Cities of the Global South

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 603-622
Author(s):  
AbdouMaliq Simone
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
The City ◽  
City Form

This article considers the conundrums entailed in maintaining the notions of “city” and “Global South” in an era where urbanization is no longer epitomized by the city form and where the Global South as a distinctive geopolitical entity has largely been fractured into a multiplicity of domains and histories. Nevertheless, the compositions of contemporary urbanization processes engineer an urban world that is largely deterritorialized in terms of geographical and socio-technical specificity but simultaneously necessitates heterogeneous articulations across territories that open up spaces for the reiteration of many Souths. These potentially continue a long trajectory of solidarities and singularities among postcolonial urbanities. The article details the ways contemporary urbanization processes are composed via a heterogeneity of flows and corridors, while they are simultaneously reterritorialized through the elaboration of popular economies that express a partial disjuncture with capital-central logics of urbanization and the concretization of urbanization potentials embodied by long histories of struggle.

Skyscrapers: The City and the Megacity

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 267-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Parker
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Short Note ◽  
Global South ◽  
Global Power ◽  
The City

This short note considers the migration of the skyscraper from New York and Chicago to Asia and its absence in the emerging megacities of the Global South. Following 9/11, many commentators assumed that the skyscraper was finished, but this was clearly not the case, with super-tall construction now accelerating. However, the distributions of contemporary skyscrapers show us that there are shifts in global power and also in urban form.

Towards a More Resilient Delhi: Rapid Urbanization and Climate Change

2018 ◽  
Vol 05 (02n03) ◽  
pp. 1850014
Author(s):  
Jasdeep Singh
Keyword(s):  
Research Question ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
Global South ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Sample Population ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Apparent Lack ◽  
The City ◽  
Resilience Assessment

The discourse on resilient cities encapsulates various analogies, which are further constructed through the work of researchers in creation of several resilience assessment methodologies and toolkits. Despite the presence of numerous resilience assessment tools, there is an apparent lack of participation of residents of the global south within the assessment and iterative transformation processes. The situation, hence, is not truly represented through application of these tools in certain socio-political climates such as of India. Consistent economic growth of India has resulted in rapid urbanization of major cities. But, this has not been supplemented with proper planning, resulting in imbalances in all spheres of city infrastructure. Delhi, capital city of India, has been one of the worst hit cities. The hot seasons have caused thousands of fatalities in the past few years. An attempt is made to review the application of current resilience tools in Delhi against the backdrop of the sustainable development goals. In an attempt to improve the approach of these existing tools, an initial iteration is conducted, hinging on qualitative data obtained through surveying a sample population of the city and accessible quantitative metric data. Possible intervention scenarios are further suggested in view of aforementioned stressors and resilience scores. Research question: Where are the current resilience tools found lacking in the case of the global south, specifically in Delhi? How can the applicability of these tools be improved without compromising the deliverables yet ensuring an all-inclusive approach? Key findings: (1) The city is found lacking in adequate infrastructure facilities to its residents especially within the ambits of basic water and sanitation provision and healthcare services. (2) The city is relatively unprepared to face unforeseen events, both at the administrative and the grassroots levels. The lack of knowledge transfer and cooperation are largely evident.

Youth and the City in the Global South

2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 195-197
Author(s):  
Eric Mokube
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
The City

Tianguis as a Possibility of Autogestion: Street Vendors Claim Rights to the City in Cancún, Mexico

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 306-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Muñoz
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Global South ◽  
The State ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Spatial Transformation ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Street Vending ◽  
The City ◽  
Rights To The City

During the past 20 years, street vendors in various cities in the Global South have resisted aggressive state sanctioned removals and relocation strategies by organizing for vendors’ rights, protesting, and creating street vending member organizations with flexible relationships to the local state. Through these means, street vendors claim “rights in the city,” even as the bodies they inhabit and the spaces they produce are devalued by state legitimizing systems. In this article, I present a case study of the Union de Tianguistas y Comerciantes Ambulantes del Estado de Quintana Roo, a “bottom-up” driven, flexible street vending membership organization not formalized by the state in Cancún. I argue that the Union becomes a platform for street vendors to claim rights to the city, and exemplifies vending systems that combine economic activities with leisure spaces in marginalized urban areas, and circumvent strict vending regulations without being absorbed into or directly monitored by the state. Highlighting the Union’s sustainable practices of spatial transformation, and vision of self-managed spaces of socioeconomic urban life in Cancún, illuminates how the members of the Union claim rights to the city as an example of a process of awakening toward imagining possibilities for urban futures that moves away from the state and capitalists systems, and akin to what Lefebvre termed autogestion toward resisting neoliberal ideologies that currently dominate urban planning projects in the Global South.

Urban equality and the SDGs: three provocations for a relational agenda

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (0) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Stephanie Butcher
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Global South ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Significant Potential ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Equitable Outcomes ◽  
The City

We live in an increasingly urban, increasingly unequal world. This is nowhere more evident than in cities of the global South, where many residents face deep injustices in their ability to access vital services, participate in decision-making or to have their rights recognised as citizens. In this regard, the rallying cry of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ‘leave no one behind’ offers significant potential to guide urbanisation processes towards more equitable outcomes, particularly for the urban poor. Yet the SDGs have also faced a series of criticisms which have highlighted the gaps and silences in moving towards a transformative agenda. This article explores the potentials of adopting a relational lens to read the SDGs, as a mechanism to navigate these internal contradictions and critiques and build pathways to urban equality. In particular, it offers three questions if we want to place urban equality at the heart of the agenda: who owns the city; who produces knowledge about the city; and who is visible in the city? Drawing from the practices of organised groups of the urban poor, this article outlines the key lessons for orienting this agenda towards the relational and transformative aims of urban equality.

scholarly journals Contestations for urban space: informality and institutions of disenfranchisement in Zimbabwe—the case of Masvingo City

GeoJournal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 85 (5) ◽  
pp. 1277-1289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chigwenya Average
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Informal Sector ◽  
Global South ◽  
Main Stream ◽  
Development Agenda ◽  
The People ◽  
The Face ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
The City

Abstract Informality has been viewed as the seedbed for economic development especially in the cities of the global South and many cities have been trying to integrate this sector for economic development. The sector has been seen as the option for economic development in cities of the global South in the face of dwindling resources for economic development. However, the development and growth of informal activities in some of these cities have been stunted by institutional reforms that have taken so long to accommodate such activities. Most of the cities have acknowledged the need to integrate informality in their economies but they have remained illusioned by the neo-liberal urbanisation policies that have kept the informal activities on the periphery of the development agenda. As a result the role of informal sector in economic development in cities of the global South has not been fully realised. The study was taken to examine the institutional impediments in the growth of informal activities in the city of Masvingo, to see how the laws and policies of the city have been applied for the integration of informal sector in the main stream economy. The research found out that there are institutionalised systems that disenfranchise the informal sector in the city of Masvingo. These institutions include the planning approach and the way the city has been practicing their planning. These two institutions have been the chief disenfranchising instruments that have denied the people in the informal sector their right to the city. The research utilised a mixed methods approach to the inquiry, where both qualitative and quantitative data were used. The research found that there is space for informal integration in the city of Masvingo, but the existing regulatory framework is stifling the growth and development of the informal sector in the city of Masvingo. There is therefore need for the city to be flexible enough to embrace the realities of the city, because informality is really the new form of urbanisation in cities of the global South.

scholarly journals Understanding Public Transport Ridership in Developing Countries to Promote Sustainable Urban Mobility: A Case Study of Mexicali, Mexico

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 3266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Sánchez-Atondo ◽  
Leonel García ◽  
Julio Calderón-Ramírez ◽  
José Manuel Gutiérrez-Moreno ◽  
Alejandro Mungaray-Moctezuma
Keyword(s):  
Public Transport ◽  
Global South ◽  
Transport Systems ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Urban Mobility ◽  
Mobility Strategies ◽  
Sustainable Urban Mobility ◽  
Macro Variables ◽  
The City

Some small- and medium-sized Global South cities have unsustainable transport systems and no information to plan interventions in addition to having limited resources for data collection. This study proposes a method to understand Public Transport (PT) ridership in cities of these characteristics, based on previous studies and by analysing available indicators related to Manheim’s macro-variables, to identify their influence on the PT ridership. The method was applied in the city of Mexicali, Mexico. The results help to understand the causes of the low PT ridership and have implications for achieving sustainable urban mobility in the city. Findings reveal that mobility planning in Mexicali has been occurring without properly considering activity system related variables, so it is necessary to integrate urban and transport administration. Moreover, to increase PT demand in Mexicali, mobility strategies to discourage the use of private cars are necessary. The proposed method can be applied in other cities of the Global South with characteristics similar to the case study to understand the causes of PT ridership, so these can be considered by the agencies responsible for the planning of the city’s transportation system to promote a sustainable urban mobility.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document