About the Award
Every two years, the International Planning History Society chooses the best dissertation in the field of planning history written in English and completed during the two years preceding the IPHS international conference. IPHS endeavours to foster the study of planning history worldwide. It seeks to advance scholarship in the fields of urbanism, history, planning and the environment, focusing particularly on cities from the late nineteenth century. Scholars around the world have contributed important books, articles and digital projects on planning history. IPHS celebrates this research through a number of awards and prizes in line with its mission to foster the study of international planning history. Through these recognitions it also celebrates the legacy of key (founding) members, Peter Hall, Tony Sutcliffe, and other inspirational figures.
The 2026 Anthony Sutcliffe Dissertation Award was given to Dr. Carmelo Ignaccolo, Assistant Professor.
Ignaccolo’s Behind the Waterfront: Enduring Inequities and Illusive Renewals in the Making of Mediterranean Port Cities, was described by the prize committee chair as “a dense and in-depth study of Mediterranean port cities. From an impressive range of windows upon planning history and different analytical approaches, it explores how forms of spatial inequities persist in the physical forms, political processes, and socio-cultural milieux of port cities by questioning what was irremediably altered, what has partially endured, and what has been reconstructed over time.
Including historical GIS, computational methods, spatial analysis and the application of a “behind the waterfront” framework, the thesis connects the analysis of governance schemes (power), technical mechanisms (progress), and socioeconomic effects (poverty) shaping water-facing development patterns in Mediterranean port cities.”