Sociology Professor Xuefei Ren awarded new research grant to study Humanity's Urban Future

June 19, 2025

Sociology Professor Xuefei Ren has been awarded a research grant to study Humanity’s Urban Future. 

Ren is a fellow of the Humanity’s Urban Future program run by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).  

The program is designed to consider what we can learn from the urban past and what we can imagine for its future. The fellows study what makes a good city of the future, focusing on six test cities of Calcutta, Toronto, Shanghai, Naples, Mexico City and Kinshasa.  

They are examining the six metro centers, publishing research regarding how they have changed, and engaging with policy makers, political advisors and civic actors.  

Xuefei Ren is a comparative urbanist whose work explores urban governance and the built environment from a global perspective. She is the author of three award-winning books: Governing the Urban in China and India: Land Grabs, Slum Clearance, and the War on Air Pollution (Princeton University Press, 2020), Urban China (Polity, 2013), and Building Globalization: Transnational Architecture Production in Urban China (University of Chicago Press, 2011).