Researcher

Greet De Block

Research Expertise:Greet De Block is an engineer-architect and urban planner. Her teaching and writing focus on infrastructure as driving force of urbanization, advancing an interdisciplinary approach linking urbanism with urban history, Science Technology and Society studies (STS), political geography, and landscape studies. In addition to historical research on 19th and 20th century infrastructure-urbanization mechanisms, De Block’s research mobilizes history to provide insight in, and critical reflection on, the current urban condition and related urban theories and practices. Recent work mirrors current design with earlier sociospatial schemes dealing with uncertainty and risk in a context of rapid urban transformations. She is coordinator of MSCA Innovative Training Network (ITN) TOD-IS-RUR, conceiving public transport as a backbone for socially Inclusive and environmentally Sustainable urbanization in European Rural-Urban Regions. Drawing on a wide range of European contexts and bringing in expertise from the interdisciplinary domain of urban studies (i.e. mobility studies; landscape research and design; transport justice; planning; social and historical geography; Science & Technology Studies (STS); environmental and transport history), the ITN analyzes rural-urban place-making and develops novel, context-based planning schemes for rural-urban regions. See https://www.todisrur.eu/

Keywords:POLITICAL ECOLOGY, URBANIZATION, LANDSCAPE HISTORY, INFRASTRUCTURES, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, History

Disciplines:Landscape architecture sciences and technology, Urban and regional design, Urbanism and regional planning, Sociology and social studies of science and technology, Regional and urban history

Research techniques:Qualitative, interdisciplinary research methods from the broad field of Urban Studies

Users of research expertise:Academic community Policy makers Urban/landscape designers and planners