Lecture Two: Dark cities and Oligarchic Formations: Illicit finance and money influence in cities

Professor Rowland Atkinson takes the stage at the Geography and Planning Building on Tuesday 3 November, for the second lecture in the Sheffield Urbanism series. He's from the School of Geography and Planning, and the talk is titled Dark cities and Oligarchic Formations: Illicit finance and money influence in cities.

It's part of a wider series run by the Urban Institute, which pairs academic research with public engagement to open up a conversation about urbanisation and urban life. The 2026 run builds on the Faculty of Social Science's 'Finance Urbanism' research, following a long debate about the relationship between the city and finance. Atkinson frames 'dark cities' as those where illicit financial flows become major investment conduits — hubs like London, New York, Dubai and Hong Kong — and hollow out social investment. Alongside that, he looks at 'oligarcities', urban spaces where wealth-influence is increasingly evident. It's a look at how money, especially the kind that stays hidden, shapes the cities we live in.

This is the middle act of the series. It sits between Lecture One: Money and Morale: Finance and the Politics of Hope in Climate-Changing Cities, which ran on Tuesday 13 October, and Lecture Three: Urban Virtualism And The Socio-Technical Organisation Of Expectations, coming on Wednesday 18 November. If you're following the whole thread, this one connects the politics of hope from the first talk to the socio-technical side of the third.

It runs from 4:15pm to 5:45pm in Teaching Room 1 of the Geography and Planning Building, on Winter Street (S3 7ND), and entry is free.