GEOG 217 Final

Intro to studying Cities in the Global South

Cities in the Global South are changing rapidly

• Big, high tech developments

• Cities in Asia and Africa expected to grow massively in next years

  • More than half of projected increase in city dwellers worldwide

  • Population centers changing: now in South/South-East Asia

• Makes study difficult

Flashy global city projects vs grass roots innovations

Key issues

• Rapid urban growth

  • housing shortages, inadequate infrastructure

• Growing inequalities, exacerbation of existing social divisions

• Air and water pollution, food security

• Strategies for transforming economies

  • City-centric economic development, culture, heritage, arts

  • Tech

• Identity

  • National identity, ethnic identity, sexual, gender

• The Global South as a pioneer of urban innovations and policies

  • Not just a receptacle for the west

• Global interconnectedness

  • Places, flows of ideas, materials, $, and people

• Demographic shifts

We can’t simply apply Western study methods and logics to Global South Cities

• Some travel well; others don’t

• Some are expand/adapt to new contexts

Space

Refers to relationships between physical spaces and the social factors (relationships, practices, reps, insts, etc) that exist in and shape them

• Both physical and socially produced

• Related to power and change over time

Spatiality

Indicates that space and society are mutually constitutive

Place

Locations imbued with meaning

• Always being reworked by ppl living in them and forces beyond them

Scale

Conceptual arrangement of space

• Thought of in levels (local, national, global, etc)

Tied with power and politics: socially/politically produced

• ex. our idea of a “national” scale is a (recent) construct

Socio-spatial process

Indicates the mutually constitutive rltnship btwn society and space

• Eg rltnship btwn the organization of people and of space

These are constantly changing and are impacted by legacies

• “Process:” historical and dynamic

Elites

Small groups of people that control large amounts of capital, political power, or social and cultural influence

• Pwr often exercised through institutions

  • mediate, facilitate, sometimes limit ability to satisfy their interests

Urbanization

Clustering of population in increasingly large, dense, diverse cities over time

Commodification

Process of a thing/idea/labour/whatever being turned into a marketable good

Development

Creation, destruction, and recreation of urban built environments over time – land, buildings, and infrastructure – for the purposes of producing and utilizing value of different sorts

• Driven by elites (growth coalitions)

Uneven development

Development happening… unevenly

• Result of capitalist development: money going some places over others

Urbanism

Main for this class: ways of life that define cities in specific historical periods

• Shaped by design of urban built envmts

Neoliberalization

Process of increasingly turning over previously public processes (ex construction) over to private interests

3 main components of critical urban geography

1. Propose new concepts to explain how wider social processes and relationships operate and change

   • ex. connecting local urban phenomena to global processes

2. Developing research that is socially relevant and politically engaged

   • How is urban space used for action, alt forms of politics

3. Taking marginalized/ordinary ppls/groups voices into account

   • Not just elites

Can be viewed as optimistic

• Change is possible

  • We set up these systems, we can change them

Chicago School

eg. Burgess, Wirth, Park

Influential on urban theory

Presented a modernist theory of cities as based on social darwinist struggles for urban space

• Critical urban geography has moved beyond this conception

Some things we have moved beyond

• “Neighbourhood revival” as neutral (gentrification)

• Ppl moving up the socioeconomic hierarchy through hard work

  • Moving out to better neighbourhoods, especially in suburbs

• Bid rent theory

Gentrification

Process by which urban neighbourhoods, usually the home of low-income residents, become the focus for reinvestment and resettlement by the middle or upper classes

• Involves displacement generally

• implies politics to neighbourhood changes

• Implies some benefit, others don’t

Contrast to old, upbeat terms (regeneration, neighbourhood revival)

Mixed neighbourhoods; promises and problems

Def: neighbourhood with a mix of demographics, generally income

Many policy-makers, planners, scholars assume that socially mixed communities are

• Healthier, safer, and more vibrant

• Can attract investment, tourism, and economic development

• Are beneficial for low-income people

• Assumption: To oppose ‘mix’ is to foster ‘segregation’

