You are here

Urbanisation

Urbanisation

Published in Association with Indian Institute for Human Settlements

eISSN: 24563714 | ISSN: 24557471 | Current volume: 8 | Current issue: 2 Frequency: Bi-annually

‘Urbanisation’, anchored at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bengaluru, India, is a response to a particular moment of 21st century global urbanisation within an increasingly re-arranged world. It aims to publish comparative as well as collaborative interdisciplinary scholarship that will illuminate the global urban condition beginning with a firm footprint in the Global South, i.e. the countries of Asia, Africa and South America.

A platform that brings together interdisciplinary scholarship on the urban, it is equally interested in critical and reflexive discussions on diverse forms and sectors of urban practice. It seeks to do so not only to inform urban theory, policy and practice but also to enable the construction of diverse forms of knowledge and knowledge production needed to enable us to understand contemporary urban life.

The Journal seeks to:

  • Promote theorisation of urban processes from the perspective of a wide range of practices that shape urban life.
  • Publish comparative as well as collaborative interdisciplinary scholarship that will illuminate the global urban condition beginning with a firm footprint in the Global South.
  • Provide a platform that brings together and puts into conversation interdisciplinary scholarship on the urban.
  • Provide a platform that allows critical and reflexive discussion from and on diverse forms and sectors of urban practice.
  • Enable diverse forms of knowledge and knowledge production particularly those that bridge the theory-practice divide as well as disciplinary and methodological boundaries.
  • Learn from and inform urban policy and practice across a range of domains and sectors.

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

The journal aims to:

  • Provide a platform to understand contemporary global urbanisation with a firm footprint in the global South.
  • Build on this new knowledge to re-think the epistemological canon of urbanisation and its associated systems and processes.
  • Reflexively engage with and theorise practice.

To enable these, submissions are encouraged across a variety of sections which are unique to the journal format, such as the following:

  • General Articles (4000-10,000 words)
  • Writing from Practice (up to 10,000 words)
  • Learning and Pedagogy (4000-6000 words)
  • On Method (4000-6000 words)
  • Evaluations and Assessments (4000-6000 words)
  • Review (Book/Film/Exhibition) (800–1,500 words)
  • Visual Essay (3–5 pieces of original work, i.e., paintings/sketches and/or photographs)
  • Poetry (3 poems or 1 long poem)
Editor
Aromar Revi Director, Indian Institute for Human Settlements, India
Editorial Board
Rahul Mehrotra Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard University, MA, USA
Om Mathur Senior Fellow and Head Urban Studies, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi, India
David Satterthwaite Editor, Environment and Urbanization and Senior Fellow, International Institute for Environment and Development, London, UK
Editorial Collective
Amir Bashir Bazaz Senior Lead - Practice, Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), India
Amlanjyoti Goswami Head, Legal & Regulation, Indian Institute for Human Settlements, India
Jagdish Krishnaswamy Dean – School of Environment and Sustainability, Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru, India
Neethi P Consultant – Academics & Research, Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru, India
Pooja Sagar Senior Consultant – Word Lab, Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru, India
Chandni Singh Research Consultant – Practice, Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru, India
Advisory Board
Junaid Ahmad Country Director, World Bank India, India
Adriana Allen Professor, Development Planning and Urban Sustainability at Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London, UK
Xuemei Bai Distinguished Professor, Urban Environment and Human Ecology, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Australia
Eugenie Birch Lawrence C. Nussdorf Chair of Urban Research and Education, Penn Institute for Urban Research, USA
Michael Cohen Director, Studley Graduate Program in International Affairs, Professor of International Affairs, Milano School of International Affairs, The new School, New York, USA
Bert de Vries Professor, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Netherlands
David Dodman Director, Human Settlements Group, International Institute for Environment and Development, London, UK
Arif Hasan Chairperson, Urban Resource Centre, Karachi, Pakistan
Devesh Kapur Starr Foundation South Asia Studies Professor and Asia Programs Director at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C.
Tarun Khanna Jorge Paulo Lehmann Professor, Harvard Business School; Director, South Asia Institute, Harvard University, MA, USA
Sander van der Leeuw Director, Complex Adaptive Systems, Arizona State University (ASU), Phoenix, USA
Brian McGrath Professor of Urban Design, Parsons The New School for Design, New York, USA
Peter Newman Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University, Australia
Susan Parnell Global Challenges Research Professor in the School of Geography at the University of Bristol
Srinath Reddy President, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), New Delhi, India
Debra Roberts Sustainable and Resilient City Initiatives Unit, eThekwini Municipality, Durban, South Africa
Jennifer Robinson University College London, UK
Ananya Roy Professor of Urban Planning and Social Welfare, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA
Rathin Roy Managing Director – Research and Policy, ODI
Bish Sanyal Professor, Director of the Special Program in Urban and Regional Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts, USA
Jessica Seddon Founder & Managing Director, Okapi, Chennai, India
Karen Seto Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science, Yale School of the Environment, New Haven, USA
Awadhendra Sharan Acting Director, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, India
Abdoumaliq Simone Urbanist and Senior Professorial Fellow at the Urban Institute, University of Sheffield
Rafael Tuts Director of the Programme Division, UN Habitat, Nairobi, Kenya
Associate Editors
Ishani Debroy External Consultant – Word Lab, Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru, India
Lubna Duggal Consultant – Word Lab, Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru, India
Namrata Nirmal External Consultant – Word Lab, Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru, India
  • DeepDyve
  • Dutch-KB
  • EBSCO Discovery Service
  • EBSCO: Urban Studies Abstracts
  • J-Gate
  • Portico
  • UGC-CARE (GROUP I)
  • Urbanisation

