Faculty

Profile

Miguel Robles-Durán is a post-disciplinary urbanist working at the intersection of urban political economy, political ecology, critical geography, and the design of socially and environmentally just urban processes. Born in Mexico City, he is a tenured Associate Professor of Urbanism at The New School / Parsons School of Design in New York, where he founded and directed the MS in Design and Urban Ecologies (2010-2013; 2021-2025), the first graduate program in the United States centered on urban political ecology and social justice. Before joining The New School in 2010 he held professorships at TU Delft, the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, and the Zürich University of the Arts.

With the geographer David Harvey he co-founded Urban Front, a confederated strategic practice with bases in Mexico City, Quito, Barcelona, Rotterdam, and New York that accompanies progressive governments and social movements in realizing the Right to the City. Through Urban Front he has advised national and city governments across the Americas and Europe on housing, urban observatories, cultural infrastructure, and environmental programs, from the institutional design of Mexico City's Urban Observatory to rent stabilization frameworks, cultural-territorial strategy in Ecuador, and anti-gentrification planning in Rotterdam. From 2013 to 2017 he and Harvey co-directed the National Strategy Center for the Right to the Territory (CENEDET) in Ecuador, a state research center for national territorial policy.

In 2008 he co-founded Cohabitation Strategies (CohStra), a non-profit cooperative for socio-spatial research and development that carried out sixteen long-term urban projects across Europe and the Americas, on housing policy, cultural production, territorial development, public infrastructure, and community advocacy, before merging into Urban Front in 2019. He is a founding board member of The Shape of Cities to Come Institute, a New York platform for co-learning and strategic planning in urban activism, and co-founder of Politics In Motion, a non-profit anti-capitalist media organization, where he hosts the podcast and video series Cities After, on the capitalist contradictions of urbanization and the urban futures beyond them.

His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the MAK Museum in Vienna, MAXXI in Rome, La Biennale di Venezia, and the biennials of Istanbul, Shenzhen, Chicago, Rotterdam, and Lisbon. Recent publications include a contribution to Reflections on Democracy and Urban Form (Sternberg Press / MIT Press, 2026) and, with David Harvey, the lead essay of Cuaderno YUYAY: Manual para Gestión Cultural Comunitaria (2024); Cohabitation Strategies: Visions and Actions for the Co-production of Social Space is forthcoming from ORO Editions. He co-edited Urban Asymmetries: Studies and Projects on Neoliberal Urbanization (010 Publishers, 2011). His work and commentary have been featured in The Guardian, El País, and Deutsche Welle.

Research Interests

Urban Political-Ecology, Marxist Political-Economy, Urbanism, Critical Human Geography, Equitable Housing, Urban Theory, Urban Policy, Public Infrastructure, Urban Strategy, Socially-Engaged Urban Practice, Social Urbanism, Eco-Socialism, Cultural Politics.

Portfolio

http://www.cohstra.org/

https://www.urban-front.com/

https://www.politicsinmotion.org/

https://www.shapeofcitiestocome.org/