#13: Dr Graham Gill - Urban Sustainability Researcher

Dr Graham Gill is a Policy Fellow at the University of York, with a PhD in Sociology and a passion for sustainable cities.His research focuses on urban sustainability, unequal economies and social exclusion. He is currently working alongside the Climate Change Team at City of York Council, with a mission to help shape the city's climate adaptation strategy and, most importantly, to make sure the people and organisations across York are engaged and ready for the transition.In this episode we spend some time talking about how no city is actually sustainable, and how they all create structural inequality through the way they are incentivising growth. We discuss why it is that when cities spin narratives, such as becoming a green city, a city of culture, a city of heritage, it’s not just because we value those things in and of themselves, but usually it’s because we’re using those badges as marketing to try and attract capital and wealthy individuals to move here to boost our economy. We talk about how businesses can create more meaningful jobs for their employees, and we have a brief stop comparing Neoliberalism to Managerialism and I ask whether a return to managerialism would actually be a good thing.Graham brings years of research in this area to our conversation around community wealth building, so it was an honour to have him on the podcast. I hope you enjoy listening to the episode, I’m Ben Porter and this is the York Community Wealth Building Podcast, brought to you by Fieldwork.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wearefieldwork.substack.com