Parker 2015, Pp. 159-180

Chapter 9
The majority urban world:

The growth and development
of cities in the Global South
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 23:21 18 January 2017
The city itself is produced through the politics of poverty.

Ananya Roy, City Requiem, Calcutta
INTRODUCTION per square kilometre (p/km2) to 61. In sub-Saharan

Africa population density is predicted to almost
According to official international population figures, double from 28 to 54 p/km2. By contrast, the
sometime between 2009 and 2010 the world became population density of the world’s most affluent
majority urban. Shortly after 2030, if not before, regions is predicted to increase by less than 10 per
three fifths of the world’s population will be living in cent by 2030, from 22 to 24 p/km2 (UN-Habitat,
towns and cities. The United Nations estimates that 2011: 193–198).
by 2050 the world’s population is expected to reach However not all researchers agree with
9.3 billion, an increase of 2.3 billion on the 7 billion UN-Habitat’s dramatic account of the population
people who inhabited the world in 2011 (United explosion in the Global South. ‘The received wisdom
Nations, 2012). 2.6 billion more people are expected that Africa is urbanising faster than any other
to crowd into the world’s cities and towns within the continent in the world’, has been challenged by
next four decades with the consequence that the research undertaken by Africapolis, which claims
3.6 billion planetary urban dwellers that existed in that ‘the urbanisation level in West Africa will rise by
2011 will rise to 6.3 billion by 2050. A near doubling less than 3%, to 34.6% of the total population, in the
of the urban population in the Global South will be period 2000–2020’.60 Because there is no commonly
accompanied by a reduction of rural inhabitants by agreed definition of what constitutes an urban area as
0.3 billion in the same period (United Nations, a comparative global measure, urbanisation estimates
2012). As the United Nations Report notes, are bound to vary depending on the thresholds
‘Population growth is therefore becoming largely an chosen for population density, size of settlement and
urban phenomenon concentrated in the developing infrastructure. For example, the proportion of
world’ (David Satterthwaite, 2007 in United surface area that is impermeable (i.e. due to paved
Nations, 2012: 1). roads, streets, permanent buildings etc.) may be a
Most of these new world citizens will be poor good measure of urbanisation in affluent, developed
urban dwellers. The human effects of this increased economies but it is not the best way of recording the
urbanisation and population size will be felt most size and growth of informal settlements that may in
acutely in the towns and cities of the less developed all other respects be recognisably ‘urban’. It is also
countries where by 2030 the United Nations predicts notoriously difficult to collect accurate population
that population density will increase from 33 persons statistics for many parts of the world, and census
159
THE MAJORITY URBAN WORLD
EXHIBIT 9.1 ANDY MERRIFIELD, ‘THE URBANIZATION OF THE WORLD’
Millions of peasants and smallholders across the globe spitting others out of the gentrifying center, forcing
are each year thrown off their rural land by big agri- poor urban old-timers and vulnerable newcomers to
business, by corporate export farming, by the ‘rational’ embrace each other out on the periphery, out on
dynamics of the neoliberal world market; these people assorted zones of social marginalization, out on the
lose the means to feed themselves as well as the means global banlieue. The urbanization of the world is
to make a little money. So they come to an alien habi- a kind of exteriorization of the inside as well as
tat they can little afford or understand, a habitat which interiorization of the outside: the urban unfolds into
is now strangely neither meaningfully urban nor exclu- the countryside just as the countryside folds back
sively rural, but a blurring of both realities, a new real- into the city.
ity the result of a push–pull effect, a vicious process Source: Andy Merrifield, ‘The Right to the City and Beyond’,
of dispossession, sucking people into the city while City, Vol. 15, Nos. 3–4, 2011, p. 474.
counts can be prone to manipulation especially where the greatest emerging economy in the world –
resources or political advantages are attached to the Shanghai in the People’s Republic of China. We then
under or over recording of certain territories and move north to the former Soviet Union and
population groups. specifically the Russian Federation whose embrace of
As Andy Merrifield (Exhibit 9.1) suggests, we capitalism since the 1990s has yielded vast rewards
cannot really understand the urbanisation of the for its oligarchic elites, while inequality has been
world without paying heed to broader structural particularly marked both within cities and between
factors such as the forced displacement of poor urban and rural populations.
farmers, the generation of many millions of South America, our next destination, is half a
precarious and often very young migrants who have world away from Eurasia, but it shares languages and
no chance of a livelihood other than that provided by religious identities from European settlement and an
the global urban periphery or banlieu, while many experience of exploitation of forced labour and
longer established poorer residents of the urban core colonisation with Africa and Asia. At the same time
find themselves expelled by gentrifying private Latin America exhibits strong indigenous
capital and state authorities to make way for the next characteristics and forms of urbanisation that require
generation of moneyed elites. careful contextual interpretations. We then turn
In the remainder of this chapter we begin by again to the east, and specifically to the Indian sub-
examining the extraordinary growth in the size and continent, in order to explore the particular dynamics
number of megacities in the Global South before of urbanism and urbanisation in the world’s most
going on to consider some exemplary cases of populous democracy. The conclusion to the chapter
contemporary urbanism beyond the confines of the attempts to make sense of the variety of these urban
Western city. Beginning in Africa, whose cities are experiences drawing on some of the most influential
home to some of the largest and youngest urban and insightful theories on the nature of urbanism in
populations in the world, we try to untangle the the Global South.
myth of the typical ‘African city’ by exploring the
diversity of its urban experiences. We then
THE RISE OF THE MEGACITY
investigate the processes behind the dramatic
urbanisation of the Arabian Gulf and its most A megacity is defined by the United Nations as a
archetypal spectacular city Dubai. Moving further continuous metropolitan area with a population in
east we shift our focus to the fastest growing city in excess of ten million inhabitants. One in eight urban
160
dwellers live in the 28 megacities with populations of market for industrial labour so much as from a desire
ten million or more. By 2030 the number of to escape rural poverty and conflict which even the
megacities is expected to increase to 41 (United most marginal and precarious existence in the towns
Nations Department of Economic and Social and cities of the Gobal South offers (Rodgers et al.,
Affairs, 2014: 2). Koonings and Krujit note that, 2012a).
by 2025, of the 15 largest cities in the world, no The speed of urbanisation in the Global South has
fewer than 13 will be found in the Global South often been compared with that of England and the
including all of the cities with over 20 million United States at the height of the industrial revolution,
inhabitants – Mumbai/Bombay, Delhi, Dhaka, São but many experts in the economics of development
Paolo, Mexico City, Kolkata/Calcutta and most are cautious of drawing parallels between the rapid
likely Shanghai (Koonings and Kruijt, 2009: 10). growth in the cities of the Global South and the
Rapid urbanisation is also leading to the expansion metropolitan development of cities such as London,
in the number of cities of between one and ten New York and Chicago in the nineteenth and
million inhabitants where the majority of the twentieth centuries.
Global South’s (and indeed the world’s) population First, the role of the state in the urbanisation
will be concentrated in the next ten to 20 years of the capitalist industrialised economies has
(United Nations Department of Economic and Social been prominent and decisive. Cities may have
Affairs, 2014: 2). grown as the result of suburban sprawl but such
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries developments have on the whole been regulated and
when the major cities of the world were almost supported by the provision of public highways,
exclusively found in the northern hemisphere, schools and amenities. In cities such as Mumbai,
urbanisation was associated with overcrowded and Manila or São Paolo, the population of the informal
inadequate housing, poor sanitation, disease, pov- city massively outnumbers the inhabitants of the
erty, crime and social unrest. However, this was formal city. This civic exclusion from the benefits of
often accompanied by major infrastructural invest- ordinary city life – from education to sanitation –
ments in roads and public transportation, better creates significant barriers for the ultimate inte-
sewerage and street lighting, the building of schools gration of the two cities. Barriers that those who
and health services and the creation of police and enjoy the benefits of a recognised stake in the life of
emergency services all of which led to increased life the city are often keen to maintain. Second, the
expectancy, literacy and economic development exclusion of the majority of the population from
even among the poorest social classes. Coordinating the formal economy in the cities of the Global
the social and economic life of the metropolis were a South leads to the development of alternative forms
penumbra of local authorities whose personnel of economic activity. This often assumes an illicit or
contributed their professional expertise and knowl- semi-licit character but in the absence of the state and
edge to solving the many problems of the diverse the provision of public goods or services the marginal
and growing cities – from youth services to town urban population has little choice but to fend for itself
planning and environmental health. and to operate its own system of security and justice
The industrial revolution and a burgeoning (Simone, 2010; Rodgers et al., 2012b). Third, the
global capitalist economy, which was dominated reliance on kinship networks, faith groups and famil-
by the United States, Canada and Europe did ial ties to the rural community while not absent from
much to defray the cost of metropolitan growth patterns of urbanisation in the Global North afford
which in turn provided the spatial context for southern cities a particular character that is a long
Fordism and Taylorism to flourish. By contrast, until way from the detached, anonymity of Simmel’s
recently, urbanisation in Africa, Asia and Latin Berlin or Benjamin’s Paris at the end of the
America has not generally been driven by the nineteenth century.
161
This in turn gives rise to forms of social and no serious provision for the non-European
economic organisation and mobilisation that defy population, especially Africans’. ‘Although Africans
Western models of political organisation and urban and Asians eventually united and overthrew
governance and which often pose a challenge for colonial rule’, Otiso continues, ‘they still struggle
mainstream political parties and formal institutions with the injurious legacy of near-total European
in developing states as well (Koonings and Kruijt, control of urban spaces in the colonial period’
2009: 11). As we shall see in the following chapter, (Otiso, 2009: 93).
environmental factors such as climate change also Sean Fox also sees Africa’s rather unique
have major implications for cities in the Global South urbanisation process as being closely tied to the
where a lack of infrastructure and the presence of continent’s colonial history, as well as its geography
large populations that lack the means often to cope and ecology. He writes
with the everyday costs of health, education,
transport and personal security are particularly Africa’s urban transition was set in motion by
vulnerable to increased threats from floods, water technologies and institutions introduced in the
shortages, the rising cost of food and epidemic late colonial period that facilitated mortality
diseases. These threats and challenges are most decline (and a subsequent population boom in
acutely felt in the world’s fastest growing and the region) and increased the availability of
youngest continent of cities – Africa. surplus food supplies.
(Fox, 2012: 296)
THE ‘AFRICAN CITY’: BETWEEN
Sub-Saharan Africa suffered considerably from the
MYTH AND REALITY
global oil price shocks of the 1970s and the foreign
As one prominent analyst of urban Africa observes, donor imposed squeeze on public and private
‘[t]he breadth, diversity, and complexity of the investments as a result of the structural adjustment
continent and its urban areas seem to make it absurd programmes of the 1980s (what Fox calls a
and reductionist to speak of “the African city”, or ‘postcolonial adjustment effect’).
even of “African cities” . . . as if there is a type, or
even several types that belong to a distinct set’. The consequences in urban areas were
Repelled by the totalising and essentialising logic of severe. Public and private sector employ-
‘the African city’ – James Ferguson argues that ment contracted sharply, real wages declined,
anthropologists have taken refuge in ‘writing about investments in housing and urban infrastructure
only the narrow corner of the continent that they came to a virtual standstill, and the rural/urban
have come to know’, thus leaving broader discussion wage gap that arose in the early independence
of ‘Africa’ to ‘journalistic and policy visions’ that are era essentially vanished . . . Yet urbanization
‘misleading, factually incorrect, and often racist’ and urban population growth rates remained
(Ferguson, 2006: 3 in Myers, 2011: 2–3). generally high in Africa, with a few notable
Despite important improvements in human exceptions [see Potts, 2010]. This can be
development measures in a number of African cities explained by continued mortality decline and by
in recent years, as Garth Myers writes, in Africa’s steady surplus expansion sustained by imports
cities where, ‘every country except for Liberia spent and aid.
at least some years being ruled by Europeans . . . it (Fox, 2012: 298)
is easy to see colonialism’s scars’ (Myers, 2011: 22).
Thus in Kenya, most of its urban areas ‘have a While this account helps us to understand the
European character since they were founded for and demographic and economic trends that are driving
by Europeans. Thus, colonial urban managers made Africa’s urbanisation, it does not explain why African
162
cities are so culturally and organisationally different DIY satellite dish trumpets the new urban order of
from those found in other parts of the world. If cyberville.
Broadacre City was the blue-print for the Western However, this is not to deny the existence of
‘functional city’, Lagos in the African state of Nigeria socio-spatial inequality in the informal urbanism that
must qualify as one of the least functional of the is to be found in many African cities. As Yunusa
world’s major metropolises. Lagos ‘inverts every writes,
essential characteristic of the so-called modern city’,
but yet, ‘it is still . . . a city; and one that works’ [t]he upper and middle class often inhabit the
(Koolhaas and The Harvard Project on the City, low- and medium-density residential areas in
2001: 652). The Harvard Project on the City’s Nigeria. The high-density areas are left for the
reading of Lagos rejects developmentalist and poor. The use and control of urban densities is
dependency theory models that would see the central to the protection of public interest in the
Nigerian megalopolis at an earlier evolutionary stage sense of preventing ‘conditions injurious or haz-
of the Western capitalist city in favour of it ardous to the physical well being of the people
representing ‘a developed, extreme, paradigmatic of the community’.
case-study of a city at the forefront of globalizing (Chapin 1965: 41 cited in Yunusa, 2005: 178)
modernity’ (ibid.: 653). This is a very important
insight because it highlights the ways in which the But ‘the community’ in this context means those
complexes of consumption are not just questions for with access to resources including key utilities such
the sociologists of affluence, but that the poor as clean running water, electricity and secure hous-
inhabitants of some of the world’s most overcrowded ing. In reality, according to the United Nations
cities have a capacity for shifting family resources, International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (Yunusa,
goods and capital around global spaces that would 2005: 178), such zoning plans are often subverted by
leave the well-healed Cosmocrats of Battery Park or high rates of urbanisation that lead ‘to the widespread
London’s Docklands open-mouthed with wonder creation of danger zones’, defined as areas with a
(see also Smith, 2001). ‘lack of planning, poor street networks and barely
Typical of many African cities is the expropriation inhabitable structures’. These types of settlement are
of ‘public infrastructure’ such as the Oshodi road– also ‘prone to disasters such as flooding and fire’, and
rail intersection in Lagos which has become a large are confronted ‘with serious problems of unemploy-
informal market, where ‘all along its length, the ment, serviceability, livability and management’.
roadsides have been annexed and overrun with Echoing Engels’ dismal assessment of mortality and
trading activities’ (ibid.: 693). ‘Oshodi’s traders and morbidity in the rapidly populating slums of
transport businesses have literally annexed the Manchester in the 1840s, Knox and Marston claim
transport infrastructure . . . and have even taken that ‘10 million people are dying annually in densely
measures to construct new roads and new right-of- populated urban areas from conditions produced by
ways’ (ibid.: 694). This is Lefebvrian transduction in substandard housing and poor sanitation’ (Knox and
action, the remaking and refashioning of urban space Marston, 2001: 400 in Yunusa, 2005: 178–9).
to meet the exigencies of the users in a manner that Although rates of homicide and sexual violence
calls to mind the ‘spontaneous market’ that Benjamin are some of the highest in the world, South Africa’s
encountered around a dug-up street in Paris. This cities present rather a different profile to that of
hyper-informalised city is not so much the untamed Lagos. Since the end of apartheid and the beginning
past of modernity’s future as the untamed future of of African majority rule, the ANC government has
modernity’s present. As the functional city begins to sought to prioritise the livability of the townships and
atrophy and shed its skin, new paths and channels are the peripheral urban areas where the majority of the
being cut through the subsoil as the anarchy of the country’s black population was forced to live in
163
conditions of extreme deprivation and without access