Two big problems with social mix in some places:

1. Benefits promised for low-income groups do not materialize

   • strong social networks and positive bonds of community are often destroyed

2. Social cohesion fails to happen

   • New residents less likely to engage in neighbourhood social interaction than long time low and middle-income residents

   • higher income residents often use their political know-how to fight against services for the poor or to target activities of marginalized people in public space

Social mix assumes an even playing field between people

Right to the City (Lfebvre) (brief)

Right to change the city, not just access

Focus on

• Role of ordinary ppl in opposing erosion of urban public realm by private sector dvlpmt

• Shaping urban space in a more democratic and socially inclusive fashion than was possible under modernist visions of citizenship and public participation

Milton Parc neighbourhood and fighting modernist dvlpmt (brief)

Cnnxn to right to the city, agst neoliberalism

1970s, banded together to stop developer hoping to tear it all down and build La Cite

• Five towers were built, then the developers abandoned Phases 2 and 3 of the project

  Six non-profits and 16 housing co-ops emerged from this citizen-led struggle against a private develop

Milton Park Citizens’ committee also rallied to prevent the former Royal Vic and Hotel-Dieu hospitals

• Argue should remain public buildings

Neoliberalism

Became widespread in 1980s

Assumes competitive free market is most efficient way of organizing econ and society in general

5 main points

• Rule of the market

  • Avoiding market regulation, no matter social cost

• Cutting public expenditure for social services

• Deregulation

  • of everything that can diminish profits (envmt, workers rights)

• Privatization of public

• Eliminating concept of “public good”

  • Replace with “individual responsibility”

  • Puts more pressure on poor to find solutions for themselves

The old liberalism and responses to it

Neoliberalism in cities

Examples in cities

• Bangladesh

  • International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending lots to build highways, but only 1% of Bangladeshis drive

• Indonesia

  • Parks sold to developers

  • Selling water, not providing

  • Privately-owned toll roads

  • Full-service private gated communities

• India

  • Park charging admission

  • Privatization of electrivity

    • more reliable, but more expensive so fewer have access

  • Banning bikes, rickshaws, pedestrians, etc to make way for cars

Japan: outliar that rejected it

• Rich countries faced econ stagnation in 70s and 80s, so neoliberalized

• Japan went through without having to restructure economy

• Still has

  • Tightly regulated labour market

  • Corp taxes high

  • Financial systems centered on govt backed banks instead of capital markets

Speculation

Investing in buildings or land, not primarily to use, but to hold for a period of time, in the hope that their price on the market will increase so that they can be sold again for a profi

Bid rent theory and critiques

Developed by the Chicago School, assumes that:

• demand driven by individual choices and the cost of land

• Price/demand change w distance from CBD

• Competition for land close to CBD

David Harvey argues that this approach:

• ignores the ability of different classes to command space

• ignores larger forces/structures (eg speculation)

• Suggests that suburban wealth and growth and inner-city poverty and decline are natural, logical, and inevitable

Evidence in the 1970s and 1980s: many middle-class people were not moving to the suburbs but to particular inner-city neighbourhoods

• This contradicted standard logics of rent bid theor

Speculation in China

Huge!!!!

Extreme oversupply of housing

• 20% of all homes in China are empty (65 million)

Real estate as key vehicle for investors

• Govt gets $$$ from leasing out land to developers: v strong incentive to encourage development, instead of limiting it

Rapid urbanization

Speculation in foreign lands: EG Forest City, Malaysia

Speculation in Canada

Big issue

Keep anticipating burst of housing bubble, but hasnt materialized

Both domestic and foreign investment

Trying to stop, but difficult

• Eg rule in BC putting big tax on houses sold 2 years after purchase

• Limited impact

Negative effects on housing crisis

Rent gap

Myth

Not-complete-truth that tends to resonate with certain ppl, legitimize actions

Sweat equity

Term used to increase value of a building based on labour put into renovations by the owners, rather than any contractors

Rent gap

Gap between the actual value (ground rent) or a property and the value it could potentially earn if redeveloped to its “highest and best use”

