Christian Schmid is a geographer and urban researcher. He is Professor Emeritus of Sociology in the Department of Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich). His research focuses on planetary urbanization, comparative urban analysis, and theories of urbanization and space. He is a founding member of the International Network for Urban Research and Action (INURA). He wrote a comprehensive reconstruction of Henri Lefebvre’s theory of spatial production, published by Edital Verso in 2022. Together with architects Roger Diener, Jacques Herzog, Marcel Meili, and Pierre de Meuron, he co-authored the book “Switzerland: An Urban Portrait” (2006), a pioneering analysis of extensive urbanization. He is also co-editor of two recently published books on planetary urbanization: “Vocabularies for an Urbanizing Planet: Theory Building through Comparison” (with Monika Streule), on urbanization processes in eight large metropolitan areas; and “Extended Urbanization: Tracing Planetary Struggles” (with Milica Topalović), which presents case studies in different territories of extended urbanization across the globe. Both books are available open access from Birkhauser.