to basic education, transportation and health care.
Parnell and Robinson (2012) point to a rather
different trajectory in South African urbanism that
does not align with the predominant trend towards
neoliberalisation identified by authors such as
Brenner, Peck and Theodore (Brenner and Theodore,
2002; Leitner et al., 2007; Peck et al., 2009) and
instead they argue there is a need to theorise

about developmental and even progressive local
states, not only in South Africa but in many other
urban contexts in the Global South (Parnell and
Robinson, 2012: 594).
Figure 9.1 Apartment blocks in Kilamba Kiaxi on the
Edgar Pieterse argues that traditional liberal outskirts of Luanda, Angola.
humanist ‘right to the city’ perspectives on urban
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
society are at odds with the experience of African
cityness. Here Pieterse has in mind the ‘overdeter-
mining effect of violence in African social life’, which average Angolan incomes at just over $5,000, it is
has much to do with ‘the colonial era of terror and clear that Nova Cidade de Kilamba’s residents will be
exploitation’, but which is also ‘remade and re- drawn from the small fraction of Angola’s population
embedded in enduring inequalities’ (Pieterse, 2010: that belong to the moneyed elite as well as ex-patriots
206) (see Chapter 10 for a fuller discussion). and foreign business executives. Nearly a year after
According to a 2006 UN-Habitat report, over the first batch of 2,800 apartments went on sale, only
70 per cent of the urban populations of sub-Saharan 220 had been sold.61
Africa live in slums (UN-Habitat, 2006: 52). In less The growth potential of sub-Saharan Africa is
than 20 years the populations of Abuja and Kinshasa exciting economic commentators such as Jim
are set to double but there is very little prospect of O’Neill, who having coined the acronym the BRICs
the existing highly inadequate infrastructure increas- (referring to the rapidly developing non-Western
ing proportionately. However, Africa’s traditional economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China), now
reliance on Western markets, loans and aid transfers, includes Nigeria as part of a second wave of fast
which proved such a limiting external constraint on growing and urbanising Global South countries
the development of an internationally competitive known as the MINTs (the other letters belonging to
urban based economy, is beginning to diminish due Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey).62 A group of influ-
in large part to the significant investments of Chinese ential scholars also refer to the transformation of the
businesses and government agencies. continent’s towns and cities as ‘Africa’s Urban
Just outside the Angolan capital Luanda, the China Revolution’, citing the fact that 40 per cent of the
International Trust and Investment Corporation continent is urbanised, ‘which means that there are
(CITIC) is building a new town, Nova Cidade de 414 million African urbanites (2011 figures), and
Kilamba, covering 12,355 acres and comprising Africa already has more city dwellers than Europe,
750 eight-story residential apartment blocks with Australasia, North or South America’ (Pieterse and
12 schools and 100 retail developments intended Parnell, 2014: 1). At the same time it is important to
to house an eventual population of 500,000 recognise that most of Africa’s urban population is
(see Figure 9.1). The project is estimated to cost under the age of 25, very few have more than ele-
$3.5 billion, but at purchase prices of between mentary education and a very large proportion are
$120,000 and $200,000 for an apartment and with unemployed. While some economists see a young,
164
urbanised population as a dynamic strength for a that it used to justify the invasion and suppression of
growing economy, Pieterse and Parnell warn that, the native Qawasim tribe by Royal Naval marines
‘[t]aken together, the complex urban governance recruited from India. By 1820 all of the sheikdoms of
regimes, diffuse fiscal interests, rapid growth of the what was to become the United Arab Emirates had
population and pent-up poverty create a volatile signed a peace treaty with Britain allowing a permanent
cocktail that should make the African urban revolu- British naval presence and preferential access to its
tion a key global issue’. However they argue that the merchant fleets. Britain’s suzerainty of the UAE ended
collective response by governments thus far has not in 1971, but the commercial and political relationships
been one of urgency but complacency (ibid.: 12). between the gulf state and the United Kingdom remain
strong with an increasing number of British expatriates
flocking to enjoy the high salaries, low taxes and a
LEARNING FROM DUBAI: SPECTACULAR
much more relaxed approach to typically Western
URBANISM IN THE ARAB GULF
lifestyles than in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
The United Arab Emirates port city of Dubai has a But it is public rather than private capital that
population of 2.1 million inhabitants and attracts explains the reasons for Dubai’s dramatic growth in
some 5.5 million visitors a year to its luxury resort recent years thanks to the oil wealth fortune of
hotels, shopping malls and conference venues.63 neighbouring Abu Dhabi which has supported the
Dubai is the concrete embodiment of what Bob ruling Maktoum dynasty’s ambitious plans to make
Beauregard terms ‘the city of superlatives’ the Arab Gulf city the number one high-end tourist
(Beauregard, 2003). In 2008, as Edward Glaeser
(2012) notes, ‘Dubai was one of the largest construc-
tion sites on earth. The Al Arab, built on an artificial
island, was the tallest hotel in the world when it was
built, at 1,027 feet’. At this point, Dubai had become
‘one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities, with
some two hundred ethnic groups living in a rare
atmosphere of tolerance’ (Krane, 2009: 19). In 2010
Dubai opened the tallest man-made mixed-use struc-
ture on earth – the 2,684 feet tall Burj Khalifa, and
the adjacent Dubai Mall at 5.9 million square feet of
internal space and 12 million feet in total is ‘one of
the biggest in the world’ (Glaeser, 2012: 245–6)
(see Figure 9.2).
Until the 1930s, Dubai and the surrounding United
Arab Emirates on the southeastern corner of Arabia Figure 9.2 Downtown Dubai seen from space, January
2012. At the centre of the image stands the
constituted ‘the most desolate corner of a desolate Burj Khalifa, the tallest man-made
land’ (Krane, 2009: 3) and its population of only structure in the world. To the right of the
80,000 had not grown for more than a millennium due artificial Burj Khalifa Lake is the world’s
to the harsh environmental conditions, with only its largest shopping centre, the Dubai Mall,
shallow port offering the opportunity of a meager which also hosts an ice rink and an
aquarium. The Dubai Creek to the bottom
living from fishing, pearl diving and trade with Iran and
left of the picture is the site of the new
the surrounding Arab Gulf and India across the ocean. Business Bay development, which will
Britain, which controlled the neighbouring port of eventually house 200 commercial and
Oman from the 1800s, regarded the whole of the residential buildings.
Emirati seaboard as ‘the Pirate Coast’ – a description Source: PLEIADES © CNES 2014.
165
destination in the world and the pre-eminent business significantly disadvantages the majority of for-
centre in the Middle East and South Asia. It was also eign residents living in the United Arab Emirates.
Abu Dhabi that bailed Dubai out of impending (Vora, 2011: 123 in McGeehan,
bankruptcy in 2009 following the global financial 2012: 29–30)
crash (Glaeser, 2012: 246). As Ahmed Kanna writes
In Dubai the impression of ‘openness’ to foreigners
The ascendancy of Maktoum-led neoliberalism, is therefore strictly limited to a ‘Western-based
in the style of what Abdulla has called the ‘city- bourgeoisie’ and also a free trade zone (especially for
corporation’ (2006), succeeded in the early high value commodities such as diamonds where
twenty-first century because the Maktoum and even the traditional enmity between Arabs and
other city-leading corporations successfully Israelis can be put to one side in the interests of
aligned free-market values with local cultural commerce) (Krane, 2009: 167–73). As Kanna
attitudes and dispositions. (2011: 68) notes, ‘This openness has been symbol-
(Kanna, 2011: 34) ized in the imaginary and urbanism project of
“New Dubai”, the planning and construction of large
However, the economic benefits of the New Dubai gentrified enclaves in the 1990s and early 2000s’.
and the UAE have been unevenly spread. Nicholas
McGeehan (2012) claims that out of an estimated Discursively and ideologically, the project of
Emirates population of five million, as many as 80 per clearing space for development is connected to
cent are non-citizen workers. By way of contrast, in the project of cleaning the polity of troublesome
Athens between the 5th and the 3rd centuries BCE it elements (recalcitrant workers, progressive ten-
is estimated that non-citizen labour, chiefly provided dencies, etc.). Improvised or illegitimate dwell-
by slaves, equalled no more than a third of the ings, shanties, and worker camps exist in a sort
population. In Dubai non-citizen workers are highly of interstitial space developed neither by the
stratified. At the top are expatriate professionals and state nor by its allied merchants and landlords.
managers, often employed by Western-owned firms (ibid.: 68–69)
that are allowed to operate in the UAE because they
are co-owned by an Emirati who rarely has any Ian Parker writing in The New Yorker describes the
involvement in the running of the business (this is Sheikh Zayed Road near the World Trade Centre
known as the kafala or sponsorship system). In the with its high towered mirror glass skyscrapers as ‘a
middle are Iranian and Indian entrepreneurs many of wall across the city: a kind of round-the-clock
whom maintain homes in their countries of origin mugging of Jane Jacobs’ (Parker, 2005: 131). But a
and who use Dubai’s well connected international year after the global financial crisis struck, Dubai is
airport to commute on a weekly basis. At the bottom described as, ‘a smoldering ruin of casino capitalism.
are to be found a huge army of manual, domestic and The ambitious projects of Zaha Hadid and Rem
service sector workers predominantly from South Koolhaas, meant to announce Dubai’s arrival as a
Asia and the Philippines. Most are hired by world-class global city, have either been put on hold
recruitment agencies in their country of origin and or canceled’ (Kanna, 2011: 76).
are obliged to take out expensive loans to pay back The most grandiose victim of the financial crash is
their ‘agency fees’. As Vora writes Koolhaas/OMA’s now largely mothballed
Waterfront City. The Dubai Waterfront scheme was
Foreign elites are complicit with the state in pro- commissioned in 2007 by the government owned
ducing social and economic hierarchies that bene- developer Nakheel. Comprising a planned rectilinear
fit both citizens and elite expatriates while 6.5 mile artificial island just off Dubai’s coast, the
maintaining a structure of labor migration that scheme proposed to transform ‘1.4 billion square
166
feet of empty desert and sea into an international Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid announced the
community’, an area twice the size of Hong Kong construction of a new city, which is to bear his name
Island with a prospective population of 1.5 million. – Mohammed Bin Rashid City (MBR City), which at
But by 2011 even the construction cranes on the six million square metres (over 1,482 acres) is
stalled project were up for sale.64 According to its planned to occupy over three times the area of
planners, the island is meant to reflect vernacular current Downtown Dubai. The Sheik’s vision is to
architectural traditions, such as in Al Soor [the Wall], create ‘a world-class infrastructure that will firmly
where the OMA website reveals there will be establish Dubai as one of the Top 10 global cities by
‘intricate and varied composition of shaded buildings 2020. Truly world-class in design, it will be an
and alleyways where privacy is embedded and public inspiring work, play and live environment with
interaction inevitable’. several iconic developments, further driving the
Other spectacular urbanist features include city’s growth’.67
‘the Spiral’, Waterfront City’s other ‘elemental One would not expect the ruler of this ambitious
geometric icon’ – an 82-story coiling tower ‘evoking Gulf city-state to point to the financial troubles that
