Cities of the Global South Reader (Hardcover)

The Cities of the Global South Reader adopts a fresh and critical approach to the field of urbanization in the developing world, which has seen significant shifts in its thematic and geographic focus since it first began to be defined in the mid-twentieth century. This Reader incorporates both early conversations and new and emerging debates that reflect the diverse trajectories of urbanization processes in the context of the restructured global alignments in the last three decades. The thematic structure and selection of texts in the Cities of the Global South Reader recognizes the entanglement of wealth/ poverty, development/ underdevelopment, first/ third worlds, and various forms of inclusion/ exclusion. This conceptual framework shapes the Reader s organization around global processes such as colonialism and development, similar yet different processes that occur two hundred years apart and shape cities in crucial ways, to specific issues that urban dwellers, planners, and policy makers face in the contemporary world. These include the urban economy, housing, basic services, infrastructure, the role of non-state civil society based actors, planned interventions and contestations, the role of diaspora capital, the looming problem of adapting to climate change, and the increasing specter of violence in a post 9/11 transnational world.

The Cities of the Global South Reader pulls together a diverse set of readings from scholars across the world to provide an essential resource for a broad interdisciplinary readership at undergraduate and graduate levels in urban geography, urban sociology, and urban planning as well as international studies, global studies and development studies. Editorial commentaries that introduce the central issues for each theme, summarize the state of the field and outline an associated bibliography. They will be of particular value for lecturers, researchers, and students, making the Cities of the Global South Reader a key text for those interested in understanding contemporary urbanization processes. "