politics in the UK (2010)

- David Haigh, Social Enterprise and Alternative Economic Spaces in the UK (2009)

- Maksuder Rahman, Neighbourhood and Household Environmental Problems in Chittagong (2008)

- Felicity Powell, Social issues in UK Regional Planning (2005)

- Alison Williams, Technogeopolitics and Representations of the Pacific as US Territory (2005)

Current PhD supervisions

- Caitlin Matthews, Olympic Cities, Carbon Footprint and Olympic Legacy

- Saira Mian, Place, Death and Inequalities (Covid Cluster)

- Dzifa Puplampu, Climate Resilience and Urban Infill (White Rse DTP)

- Heather Rogers, Employment and skills in development of the circular economy (Cresting)

- Santiago Perez (University of Troyes, Frances), Territory, industrial ecology and the circular economy (Cresting)

- Renae Dyball, London Shocks: Histories and Geographies of Environmental Crisis in a Global City (White Rose DTP)

Committee/Steering group role

Board Member Hull CLLD Local Action Group

2016 - 2023

Conference organisation

Enculturing the City: Spaces and Flows 8th International Conference

2017

Consultancy/Industry advisory role

Trustee

2018 - 2027

Trustee Humber Learning Consortium

External examiner role

External Examiner University of Leeds

2018 - 2023

External Examiner University of Cambridge

2014 - 2016

External Examiner University of Newcastle

2012 - 2015

Funder panel member

ESRC College of Reviewers

2010

Honorary position

Docent Professor of Urban and Regional Development University of Oulu

2012 - 2030

Journal editorial role

Editor

2016 - 2024

Editor of Urban Geography, Debates and Interventions

Other

Top 2% global scientist

2023

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