Claire Colomb is Professor of Land Economy (established chair, 1991) with a focus on Planning, Public Policy and Urban Studies. She is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and a chartered Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (MRTPI). She obtained her first degree in Social and Political Sciences from Sciences Po Paris (1998), her PhD in Town Planning from University College London (2008), and an MSc in Politics from SOAS University of London (2024).
Claire has a multi-disciplinary background in political science, sociology and urban planning. Her teaching seeks to embed the role of social sciences in the education of future professionals in the built and natural environment, to foster critical thinking in the search for socially and environmentally equitable policy responses to contemporary urban problems.
Claire joined the University of Cambridge in 2023 and Christ’s College in 2026. Prior to joining the University of Cambridge, she was Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at University College London (UCL Bartlett School of Planning) (2005-2023), and project developer for the European Union transnational co-operation programme INTERREG IIIB (2002-2004). She remains an Honorary Professor at University College London (UCL Bartlett School of Planning).
Her research interests span urban studies, urban and political sociology, urban politics, planning, housing and public policy in an international comparative perspective. The various strands of her research are broadly concerned with understanding the socio-political conflicts around land uses and urban development processes, and the role of public policies (in particular urban policies and planning instruments) in shaping the transformation of the built environment to address social inequalities and the climate and environmental crises. She draws on multi-disciplinary approaches from the social sciences to unpack the public debates, tensions, collaborations and trade-offs between state, market and civil society actors in the governance and regulation of land uses at different scales. The geographical focus of her research has been primarily on Europe (UK, France, Germany, Spain), and is now expanding to South America and India.
Selected Publications:
Aguilera, T., Artioli F., and Colomb, C. (2025) Housing under Platform Capitalism. The Contentious Regulation of Short-Term Rentals in European Cities. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
Colomb, C. and Novy, J. (eds) (2016) Protest and Resistance in the Tourist City. London: Routledge.
Colomb, C. (2011) Staging the New Berlin. Place Marketing and the Politics of Urban Reinvention post-1989. London: Routledge.
Dühr, S., Colomb, C. and Nadin, V. (2010) European Spatial Planning and Territorial Cooperation. London: Routledge.
Photo credit: Claire Colomb