    This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics

    Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://peerreview.sagepub.com/urb to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. 

    Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Urbanisation will be reviewed. 

    There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

    As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere.

    Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Urbanisation will consider submissions of papers that have been posted on preprint servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the Journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the Journal's author archiving policy.

    If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

    If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal

    1. What do we publish?
    1.1 Aims & Scope
    1.2 Article types
    1.3 Writing your paper

    2. Editorial policies
    2.1 Peer review policy
    2.2 Authorship
    2.3 Acknowledgements
    2.4 Funding
    2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
    2.6 Research data

    3. Publishing policies
    3.1 Publication ethics
    3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
    3.3 Open access and author archiving

    4. Preparing your manuscript
    4.1 Formatting 
    4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
    4.3 Supplemental material
    4.4 Reference style

    5. Submitting your manuscript
    5.1 ORCID
    5.2 Information required for completing your submission
    5.3 Permissions

    6. On acceptance and publication
    6.1 Sage Production
    6.2 Online First publication
    6.3 Access to your published article
    6.4 Promoting your article

    7. Further information

    1. What do we publish?

    1.1 Aims & Scope

    Before submitting your manuscript to Urbanisation, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

    1.2 Article types

    The types of manuscripts accepted for publication in Urbanisation are:

    • General Articles
    • Writing from Practice
    • Book/Film/Exhibition Review
    • On Method
    • Evaluations and Assessments
    • Visual Essay
    • Poetry

    1.3 Writing your paper

    The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

    1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
    For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online 

    Return to Top

    2. Editorial policies

    2.1 Peer review policy

    Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. 
    Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:

    •  The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors
    •  The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper
    •  The author has recommended the reviewer
    •  The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution). 

    2.2 Authorship

    All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

    If the named authors for a manuscript change at any point between submission and acceptance, an Authorship Change Form must be completed and digitally signed by all authors (including any added or removed) . An addition of an author is only permitted following feedback raised during peer review. Completed forms can be uploaded at Revision Submission stage or emailed to the Journal Editorial Office contact (listed on the journal’s manuscript submission guidelines). All requests will be moderated by the Editor and/or Sage staff.

    Important: Changes to the author by-line by adding or deleting authors are NOT permitted following acceptance of a paper.

    Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

    Return to Top

    2.3 Acknowledgements

    All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

    Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

    2.3.1 Writing assistance
    Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

    2.4 Funding

    Urbanisation requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. 

    2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

    Urbanisation encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway

    Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.

    2.6. Research data

    At Sage we are committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research. Where relevant, Urbanisation encourages authors to share their research data in a suitable public repository subject to ethical considerations and where data is included, to add a data accessibility statement in their manuscript file. Authors should also follow data citation principles. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway, which includes information about Sage’s partnership with the data repository Figshare.

