Emphasising the social, critical and situated dimensions of the urban, this comprehensive Research Handbook presents a unique collection of theoretical and empirical perspectives on urban sociology. Bringing together expert contributors from across the world, it provides a rich overview and research agenda for contemporary urban sociological scholarship. Chapters highlight the macro-historical context of the urban, and conduct a critical and reflexive review of mainstream theories and concepts. They examine key debates in urban sociology, analysing varied approaches to gentrification, neighbourhood effects, race and gender. Looking beyond the dominant anglophone academic sphere, contributors explore case studies from diverse world regions and local settings. Ultimately, the Research Handbook clarifies and advances the wide range of contemporary sociological approaches to urban studies. The Research Handbook on Urban Sociology will prove to be a vital read for researchers and students across sociology, geography, anthropology, urban planning and design, economics and political science. It will also be of great benefit to practitioners and policy-makers seeking to better understand the urban space. ‘In the lively debates underpinning the globalised, multi-disciplinary field of “urban studies” (and more recently “urban science”), the question of the distinctiveness and continuous relevance of particular disciplines has been increasingly left aside. This Handbook is thus a welcome, thought-provoking and powerful contribution that demonstrates what “difference” a sociological angle to urban phenomena can make within urban studies. It offers a rich array of theoretical and empirical contributions on “the social” in urban processes, written by new generations of scholars from multiple linguistic traditions beyond the Anglophone world who revisit classical perspectives with recent critical and radical approaches.’ -- Claire Colomb, University of Cambridge, UK ‘Standing on the shoulders of the “New Urban Sociology”, this Handbook manifests fresh and critical efforts in contemporary urban sociology to adjust the capacities of urban research to the global realities of the 2020s. With cutting-edge theorisations and rich empirical case studies from around the world it brings the accumulated knowledge of urban sociology to bear on the array of pressing current challenges, and at the same time reinvigorates the perspective of critical urban sociology within the interdisciplinary chorus of urban studies.’ -- Margit Mayer, Centre for Metropolitan Studies, Freie Universität, Germany ‘What readers will find in-between these book covers is a Handbook in the original and productive sense: a book that provides comprehensive knowledge, covering a wide range of topics as well as geographies. This Handbook will provide food for thought and advance the ongoing conversation about urban sociology in its many facets.’ -- Catharina Thörn, Gothenburg University, Sweden ‘In an excellent collection of essays that outline the contours defining urban sociology, we are introduced to a new perspective to comprehend contemporary urban sociological imagination. In this Research Handbook we can explore categories, analyse the discursive and distinguish it from the practices that structure the material, the political and the cultural as these are lived in relation to physical space. This Handbook of original research essays presents to us an incisive analysis of what sociology can offer to urban studies- a criticality and a reflexivity regarding received theories combining it with an empirical analysis of how capitalism and the state impact the urban, the complex ways structural inequalities and exclusions affect segregation and shape group agencies and how in turn, these affect urban forms and refashion them. A must read for all students, researchers and teachers.’ -- Sujata Patel, University of Hyderabad, India and editor of Neoliberalism, Urbanization and Aspirations in Contemporary India ‘This rich and varied collection, focused on recent theory and research, will educate and stimulate students of the city from across the social sciences and the humanities.’ -- Loïc Wacquant, University of California, Berkeley, US, and author of The Invention of the “Underclass” and Bourdieu in the City ‘An excellent overview that covers a rich and varied collection of urban sociological scholarship. Accessible, comprehensive, engaging, and always with a critical edge – this is a vital overview of recent thinking about cities. The collection gives space to up-and-coming young scholars from a variety of regional backgrounds, bringing both fresh air into long-established debates and offering new perspectives on what an urban sociology for the 21st century might look like. A must-read for urban scholars and students alike.’ -- Matthias Bernt, Leibniz-Institute for Research on Society and Space, Germany, and author of The Commodification Gap E