Urban definitions / data

What is the urban?

Debated; it could be a process and may have no spatial definition (Sayer, 1984)

Planetary urbanisation

Urbanisation is a global process and touches on all aspects of society (Brenner and Schmid, 2014), contested as too eurocentric by (Robinson and Roy, 2015)

Discussion over forms of urbanisation processes

(Fox et al., 2018) argued that urbanisation is a demographic process, whereas (Turok, 2018) argued it is an economic one; this may be relevant when considering late-stage urbanisation (e.g. China v. sub-saharan Africa).

Definitions of a city

May be a size threshold, administrative, legal or historical (UN-Habitat, 2020); 104 countries globally use a single definition of the urban, though these vary internationally (UN, 2018)

Batty on digital twin cities

Big data ‘pertains to any and every aspect of the city’ and creates replicas that can be studied alongside cities (Batty, 2016)

Issues with a lack of urban data and varying definitions

‘spatial-temporal complexities’ of urban systems are not fully captured, definitions do not include other broader processes (Buettner, 2015), urban myths can be created (Satterthwaite, 2010)

Lefebvre’s theory of socially-produced space

space is produced by social reproduction (i.e. constantly changing); space is represented by place-making institutions (e.g. government, planners); space is representational - affectual experiences shape place (Lefebvre (1991) in Harding & Blokand, 2014)

what is social reproduction

behaviours that individuals carry out to maintain their position in a class structure, representated spatially in cities (spatial distance affirms social distance) (Harding and Blokand, 2014)

how do cities disprove the homo economicus neo-classical approach to individual behaviour?

studies in Berlin show that tenants choose new locations based on personal preference for the area, not purely rent, aligning with non-economic values (Harding and Blokand, 2014)

proportion of African countries studied in Potts, 2018 where agricultural activities still dominate the economic sector

4/5 (Potts, 2018)

what is Satterhwaite’s (2007) argument for the economic driver of urbanisation?

in LICs / NEEs people seek out better economic opportunities in cities; shifts in GDP importance of industry / services to 97% (2007); the proportion of population employed in service / industry and urban population are correlated; when they are not, this may reflect poor data collection standards.

case study of Egyptian urban-undercounting

the classification of ‘rural areas’ including ‘agricultural towns’ with up to 20,000 residents: this led to a disparity between industrial growth and urban growth, which is just nominal (Satterhwaite, 2007)

impact of public services on urbanisation

it is most cost-effective to place most specialised public services (universities as opposed to primary schools, hospitals as opposed to clinics) in the largest urban areas (Satterhwaite, 2007); this itself may drive urbanisation.

urban change in South Africa shaped by local factors

urbanisation under apartheid was displaced from city areas to enforce segregation up until 1994 (Satterhwaite, 2007)

what proportion of ‘million-cities’ in 2000 were in the 20 largest economies in the world?

2/3 of ‘million cities’ in 2000 were in the 20 largest economies in the world (Satterhwaite, 2007)

what factors moderate the relationship between urbanisation and globalisation in large, Western, Global cities?

a separation of production and management: cities like London, NY using advanced telecommunications to expand the workforce by relying on working on markets and not producing goods; a decentralised pattern of urban investment enabled by good transport, such as Silicon Valley (Satterhwaite, 2007)

outline urban myths

sets of falsehoods created about urbanisation due to insufficient data or discordant urban naming procedures: such as declaring that ‘half the world lives in cities’ while not defining what a city is, or assuming urbanisation in the Global South is ‘out of control’ which is generalising (Satterhwaite, 2007, 2010)

outline the sub-Saharan-African urban myth

the 2005 Commission for Africa reported that Africa is urbanising more rapidly than anywhere else; but only 26% of Africans lived in urban areas in 2000 as opposed to 70% in Europe; the rapid expansion of some African cities in the latter half of the 20th century may be due to under-urbanisation due to colonial pressure (Satterhwaite, 2010)

what is urban primacy

when one city (often the capital) holds large influence over a region’s population, but this measure of urban bias can often be distorted by differing census methods (Satterhwaite, 2010)

outline recent urbanisation trends in Ghana (Potts, 2018)

7% urban growth to 51% from 2000-2010 (a more vigorous urbanisation); increasing population of the urban area of Accra (but not the initial boundary) at 3.4% yearly; but the economic importance of manufacturing is in decline, as some urban areas (counted as >5K POP) are ‘urban’ but are rural in economic terms; therefore Ghana should not be yet regarded as half-urban (Potts, 2018)

by how much did the number of settlements in Nigeria with over 5,000 residents increase from 1950-2010

tenfold (10x) (Fox et al., 2017): indicative of increasing ‘urban’ centres in agricultural regions without economic change.

why do Fox et al. (2017) argue for a spatial-demographic approach to urban areas

people migrate to urban areas for many non-economic reasons (e.g. marriage, ~40% of women doing that in Nigeria) and natural growth must be understood (fertility rate of 4.7); it has real applications in urban systems use and purely considering urban areas economically risks meaning these areas lose out on centralised planning e.g. sewerage (Fox et al., 2017)

what is the ‘urban age’

the notion that cities are now predominant, often done numerically (e.g. ‘over half the world’s population now lives in cities’) (Brenner and Schmid, 2014)

describe the conceptual architecture previously used to frame the ‘urban age’

pioneered by Kingsley Davis’ use of an ‘urban population threshold’ for defining urban areas that is not applicable everywhere (a statistical artefact): using principles of methodological territorialism (the processes of urban areas are confined to urban areas) and urbanisation as concentration (urbanisation should only the concentration of people in an area) (Brenner and Schmid, 2014)

how do Brenner and Schmid (2014) argue against the conceptual framework of the ‘urban age’?

