Colin McFarlane book award

Professor Colin McFarlane has been announced as the winner of the 2025 Pattis Family Foundation Global Cities Book Award! At the Metropolis 40th Anniversary Congress in Seoul, the award was presented to Colin McFarlane for his book Waste and the City: The Crisis of Sanitation and the Right to Citylife. Colin's work reframes sanitation as central to democracy, equity, and public health, and calls for renewed investment and activism to address one of the most urgent yet neglected urban challenges.

Congratulations to Colin on this recognition. Colin said "I am hugely grateful for the opportunity to draw further attention to the growing global sanitation crisis in cities. This is a crisis that impacts millions of lives every day, but we have collectively failed to give sanitation the priority it surely deserves. When sanitation is placed at the centre of urban planning, policy and budgeting, the transformations are vast, not only for health and human dignity but also for education, economic productivity, and environment". You can read an interview with Colin on the Metropolis website: Sanitation as a Right: Colin McFarlane’s Vision for Cities - Metropolis