Contemporary Urban Geographies

Batty (2013)

Use of modern technology through satellite imagery, remote sensing and GIS helps to fill gaps in data collection, and can provide estimates for metrics like population density or qualitative analysis of land use. Highlights the benefits of implementing big data into cities.

Ordinary cities - Robinson (2006)

Aims to remove the hierarchical colonial connotations of Western developed cities as examples to emulate vs. global South underdeveloped cities as deficient copies in need of improvement.

Particularly critical of theories associated with Sassen/Friendmann e.g. world/global cities, since these privilege elite cities and marginalise poorer ones, in turn reinforcing global inequalities and narrowing our imagination of possible urban futures.

Smith, 1996 - Revanchist City

Government-led gentrification aimed at attracting inward investment, often involving the violent displacement of previous residents.

Bernstock, 2025 - Olympic gentrification in London

In Stratford and Newham, two deprived London boroughs who hosted the 2012 Olympic Games, regeneration, state-led gentrification and displacement are interconnected. Despite being presented as British urban regeneration stories, the redevelopment of the Olympic Park in Stratford has not benefitted the borough’s original residents, instead increasing housing competition and inflating property prices for professionals. The displacement and demolition of social housing estates resulted in a loss of almost 800 affordable homes, and of the 13300 rebuilt in the surrounding area since the Olympics, solely 27% were affordable houses (half of the 50% pledged during the Olympic bid).

Boykoff, 2024 - global pattern of social cleansing pre-Olympics

Paris 2024: 39% increase in encampment evictions in the year leading up to the Paris games.

Atlanta 1996: 9,000 homeless residents were arrested without probable cause as part of a social cleansing programme. The “demonising of poor and hopeless residents” in the lead-up to the Olympics justified public policy which had been occurring less blatantly prior to this point.

Rio de Janeiro 2016: 77,000 people were displaced to construct Olympic venues and rapidly ‘upgrade’ Favelas. This came following the failure of the Morar Carioca plan, which extended roads and improved drainage systems but failed at its original promise of constructing eco-friendly modern apartment blocks to permanently rehome favela residents. Following even small redevelopments to the favelas, property prices are doubling, pushing out tenants and preventing settlement by migrants from poorer parts of Brazil.

Lees, 2014: planetary gentrification

Gentrification is occurring in many rapidly-urbanising Global South cities, including through slum gentrification and poverty tourism. This acts to further marginalise the most impoverished residents out of their homes and communities. In Shanghai, over 1 million lower income households were displaced, increasing spatial inequalities and amenity access e.g. good-quality green space and Shanghai’s thousand parks development have supported the city’s wealthy residents who can afford to live in the areas serviced by blue-green infrastructure.

Lees (2017): Johannesburg, South Africa

Anglo-centric approach to urbanisation, reinforcing neo-colonial power because it is led by middle-class white private investors. Unlike in most GN gentrification examples, however, post-apartheid gentrification in South Africa involved providing low-cost housing to low-income groups through the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). This built 3.6 million new homes, offered for free to households with an income of less than 3500 rand per month. After obtaining RDP houses and waiting 10-15 years, many house recipients illegally sell the house for a lower price and live in shacks in the garden to reinvest the profits in their businesses. (link to RTB scheme in the UK; 41% of RTB homes are now private rentals).

Due to legacies of profound wealth inequality on the grounds of ethnicity, many ethnic minority groups are still detrimentally affected by gentrification even with RDP housing due to segregation in townships. They have few resources or agency which perpetuates cycles of poverty and socioeconomic stratification.

Jayne and Ward (2017) - slums

Slums are “inadequate in terms of conceptualising urban inequalities, leading to distortions in policy” (e.g. slum clearance policies).

Gertner (2008)

Spatial informality can also include informally-constructed buildings which violate construction laws, but are ignored by the state due to redevelopment pressure and unstrict oversight. Does not fit social imaginaries of informality.

Weaver (2017) - polycrisis

Polycrisis narratives reinforce the negative stereotypes of urban spaces. This can justify policy - e.g. NYC 1975 fiscal crisis due to public sector overspending which led to austerity policies and worsened socio-economic conditions for many residents.

Beddow (2020)

Urban heat island effect means that UK cities are up to 12 degrees warmer than the countryside.

Sanctuary cities

A municipality which decreases or denies its cooperation with local law enforcement immigration officers. Major US cities such as LA, NYC, Chicago, Boston and Seattle are sanctuary cities, yet under Trump’s administration he aims to cut federal funding for sanctuary cities and states in the USA.