classical Arabic architecture’ which is intended to have beset the Dubai Waterfront Development.
serve as a beacon for the whole development. However, according to the Financial Times, ‘Real
‘Starchitects’ such as Rem Koolhaas are keen to estate prices in Dubai more than halved during the
work with clients that can, in the words of Dubai financial crisis, as cheap credit dried up and owners
property developer EMAAR, offer planners and defaulted on payments.’ Four years on from the
architects the possibility of designing a new coastal crash, although investor confidence and profitability
desert city on ‘a clean sheet of paper’ – a Ballardesque has returned to parts of Central Dubai, many projects
fantasy that not even Le Corbusier realized in his such as Dubai Waterfront, Palm Jebel Ali and
lifetime.65 Kanna argues that, ‘Like China, architects numerous high-rise developments remain stalled.68
view the Gulf, whose member states are run by tiny Even though the chill winds of global austerity
elites disposing of immense wealth and have nearly have certainly slowed the pace of development in the
nonexistent labour and environmental regulations, Arab Gulf, with the controversial award of the 2022
as a liberating place in which to work’ (Kanna, 2011: FIFA World Cup to Qatar, despite well documented
80). accounts of the mistreatment of thousands of migrant
In his early architectural theorising around the workers employed on the project,69 the aspiration of
idea of the ‘generic city’, Koolhaas (1978) prospected the region’s rulers to be the top global destination for
a future in which cities would consist of repetitive sport, tourism and upscale consumption and a safe
buildings centred on an airport housing ‘a tribe of haven for the world’s high net worth individuals and
global nomads with few local loyalties’. Koolhaas’ business elites is as strong as ever.
playful vision was meant to offer a critique of late
capitalism by ‘finding optimism in the inevitable’
SHANGHAI EXPRESS: THE URBAN
condition of commodification.66 The reality has been
TRANSFORMATION OF CHINA
rather more banal. Following George Ritzer (2013)
we might call the types of ‘blank sheet’ development Were we ever in any doubt about the importance of
that have been designed by high profile international the scale and pace of urbanisation and development
architects as the ‘McDonaldization’ of the new in the ‘majority world’ it is worth engaging in a little
downtown. A ‘making something out of nowhere’ thought experiment. Imagine for a moment that
trend that is also exemplified by Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Friedrich Engels became the first passenger in H.G.
City and New Songdo in South Korea (see Greenfield, Wells’ Time Machine, but instead of landing in
2013 and Chapter 11). Pointing out that Dubai had Salford, England in the 1840s – the epicentre of the
not even fulfilled one tenth of its growth potential, ‘workshop of the world’ in the nineteenth century
167
– he instead programmed the computer to find him infrastructural development would be unattainable
a city of equivalent importance to Victorian in any Western state due entirely to the peculiarities
Manchester somewhere in the world in 2020. Where of a command market economy where land and
might the machine have taken our time-travelling skilled labour (including that of architects and
historical materialist? designers) can be deployed at ultra low cost and at
New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, or London all the whim of powerful Communist Party functionaries
spring to mind as possible contenders, but if one who are inconvenienced by none of the burdensome
wanted to see the birth of a new urban world planning restrictions, Jane Jacobs-style conservation
happening before one’s eyes, it would be to the Asian movements or temperamental labour unions
cities of the Pacific Rim that one would journey, such associated with capitalist democracies. As Le
as Singapore, the Hong Kong–Guangzhou–Macao Corbusier remarked, ‘a city for the machine age
region of the Pearl River delta and Shanghai where could never emerge from discussion and compromise:
the world’s most rapid urbanisation and economic that was the path to chaos’ (Fishman, 1987: 239 in
growth is expected to take place over the next three Mabin, 2000: 558). Indeed Le Corbusier’s dream of
decades. Just as the Victorian cities of the European building on ‘clear sites’ and the replacement of the
industrial revolution saw a doubling of their artisan mason by the rationalist theodolite of
population over the space of 50 years, so the heartland the structural engineer has finally been realised in
cities of Asia-Pacific have emerged as major the New China where the totalising vision of the
metropolitan centres with astonishing speed and modernist planner can project destinationless
success in the latter half of the twentieth century and 40-kilometre long bridges and can make International
the first decades of the twenty-first century. Airports spring out of the paddy fields with more
In 1949 Shanghai’s population was 5.2 million, flourish and audacity than any Baron von Haussmann
but by the end of 2000 it had risen to 13.2 million or Robert Moses.
official residents, while the figure including the Up to the mid- and late 1990s public infrastruc-
floating population was some 16.7 million with ture in Shanghai as with other Chinese cities was
urban area population densities of 2,897 inhabitants under the monopoly control of the local govern-
per square kilometre. From 1992 to 2000 the city ment. But increasingly the ruling Communist elites
registered double-digit annual growth for nine at central and local level came to the realisation that
consecutive years, and between 1995 and 1999 the the modernisation required to maintain a high level
annual growth rate averaged 11.4 per cent.70 By of economic growth and to attract foreign direct
2012 the official resident population of Shanghai was investment in its major cities could not be achieved
recorded at 23.8 million – more than the entire without the participation of non-Chinese private
population of Taiwan. Including the floating capital. Faced with an annual loss of close to a million
population, Shanghai’s residents are likely to number dollars a year, a lack of efficient management, ageing
closer to 28.5 million.71 By way of contrast, when equipment and out-of-date management practices,
Engels wrote his famous account of working-class life including poor cost recovery pricing, the Municipal
in 1840s Salford, the population of Manchester was Government of Shanghai decided to turn its water
only 250,000. Today it takes only 36 hours to add the company into a private–public partnership (Lee,
equivalent number of new births to the world’s 2007). However, as Lee observes, ‘[p]rivate water
population. companies, mainly water TNCs, have experienced
In 1997 the five cities of the Pearl River Delta unpredictable and challenging sociopolitical circum-
(PRD) had a combined population of 12 million. By stances, uncertainty of laws and regulations, and rev-
2020 the population of the PRD is expected to rise enue risk’. He goes on to note, ‘The case of Thames
to 36 million (Koolhaas/Harvard Project on the Water’s exit from the Chinese water market is a
City, 2001: 281). The speed and efficiency of this good example of how risky it is for foreign companies
168
to run their business in China’ (ibid.: 61). Therefore, 200 million migrant workers in Chinese cities, and
although there may be more willingness on the part partly because of the hukou system that guarantees
of the Chinese authorities to engage in joint full urban citizenship only to those legally resident in
infrastructure ventures with foreign private enter- the city – including the right to buy or even rent a
prises, the relationship appears to be firmly on the house – these precarious migrant workers are among
municipal and national government’s terms. It is cer- the most exploited and marginalised groups in
tainly not a form of development consistent with the present day China (Parker, 2011: 142).
neoliberalisation of the urban economy in the As with its former communist neighbour, Russia,
Anglo-American context from the 1980s where once China’s economic elites have massively profited from
publicly owned utilities, transportation, infra- the embrace of capitalist economic ‘reforms’. In
structure and maintenance services have largely been 2000–1 there was only one billionaire in China, by
privatised or transferred to not-for-profit non-state the end of that decade there were 64. Prospects for
entities. the millions of workers employed in the factories of
He and Wu (2007: 187) note that, ‘[i]n present Shanghai have not been so good. A factory employee
day Shanghai, urban redevelopment has been adopted typically receives less than 2,000 yuan a month
as a strategy to reimage the city and promote urban (approximately US$325 or just over $10 a day). In a
and economic growth’. Property development is labour dispute reported by the South China Morning
seen as the major vehicle for such an urban Post in early 2013, over a thousand workers held their
transformation leveraged by large amounts of foreign 18 Chinese and Japanese managers hostage for several
direct investment. They write, days in protest at punitive fines of up to $16 that the
new Chinese owner had tried to impose for arriving
The entire city, especially the old urban neigh- late or taking longer than two minutes to use the
borhoods in the inner city, is under the tremen- toilet. The owners were eventually forced to
dous influence of rampant development . . . apologise and agreed to raise the workers’ salaries.72
Extensive urban redevelopment has resulted in Disputes such as these are illustrative of a new
the clearance of dilapidated urban areas, increas- stridency among China’s urban workforce that is
ing construction density, more high-rise/high- forbidden from organising in free trade unions (legal
end properties, and the beautification of the trade unions have to be affiliated to the Communist
environment. Party managed ACFTU and accept its control), while
(ibid.) the right to collective bargaining is restricted as is the
right to strike, both in law and in practice. It is also
Increasingly, the undemocratic and often corrupt ‘a crime in China to publish unofficially sanctioned
nature of these urban land grabs by coalitions of data, even on national strike figures or unemployment
urban bureaucrats, party officials, property numbers, resulting in a lack of official public data on
speculators and foreign investors has led to collective labour related issues’ (Brown, 2012: 478).
resistance (Hsing, 2010: 6). Xuefei Ren (2011: 1) The lack of a land market tradition in a country
argues that, ‘the social struggles around labor, land, where industrial and residential location decisions
and property rights – intensified and radicalized by were entirely under the control of the party-state has
China’s rapid urbanization – are constituent parts of exacerbated the problems of China’s increasingly
a larger movement for remaking urban citizenship volatile labour market. Meligrana and colleagues
rights’. As with Dubai and other rapidly developing (2008: 268) write that, ‘Presently, Chinese land-use
cities in the southern hemisphere, migrant labour is planners have no suitable urban theory, intellectual
essential to the physical construction of the city and framework, guidelines or set of “best practices” to
to the servicing of its more wealthy inhabitants. By help shape and develop adequate comprehensive
2010 Ren (2011) notes that there were some 150 to municipal plans’, and yet this has been no brake on
169
some of the fastest growing urban development in coordinator, a one time official in the local
the world. Much like their counterparts in the United Communist Party, has been jailed for corruption.
Arab Emirates, the policy of China’s governing elites Meanwhile all mention of Dongtan has been erased
has been to buy in Western design, planning and from Shanghai’s Expo website (tagline ‘Better city;
engineering expertise. Examples include the Jinmao better life’).75 The initial enthusiasm for Dongtan on
Tower in Pudong by US architects Skidmore, Owings the part of Shanghai’s powerful political and business
and Merrill, the Shanghai World Financial Center elites appears to have waned as the more practical
Tower, also designed by an American firm – Kohn difficulties of accommodating several million
Pedersen Fox, and the Oriental Arts Center designed additional inhabitants over the next two and half
by French architect Paul Andreu. At 128 storeys, decades encourages a resort to more traditional