• Think gentrification, renovictions, etc

Public urban geographies

Urban geographies that engage academics AND non-academic actors/activisits

Hegemony/hegemony

Refers to a variety of coercive and noncoercive strategies used by a ruling class to control and regulate the behavior of other classes

• Also meaning ‘dominant’ or ‘widespread’

• Never completely dominant

  • Can be questioned, resisted, perhaps overturned

Speculative urbanism (Sood, 2017 article) (covering Goldman)

Term introduced 2011 by Michael Goldman

• Explaining urban development in Bangalore, India

Def:

• Transformative mode of urban development and governance built on new ‘alternative’ forms of finance capital

• Govt land acquisition for investment

• Financialization and assetization of urban land, housing, infrastructure

• Expansion of neoliberal economic reforms, inter-urban competition and inter-referencing, and transnational policy experts

Includes:

• Political redesignation / rezoning / redivision of land to raise its market value

• Speculative construction (by both public and private)

Projects are generally…

• Massive

• Primarily situated in peri-urban or greenfield contexts (lower costs of land)

• Turbulent

  • Responding to quick changes in finance flows

  • Hoping to tie investors down, but aware they will come and go

Lead to…

• Competition for investors intensifies competition between rival cities

  • Both from cities themselves and higher govts

  • Inter-referencing

• Landing/anchoring of mobile finance capital in the built environment

  • Finance shapes built environment

Critiques

• Overemphasizes role of finance capital, leaves little room for resistance, local nonstate actors

Related concepts

• Neoliberalism

• Deregulation

  • E.G. Rezoning

    • Regular ppl can't due that, need power and support from state

  • Disregard for envmtl regs

• Land grabbing

  • The exceptional rules of dispossession enacted in name of world city making

    • Eg govt taking land from ppl and selling to developers

• Aspirations of being ‘world class,’ ‘world city-making projects’

• Inter-referencing

  • Eg. ‘the Dubai of…’, ‘the Silicon Valley of…,’

Speculative governance and government (Goldman, 2011)

Speculative governance: governance hoping to attract speculative finance capital (often transnational) for big urban projects

Speculative government: Government revenues/budgets tied to speculative development revenues

Speculative urbanism projects: examples

Eko Atlantic, Nigeria

• a new private ‘financial city’

Malaysia’s state of Melaka

• Extending entire coast, anticipating demand for housing, cruise ships, tourism

Bahrain

• Using artificial land to extend territory by 60%

• EX. Durrat Al-Bahrain

  • Anticipates future demand for luxury recreational properties

Inter-referencing

Referencing other cities in design and presentation to give ones own a competitive edge and increased marketability

• EG. “The Dubai of…” “The Silicon Valley of…”

Bangaluru (Bangalore), India: Development

Bangalore over 30 years: “Garden City” -> “India’s Silicon Valley,” a neoliberal haven

Bangalore’s journey

• Early: Center for public services sector

• 1950s

  • Population of 1million

  • Pretty town w shaded avenues, large bungalows, amenities for modern living

  • Cool climate

  • V v green

  • Attractive

• Companies and manufacturing move in

• By 1970s

  • Major R&D orgs

  • Scientists, engineers, academics from all over moved there

• In last 3+ decades

  • Demand for housing increased dramatically

  • Old houses w big gardens torn down for multi-story buildings

  • Roads super congested

  • Developers began eyeing drying beds of water bodies as potential sites for housing

  • Many of city’s famous lakes, water storage tanks disappeared for development

• Today:

  • population over 14million

  • Major tech and sevices hub

Bangaluru (Bangalore): Model city? Problems?

Bangalore as model “Global South City?”