(1) it attempts to divide the urban/rural clearly which is becoming more difficult with structural processes such as capital accumulation; (2) it is homogenising of urban areas - e.g. assuming that urban areas operate under similar processes globally and rural areas the same: this risks misunderstanding structural issues, which could have real-world consequences

what conclusions do Brenner and Schmid (2014) reach regarding the urban age?

urbanisation is a historical process; urbanisation involves concentration (of people) and expansion (of structural processes); the urban is meshed into a planetary fabric of systems (planetary urbanisation); and all urban areas are different (Brenner and Schmid, 2014)

how do Robinson and Roy (2016) critique planetary urbanisation theory?

there is still value in considering localised urban processes that planetary urbanisation may look over, such as the embodied experiences of women in cities, or rejects all ‘non-economic’ urban processes and struggles to find space for heterodox, non-capitalist urbanisation (Robinson and Roy, 2016).

how does Roy (2011) outline the use of the term ‘slum’

mostly applied in academic and popular discourse as places in megacities that are perceived as suffering from ‘underdevelopment’ (Roy, 2011)

how does Roy (2011) think of subaltern urbanism?

the subaltern as being a popular agent of political agency and entrepreneurship in slums: the peripheries of urban life need to be considered (Roy, 2011)

how does Roy (2011) critique informality?

what is formal and what is informal is decided by those in power - this is a discourse and a critical urban theory (Roy, 2011)

What does Yeoh (2011) want to bring to the forefront of urban theory to make it postcolonial?

essentially via challenging discourses of urbanisation centred in the west, focusing on the subaltern and in particular interactions, identities (e.g. postcolonial urban identity in Ireland)?

what are fortified enclaves

‘fortified enclaves are privatised, enclosed and monitored spaces for residence, consumption, leisure and work’ (Caldeira, 1998)

how do fortified enclaves isolate themselves from city life

by employing private security and using physical dividers: alienating public space to prevent mixing of classes and focused on the ‘interior’ not ‘exterior’ (i.e. buildings v. street) - an upper-class taboo on the street; and by being independent from the external world; pioneered by modernism (e.g. Brasilia) (Caldeira, 1998)

difference between Los Angeles’ and Sao Paulo’s fortified enclaves

Los Angeles’ has more subtle threats of violence to withhold the upper-class, neoliberal status quo (e.g. ‘armed security present’ signs) (Caldeira, 1998)

key takeaways about segregation from Caldeira (1998)

segregation and violence go hand-in-hand and promote one another as people clash over how space is governed; the experience of this segregation depends on positionality

define planetary gentrification

acknowledging multiple types of gentrification across the planet, removing the core-periphery perception and acknowledging south-south urban flows (Lees, 2017)

example of planetary resistance to planetary gentrification

barrio women in Venezuela being mobilised to construct a ‘socialist community’ in Caracas to combat oil-fed gentrification: this was conducted in a more real, material sense than lots of activity in the Global North, and gave themselves political agency (through Urban Land Committees) (Velasquez Atehortua, 2013)

what does Lees (2017) argue is key for understanding planetary gentrification through comparative urbanism?

understanding: spatial capital (how value is applied to locations and used for processes, e.g. rent-gap theory); planetary rent-gaps (rent-gaps that are state-induced); planetary displacement (displacement occuring in all spaces) and planetary resistance (against gentrification) (Lees, 2017)

the ‘culture of poverty’

pejorative term describing poor social conditions and relationships in ‘informal areas’ (Lewis, 1967)

self-help v. state-led interventions in informality

the debate as to how states should intervene in informality: would it be better to allow self-help? likely oversimplification leads to issues (Lombard and Meth, 2017)

what does Roy (2005) think of urban informality production?

informality is a discourse: it is produced by the state and powerful actors (Roy, 2005)

case study: the production of informality in India

in Bangalore, the ‘silicon valley’ of India, informality has been ‘deregulated’: certain developments can remain, certain ones cannot, large IT companies like Infosys can ship in utilities while public investment in sanitation is minimal: informality does not translate to poverty, informality translates to deregulation (Roy, 2009)

‘beds in sheds’

informality example in the Global North (Lombard and Meth, 2017)

what does Keil (2017) mean by suburban theory?

suburbanisation is the future of urbanisation but urban studies do not often consider that; we need to remove centrality on urban cores and look deeper into suburbanisation

what is the history of urban crisis?

earliest references in the 1950s and a shift from structuralist to individualised perceptions of crisis in the 1970s, such as a ‘culture of poverty’: this pertains today as the crisis of morality, where cities are seen as having an intrinsic issue: perhaps enabling the neoliberalisation of space in the post-crisis neoliberal city (Weaver, 2017)

what is the post-crisis neoliberal city

a pattern of city development emergent after the 2008 crisis, characterised by strong neoliberalisation of space (Weaver, 2007)

what is the Marxist theory of urban crisis?

highly structural - the state enables neoliebral policy and enforces a vicious cycle of violence through disinvestment in certain areas and investment (neoliberalisation) in others (Weaver, 2007)

what is polycrisis?

an approach to urban crisis that considers the multiple factors (including structures of accumulation) and insider knowledge in urban polycrisis (Madden, 2023)

how many people experience homelessness globally?

318mn (UN Habitat, 2023)

what is the influence of urban areas on the global economy and environment?

urban areas account for >70% of emissions, >70% of global GDP, over 65% of UN SDGs are dependent on local urban policy.

what is the ‘new urban agenda’

a policy and social goal that advocates equal access to opportunities through a reconsideration of urban spaces, based on SDG #11 ‘make cities and settlements (UN Habitat, 2023)

what have the successes of UN-Habitat been?

working with 162 countries on national-level urban policy; reconstructed 150K buildings in Syria, rehabilitated 40 public spaces globally (UN Habitat, 2023)