Jennifer Robinson is Professor of Urban Geography at the Open University in the UK and has also worked at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, and the LSE in London. She has published widely on South African cities, especially on the spatiality and politics of apartheid and post-apartheid cities, notably, The Power of Apartheid (Heinemann, 1996). Her most recent book, Ordinary Cities (Routledge, 2006) offers a post-colonial critique of urban studies. She is currently working on re-grounding comparative methods to support a more properly international urban studies, and developing a comparative research project on the politics of city strategies.