• Many ppl see Bangalore as a model for Global South to follow to develop in globalized info age

  • Entrepreneur-friendly, access to intl capital fuels, service-sector-driven development

  • Skilled middle-class workers whose increase consumption generates broad develpmoental benefits

• Now Silicon Valley of India, but used to be capital of India’s public sector enterprises

  • Strong foundation of state investment prior to Silicon-Valley-ization

Problems/consequences

• Land-grabbing

  • State taking lots of land from locals to meet real or anticipated demands for housing, offices, commercial 

  • Hitting farmers espec hard

• Racketeering around land-grabbing

• Lightly-regulated construction boom

  • Deregulation -> drops in quality, safety

• Destruction of lakes, pools, water storage tanks

  • Precarious freshwater supplies

  • Lack of recreation

• Pollution

  • Eg toxic foam from sewage runoff from nearby industries

  • Barely regulated

  • Sometimes it catches fire

    • Heck the lakes catch fire bc of the pollution

Li, Z., Li, X., & Wang, L. (2014). Speculative urbanism and the making of university towns in China: A case of Guangzhou University Town

China is a site for lots of speculative urbanism projects

University towns are a strat for local govts to profit from higher land values

Why has China built so many Uni towns so quickly?

• Land value profits (above)

• Increased demand for skilled work force

• Sudden expansion in enrollment

  • Increased emphasis on education

• National policy changes

  • All Chinese unis expanded enrollment quotas

    • Ordered by state

• Govt officials get promotions based on urban schemes they have launched

Case study: Guangzhou University Town

• Appropriation of village land

  • 4 remaining villages remain in Guangzhou uni town

    • State told villagers to relocate: some refused

  • Villages fill gap, providing services Unis don't provide

    • Businesses

      • Migrants, students, business ppl open shops, restaurants, hotels, etc in villages to cater to students

    • Services

      • Delayed state dvlpmt of service sector (villages are doing it for us)

• Ongoing challenges

  • Risky speculative projs

    • Risky to banks, private investor

    • Some gone bankrupt, construction halted, loans unable to be paid

  • Displaced villagers are marginalized

    • Espec ones who took deal and left

  • Profit and livelihood of landless farmers isnt guaranteed

    • Some didnt get great compensation packages

      • Eg many village landlords, but it pays poorly, less than farming

  • Facilities and infrastructure

    • Widely criticized

    • Poor planning

    • Transportation btwn uni towns and central city major problem

  • Intense competitions over small number of training, internships for students

    • Neighbouring lands used for dvlpmt, not high tech sectors or things that could give training to students

  
  

China’s urban transformation (Speculation)

China has been urbanizing

Speculative urbanism is core to China’s national growth strategy (beyond individual cities)

• Urban redevelopment and expansion key

• Putting land into a “higher and better use”

Already urban: “First Class” cities

• Striving to promote cities as world class

• Global events main strat

  • Olympics, etc

  • Justifies redvelopment, commodifies space

• Massive transit developments

Urbanizing land

• Land resources used for finance development

• Land revenues are fully retained by local govts as extra-budgetary revenues

  • Huge incentives for loval govts to grab rural land for urban dvlpmt

• 3 mechanisms

  • Expanding urban admin boundaries into rural areas

  • Building: Using special econ/dvlpment zones to “leapfrog” development

  • Redeveloping existing land resources within urban boundaries

Signs of speculative urbanism in China

• Pre-emptive speculative real estate projects

  • eg supply outpacing demand

• State funded railway projects

• Construction of “ghost towns” (buildings remain vacant)

• Housing prices rising beyond means of avg urban house

3 examples of speculative urbanism in southern Malaysia: lawsuits and resistance

Happening super fast, little scholarship on it

Forest city

• Came out of nothing in like 10 yrs

• On artificial land off coast of Malaysia

• Eco-city branding key to the speculation

  • Leveraging eco brand

  • Catering to Chinese investors escaping Chinese pollution

Kampung Sungai Temon

• Indigenous fishing village

• Illegally dumped artificial land creation from urban dvmplmt: encroaching on fishing/mussel farming grounds

  • Legal battles/pushback over it

Stuland Laut

• Indigenous village

• Village land seized by state in 1993 to make way for development

  • Don't have papers proving ownership

• Lawsuit launched, but were forced to move

• 2018: state tries to have claims dismissed

  • Offers compensation of 1000$

  • Village refused

• Finally won larger payout

  • BUT the state never paid