The Shanghai Tower, designed by Marshall Strabala forms of ‘unsustainable’ mass urbanisation.
of US architectural firm Gensler is set to become the As Zhao Yeqin (2013: 94) notes, since 1990 the
world’s second tallest building after Dubai’s Burj ‘urban renewal’ of metropolitan Shanghai has been
Khalifa.73 accomplished by the unprecedented destruction of
Non-Chinese companies have not only been 38 million square meters of older housing and four
responsible for individual high profile buildings, they million square meters of what the city authorities
have even been commissioned to design and build euphemistically refer to as ‘dangerous shanty towns’.
entirely new cities. Following the examples of In total 2.7 million residents have been moved into
‘concept cities’ such as Norman Foster’s Masdar in new apartments to make way for Shanghai’s
Abu Dhabi and Zahar Hadid’s Kartal Urban City in expanding business district and the upscale residential
Istanbul, Dongtan situated on Shanghai’s Chongming neighbourhoods that have been purpose built for its
Island on the Yangtse River is a 8,400 hectare sized economic and political elites. These include
eco-city that is planned to house 500,000 residents nationally themed neighbourhoods such as ‘Thames
by 2040. Designed by the London-based consultancy Town’ built as part of Shanghai’s ‘One City, Nine
Arup under commission from the Shanghai Industrial Towns’ scheme, which Bianca Bosker (2013)
Investment Corporation, Dongtan has been describes as ‘duplitechture’ – the reproduction of
trumpeted as China’s first large scale sustainable traditional northern European architectural styles
urban development. With the energy for the that have made these ‘copycat towns’ popular with
settlement supplied by solar panels, wind turbines investment companies and wedding parties though
and biomass-based fuels, four-fifths of the city’s less so with Chinese families looking for a practical
waste will be recycled and some of the organic waste permanent home.76
is intended for use as bio-fuel to produce electricity
and heat. Although the environmental footprint for
EAST OF HELSINKI: THE
Dongtan at 2.2 hectares per person is a third of its
CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF THE
megacity neighbour, this is still above the 1.9 hectares
POST-SOVIET CITY
per person sustainability threshold recommended by
the World Wildlife Fund.74 East of Helsinki, in the Russian Federation, a rather
Critics of Dongtan argue that China’s claim to different picture confronts us. At the turn of the
have built the first genuinely green city do not bear twenty-first century about 107 million Russians
close scrutiny. Its ten wind turbines stand silent (73.1 per cent) lived in urban areas, including 1,091
sentinel over an inactive development site, which cities and 1,922 urban-type settlements. A little over
remains an important resting ground for thousands 45 per cent of the total population lived in large cities
of migratory birds. The threatened wildlife can for with a population of 100,000, and 17 per cent of the
now appreciate the lack of buildings, water cleansing population lived in 13 cities with populations over a
plants or energy centres. Dongtan’s former project million. Today vast tracts of Russian territory remain
170
virtually inhabited, especially east of the Urals. ‘Of Federation now has the highest level of wealth
1100 cities, 680 are located to the west of 50º E, that inequality in the world. According to a report by
is, on 15% of Russia’s territory’, while 63 per cent Credit Suisse, in 2013 a mere 110 individuals owned
of urban dwellers live in 53 agglomerations of which 35 per cent of Russia’s wealth and the number of
43 are to be found in the European regions (from the Russian US dollar billionaires more than doubled
Urals west) (Makhrova et al., 2013: 131). The between 2005 and 2010. In the rest of the world, all
Russian population as a whole peaked in 1992 at the US dollar billionaires put together control some
148.3 million and has been declining since then due 1 to 2 per cent of wealth.77
to high mortality rates and falling birth rates. The impact of this astonishing redistribution of
During the 2000s after a small contraction in income from the poor to the mega-rich has been
population due to the ‘shock doctrine’ restructuring most felt by those at the bottom where life expectancy
crisis, major cities began to grow although not at the rates have fallen and mortality rates have increased
same pace as previously. Russia’s would be due to what the Russian Federation coyly refers to as
metropolitans are attracted by ‘the quality of life in ‘adaption syndrome’. A euphemism for the stress
large cities, prospects for education, and jobs and and insecurity resulting from the rapid shift from a
higher wages, but vastly varying residential prices planned welfarist society to a market economy with
throughout the country are a factor that especially minimal social guarantees manifested in high
restrains migration’ (Makhrova et al., 2013: 132). rates of hypertension and heart disease among all
Since the end of communist dominance in 1991, the adult cohorts. After the fall of communism, the
Russian urban economy has faced a number of spread of major diseases reached epidemic
difficulties, most of which have been borne by urban proportions in Russia’s cities with TB growth
residents themselves. Overcrowding is a major running at 65.7 per cent in the 1990s, syphilis
problem, with living space averaging less than increasing three-fold and HIV infection rates
20 square metres, while households contain an spreading even faster (Russian Federation, 2000:
average of 2.85 people. As the Russian Federation’s 10). Alcoholism, including the consumption of ‘non
own report to the United Nations admits, it is beverage alcohol’, remains a major cause of
practically impossible ‘to acquire social housing’ in premature death, especially among working age men
contemporary Russia, while, ‘[t]he majority of the (Popovich et al., 2011: xv).
Russian population cannot afford to buy or build While Russian men living in cities have a 20 per
housing at their own expense’, chiefly because cent higher life expectancy than those in rural areas,
incomes are low, and interest rates put home loans they live on average 12 years less than women.
outside the reach of ordinary workers (Russian Among men, ‘the probability of dying between
Federation, 2000: 4). At the same time, Russia has 15 and 60 years of age is 42% in the Russian Federation
increasingly become a nation of property owners by compared with 14.1% in the United States, 25.9% in
virtue of ‘right to buy legislation’, which offered Brazil and 33.5% in Kyrgyzstan’ (World Bank, 2011a
tenants the possibility of purchasing their apartments cited in Popovich et al., 2011: 169).
at a discount. Home ownership rose to one third of All these trends have served to strengthen the
the population in 1990 and by the end of 1999 stood already pre-eminent position of Moscow and its
at 55 per cent – a figure higher than some member region (Axenov et al., 2006: 14). The Moscow
countries of the European Union. Municipal region is the country’s major conduit for finance and
governments own most of the remaining housing trade flows. Moscow is also ‘the main window to the
stock (Guzanova, 1997). world, the first (if not the only) candidate to the role
After 70 years of relative equality under Soviet of a global city, and a showcase of the real and
communism, with the exception of a small number supposed successes of the post-Soviet Russia’
of Caribbean offshore tax havens, the Russian (Makhrova et al., 2013: 133). What is particularly
171
striking about Russia’s capital is its ability to generate side of the border. Some idea of the value of this
smaller satellite communities and suburbs as well as industrial zone to California businesses can be
even edge-city-type urbanisation, such as the district appreciated by the fact that $15 billion dollars worth
of Khimki adjacent to the Sheremetyevo international of goods and components were exported to the
airport through which runs the Moscow– maquiladora region in 1999, while a total value of
St Petersburg motorway and railway (Golubchikov, $20 billion was created in finished goods imported
and Phelps 2011). These sub-agglomerations have back into California.79
‘developed into the centers of labor and As a result of this jobs bonanza, the population
consumption’, and have become a feature ‘of a in the Mexican border region has risen to
relatively self-sufficient North American-style 12 million, but little provision has been made in
postsuburbia’. Commuters who live in the outer terms of housing, sanitation and schooling for this
residential districts of the Moscow oblast are now floating population. Typical of the shantytowns that
thought to number between 1 and 1.3 million, have grown up in the shadow of the high-tech
compared with 750,000 in the late 1980s (Makhrova maquila business parks is Cardboard City in the
et al., 2013: 135). Thus Russia’s largest and most province of Acuña where ‘almost all the houses are
important metropolitan district appears to be made of cardboard’, but where unemployment is
emulating the regional suburbanisation trends that zero thanks to the post-1980 maquila boom which
are typical of North American and Western European has brought 60 plants to the area. Still more workers
cities while maintaining a uniquely oligarchic system are needed but ‘the city has no capacity to provide
of political and economic power that is closer to the the most basic services to its new inhabitants. In just
post-socialist authoritarian capitalist model of the five years, from 1990 to 1995, the population of
People’s Republic of China than the growth machine Acuña grew by 49 per cent’ (Cano, 1999: 9–13).
type urban polities more familiar to students of Workers in Acuña typically earn around $7.50 per
Global North city-regions. day – a figure that has remained static since
the beginning of this century thanks in large
part to the general absence of collective bargaining
SOUTH OF SAN DIEGO: URBANISATION
among the city’s workforce. Attempts to set up
AND DEVELOPMENT IN LATIN AMERICA
independent unions are often met by employers
South of San Diego, the Maquiladora corridor just signing up to ‘protection contracts’ with unions
inside Mexico’s border with the US provides the allied to the PRI, for decades the political party that
regional counter-example to the global uneven effectively controlled Mexico, and which has close
development that has seen much of Russia relegated links with the representatives of the multinational
to a peripheral status. The conclusion of the North companies that have found Mexico a lucrative place
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the to invest.80 Meanwhile, the environmental impact
dismantling of tariffs and restrictions on foreign of this sudden urbanisation ‘is verging on the
direct investments has encouraged the phenomenal catastrophic’ (UN, Human Development Report,
growth in bonded assemblage plants (maquila or 1999: 584).
maquiladora) on the Mexican side of the Rio Bravo/ The informal cities of the Global South, as writers
Grande – more than half of which are subsidiaries of such as Naomi Klein have shown, are fast becoming
US firms (Kamel and Hoffman, 1999).78 These the new sweatshops of the world. But in these special
special economic zones employ Mexican labour, economic zones the floating population of poor
much of it un-unionised and un-regulated, at a migrants is kept in constant circulation in order to
fraction of the equivalent cost in the US. Once prevent the emergence of community or workplace
assembled, the goods are then usually exported to solidarities that might challenge the hegemony
processing and distribution facilities on the American of the transnational corporations and their client
172
governments in the minority urban world (Sassen, the strange collision between neoliberalization
1999; Klein, 2001). The example of the Comité and democratization in Brazil in the 1990s
Fronterizo de Obreras (Committee of Workers on produced clauses in the Brazilian Constitution
the Frontier) who are working to improve wages and of 2001 that guarantee the right to the city has
conditions for the maquiladora workers, never- to be attributed to the power and significance
theless, demonstrates the potential for collective of urban social movements, particularly around
action among a poor and desperate workforce housing, in promoting democratization.
that has been denied even the protection of (Harvey, 2012: xii)
its own government (Kamel and Hoffman, 1999:

1–4). Thus in the case of São Paolo in Brazil, where rapid
Latin America’s cities are among the largest and economic growth and urban development has
fastest growing in the world, but they offer excluded an increasing number of poorer families
contrasting patterns of human development and from housing opportunities, there has been an
access to economic, political and cultural resources upsurge in the squatting of vacant buildings in the
especially for the new generation of poorer urban central areas of the city, which has forced the city
dwellers (Hernandez et al., 2010). The so-called authorities to respond with greater urgency to the
‘pink tide’ that swept a number of leftist governments housing needs of the poor (Lima and Pallamin, 2010:
to power in Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, 49–50). However, it would be a mistake to assume
Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina in the 1990s and that the relative success of urban social movements
2000s has had an impact on reducing the growing in some Latin American contexts can be easily
disparities between the wealthiest and the poorest replicated in other developing cities – even with
decile typical of urban societies in many other regions strong sustained popular mobilization – as the case of
of the Global South. But at the same time, the number India and Mumbai reveals.
of precarious urban dwellers has grown rapidly and
the demand for permanent housing with access to
FROM SLUMDOG CITY TO
basic amenities and transportation far outstrips the
GLOBALISING MEGALOPOLIS:
capacity of social reform oriented national and
THE CHANGING FACE OF MUMBAI
metropolitan governments to meet even existing
needs. India is a particularly important geography for the
Beasley-Murray and colleagues argue that the majority urban world, not just because so many of
reasons for the success of progressive political par- the world’s megacities are to be found here, or
ties in Latin America stems from the ‘at times because of the considerable size of its urban
hydra-like and almost anarchic’ diversity of the population, or because India is predicted to have the
social movements including organisations as varied fastest rate of urban growth in the next 30 years, but
as the EZLN in Mexico and the Piqueteros in because the paradoxes, contradictions, set-backs and
Argentina, which has ‘provoked experimentation in achievements on the country’s path to modernisation
new forms of community and new modes of poli- have been most apparent in the sub-continent’s
tics’. These social movements have helped to cities. Of the 151 richest cities in the world in 2005,
expose, in the authors’ view, ‘the fictitious nature 11 were to be found in India – including Delhi,
of mechanisms of representation behind which lay Mumbai/Bombay, Kolkata/Calcutta, and Bangalore.
ethnic marginalisation, urban disorder and abysmal But in that same year, 61 million Indians (22 per cent
social gaps’ (Beasley-Murray et al., 2009: 321). As of the urban population) were living in slums. Official
David Harvey argues in his book, Rebel Cities, the surveys estimate that India is short of 25 million
same process can be observed in the context of homes to house its population, and the majority of
Brazil in the 1990s urban dwellers lack basic necessities such as clean
173
running water, sanitation, health care and education 1990s the Mumbai authorities initiated a Slum
(Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, 2010). Redevelopment Scheme that placed a heavy emphasis
‘Until recently’, argue Weinstein, Sami and on the demolition and removal of key sites –
Shatkin (2013: 43), ‘cities and urban populations did especially those abutting the central city such as
not feature prominently in national or state-level Dharavi with an estimated population of one million
policy. Because the Indian village dominated the – that were ripe for profitable redevelopment
visions of politicians, planners, and academics alike (Weinstein, 2014).81 In line with this ‘urban renewal’
in the early years of Indian independence, India’s project, at the beginning of the 2000s the Maharashtra
cities were virtually absent from national planning regional government commissioned a report by the
and state-level economic programs’. However, global business consultancy firm McKinsey (2003).
Desai and Sanyal note that with the introduction of Vision Mumbai: Transforming Mumbai into a World-Class
the Indian government’s ‘New Economic Policy’ in City certainly responded to the global ambitions
1991, which encouraged economic liberalisation, of Mumbai’s political leaders with its intention of
‘Indian cities have increasingly become more globally boosting economic growth to 8–10 per cent per
oriented, witnessing various related projects of annum and investing $40 billion (75 per cent
urban transformation’. As with neoliberalisation in from the private sector) over the next decade for
other urban contexts, India’s cities have witnessed transport and urban infrastructure, housing, sanita-
the emergence of ‘urban entrepreneurialism’, the tion and healthcare. But the report was roundly
institution of new public management style criticised by Indian town planners, academics, envi-
‘governance’, the re-scaling and the ‘rolling back’ of ronmentalists, former bureaucrats and local NGOs
the state in some areas and its ‘rolling out’ in others because it also proposed to remove the rules aimed
(Desai and Sanyal, 2012: 13). at preventing development close to the coastline,
Behind the glossy brochures promoting India’s while encouraging the construction of high rise
‘global cities’ featuring newly built shopping malls buildings and the comprehensive redevelopment of
and penthouse apartment towers there lurks another entire areas by forced displacement.82
reality. The planning and remodelling of the expand- This contested imagining of Mumbai brought out
ing business and elite residential districts of India’s the stark contrast between the duplitechture of the
major cities has often been undertaken in the name World City downtown envisioned by McKinsey and
of ‘slum redevelopment’. Tackling the slum problem the more inclusive notion of the city put forward by
in India has become a euphemism for ‘reinforcing the urban NGOs such as the Society for the Promotion of
informalization of politics’, which has favoured the Area Resources (SPARC), the National Slum
interests of landowners, local political elites and their Dwellers Federation (NSDF) and Mahila Milan, a net-
clienteles, ‘hence further confounding the formation work of women’s groups. In 2005 after 300,000
of strong urban political coalitions’ (Weinstein, Sami slum-dwellers had been evicted in a matter of weeks
and Shatkin, 2013: 41). Consequently slum dwellers from thriving communities like Dharavi whose recy-
and the urban poor themselves have found it cling industry is estimated to turn over more than $1
extremely difficult to press their claims to the right billion a year, employing around 250,000 people in
to the city in the context of a fragmented and frac- 15,000 single-room factories who would otherwise
tured governance structure that mirrors in many be without work. Unsurprisingly when ‘the city
ways India’s splintered urban infrastructure. authorities announced plans to raze the slum and
In Mumbai, the politics of religious and ethnic replace it with blocks of high-rise flats, they were met
exclusion have had major implications for the distri- with fierce opposition from those who regard it as
bution of key infrastructure networks such as water their home’.83
and sewage as well as the management of slums and In the face of such blatant attempts on behalf of
their populations (McFarlane, 2008). In the early Mumbai’s authorities to remove poor households
174
from the central city, a new social movement of They are just as present, for example, in African
protest and resistance began to challenge the ‘civic American urban citizens’ advocacy movements, as in
governmentality’ of SPARC which had sought to cities such as Chicago (see Parker, 2011: 65–66).
mediate between the government, developers and The wider insight that we can draw from a study of
those threatened with displacement (Roy, 2009: popular movements in the context of the rapidly
161). As Roy goes on to observe urbanising Indian sub-continent is that who gets to
live where is a profoundly political question. Just
SPARC, working with the NSDF and Mahila because poor urban dwellers may not be educated or
Milan . . . provides a range of urban services to have access to lawyers, international management
the poor of Mumbai. Working in the slums of consultants and government elites, does not mean
the city, it has focused considerable effort on the they cannot understand the ways in which their lives
upgrading of infrastructure and sanitation. From and livelihoods are implicated in the power struggles
the provision of community toilets to the devel- for an urban future that constantly seeks to exclude
opment of low-income housing, the Alliance and render them invisible.
does what the state is unable or unwilling to do:
to enact a regime of substantive citizenship
CONCLUSION
(McFarlane 2004) and ensure a material basis of
survival for the urban poor in one of the most It would appear that even though very few cities in
unequal cities of the world. the advanced industrial nations compare in size and
(Roy, 2009: 161) extent to the megalopolises of the developing world,
urbanists (most of whom live and work in the Global
The question then is do civil society organisations North) persist in seeing ‘the Third World’ city
such as SPARC challenge or support the status quo of through Western eyes. In particular, it is common to
structural inequality in cities like Mumbai? Roy find analyses of the non-Western metropolis that
believes that by collaborating with local authorities such cities are either ‘pre-modern’ settlements at an
and international bodies such as the World Bank, earlier stage of evolution towards the Western
civic governmentality ‘produces an entrepreneurial capitalist model, or simply densely populated sites of
subjectivity, one that can bargain with this fickle ‘under-development’ sui generis. The question that
logic, but it also produces a subjectivity steeped in future urban theories have to address is, does this
the morality of collaboration, participation and provide an adequate perspective on a diversity of
mediation’. However, Robert Buckley, from the urban experiences whose only conceptual linkage
Rockefeller Foundation (which has financially is geographic (‘non-Western’) and economic
supported SPARC) is dismissive of Roy’s claims; he (predominantly poor)?
argues that emphasizing sanitation priorities over How for example does the experience of living in
tenure rights and supporting re-location from Manila compare with that of Kolkata/Calcutta?
precarious and dangerous squatter sites (such as Given that most urban theorists now accept that we
railway track fringes) is not about re-modelling can only talk in a very limited sense of a common
Mumbai as a bourgeois city but about responding to urban experience, should we not be focusing our
the collective voice of the urban poor themselves attention on discrete segments of the urban
(Buckley, 2011). population and urban workforce? Also, to what
Disputes over whether grass-roots community extent do the colonial designs of Asian, Latin
organisations are empowering their communities or American and African cities still resonate, and how
allowing them to be instrumentalised by government far have new urban conglomerations offered an
and powerful private sector actors are not unique to alternative organisation and layout to the European
the context of Mumbai or even the Global South. city? Is the ‘informal city’ taking over the ‘rational
175
city’ to such an extent that new urban forms, routines essential to the survival of the very poor’ (Davis,
and urban experiences are being created – as in the 2006:184), the inhabitants of our planetary slums are
case of Brasilia? Does the informalisation of the increasingly obliged to turn acts of hospitality and
‘Western city’, described by Mike Davis in its Latino mutuality into opportunities for enterprise. As an
aspect as ‘magical urbanism’ (Davis, 2000a) herald a NGO worker from Haiti remarked
new future for the dense metropolises of the advanced
capitalist world? Now everything is for sale. The woman used
Poorer residents of once prosperous industrial to receive you with hospitality, give you
metropolises in the Global North are beginning to coffee, share all that she has in her home . . .
experience forms of severe uneven development But these acts of solidarity are disappearing
more typical of the Global South with its attendant with the growth of poverty. Now when you
features of state withdrawal, the de-servicing of arrive somewhere, either the woman offers to
infrastructure, environmental degradation and a sell you a cup of coffee, or she has no coffee at
highly informalised economy based around low all. The tradition of mutual giving that allowed
wage employment (Parker, 2013). At the same us to help each other and survive – this is all
time, in the rapidly expanding cities of the South, being lost.
where a strong, highly territorialised bureaucratic (Bell, 2001: 120 in Davis ibid.)
state presence has mostly been absent, ‘complex
rearrangements of life outpace the ability of policy- Abdoumaliq Simone sees the street in the informal
makers and institutions to always manage these city as ‘a switching mechanism’ or a space of ‘relays
transformations’ (Simone and Fauzan, 2013: 109). of intensity’ nested within a complex array of
Hence there is more opportunity to forge political temporalities and spatial scales where the pressure of
and economic alliances ‘outside the count’ of the constant change induces a ‘knowing’ sensibility
formal gaze of the capitalist state (ibid., 111). among its residents that helps them to negotiate risk
Because as James Holston points out, ‘most city and precarity (Simone, 2010: 232). By contrast,
people live in impoverished urban peripheries Mike Davis regards the competition for livelihood
in various conditions of illegal and irregular among the precarious urban poor as essentially a
residence, around urban centers that benefit from manifestation of powerlessness in a space where
their services and their poverty’, their very ‘extra- access to even the smallest economic opportunity –
legal’ existence ‘a place on the pavement, the rental of a rickshaw, a
day’s labour on a construction site, or a domestic
generates a characteristic response: precisely in reference . . . all require patronage or membership
these peripheries, residents organize move- in some closed network, often an ethnic militia or a
ments of insurgent citizenship to confront the street gang’ (Davis, 2006: 185).
entrenched regimes of citizen inequality that the The first point to make is that certain differences
urban centers use to segregate them. exist in all cities – thus if we take Lefebvre’s notion
(Holston, 2009: 245) of the right to the city, it is clear that the urban con-
text and the identity of the subject have a direct rela-
It is true that not all marginal urban environments are tionship to the extent of one’s involvement in the
generative of this type of ‘insurgent citizenship’, and urban experience. In some contexts gender will
that many such settlements are marked by violence, heavily circumscribe access to the city, in others
a sense of permanent disorder and a lack of agency sexuality, religion or ethnicity will be significant
and solidarity. Forced to work in the informal sector (see also Chapter 8). But we must be careful not to
where increasing competition ‘depletes social capital assume too readily that ‘subalternity’, to use a
and dissolves self-help networks and solidarities Gramscian phrase reworked by Gayatri Spivak
176
(1987), produces a convenient universal set of win- to this is the problem of documenting urban life
ners and losers. For example, in acknowledging where traditional sources may be thin on the ground
the difficulties many women experience in walking or entirely absent such as public administration, news
the streets without fear of harassment or intimida- media, NGOs and other civic associations that pro-
tion, international crime surveys consistently reveal vide vital information on their localities for research-
that males are more likely to be victims of violent ers. This difficulty requires much more input from
crime (Lynch, 2006). the individual researcher or research team, which
In order to make any such generalisations may be possible in smaller scale urban communities.
meaningful there will continue to be a need for However, urbanisation in the Global South is also
comparative sociological and ethnographic studies of associated with the emergence of urban agglomera-
urban populations using perhaps different methods tions of several millions of inhabitants, a large pro-
than pioneers such as Mayhew, Booth and Riis, but portion of whom exist in informal settlements. How
with the same focus on what makes the urban economic, social, political and cultural life is con-
experience different for diverse categories of city ducted in such extreme urban habitats is an urgent
dwellers and workers. As Colin McFarlane writes concern for scholars and policy makers.
A study undertaken in 2012 by the OECD found
When we make a claim about ‘the city’, or about that 15-year-old students in Shanghai’s schools out-
a particular form of urbanism, the claim is performed those of any other Western city and coun-
implicitly – and, crucially, inevitably – to some try for reading, science and mathematics, while all of
extent a comparative claim, because our claims the top seven performing countries were located in
and arguments are always set against other kinds East Asia (OECD, 2014). Although the reasons for
of urban possibilities or imaginaries. the educational attainment gap between East and
(McFarlane, 2010: 725–6) West are complex and contested, it is important to
note how quickly the so-called newly industrialising
One major advantage contemporary investigators Asian countries are rising to the top of various global
have over their predecessors is the range and geo- indices and that the greatest concentration of wealth
graphical scope of statistical data that offer the pos- and talent is to be found in their metropolitan cities.
sibility of producing detailed comparisons of urban The rise of China’s leading cities may herald the
populations around the world. There are now beginning of a reversal of polarity in which the Global
numerous international bodies, institutions and North is no longer a proxy for the dominant, afflu-
agencies dedicated to the collection of urban area ent, world directing core and the majority urban
social and economic data and dozens of academic world that of the exploited, under-developed,
research centres that focus on the comparative study directed periphery.
of cities around the world. However, collecting Where the Global South does undoubtedly lead
comprehensive, reliable data on a regular enough the urban world is in the area of population growth,
basis to make them useful for policy and planning which certain writers explicitly identify as a global
purposes is costly and depends on good access to the security threat. Liotta and Miskel do not shrink from
survey populations. In many parts of the developing using battle terms such as ‘The Real Population
world, gathering reliable data is fraught with Bomb’ – a book that informs us that the megacities
difficulty – particularly in urban areas that are rapidly which are located between 10 degrees north and
expanding as a result of informal settlement, or 40 degrees south of the equator (i.e. in the Global
where population displacement due to conflict, South) ‘have become overwhelmed, dangerous,
extreme weather events, climate change and other ungovernable, and, remarkably still grow . . . they
environmental factors can lead to sudden and signifi- pose major threats to global security as they become
cant population fluctuations (see Chapter 10). Added both platforms and havens for extremists and criminal
177
networks . . .’ (Liotta and Miskel, 2012: 7). From time as the share of the world’s urban population
these accounts it is clear that the rapidly developing continues to grow.
urban settlements of the Global South continue to
evoke the same type of Malthusian dystopian fears
that were so familiar to the sensationalist portrayals Notes
of urban poverty in nineteenth century London 60 Edward Paice, ‘Urbanisation in Africa: By the Numbers’,
and New York that we encountered in Chapter 3 Africa Research Institute, 3 October 2011, http://www.
and that we shall explore in more detail in the africaresearchinstitute.org/blog/urbanisation-in-africa/.
61 Louise Redvers, ‘Angola’s Chinese-Built Ghost Town’, BBC

