About
Hyun Bang Shin is Professor of Geography and Urban Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science and an internationally recognised scholar of critical urban studies. His research examines the political economy of urbanisation, with particular attention to cities in Asia and the Global East.
His work investigates how state power, capital accumulation and social contestation shape contemporary urban transformation. It centres on gentrification and displacement, speculative urbanisation, megaprojects and infrastructure, urban struggles, and the international circulation of urban models and capital. Across these areas, he asks how urban development produces uneven social and spatial outcomes, and how experiences beyond the West can reshape the concepts and theories of global urban studies.
His scholarship has made influential contributions to comparative and planetary approaches to gentrification, Asian urbanism and theorising from the Global East. Recent work examines Global China, the internationalisation of Chinese and Korean urban development practices, and the political economy of megaprojects in Asia.
Professor Shin served as Head of LSE's Department of Geography and Environment from 2023 to 2026, following his directorship of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre from 2018 to 2023. He was Editor and Coordinating Editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research from 2021 to 2024 and a Trustee of the Urban Studies Foundation from 2016 to 2023. He is a member of the REF 2029 Geography and Environmental Studies Sub-panel and the Social Sciences Panel for Hong Kong's Research Assessment Exercise 2026.
He is Visiting Professor at the Urban Institute, Singapore Management University (2025-2027), and Adjunct Professor at Chulalongkorn University (2026-2027). He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Royal Geographical Society.
Professor Shin's research is organised around five interconnected themes:
Urban political economy
Examining how states, land, property and capital interact in producing urban development, particularly in developmental and post-developmental contexts in Asia.
Gentrification, displacement and urban inequality
Developing comparative and planetary perspectives on gentrification and investigating the relationships between property development, displacement, housing and social inequality.
Megaprojects, infrastructure and speculative urbanisation
Investigating large-scale urban development, mega-events and infrastructure as expressions of state strategy, capital accumulation and territorial restructuring.
Urban struggles and the politics of rights
Exploring resistance to displacement and redevelopment, urban social movements, property politics and struggles over the right to the city.
Asian urbanism, Global China and circulating urban models
Studying how capital, expertise and models of city-making travel internationally, and using experiences of the Global East to rethink concepts and theories within global urban studies.
Current and emerging research
Current research develops these interests through questions of urban infrastructure, sustainability and digital transformation. Professor Shin is particularly interested in how new infrastructure systems and emerging forms of investment reshape urban and regional development, state strategy and socio-spatial inequality, and how these processes connect Asian urbanisation with transformations elsewhere.
To view more details, please visit Prof Shin’s personal website.
View Hyun’s CV here.
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Research
The Urban Spectre of Global China: Mechanisms, Consequences, and Alternatives for Urban Futures
This collaborative project is based on a British Academy grant for its Tackling the UK's International Challenges programme. The project ran from April 2019 to April 2022 and examined four large-scale property development projects of Chinese capital, to question the ways in which the urban has been reconfigured by China’s global expansion. Visit the project web pagefor further details.
Asian Capital and the Rise of Smart Urbanism
This project was supported by a research grant from the LSE Middle East Centre’s Kuwait Programme, to undertake a SEAC project between September 2019 and June 2021, which aimed to analyse and compare how Asian cities have risen to become reference points for the development of cities in the Global South. The project examined the experience of building new cities branded as smart cities in Kuwait and the Philippines. The Kuwait study was funded by the Kuwait programme Research Grant from the LSE Middle East Centre. Visit the project web pagefor further details.
COVID-19 and Southeast Asia
COVID-19 presented huge challenges to governments, businesses, civil societies and people from all walks of life, but its impact is very much variegated, affecting society in multiple negative ways, with highly uneven geographical and socioeconomic patterns. COVID-19 revealed existing contradictions and inequalities in our society, and compelled us to question what it means to return to 'normal'. In this regard, the research team at LSE Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, led by Professor Hyun Bang Shin, reflected upon what the crises meant for urbanisation, governance and connectivity in Southeast Asia, and contemplated post-COVID-19 urban futures by initially focusing on three themes in particular: community-based initiatives in response to COVID-19; movements of different groups of people in and out of Southeast Asia; digital and technological infrastructures and visualisation. The project resulted in an Open Access edited volume, COVID-19 in Southeast Asia: Insights for a Post-Pandemic World, and a number of blogs on LSE Southeast Asia Blog. Visit the project web pagefor further details.
Professor Shin’s scholarly contributions span four key areas: gentrification, urban political economy, urban struggles, and the circulation of urbanisms. His work on gentrification redefines gentrification as a global yet context-specific process, challenging Western-centric paradigms in urban studies. His research on urban growth politics extends to examining mega-events and megaprojects as tools of state power and capital accumulation, revealing their socio-economic impacts and inequalities. His research on urban struggles underscores the importance of cross-class alliances and context-sensitive interpretations of urban rights. He has also advanced understanding of the global circulation of urbanism, particularly how state-driven urban models in East and Southeast Asia shape global urban futures, often perpetuating inequalities. For each of his key research areas, please visit his research website here.
Professor Shin's research relates to these Department of Geography and Environment research themes: