Kathy Pain
Professor of Real Estate Development
Research Excellence Framework (REF) Lead

Specialisms
- Processes of urbanization, agglomeration and city integration in the networked world economy;,
- Intersections between the practices and global location strategies of advanced international financial and business services, and commercial real estate investment;,
- Mega-city region economic change and spatial development, policy and sustainablity.
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Kathy’s research focuses on sustainable city and regional development, governance and planning under conditions of contemporary globalization. She is a Co-Director of the Globalization & World Cities (GaWC) Research Network leading GaWC’s Global City Planning research. Drawing on her interdisciplinary practitioner-academic background, Kathy’s research innovatively links social sciences concepts and theories to quantitative and qualitative data, shedding light on dynamic social, economic and financial networks and flows for public and private sector end-users. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and a member of the UK ESRC Peer Review College.
Kathy’s research on the sustainable management of polycentric mega-city regions with Sir Peter Hall, published in The Polycentric Metropolis: Learning from mega-city regions in Europe (ISBN-10 1-84407-329-7), continues to inform policy thinking on sustainable spatial planning and urban governance worldwide. Kathy’s engagement as an expert has included the UK, Europe, North America, the Middle East and the Pacific Asia region; examples include: the UK Treasury Fourth Economic Test for entry to Economic Monetary Union on the financial services industry and City wholesale markets; South East England Statutory Regional Policy Guidance Review; Canada's Asia Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative; China’s global mega-city region development; Abu Dhabi global city development strategy; United States mega-region development; regional development planning for the Sydney global city-region; and strategy for the East Asian Pan-Yellow Sea Region. Her recent research for the Urban Land Institute and New Climate Economy Urban Transitions Global Commission into associations between urban density and risk-adjusted commercial real estate investment returns, is being drawn on in her current five years study funded by the UK Medical Research Council, exploring how urban development private sector practitioners and policy-makers can together better support long-term resilient human health and well-being. Kathy has served on the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) 'Vision for Cities' Global Sustainability Task Group, the UK Smart Cities All Party Parliamentary Group, the Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership Industrial Productivity Commission. She serves on the Institut Louis Bachelier Business School Scientific Council, Paris, and is an Expert Advisor to Chengdu Municipal Government and the Guangzhou Academy of Social Science Urban Strategy Research Institute, China.
Qualifications
- PhD (Reading)
- Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Diploma in Town Planning
- RTPI Corporate Member
- Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society / Institute of British Geographers
Current PhD students
Ijeoma Emeghe: Housing Quality and Mental Well-being Valuation. First supervisor
Jane Bennett: Neuro-atypical navigation: Can mapping Reading’s sensescape of pedestrian urban spaces improve the user experience of neurodivergent adult women? Second supervisor
Selected Publications
Shi, S., Pain, K. and Chen, X., Looking into mobility in the Covid-19 ‘eye of the storm’: Simulating virus spread and urban resilience in the Wuhan city region travel flow network, 2022, Cities: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.citi...
Zhu, B., Pain, K., Derudder, B., Taylor, P. Exploring External Urban Relational Processes: Inter-city Financial Flows complementing Global City-Regions, Regional Studies, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2021.1921136.
Pain, K., Shi, S. Cities, Networks, Polycentrism: Examining the place of polycentrism in spaces of flows, Cities and Networks Handbook, Neal, Z., Rozenblat, C. (eds.), 2021 Cheltenham, Edward Elgar. ISBN 978 1 78811 471 4.
Pain, K., Shi, S., Black, D., Blower, B., Grimmond, S., Hunt, A., Milcheva, S. Crawford, B., Dale, N., Doolin, S., Manna, S. Real estate investment and urban density: Exploring the PUR territorial governance agenda using a topological lens, Territory, Politics, Governance, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2020.1837665
Shi, S., Pain, K. The resonance of spatial proximity and network capital in regional development: Evidence from the Mid-Yangtze River Region, China, Urban Studies, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098019894232.
Pain, K. Land Use Policy and Governance of Real Estate Development, Routledge Real Estate Companion, Squires, G., Heurkens, E., Peiser, R. (eds.), 2018, London, Routledge, 370-384. ISBN 978-1-138-91434-6.
Pain, K. World City, The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment and Technology (IEG), Richardson, D., Castree, N., Goodchild, M.F., Kobayashi, A.L., Liu, W., Marston, R. (eds.), 2017, Association of American Geographers, Chichester, John Wiley & Sons, 1-9. ISBN 978-0-470-65963-2. IEG Book Award for Outstanding Academic Title 2017.
Pain, K. Megaregions Imaginaries: Excursions through a maze, Geographical Review, 106(2), 2016, 536-550. ISSN 1931-0846.
Pain, K. The Strategic Planning Protagonist: Unveiling the global mega-city region, Sir Peter Hall – Pioneers in Regional Planning, Transport and Urban Geography, Knowles R. and Rozenblatt, C. (eds.) International Geographical Union Commission on Transport and Geography and Urban Commission, Springer, 2016, 59-80. ISBN 978-3-319-28054-7 / 978-3-319-28056-1.
Pain, K., Van Hamme, G. Europe as a Global Macro-Region: How is economic geography changing the Cohesion policy challenge? Regional Studies Association Conference, ‘Challenges for the New Cohesion Policy in 2014-2020: An Academic and Policy Debate’, Riga, Latvia, 04-06 February 2015, 40-41. ISBN 978-92-79-45233-8 / 978-92-79-45232-1.
Pain, K., Van Hamme, G., Vinciguerra, S., Global networks, cities and economic performance: Observations from an analysis of cities in Europe and the US, Urban Studies, 53(6), 2015, 1137-1161. ISSN 0042-0980.
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Kathy PainProjects in Real Estate and Planning (2)
Summary module description:The module provides students with an opportunity to apply during part 2, subject knowledge gained during part 1, and to obtain and apply new real estate sector knowledge...
Cities, Regions and Strategic Governance
This module includes independent student research on a group work and an individual basis. ...
Most recent news & media
Older news & media
Medical Research Council UKPRP, ‘Tackling the Root Causes of Unhealthy Planning, Economics and Decision-making: An Urban Systems Approach, (TRUED Urban Systems)’, 2019-2014.
China Municipal Government / National Business Daily, ‘Global Chengdu: An Analysis of Chengdu’s Position in the Global Economy’, 2018.
Urban Land Institute / New Climate Economy, ‘Supporting Smart Urban Growth: Successful Investing in Density’, 2016-17.
European Spatial Observation Network (ESPON), Continental Territorial Structures and Flows (Globalization): ‘TIGER: Territorial Impact of Globalization for Europe and its Regions’, 2010–2012.
Reading Community Interest Company / Reading Diamond Forum, ‘The Reading Diamond Local Economic Assessment’, 2010.
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), ‘Benchmarking the World City Network: City Connectivities on the Eve of the Financial Crisis’, 2009–2010.
National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, ‘Project to map and measure the absorptive capacity of UK cities and regions’, 2008.
European Commission INTERREG IIIB North-West Europe, ‘POLYNET: Sustainable Management of European Polycentric Mega-City Regions’, 2003-2006.
Specialisms
- Processes of urbanization, agglomeration and city integration in the networked world economy;
- Intersections between the practices and global location strategies of advanced international financial and business services, and commercial real estate investment;
- Mega-city region economic change and spatial development, policy and sustainablity.
Location
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