Geography 217 Final

Lectures 15-23 for the second half of Geog 217 - Cities in the Modern World

What are some key issues in the urban Global South?

Rapid urban growth, housing shortages, inadequate infrastructure, growing inequalities, exacerbation of existing social divisions

What are some results of private, gated mega-developments?

Urban fragmentation, growing gaps between rich and poor, uneven access to water and electricity, fewer “spaces of encounter” between different ethnic, religious, and socio-economic groups

Speculative urbanism

The financialization of real estate; an investment strategy; ex. Forest City has purchased apartments but low occupancy rates; AirBnbs take away housing from the rental market

Spatiality

A term geographers use to indicate that space and society are mutually constitutive

Scale

A conceptual arrangement of space

Place

Locations instilled with meaning; ex. regions, nations, the globe

Why do urban geographers tend to approach cities as processes?

Cities are always changing, sometimes quick, sometimes slow, but always connected to larger forces (social, political, cultural)

Socio-Spatial process

A phrase indicating the mutually constitutive relationship between society and space

Elites

Small groups of people that control large amounts of capital, political power, or social and cultural influence; often exercised through institutions like the state

Urbanization

The process of becoming more urban → represents and reinforces a division of labor in society

Commodification

The process by which an object, product, capacity, labor, belief, representation, or piece of land is converted into an element of market exchange by being assigned a price

How can we understand urban development?

As the creation, destruction, and recreation of urban built environments - land, buildings, and infrastructure - for the purposes of building and utilizing value of different sorts

Uneven development

The unequal patterns of growth and decline that emerge under capitalism → contradicts classical economists’ argument that the economy tends toward equilibrium

What was Simmel and Wirth’s notion of urbanism?

They believed that urbanites were more alone than their rural counterparts; blasé, individualistic, unconcerned attitudes with no concern for others and no eye contact → later studies questioned these assumptions, arguing that although urbanites might prefer separation from others, they are also involved in building strong community bonds at home in their neighborhoods

State

The groups of institutions that govern society; a crucial actor in the process of developing cities

Planning

The institution of the state that is primarily responsible for designing and managing how flows of investment circulate in and out of the built environment

Zoning

A key tool of contemporary planning; when decision are made in which different land uses are separated from each other in a manner that is written down in policy documents and is therefore predictable

What has been the effect of the neoliberalization of the state since the 1980s?

More elements of planning have been made private

Bid rent theory

Assumes that the most expensive land is that located closest to the city center → land’s value decrease outward

Are there more people living inside the Southeast Asian region or outside it?

Inside

The informal sector

People who work for themselves; dominates many countries in the Global South but are banned from new gated communities

Forest City

Built in Malaysia on artificial land for a population of 700,000 people but will only be 30% occupied at any given time; ghost city

What are 2 major issues facing modern cities?

Air and water pollution and food security

2008 baby formula crisis

Tainted baby formula in China killed and hospitalized many babies; people went outside the country, got baby formula, and came back to China → caused a global crisis and demonstrated the lack of faith the Chinese had in their government

What have been strategies to transform economies?

City-centric economic development and investment in the knowledge economy (as opposed to agriculture)

Konza Techno City, Kenya

“Silicon Savannah” → overt attempt to shift economy from agriculture to a digital age

Right to the city

Coined by Henri Lefevre to describe working class struggles for political participation and access to physical spaces in the city

Global cities

Conceptualized with the global economy in mind

David Harvey

An influential urban geographer who argued that to understand and change cities for the better, we must shift the focus away from seeing urban problems solely in terms of their physical, cultural, or environmental characteristics - wider forces and contexts must be dismantled, not merely tweaked through zoning regulations

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 they can be sold again for profit

Gentrification

The process by which urban neighborhoods, usually the home of low-income residents, become the focus on reinvestment and resettlement by middle classes

Sweat equity

A term that refers to the increase in value of building, usually a dwelling, that comes from the labor put into renovations by its owners, rather than paying a contractor to do the work

Rent gap

As land and property values in parts of the central city undergo decline, a gap emerges between the actual value of property and its potential value should the property ever be redesigned to its highest and best use

Social mix

The notion of different social groups living together in proximity to one another → problem is that it assumes an equal playing field between people, but people who have more resources and stronger property rights have a clear advantage

Neoliberalism

An ideology and diverse set of policies and practices based on the idea that the private market and so-called market mechanisms offer the best way to organize and govern society

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Assumes that the competitive free market is the most efficient way of organizing the economy and society in general - in cities, this is manifested in the outsourcing of state activities to the private sector ex. if you can afford water, you get it

Hegemonic neoliberalism

In which every aspect of social life is subject to the needs of the market

Occupy movements

Usually involve the visible taking of urban space to make an argument for a different organization of society and the global economy

Worlding

Global South cities and people are positioned within a global regime of material and symbolic through which they tend to be understood only through reference to dominant global North perspectives

The myth of the American Dream

Impoverished but hard-working immigrant are believed to be able to move up the socioeconomic hierarchy and move out of the inner city to bigger and better housing in the suburbs → means that many people believe that neighborhoods are natural areas for particular populations and that neighborhood change is diserable

Mixed neighborhoods

Assumes to be healthier, safer, vibrant, and beneficial for low-income people → provide employment and social connection

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The reality is that benefits promised for low income groups do not materialize and social cohesion fails to happen

Main points about neoliberalism

Liberating private enterprise from any restrictions imposed by the government, no matter the social cost, eliminating price controls, total freedom of movement for capital, goods, and services, reduction of wages, deunionizing, no workers’ rights, cut expenditure for social services, deregulation (environmental concerns, worker’s safety), privatization - selling off state owned services to private investors (schools, hospitals, public space), eliminating the concept of “public good” and replacing it with “personal responsibility”

What are some urban impacts of neoliberalism in Bangladesh?

The IMF is lending 10 billion to build highways and flyovers, but only 1% of Bangladeshis drive

Japan

The world’s rich countries faced economic stagnation in the 1970s and 80s so they lowered taxes, slashed government regulation, and privatized government functions, whereas in Japan, the labor market is still tightly regulated, with stringent protections for full-time employees and tariffs on imports

The city at night

Promotes mass leisure where street vitality is often a crucial element, but the increasingly overt surveillance of the streets after dark might encourage the liberation of some groups and the alienation of others

Little India, Singapore

A visibly ethnically-bound space with an “authentic heritage” who appeal attracts tourists and locals, plays an important role as a hub of affordable and familiar goods and services for South Asian workers; a fatal road accident triggered a crowd of nearby migrant workers to “riot” → measures were implemented to deter activity - police cameras, more streetlights, and a ban on alcohol sales during days/times when migrant workers are known to congregate

3 key lessons to take from Little India

1) most urban agendas today promote a standard experience of nightlife 2) expanding public receptivity for the varied possibilities of public space use after dark is critical if nightlife is to be viewed as a positive urban asset → less demonizing 3) more imaginative thinking is needed to generate alternative methods to the contentious practice of surveillance ex. innovative light design

Gramercy Park, NY

Gated, private, 2-acre park; key holder once took a group of minority kids to the park, they were kicked out, settlement reached and they had permission to visit on MLK day each year → key holders rejected this and instead increased the settlement to remove the right to return

What are characteristics of divided cities?

Gated communities, gated condo complexes, new cities built from scratch, single family zoning, slum clearance

Eradicating slums

Often a form of marginalization, clearing slums to make way for luxury housing doesn’t solve the housing issues or underlying poverty, “for the poor” but never driven by the poor

Examples of recrafting exclusionary policies

Gated communities are banned in China, foreign ownership of property is banned in New Zealand, formalization of hawks (mobile food sellers) in Singapore

