Basheer Kalash (p), Katrin Hussinger

Mojgan Taheri Tafti

This paper investigates the impact of the 2008/2009 economic crisis on employment growth in European metropolitan areas. We find that the crisis had a negative effect on employment growth in the short run. Our results further show that regions that diversified during the crisis have been affected more strongly, but also recovered more strongly in the immediate post-crisis years. These results suggest that a strong recovery could come at the costs of giving up a certain extent of resilience.

Mojgan Taheri Tafti (p)

Basheer Kalash

Informality is increasingly seen as a key feature of urban planning and development in many cities of the Global South. Looking at two earthquake-affected cities, Bhuj in India and Bam in Iran, this paper seeks to address the question of how informality played a role in the transformation of urban environments during the reconstruction phase. It highlights some of the distinctive challenges and paradoxes that informality presents for ‘building back better’. In particular, the paper focuses on a common theme that emerged from these two case studies: the dispossession and displacement of marginalized groups from well-located urban land and the accompanying production of new or perpetuated landscapes of risk following urban disasters.