following chapter.
Africa, 3 July 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-
The cross-border circulation of population is africa-18646243.
almost entirely an urbanising process, and for those 62 ‘The Mint Countries: Next Economic Giants?’, BBC News
without formal residence or citizenship rights the Magazine, 6 January 2014, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
risks of exploitation and of exclusion from basic magazine-25548060.
welfare, health and educational services are high – 63 Source: Dubai Department of Tourism & Commerce
Marketing.
particularly in the context of ‘Fortress Europe’ and a 64 WYG Group, Case Study: Dubai Waterfront City, n.d.,
general hardening of border controls and increased http://www.wyg.com/5projects/projects.php?project=52.
restrictions on economic migration and those seeking See also Kevin Brass, ‘Dubai Waterfront’s Cranes Now For
asylum or humanitarian protection (Carr, 2012). Sale’, The National, 26 December 2011, http://www.
Urban inequalities can also be hard to assimilate to thenational.ae/business/industry-insights/property/dubai-
waterfronts-cranes-now-for-sale.
everyday experience when aggregate income and
65 The idea of a futuristic coastal-desert resort with ‘coral
consumer expenditures are compared. That is why towers that rose like white pagodas beside the highway to
measures such as ‘The iPod Index’ have become a Lagoon West’ originally featured in J.G. Ballard’s 1971
popular benchmark for comparing income and short story collection, Vermillion Sands.
expenditure differentials in the world’s urban 66 ‘City on the Gulf: Koolhaas Lays Out a Grand Urban
regions. Using the globally available iPod nano with Experiment in Dubai’, New York Times, 3 March 2008.
67 ‘Dubai Holding and Emaar Properties Sign Joint Venture to
8 GB of storage as an example, a worker on average Develop The Lagoons’, http://www.emaar.com/index.
wages in Zurich or New York could earn enough to aspx?page=press-release-details&id=1516.
purchase this item from an Apple store after 68 ‘Dubai Developers Show Improving Picture’, Financial
nine hours work. By contrast an employee on an Times, 1 August 2012.
average wage in Mumbai would need to work 69 ‘Fifa Wants “Fair Conditions” Quickly for Qatar’s World
Cup Workers’, Guardian, 20 November 2013.
20 times as much as their Western counterparts
70 All figures are from the official Shanghai government
(or approximately one month’s salary) to buy the website: www.shanghai.gov.cn.
same product.84 71 China Post, 20 February 2013 ‘Shanghai Population Now
However, we also need to recognise that while it Overshadows Taiwan’. The UN estimate is lower due to a
is true that the terms ‘Global North’ and ‘Global different measure of urban agglomeration.
South’ remain meaningful short hands for global 72 ‘1000 Workers Hold Managers Hostage in Shanghai Labour
Row’, South China Morning Post, 21 January 2013, http://
geographical disparities and levels of human www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1132587/1000-
development, it is no longer accurate (if it ever was) workers-hold-managers-hostage-shanghai-labour-row.
to think of these terms as synonyms for ‘advanced 73 Daniel Allen, ‘Starchitects Shape Shanghai’s Urban Cool’,
urbanised societies’ and ‘Third World peasant Asia Times Online, 1 April 2011.
economies’. Rather it is important to recognise that 74 ‘Dongtan: The World’s First Large-Scale Eco-City?’,
http://www.dac.dk/en/dac-cities/sustainable-cities/all-
the uneven geography of economic well-being and
cases/energy/dongtan-the-worlds-first-large-scale-eco-
unequal access to opportunity around the world is city/?bbredirect=true.
undermining the right to live, work and to enjoy the 75 Frank Kane, ‘Shanghai Plans Eco-Metropolis on its Mudflats’,
cultural and social benefits of the city at the same Observer, 8 January 2006, http://www.theguardian.com/
178
business/2006/jan/08/china.theobserver?guni=Article: student-friendly introduction to urban sociology and

