New urban worlds : inhabiting dissonant times / AbdouMaliq Simone and Edgar Pieterse.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Simone, A. M. (Abdou Maliqalim), author.

Pieterse, E. A. (Edgar A.), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Urbanization--Social aspects--Asia.

Urbanization.

Urbanization--Social aspects--Africa.

Sociology, Urban--Asia.

Sociology, Urban.

Sociology, Urban--Africa.

Urban policy--Asia.

Urban policy.

Urban policy--Africa.

Urbanization--Social aspects.

Africa.

Asia.

Physical Description:

xviii, 248 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity Press, 2017.

Summary:

"It is well known that the world is transitioning to an irrevocable urban future whose epicentre has moved into the cities of Asia and Africa. What is less clear is how this will be managed and deployed as a multi-polar world system is being born. The full implications of this challenge cry out to be understood because city building (and retrofitting) cannot but be an undertaking entangled in profound societal and cultural shifts. In this highly original account, renowned urban sociologists AbdouMaliq Simone and Edgar Pieterse offer a call for action based fundamentally on the detail of people's lives. Urban regions are replete with residents who are compelled to come up with innovative ways to maintain or extend livelihoods, whose makeshift character is rarely institutionalized into a fixed set of practices, locales or organizational forms. This novel analytical approach reveals a more complex relationship between people, the state and other agents than has previously been understood. As the authors argue, we need adequate concepts and practices to grasp the composition and intricacy of these shifting efforts to make visible new political possibilities for action and social justice in cities across Asia and Africa"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 Paradoxes of the Urban 1

Inhabiting the paradox 1

Catch-22 6

Conceptual interventions 10

Re-description 10

Secretion 14

Resonance 16

Governing the urban 21

Signposts 29

2 Precarious Now 31

Shifting sands: people, work and aspirations 33

Urban scenarios 44

Urban transitions and technological waves 50

Crisis, disruption and possibility 54

3 Re-Description 60

The intended and unintended experiments of everyday urban life 64

The fragile threads of collective action 70

Kinshasa 72

Jakarta 75

Inhabiting extensive parametric space 77

Beyond speculation 82

Urban politics and markets 88

4 Secretions 95

Moving to stay in place 99

Slim margins 101

Paying attention to the details 106

Stepping beyond the details 110

Just where are the secrets? 111

Working in secret 115

5 Horizons from Within the Break 122

For the adaptive city 125

Operating system assemblages 127

Politicizing operating systems 131

Metrics for transformation 133

From metrics to infrastructural claim-making 134

Infrastructural horizons and claims 138

Sequencing and calibrating urban claims 138

Molecular imperatives 140

Service delivery as hinge 144

Place-making as politics 147

Meta imperatives 150

6 Experimentations 153

The unvalued art of subtlety 155

Experimentation 158

Tales from imperfect practice 159

Sculpting discursive architectures 160

World Cities Report 160

South Africa's Integrated Urban Development Framework 163

Enriching social movement practices 166

Social Justice Coalition 166

The operations of local "councilors" in Jakarta 169

Fostering multiple publics 171

Cityscapes 171

African Cities Reader series 172"City Desired" exhibition and density syndicate 174

The exigencies of experimentation 177

7 Epilogue: A Story About Stories 183

Keeping multiple stories in play 185

The politics of indifference 189

Stories are not clean slates 191

Responsibility and instigation 194.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Simone, A. M. (Abdou Maliqalim), author. New urban worlds

ISBN:

9780745691558

0745691552

9780745691565

0745691560

OCLC:

967501561