Through a process of devolution to private enterprises, a number of private cities are emerging across the Indian landscape. While private cities have been lauded by some as symbolic of a modern, global India, their impact on the nature of democracy and citizenship in the emerging city remains a c
From April 2013 major changes to benefit provision in Britain will likely change both the social and spatial make-up of our cities. The squeezing out of poorer residents from London and elsewhere, raises an important question: exactly who has the ‘right’ to the city in contemporary Britain?
The collapse of Spain's property-led economy stands to highlight the intense yet fraught relationship between capital and the built environment in times of economic crisis.
Wander into post-Olympics East London, lift your gaze, and what do you see? The awful warning of late-Soviet homogenisation.
Part 1: The urbanization of Shenzhen references three key moments in China's history. Such moments are spatially expressed in concentric development around traditional villages. Next: Neoliberalizing the bamboo curtain
Part 4: As of 2013, with a population of 140,000 residents Baishizhou was the largest of Shenzhen's urban villages. The sheer size and density of the village highlights the contradictions between formal and informal urbanization of the city.
Part 3: Shenzhen township and village enterprises (TVEs) in the outer districts were quick to take advantage of neoliberal reforms, and by 1990 had become de facto urban planners, developers and industrialists of the city. Next: Neighbourhoods for the working poor
Part 2: Both Cold War geo-politics and the rush to develop the neoliberal city informed the development of a particular form of urban inequality within Shenzhen's informal villages. Next: Informal urbanization in the outer districts
In this 4-part series, Mary Ann O'Donnell explores the social antagonisms that have emerged through Shenzhen's informal urbanization of villages. Each article features a corresponding photo-walk. Next: Lessons from Shenzhen: the Nantou peninsula
Recent spikes in homicides across São Paulo challenge the city's reputation as a darling of public security and underscores the pervasive control criminal gangs like the Primeiro Comando da Capital have on the everyday security of city-residents.
Integrating into the urban landscape, the humanitarian sector has contributed to various processes of transformation in Goma. While creating new opportunities, their presence has reinforced patterns of conflict and competition over the urban political and socioeconomic space.
Eight years since the 2005 Parisian riots and French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announces a ‘return of the state’ to the banlieues. The recent resistance to this ‘return’ has marked an end to its short-lived political consensus and has forced a revaluation of what it truly means to be a citi