Jakarta’s water crisis

Jakarta is increasingly characterized by luxury real estate developments and high-profile infrastructural projects, but is experiencing a water crisis with unavoidably disruptive flooding, rising sea levels, and scarce water supplies → urban growth trajectories across world-class cities have contributed to increasing environmental risk to hazards such as flooding → extraction, water pollution, water shortages, stormwater management, and flood risk - not natural but socially produced by political and economic structures

Land reclamation

When land that has been disturbed is returned to an equivalent landscape with self-sustaining native vegetation

Interreferencing

Aspiring to make one city similar to another, global city ex. “The Dubai of…”

Bangalore

Has transformed from a garden city to India’s Silicon Valley, few regulations for industry, companies like relocating there because there are few labor or environmental laws, rise of a neoliberal city, seen as a template to follow, massive land grabbing to feed demand for housing office space, commercial

Expropriations of Land

Marginalizes the already-poor, if you’re literate and know your rights, you can be rich, but if you don’t, you can lose a lot of money, landless farmer laborers lose their land and commit suicide

Fake suits

Land is grabbed and sold when the land doesn’t actually exist or is already sold

University Towns in China (Guangzhou)

100 university towns constructed in China, not just one town and one school, one town with many schools, uni towns are a strategy for local governments to profit from higher values of land → uni tows have been built so quickly bc of an increased demand for skilled workforce, expansion in enrollment, and they are a strategy for the states to raise revenue by raising the value of land in surrounding areas, 10,000 villagers relocated, densification, the speculative urban projects can be risky to banks and private investors, infrastructure is a major problem (3-4 hours to travel 40 miles), few opportunities for training and internships for students in and around uni towns

Signs of speculative urbanism in China

Real estate speculation and development projects are implemented in a preemptive manner (assumes that demand will follow), state-funded high-speed railway projects, the construction of ghost towns, housing prices in the commercial housing sector have risen beyond the financial means of an average urban household

Environmental speculation

New form of speculation, creates new opportunities for capital accumulation, investing in land on the basis that it is safe from non-human factors like flooding (defies logic bc they are building on sinking islands)

Gentrification in East Asia

Largely exists in the form of new-build gentrification → dilapidated neighborhoods for poor people were cleared for affluent upscale residential and commercial complexes

Helped by the powerful presence of the developmental state and the Party state in mainland China → transferring public assets into private hands, slum clearance - referred to as state-led gentrification

Why is it difficult to contest gentrification in East Asia?

The heavy presence of the state that uses violence or authoritarian attitudes to suppress protests, the persistent culture of property built on the material affluence brought on by real estate investments

The Korean development state

Aiming for rapid modernization and economic growth, Korea regarded the city as a growth machine and has conducted urban development projects to foster economic growth → the state has used its planning power against the actual needs of the majority - decreased the number of existing housing units and increase the number of high-quality, large and expensive housing units

Urban development

Transforms neighborhoods from areas with affordable housing into expensive high-rises for middle upper-middle income residents → as a result, urban redevelopment has caused wealth to be concentrated in a few people with a few places

Hangangro

90% of housing is deemed to be in bad conditions, under the current plan by the government, 90% of tenants have no chance of returning because they won’t be able to afford the newly built housing, 80% of property owners are absentee landlords → in Korea, gentrifiers are not always outsiders because of the nature of the urban redevelopment system, In contrast to the West, where gentrifiers tend to come from outside the neighborhood

What is the general definition of gentrification?

The process by which working class areas are transformed into middle class residential or commercial areas

→ emerging phenomenon - only been a feature of industrialized cities since the mid-1960s

→ controversial because it can create rapid neighborhood change and may cause significant displacement and housing affordability issues

Mile End, Montreal

Used to be composed of Eastern European Jews, Greeks, Portuguese, Polish, German, and Italian settlers who worked in factories, the garment industry’s collapse caused a wide-scale disinvestment of capital in the neighborhood, affordable → artists move in, huge incentive provided for tech companies to move in, city planners launch reinvestment plans, has become an art and tech hub

Renoviction

Montreal-centered term, refers to the practice of kicking out tenants, making renovations, and then jacking up the rents for those who move in