    Return to Top

    3. Publishing Policies

    3.1 Publication ethics

    Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway 

    3.1.1 Plagiarism
    Urbanisation and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the Journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

    3.1.2 Prior publication
    If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

    3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement

    Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway

    3.3 Open access and author archiving 

    Urbanisation offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.

    Return to Top

    4. Preparing your manuscript for submission

    4.1 Formatting

    The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. A LaTex template is available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
    The manuscript must include the following:

    • Title of the paper, name of author, author’s affiliation and institutional address with pin code, email id and abstract of not more than 150-200 words. In case there are two or more authors, then corresponding author’s name and postal address details must be clearly specified.
    • The contributors should provide 4–6 keywords for online searchability. 

    For each text citation there must be a corresponding citation in the reference list and for each reference list citation there must be a corresponding text citation. Tables should be provided in editable format. Both tables and figures should be referred to in the text by number separately (e.g., Table 1) not by placement (e.g., see Table below).

    All figures and tables should be cited in the text and should have the source (a specific URL, a reference or, if it is author’s own work, ‘The author(s)’) mentioned irrespective of whether or not they require permissions.

    • The spellings used should be British (UK), with ‘s’ variant, e.g., globalisation instead of globalization, labour instead of labor. For non-English and uncommon words and phrases, use italics throughout the text. Meaning of non-English words should be given in parentheses just after the word when it is used for the first time.
    • Articles should use non-sexist and non-racist language.
    • Spell out numbers from one to nine, 10 and above to remain in figures. However, for exact measurement (e.g., China’s GDP growth rate 9.8 per cent) use numbers. Very large round numbers, especially sums of money, may be expressed by a mixture of numerals and spelled-out numbers (India’s population 1.2 billion). Use thousands and millions, not lakhs and crores. Avoid saying ‘recently’ but rather give the year.
    • Single quotes should be used throughout. Double quote marks are to be used within single quotes. Spellings of words in quotations should not be changed. Quotations of 45 words or more should be separated from the text.
    • Notes should be numbered serially and presented at the end of article. Notes must contain more than a mere reference. However, mere URLs may be incorporated in the endnotes.
    • Use ‘per cent’ instead of % in the text. In tables, graphs, etc., % can be used. Use ‘twentieth century’, ‘the 1990s’.
    • Abbreviations are spelled out at first occurrence. Very common ones (US, GDP, BBC) need not be spelled out.

    References should come at the end of the manuscript. 

    4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

    For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines

    • Figures, including maps, graphs and drawings, should not be larger than page size. They should be numbered and arranged as per their references in the text. All photographs and scanned images should have a resolution of minimum 300 dpi and 1,500 pixels and their format should be TIFF or JPEG. 
    • Due permissions should be taken for copyright protected photographs/images. Even for photographs/images available in the public domain, it should be clearly ascertained whether or not their reproduction requires permission for purposes of publishing (which is a profit-making endeavour).
    • All photographs/scanned images should be provided separately in a folder along with the main article.

    Please Note: All figures and tables should be cited in the text and should have the source (a specific URL, a reference or, if it is author’s own work, ‘The Author’) mentioned irrespective of whether or not they require permissions

    Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article. 

    4.3 Supplemental material

    This Journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files

    4.4 Reference style

    Urbanisation adheres to the APA reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

    Return to Top

    5. Submitting your manuscript

    Urbanisation is hosted on Sage Track Sage, a web based online submission and peer review system. Visit https://peerreview.sagepub.com/urb to login and submit your article online. 

    IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the Journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.  

    5.1 ORCID

    As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized. 

    The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this Journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

    If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more. 

    5.2 Information required for completing your submission

    You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

    5.3 Permissions

    Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway

    Return to Top

    6. On acceptance and publication

    6.1 Sage Production

    Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.

    6.2 Online First publication

    Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

    6.3 Access to your published article

    Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

    6.4 Promoting your article

    Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.

    Return to Top

    7. Further information

    Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Urbanisation editorial office to the email ID: urb.production@iihs.ac.in

    Individual Subscription, Combined (Print & E-access)


    Institutional Subscription, E-access


    Institutional Subscription, Print Only


    Institutional Subscription, Combined (Print & E-access)


    Individual, Single Print Issue


    Institutional, Single Print Issue