in%20body%20link. urbanisation around the world. David Drakakis-
76 Ruth Morris, ‘Why China Loves to Build Copycat Towns’,
Smith’s Third World Cities (2000) provides analyses of
BBC News Online, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-
23067082. developing cities from around the world including
77 Credit Suisse, Global Wealth Report 2013. Bangkok, Delhi, Manila, Mexico City, and Singapore
78 Although foreign firms are not able to directly own maqui- and looks at various issues affecting such cities
ladora within a 100-kilometre strip of the border, a foreign including population growth, environmental
owned maquiladora may become a beneficiary of a trust esta- problems, human rights, and planning and urban
blished by a Mexican bank allowing it to lease the buildings

and facilities and to repatriate any profits earned from the
management. On megacities, Koonings and Kruijt
enterprise. (eds), Megacities: The Politics of Urban Exclusion and
79 However, the added value for American companies derives Violence in the Global South (2009), and Mike Davis’s
almost entirely from low labour costs and customs exem- Planet of Slums (2006) are both recommended.
ptions since up to half of the components supplied to the For those interested in African cities and urban
maquiladora are actually sourced in Asia. Source: San Diego
development, the volume edited by Pieterse and
East County Economic Development Council.
80 Tim Johnson, ‘Mexico’s “Maquiladora” Labor System Keeps Parnell (2014) Africa’s Urban Revolution provides a
Workers in Poverty’, 17 June 2012, http://www. compelling account of contemporary African
mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/17/152220/mexicos- urbanisation by some of the foremost scholars of the
maquiladora-labor-system.html§orylink=cpyhttp://www. region. Garth Myers, African Cities, is one of the best
mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/17/152220/mexicos- single author treatments of urban life and
maquiladora-labor-system.html.
81 Dharavi was the setting for Danny Boyle’s 2008 Oscar development in Africa. Simone and Abouhani’s
winning movie Slumdog Millionaire. Gethin Chamberlain, (2005) edited collection of essays, Urban Africa:
‘The Beating Heart of Mumbai’, Observer, 21 December Changing Contours of Survival in the City, remains a key
2008, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/ resource for scholars of urban Africa. Rem Koolhaas/
dec/21/dharavi-india-slums-slumdog-millionaire-poverty. the Harvard Design School’s Great Leap Forward
82 ‘Vision Mumbai: A Recipe for Disaster’, The Times of India,
18 December 2003, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.
(Harvard Design School, 2001) is a provocative and
com/2003-12-18/mumbai/27211601_1_task-force- beautifully illustrated account of urbanisation in
mckinsey-report. many regions of the Global South including features
83 Chamberlain, op. cit. on Lagos and Shanghai.
84 ‘The iPod Index. Ranking the Richest Cities in the World’, On Asia, the chapters in Roy and Ong’s Worlding
UBS, March 2009, http://www.citymayors.com/economics/
Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global
usb-ipod-index.html.
(2011) provide valuable and theoretically innovative
insights into the changing world of the Asian city.
FURTHER READING Essential reading on China includes Fulong Wu’s
edited collection, China’s Emerging Cities: The Making
Jeremy Seabrook’s In the Cities of the South (1996) of New Urbanism (2007), You-tien Hsing’s The Great
remains a powerful account of the very different Urban Transformation: Politics of Land and Property in
types of urban experience found outside the West. China (2010) and Xuefei Ren’s Urban China (2013).
Michael Peter Smith’s Transnational Urbanism (2001) Gavin Shatkin’s Contesting the Indian City (2013)
takes the study of ‘third world urbanism’ on to a features detailed studies of several of India’s most
new plane by radically questioning traditional important cities including Mumbai and a useful
assumptions about the geography of uneven historical survey of Indian urban development by
development. For a good general discussion of the Shatkin and Vidyarthi. Ayona Datta’s The Illegal City
city and uneven development see Savage et al. ([1993] is a compelling account of space, politics and gender
2003), also excerpted in Le Gates and Stout (various in a Delhi squatter community, while Pulitzer Prize
editions). J. John Palen’s The Urban World (2001) is a winning journalist Katherine Boo’s Behind the
179
Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America.
Undercity (2012) is a much celebrated portrayal of The collection edited by Rodgers, Beall and Kanbur
subaltern life in India’s largest city. Although (2012a) Latin American Urban Development into
predominantly a study of St. Petersburg, Axenov, the 21st Century, contains some key chapters
Brade and Bondarchuk’s (2006) The Transformation of on themes ranging from violence and the drug
Urban Space in Post-Soviet Russia, also charts the trade, to urban inequality and popular move-
development of the ‘post-socialist city’ in Russia ments. Some compelling single country studies
as a whole. include Auyero and Swistun’s (2009) Flammable
Latin America’s cities lack a comprehensive on Buenos Aires/Argentina, Marques’ (2012)

monographic treatment, but a good collection of Opportunities and Deprivation in the Urban South
essays on urban informality in South and Central on São Paolo/Brazil, and Haber’s (2006) Power
America and the Caribbean can be found in from Experience: Urban Popular Movements in Late
Hernandez, Kellett and Allen’s (2010) Rethinking the Twentieth-Century Mexico.
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Chapter 9

The majority urban world:

The city itself is produced through the politics of poverty.

INTRODUCTION per square kilometre (p/km2) to 61. In sub-Saharan

EXHIBIT 9.1 ANDY MERRIFIELD, ‘THE URBANIZATION OF THE WORLD’

conditions of extreme deprivation and without access

instead they argue there is a need to theorise

its own government (Kamel and Hoffman, 1999:

61 Louise Redvers, ‘Angola’s Chinese-Built Ghost Town’, BBC

business/2006/jan/08/china.theobserver?guni=Article: student-friendly introduction to urban sociology and

blished by a Mexican bank allowing it to lease the buildings

Latin America’s cities lack a comprehensive on Buenos Aires/Argentina, Marques’ (2012)

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