Ian joined the Department as Professor of Human Geography in September 2000. Prior to this he spent eleven years as Professor of Geography at Reading University, before which he taught in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Kent, where he directed the Urban and Regional Studies Unit.
His main research interests have been in urban development and policies, spatial labour markets, migration and spatial interaction, particularly in the context of major metropolitan regions. He led the team carrying out the London 'integrative city study' for ESRC's Cities, Competitiveness and Cohesion programme. In April 2004 he was the academic convenor for the Leverhulme International Symposium at the LSE on The Resurgent City.
He is currently a member of: the Mayor's Outer London Commission; and the Department of Communities and Local Government's Regeneration and Economic Development Analysis Expert Panel.
His publications include The London Employment Problem (with Buck and Young, Oxford U.P., 1986), Unemployment, Regions and Labour Markets (edited, Pion, 1987), European Factor Mobility (jointly edited, Macmillan, 1989) Divided Cities: New York and London in the contemporary world (edited with Fainstein and Harloe, Blackwell, 1992) Territorial Competition in an Integrated Europe (edited with Cheshire, Avebury, 1995), Working Capital: life and labour in contemporary London (with Buck, Hall, Harloe and Kleinman, Routledge, 2002), and Changing Cities: Rethinking urban competitiveness, cohesion and governance (edited with Buck, Harding and Turok, December 2004).
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