Dr Madeleine Pill
School of Geography and Planning
Senior Lecturer
+44 114 222 6183
Full contact details
School of Geography and Planning
Room D20
Geography and Planning Building
Winter Street
Sheffield
S3 7ND
- Profile
-
My work takes a critical approach to the theory and practice of governance and policy at the urban/ local/ neighbourhood scales. I am interested in how state-society relationships are adapting to globalising transformations in variegated ways, including strategies of collaboration, collective action and contestation.
I completed my undergraduate degree (Geography, 1992) at Oxford University, and have postgraduate degrees in demography (Cardiff University, 1993), regeneration (University of Westminster, 1999), and a Master in Public Administration (Harvard University, 2001).
This training supported my pre-Phd career in urban policy, research and practice, including as a local government regeneration manager, in planning for housing supply in central (UK) and state (Australian) government, and as a researcher at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
After completing my PhD (2010) and a post-doctoral fellowship (at Cardiff University), I was senior lecturer in public policy at the University of Sydney (2015-2019). I joined the University of Sheffield in 2020.
I am Deputy Director (Cities, Environment and Liveability pathway) for the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership and am the Department’s Director of Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion.
- Research interests
-
My critical approach to the theory and practice of governance and policy at the urban/ local/ neighbourhood scales takes a comparative perspective with a particular emphasis on the UK, US and Australia.
I am interested in changing state-society relationships and the scope for and limits to governments and citizens enabling or engendering change, equitable urban policy and international policy transfer.
My research into neighbourhood governance includes a comparative investigation in Baltimore (US) and Bristol; an assessment of approaches in London; development of the evidence base for policy approaches in Wales; and regarding the implications of England’s localism agenda.
My international comparative research on collaborative urban governance under austerity draws on research in Cardiff and Baltimore as part of major, interdisciplinary research teams.
I explore shifts in local government policy and practice, including changing forms of collaboration and attitudes towards inculcating, regulating or restricting informality; the rise of co-production as a contested approach; new municipalism and community wealth building; and the governance roles played by non-state actors, such as third sector organisations, ‘ed and med’ anchor institutions and philanthropic foundations.
My Australian research includes informal housing in Sydney and the governance implications of the UK to Australia policy transfer of place-based funding deals.
Current and recent research projects
- Core cities creative ecology model (2020-21) AHRC
- Strategic Planning, City Deals and Affordable Housing (2018-2020) Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute
- Organising the 21st Century City: An International Comparison of Urban Alliances as Citizen Engagement (2017-20) The Halloran Trust
- Informal accommodation and vulnerable households in metropolitan Sydney: the scale, drivers and policy responses (2017-18) Sydney Policy Lab
- Collaborative Governance under Austerity: An eight-case Comparative Study (2015-18) ESRC Urban Transformations
- Transgob: the role of participatory urban governance in times of crisis and austerity (2013-15) Spanish Government National R&D Plan Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness
- Publications
-
Books
- New Developments in Urban Governance. Bristol University Press.
- Governing Cities. Springer International Publishing.
Journal articles
- Australian adaptation of UK dealmaking: towards state rescaling?. Local Government Studies.
- Neighbourhood collaboration in co-production: state-resourced responsiveness or state-retrenched responsibilisation?. Policy Studies.
- Hidden homes? Uncovering Sydney’s informal housing market. Urban Studies. View this article in WRRO
- The city under COVID‐19: Podcasting as digital methodology. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie. View this article in WRRO
- The everyday local state? Opening up and closing down informality in local governance. Local Government Studies, 1-22. View this article in WRRO
- Embedding in the city? Locating civil society in the philanthropy of place. Community Development Journal, 54(2), 179-196. View this article in WRRO
- The jewel in the crown : co-optive capacity and participation during austerity in Cardiff and San Sebastián-Donostia. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 42(6), 1096-1113. View this article in WRRO
- Local governance under austerity: hybrid organisations and hybrid officers. Policy & Politics, 46(3), 409-425. View this article in WRRO
- The austerity governance of Baltimore’s neighborhoods : “The conversation may have changed but the systems aren’t changing”. Journal of Urban Affairs, 42(1), 143-158. View this article in WRRO
- Locating localism: statecraft, citizenship and democracy
, by Jane Wills, Bristol, UK, Policy Press, 2016, 264 pp., £24.99, ISBN: 978-1447323082
Locating localism: statecraft, citizenship and democracy
, by Jane Wills, Bristol, UK, Policy Press, 2016, 264 pp., £24.99, ISBN: 978-1447323082. Urban Geography, 38(4), 628-630.
- Can the State Empower Communities through Localism? An Evaluation of Recent Approaches to Neighbourhood Governance in England. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 33(2), 289-304.
- Community Empowerment or a Strategy of Containment? Evaluating Neighbourhood Governance in the City of Westminster. Local Government Studies, 38(6), 731-751.
- Hollowing Out Neighbourhood Governance? Rescaling Revitalisation in Baltimore and Bristol. Urban Studies, 49(10), 2199-2217.
- Empowerment or abandonment? Prospects for neighbourhood revitalization under the big society. Public Money & Management, 32(3), 193-200.
- Stay, Leave or Return? Patterns of Welsh Graduate Mobility. People Place and Policy Online, 5(3), 135-148.
- The Continuing Popularity of the Neighbourhood and Neighbourhood Governance in the Transition from the ‘Big State’ to the ‘Big Society’ Paradigm. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 29(5), 927-942.
- Rethinking the ‘local state’ and local capacity. Local Government Studies, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), 1-10.
- ‘Moving from protest to policy’: civil society responses to carceral governance. City, 1-20.
- Location, Location… Employment? Understanding Welsh graduate mobility over time. Welsh Economic Review, 23(0), 25-25.
- Neighbourhood initiatives in Wales and England: shifting purposes and changing scales. People, Place and Policy Online, 76-89.
Chapters
- Urban government In Vogel RH (Ed.), Handbook of Urban Politics and Policy (pp. 240-254). Edward Elgar Publishing
- Partnerships in Shrinking Cities: Making Baltimore ‘Liveable’?, Partnerships for Livable Cities (pp. 231-249). Springer International Publishing View this article in WRRO
- Philanthropic Foundations in the City Policy Process: A Perspective on Policy Capacity from the United States, Policy Capacity and Governance (pp. 313-335). Springer International Publishing
- Australian Politics and Policy Sydney University Press View this article in WRRO
Book reviews
- Why isn’t government policy more preventive?. Local Government Studies.
Reports
- Strategic planning, ‘city deals’ and affordable housing View this article in WRRO
- Urban productivity and affordable rental housing supply in Australian cities and regions
Preprints
- Urban productivity and affordable rental housing supply in Australian cities and regions, Center for Open Science.
- New Developments in Urban Governance. Bristol University Press.
- Teaching activities
-
I have been a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2014.
I teach on the following modules:
- TRP6402 Perspectives on Spatial Planning and Development
- TRP6403 Values in Planning
- TRP215 Researching the city: applied skills for practice
- TRP326 Values, Theory and Ethics in Spatial Planning
- TRP 4012-6019 Citizen Participation in Planning and Development
- TRP473-673 Mega urban projects