Loretta Lees

Professor and activist, emerged as the most powerful anti-gentrification voice

Racialized dimensions of gentrification (Alisha Fisher)

Believes communities should be the priority of any development plans, displacement should be understood in relation to histories of racial discrimination, gentrification destroys neighborhood support networks, new mixed-income neighborhoods often result in an intensification of inequality, school segregation, tensions → gentrification is presented as false choice urbanism: a choice between growth, or decay and decline

Super-gentrification

The conversion of prosperous, already gentrified and solid upper-middle-class neighborhoods into much more expensive and exclusive enclaves - billionaires pushing out millionaires

Iceberg homes

Tunneled stories underground for bowling alleys, swimming pools, etc., usually found in London

What are some strategies to combat gentrification?

* Renovate urban places without displacing longstanding lower income groups
* Foster economic growth opportunities in low-income communities
* Change existing zoning regulations → change zoning from single-family homes to mixed-used, mixed income properties
* Increase community ownership - they can keep assets affordable and make sure they are retained for the community
* Tax vacant properties to free up housing stock
* Regulate or ban short-term rentals to free up housing stock - AirBnb

Single-unit residential

Creates a shortage of affordable housing since multi-family dwellings, such as apartment buildings, can’t be built

Many families displaced from multi-family dwellings in urban areas cannot afford to move into single-family communities

By breaking up zoning laws, more affordable housing can be created

What are some real life examples of anti-gentrification laws?

* New law requires Oregon cities with more than 1,000 residents to allow duplexes in areas previously zoned exclusively for single-family homes
* Minneapolis has followed suit - allows duplexes and triplexes to be built anywhere in the city

Yongsan, Korea

Close to downtown, deteroirated due to huge rail yard and a US army base in the middle of the district, relocation of the rail yards resulted in urban development projects, many residents evicted, protests were held against evictions, 7 people died

What are unique aspects of Korean gentrification?

Combination of state police and private capital is unique from the west, not an easy dichotomy between winners and losers → winners are small property owners, as are the losers, in Korea, gentrifiers are owner-occupiers or absentee landlords, not coming from outside

What are some criticisms of gentrification as a concept?

Gentrification is highly depend on the contextual causality and its generalized use will not remove its contextual attachment to Anglo-American metropolis

Just because the end result is similar in all contexts (wealthy people displacing poor people) doesn’t mean the causes are all the same

Community

A group of people who share commanalities of culture, values, or interests

Global cities literature

A literature in geography and urban studies that emerged in the 1980s; focused on understanding the ways in which cities are related to the organization of the contemporary global economy

What is the primary criteria for defining a city’s globalness?

Economic command and control → London, New York, and Tokyo share characteristic production sectors and employment clusters

Advanced producer services (APS)

Services that transnational corporations need if they are to operate effectively in many different contexts across the world - includes insurance, banking, finance, real estate, legal, accounting, and advertising services, business consulting, and professional organizations

What are the two myths about globalization?

1. place is no longer significant - APS activities are embedded in certain places because the economy is globalized, not despite of the process
2. claims about its universal benefit - in fact, global capitalism thrives on uneven development

Globalizing cities

A term used to indicate that being a global city is, for some cities, a goal that their elites strive towards, while for others, it is a status that is always in process and must be maintained

What are Robinson’s 3 critiques about the approach to global cities?

* global cities literature suffers from an underlying developmentalism → the unquestionable acceptance of a specific Western notion development as the path to improving the lives of people in poor countries
* there are issue related to how we identify and define the things or processes that we study → “global cities” is too simple and universal
* if a poor city puts its limited resources into becoming a global city, its resources are being used to fund the needs and aspirations of the few, instead of the many
* Bonus! - the notion of the “citadel” and “ghetto” captures only 2 extremes and fails to capture the range of employment opportunities or social circumstances in the cities

Policy mobilities

Focuses on the socially produced and circulated forms of knowledge that address how cities are governed → insists that policies are not merely local, but that they develop in and are shaped by various networks

Ancient global cities

All located along complex networks

* Timbuktu - located along the trans-Saharan caravan trade route
* Alexandria and Venice both contained main trade ports between the East and West

There is nothing new about global cities

What are some characteristics of global cities?