NYC population metrics

New York City = 8.48 million
New York metropolitan region = 19.2 million

Espey (2025) - Census difficulties

24 countries, combining 25% of the world’s population, had not published their 2020 Census reports by July 2024. Outdated data = unreliable

Forsythe, 2012 - defining suburbs

No consensus on defining suburbs, which are ambiguous and diverse. The key dimensions to consider include: location, built environment characteristics, transportation, activities, political and sociocultural traits, planning style and time – makes them dynamic and varying globally, from small towns to megacities. US suburban imaginaries as white, middle class and elite spaces (‘McMansions’) means that policymakers are less likely to consider the urban challenges for ethnic minority suburban residents or low-income suburbs. In other metropolitan areas, suburbs provide an opportunity for migrants from rural areas who purchase cheap land to build their own property and grow their own food or work in suburban manufacturing.

Clearer definitions including subtypes like ‘American-style suburbs’, ‘edge cities’ (self-sustaining suburban hub which has grown independently) or ‘ethnoburbs’ (suburban settlements with multi-ethnic residential and business areas) which can improve research, theory and planning. This is especially important considering that the urban population is predicted to rise from 3.5 billion 2010 to 6.3 billion by 2050 (80%).

Keil, 2017 - suburban growth

“The urban century really is the suburban century”: today, it is suburban peripheries which dictate urban population growth, change to the built environment, and the degree of economic activity. Suburban expansion is driven by rising affluence, mass home ownership, railways and automobiles, urban decentralisation (no longer just dormitory settlements) and the desire for space and privacy (accused of accelerating socio-spatial segregation).

Clapson, 2003 - working-class suburbs in Reading

Growth of council estates during the inter-war years and post-WWII aimed to clear slums, reduce overcrowding and provide quality housing for working-class families. The Whitley Estate in Reading, developed from the 1930s to the 2010s, was originally constructed to rehouse London slum residents and overcrowded working-class families. Moving to suburban council estates represented a major material improvement to families due to indoor bathrooms, private gardens, larger homes, cleaner environments and green space, benefitting their quality of life. Contrary to media portrayals, which exaggerate council estate living conditions, many estates created strong and stable community bonds through sports clubs, churches, youth groups and social networks, with the latter especially benefitting women by reducing their domestic hardship.

Zhao, 2020 - Jiehebu

Argues for a translation turn in urban studies, emphasising dialogue over equivalence to capture local specificities. Critiques Eurocentric urban theory.

Jiehebu = urban-rural junctures, where rapidly expanding cities meet original agricultural land. Reflects the rapid growth of Wangjing, Beijing, where the population increased from 11.25mn in 1994 to 21.7mn in 2015, predominantly as a result of Korean inward migration which brought with it transnational business networks and ethnic commercial districts. This jiehebu is a frontier between urban Beijing, rural villages, industrial land, migrant enclaves and state-led development zones - very distinct from a traditional suburb.

Western epistemologies of ‘suburb’ are ineffective at explaining the distinct urban processes occurring in Wangjing; it is an “improper urban vocabulary”. Here, rapid urbanisation, rural land conversion, and the prevalence of high-density informal migrant housing through state-led transformation counter Western typologies of suburbanisation.

Roy, 2011 - subaltern urbanism

Marginalised, informal and impoverished settlements are not a failure of urban planning, but rather as vital, self-organised spaces of habitation, livelihood and political agency. This challenges the standard narratives of slums; Dharavi, India’s largest slum in Mumbai, is a self-sustaining microeconomy which houses an estimated 15,000 microenterprises producing leather goods, textiles and pottery. The slum also provides US$65 million in ethical tourism revenue per year.

Bauman (2000) - fortress cities

Safe enclaves for middle-class residents. Perpetuates urban myths and demonising stereotypes between lower-class/ethnic minority populations.

Davis (2006) - Los Angeles

Media perceptions of crime in LA incited a moral panic which resulted in middle class residents fleeing from the perceived dangerous urban core towards the suburbs, residing in safe gated communities.

Redevelopment in LA has resulted in “spatial apartheid”.
Skid Row = ‘containment’ for LA’s homeless community, making it “one of the world’s most dangerous 10sqkm blocks”.

Geographies of fear often justify spatial purification, enabling segregation to perpetuate in the long-term.

Daniels (2021) - segregation in Sau Paulo

19.8% of residents in 1993 lived in favelas; now estimated to be 1/3 of the population. Meanwhile the rich live in safe enclaves = spatial differentiation, with services and facilities to ensure that Sau Paulo’s wealthy residents don’t have to interact with dangerous outsiders.

Sawyer (2014) - redlining in San Francisco

Areas occupied by EM communities were deemed as hazardous (grade 4 on the residential security map) and therefore loan ownership was difficult, leading to property price depreciation, cyclical disinvestment and a large rent gap (Smith, 1996).

87% of once-hazardous zones in the Bay Area have since been gentrified.