LSE Cities is an international centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science that carries out research, education and outreach activities in London and abroad. Its mission is to study how people and cities interact in a rapidly urbanising world, focussing on how the design of cities impacts on society, culture and the environment. Through research, conferences, teaching and projects, the centre aims to shape new thinking and practice on how to make cities fairer and more sustainable for the next generation of urban dwellers, who will make up some 70 per cent of the global population by 2050.
LSE Cities is one of a small number of research centres that contribute to LSE's reputation as one of the foremost social science universities in the world. The centre builds on the interdisciplinary work of the Urban Age Programme|, an international investigation of cities around the world that since 2005 has studied the social and spatial dynamics of metropolitan areas such as Istanbul, São Paulo, Mumbai, Johannesburg, New York City and London.
The Cities Programme|, which is the graduate education branch of LSE Cities, offers both Masters and PhD-level degrees within the LSE’s Department of Sociology|. Executive teaching programmes, summer schools and short courses that link to LSE Cities’ core research interests will also be offered. In addition, the centre holds an active public lecture programme with leading academics and practitioners, including architects, policymakers, urbanists and mayors.
Extending LSE’s century-old commitment to the understanding of urban society, LSE Cities investigates how complex urban systems are responding to the pressures of growth, change and globalisation, with new infrastructures of design and governance that both complement and threaten social and environmental equity.