* Have clusters of transnational elite professionals
* Integrated into the global economy in particular ways
* Marked by distinct divisions and inequalities
* Increase in precarious, informal, and illegal employment, often involving immigrants, women and children ex. 9/11 employees were often immigrants, most of their identities remain unknown, family scared to come forward to apply for aid

What was Saskia Sassen’s analysis of global cities?

Sassen is interested in which cities have major clusters of APS activities and in how such capacities are generated

Sassen argues that APS firms are more crucial but less visible than corporate headquarters

He argues that place still matters and is not eroded and that global capitalism thrives on uneven development, not that it is beneficial to everyone

What are 3 additions to expand the global cities scholarship?

* LA’s globalness is not just located at its core, but it built across SoCal
* growing efforts to identify globalness of other cities as diverse as Delhi, Mexico City, Mumbai, etc.
* Use the term “globalizing cities” rather than “global cities” → emphasizes that globalization is a process rather than an end state and it affects all cities, not just a few

What are some critiques of the dominant global cities approach?

* Some critical urban geographers question the validity of the categories and criteria used to create the notion of the global city
* they worry about the conceptual and political consequences of placing this definition of globalness at the heart of our discussion of cities in the world

Cyberabad, India

Located in Hyberabad, a world-class high-tech enclave that helped the state claim a global connectivity and attract private investment, but it also brought forth issues of displacement and loss of livelihood for locals

Knowledge Parks

Also called high-tech enclaves, they have emerged as a key urban development in major Indian cities, especially since the 1990s

What are some issues with Cyberabad?

* Premium modern infrastructure were proposed for the Cyberabad region, while other parts of the city struggled to develop basic infrastructure such as roads, power, and water
* The inhabitants of the villages on which Cyberabad is imprinted were evicted

Nanakramguda, India

Village on which Cyeberabad was built, villagers used legal proceedings to try and fight back against evictions but realized it was not enough, turned to writing letters to ministers, press releases, and media coverage, villagers sought alternate sources to sustain themselves such as establishing tea shacks, food and veggie stalls for construction workers

Ordinary Cities

Studying the ordinary people’s lives as opposed to global cities

* how they survive, struggle and are resilient despite vast inequity

There are things to be learned from all cities, not just from the largest and most influential cities and the most powerful people

Digital Divide

Rapid increase in economic growth and global connections, further marginalization of the poor who are unable to participate in the knowledge economy

Dabbawalas

In Mumbai, India; delivery and return system that delivers hot lunches from homes and restaurants to people at work, recognized as one of the world’s most efficient logistics systems, mistakes are rare, most dabbawalas are semi-literate and manage themselves → proof that with the right system, ordinary workers can achieve extraordinary results

Mourides informal banking

In Senegal; Mouride is a fast-growing minority Muslim group; they have lots of trust within the community but not elsewhere; they do not use banks, instead they have a trust-based money transfer system where transactions between America and Africa can be done by telephone → trust is key, seen as a model minority in NY

Islamic banking in Kuala Lumpur

Islamic banking is a Sharia-compliant finance that complies with Islamic law; first Islamic bank in Malaysia est. 1983, 2 trillion was Sharia-compliant by 2014 → huge demand, growing faster than banking assets as a whole and is projected to continue to do so, Malaysia leveraged its position as a non-Arab country on the periphery of the Muslim world

Used clothing markets in Lusaka, Zambia

Donated second-hand clothing from the west to Africa is worth 5 billion a year, vast amount of clothing end up in landfills, the flood of clothing has destroyed the textile industry in Zambia and many other African countries, 40% of products are discarded due to poor quality → Zambian art and fashion made from up cycling used clothing, Rwanda banned the import of second-hand clothing from western countries → foster domestic cloth industry, preserve dignity, and prevent unusable clothes from entering landfills