John Rennie Short

John Rennie Short (born 19 October 1951) is a professor of geography and public policy in the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Short was born in Stirling, Scotland. He was raised in nearby Tullibody, a village in the County of Clackmannanshire. He attended the county grammar school, Alloa Academy. He received the MA in geography from Aberdeen University in 1973. followed by a PhD in geography from the University of Bristol, with a received dissertation, "Residential Mobility in The Private Housing Market of Bristol" (1977). From 1976 to 1978, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences.

In 1978, Short was appointed lecturer in geography at the University of Reading.  From 1985 to 1987, he was also visiting senior research fellow at the Urban Research Unit of the Australian National University. He left Reading in 1990 to join Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs as professor of geography. In 2002, he left Syracuse for an appointment as professor and chair of the Department of Geography and Environmental Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He was appointed to his current position in the School of Public Policy at UMBC in 2005.

Short has published in human geography's subfields, including the urban, the political, the environmental, the economic, and the cultural. His scholarship incorporates social and cultural theory methodologies, archival research strategies, and data analyses. 

Short's work has been presented in television and radio interviews, print interviews in national and special newspapers and essays on scholarly/journalistic websites.

Short's research papers contribute to four main areas of political economy.

The first is an exploration of urban society. Amongst many articles and book chapters, his work includes a long engagement with analysing housing dynamics to broader concerns with generating models of metropolitan change, urban cultural economy, traffic issues, immigration, suburban change, the relationship between globalisation and cities, measuring the extent of globalisation in cities, urban flânerie, urban environmental issues, in a time of climate change, how city regions seek to reposition themselves in discursive space through branding campaigns and event hosting.More recent work has focused on the Global South including the rise of new middle class and the informal economy in the Colombian city of Cali.

A second body of work contributes to broader issues of cultural economy and politics. An influential text, Imagined Country first published in 1991 and reissued in 2005, was an important part of the cultural turn. In that book Short elaborated the idea of national environmental ideologies though the depictions of wilderness, countryside and city in landscape painting, cinema and novels. Otherwork focuses on globalisation, language, wealth, wealth and political power, and wealth and immigration.

A third contribution is topolitical geography and geopolitics. His work on the US includes analyses of elections, voting systems, gerrymandering, and legitimation crisis. Work on geopolitics includes issues in the East China and South China Seas.

The fourth theme, mainly expressed in book form, is the history of cartography. Short builds upon and extends the work of the critical cartographic theorist John Brian Harley to deconstruct maps as social and political texts. Short explores the power dynamics in how the USA and Korea were represented in maps, the creation of a spatial sensitivity in the early modern era, the role of indigenous people in so-called exploration and discovery of the New World, and the emergence of the national atlas as important feature of modern nationalism. He has also penned a general introduction to the subject.

He has promoted the publication of younger scholars’ workthrough editorship of three book series Space Place and Society, Citiesand Critical Introductions to Urbanism and the City.

Authored books

2020  World Regional Geography. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190206703.

2018  The Unequal City: Urban Resurgence, Displacement and The Making of Inequality in Global Cities. Routledge, ISBN 9781138280366.

2018Human Geography: A Short Introduction. (2nd ed.) Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780190679835.

2018  Hosting the Olympic Games: The Real Costs for Cities. Routledge, ISBN 9781138544963.

2018  A Regional Geography of the United States and Canada: Toward A Sustainable Future. Rowman and Littlefield, (Co-authored with Lisa Benton-Short and Chris Mayda), ISBN 9781138280366.

2014  Urban Theory (2nd ed.) Palgrave Macmillan. (Translated into Chinese and Persian), ISBN 9781137382658

2014Human Geography A Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199925124.

2013  Stress Testing The USA: Public Policy and Reaction to Disaster Events. Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 9781137327222.

2013  Cities and Nature (2nd ed.) Routledge (Co-authored with Lisa Benton-Short), ISBN 9780415625562.

2012  Korea: A Cartographic History. University of Chicago Press (Translated into Korean), ISBN 9780226753546

2012Globalization, Modernity and The City. Routledge, ISBN 9780415676922.

2010  Cities and Suburbs: New Metropolitan Realities in the US. Routledge (Co-authored with B. Hanlon and T. Vicino), ISBN 9780415497312.

2009  Cartographic Encounters: Indigenous Peoples and The Exploration of The New World. Reaktion/University of Chicago Press, ISBN 9781861894366.

2008  Cities and Economy. Routledge (Co-authored with Y. Kim). (Translated into Persian), ISBN 9780415365741.

2008 Cities and Nature. Routledge (Co-authored with Lisa Benton-Short). ISBN 9780415355889.

2007  Liquid City: Megalopolis Revisited. Resources for The Future Press/Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 9781933115498.

2006  Alabaster Cities: Urban US Since 1950. Syracuse University Press, ISBN 9780815631057.

2005  Imagined Country. Syracuse University Press (Reprint with new introduction), ISBN 9780815629542.

2004  Making Space: Revisioning The World, 1475–1600. Syracuse University Press, ISBN 9780815630234.

2004  Global Metropolitan. Routledge. (Translated into Persian), ISBN 9780415305419.

2004  Representing the Republic. Reaktion/University of Chicago Press, ISBN 9781861890863.

2003The World Through Maps. Firefly, ISBN 1552978117.

2001Global Dimensions: Space, Place and The Contemporary World Reaktion University of Chicago Press (Translated into Chinese), ISBN 9781861891020.

2000Alternative Geographies. Prentice Hall, ISBN 9781861890863.

1999Globalization and The City. Addison Wesley Longman (Co-authored with Y. Kim) (Translated into Persian), ISBN 0582369126 (paperback).

1999Environmental Discourses and Practice.  Blackwell (Co-authored with L. M. Benton), ISBN 9780631211143.

1998  New Worlds, New Geographies. Syracuse University Press, ISBN 9780815605270.

1996  The Urban Order.  Blackwell (Translated into Korean, Chinese and Persian), ISBN 9781557863614.

1993  An Introduction to Political Geography. Routledge (Second, revised and enlarged, edition) ISBN 9781138157019.

1991Imagined Country: Environment, Culture and Society. Routledge, ISBN 0415038545.

1989The Humane City.  Blackwell (Translated into Korean, 2000), ISBN 9780631158233.

1986Housebuilding, Planning and Community Action. Routledge (Co-authored with S. Fleming and S. Witt) ISBN 9780710207234.

1984The Urban Arena. Macmillan ISBN 9780333361405.

1984An Introduction to Urban Geography. Routledge ISBN 0710098928.

1982Housing in Britain. Methuen ISBN 0416742904.

1982An Introduction to Political Geography. RKP ISBN 0710009658.

1980Urban Data Sources. Butterworths ISBN 0408106409.

1980Housing and Residential Structure.  Routledge. (Co-authored with K. Bassett), ISBN 9780710004406.

Edited books

2017A Research Agenda for Cities. Edward Elgar Agendas (Editor), ISBN 9781785363412.

2008The Sage Companion to The City. Sage (Co-edited with T. Hall and P. Hubbard), ISBN 9781412902076.

2002Globalization and The Margins. Palgrave (Co-edited with R. Grant),ISBN 9780333964316.

2000Environmental Discourses and Practice: A Reader. Blackwell (Co-edited with L. M. Benton),ISBN 0631216367.

1992Human Settlement. Oxford University Press (Editor), ISBN 0195209443.

1985Developing Contemporary Marxism. Macmillan (Co-edited with Z. Baranski), ISBN 0312196598.

1984The Human Geography of Contemporary Britain. Macmillan (Co-edited with A. Kirby), ISBN 0333373162.