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Cities of the World

Cities of the World Regional Patterns and Urban Environments

Sixth Edition

EditEd by

Stanley D. Brunn, JeSSiCa K. GrayBill, Maureen HayS-MitCHell, and DonalD J. ZeiGler

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Cities of the world : regional patterns and urban environments / edited by Stanley D. Brunn, Jessica K. Graybill, Maureen Hays-Mitchell, and Donald J. Zeigler.—Sixth Edition. pages cm Revised edition of Cities of the world, 2012. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4422-4916-5 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-4422-4917-2 (electronic) 1. Cities and towns. 2. City planning. 3. Urbanization. 4. Urban policy. I. Brunn, Stanley D., editor. II. Graybill, Jessica K., 1973– editor. III. Hays-Mitchell, Maureen, editor. HT151.C569 2016 307.76—dc23 2015036537

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To a greener and more just future for planet Earth, its cities and residents.

Contents

List of Illustrations xv

Preface xxxi

1 World Urban Development Jessica K. Graybill, Maureen Hays-Mitchell, Donald J. Zeigler, and Stanley D. Brunn 3

The World Urban System: Prospects until 2050 7 World Urbanization: Past Trends 11

Early Urbanization: Antiquity to Fifth Century ce 11 / The Middle Period: Fifth to Seventeenth Century ce 14 / Industrial and Postindustrial Urbanization: Eighteenth Century to the Present 16

City Functions and Urban Economies 17 City Functions 17 / Sectors of the Urban Economy 18 / Basic and Nonbasic Economic Activities 18

Theories on the Spatial Structure of Cities 20 The Concentric Zone Model 22 / The Sector Model 23 / The Multiple Nuclei Model 23 / The Inverse Concentric Zone Model 24

Urban Challenges 26 Managing the Environment 26 / Managing Population Size and Growth 28 / Managing Urban Services 30 / Managing Slums and Squatter Settlements 31 / Managing Society 32 / Managing Unemployment 32 / Managing Racial and Ethnic Issues 34 / Managing Privacy 34 / Managing Modernization and Globalization 35 / Managing Traffic 37 / Managing Urban Governance 37

Concepts, Terms, and Definitions 38 Capital City 38 / City 39 / Colonial City 39 / Conurbation 39 / Galactic Metropolis 39 / Industrial City 40 / Megacity 40 / Megalopolis 40 / Metacity 40 / Metropolis and Metropolitan Area 40 / New Town 41 / Preindustrial City 41 / Postindustrial City 41 / Primate City 42 / Rank- Size Rule 42 / Site and Situation 42 / Socialist and Post-socialist City 43 / Suburbia 43 / Sustainable City 44 / Urbanism 44 / Urbanization 44 / Urban Agglomeration 45 / Urban Area 45 / Urban Place 45 / Urban Landscapes 45 / World City 46

SUGGESTED READINGS

Amin, A., and N. Thrift. 2002. Cities: Reimagining

the Urban. Cambridge, England: Polity, 2002.

Challenges the notion that the contemporary

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Cities of the United States and Canada LISA BENTON-SHORT AND NATHANIEL M. LEWIS

KEy URbAN FACTS

Total Population 361 million

Percent Urban Population 82%

Total Urban Population 292 million

Most Urbanized Country Canada (82%)

Least Urbanized Country United States (81%)

Number of Megacities 2

Number of Cities of More Than 1 Million 50 cities

Largest Cities (Metacities) New York (19 m), Los Angeles (12 m),

Chicago (9 m), Toronto (6 m)

Number of World Cities (Highest Ranking) 14 (New York, Chicago, Toronto, Los Angeles,

San Francisco, Washington, Miami, Boston,

Atlanta)

Global City New York

KEy CHAPTER THEMES

1. After 1950, the United States and Canada became metropolitan societies, as the majority of

their populations came to live in metropolitan areas.

2. The United States and Canada comprise one of the most urbanized regions of the world,

with an urban hierarchy composed of small, medium, large, and multimillion cities.

3. The most pronounced changes in urban land-use patterns include a declining core and

expanding suburbs; however, in some cities, the core has seen a resurgence.

4. Cities in the United States and Canada have been recently shaped by the intensification of

economic globalization and greater competition in the global urban hierarchy.

5. Reliance on the automobile and weak investment in public transportation has resulted in

cities with low population densities and growing sprawl.

50 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

6. A long history of industrialization has left cities dealing with numerous environmental

issues, including air, land, and water pollution, all of which threaten to erode the quality of

life for many urban residents.

7. Immigration, now from a more diverse set of countries than ever, is transforming numer-

ous cities in North America as immigrants gravitate toward long-established immigrant

magnets and newly emerging gateway cities.

8. In a post-9/11 world, heightened concerns about security have been transforming urban

space through the installation of security cameras and the fortressing of selected spaces.

9. The United States and Canada are recovering from the 2008 economic recession, but many

are still learning to cope with deindustrialization and the rise of the service economy.

10. Cities in drier regions of the continent face water scarcity challenges; cities along the coast

face rising sea-level challenges; and cities everywhere face water quality challenges.

Many urban scholars suggest that the world is

in the midst of the Third Urban Revolution, a

complex phenomenon that began in the mid-

dle of the twentieth century. It is defined by

a massive increase in urban populations, the

development of megacities and giant metro-

politan regions, and the global redistribution

of economic activities. As former manufac-

turing cities decline, new industrial cities,

service-sector hubs, and tech-poles emerge

elsewhere. Cities of the United States and

Canada (hereafter, “North America” in this

chapter) embody the dynamic trends of this

Third Urban Revolution (Figure 2.1). In both

countries, a rising percentage of the popula-

tion resides in cities. In 2015, over 85 percent

of the U.S. population lived in urban areas. In

Canada, this figure was slightly less, though

almost half of its urban population lived in

just six cities: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver,

Calgary, Ottawa, and Edmonton (Figure 2.2).

Experts predict that by 2050 the proportion

of North America’s population that is urban

could be greater than 90 percent. Without a

doubt, urbanism is the norm in the United

States and Canada. But urban norms con-

tinue to change: Central cities have become

the loci of the new urban spectacle; inner

cities are peppered with sites of gentrified

renaissance as well as rampant poverty and

crime; inner suburbs are showing signs of

decline; and exurban development continues

apace as gated communities and mixed-use

developments sprawl into the former coun-

tryside. The new lexicon that has emerged to

describe many North American cities—“post-

modern,” “global,” “networked,” “hybrid,”

“splintered”—offers some hint as to the rich

complexity and deep contradictions of the

Third Urban Revolution. Yet, much remains

to be said and done before we can make sense

of the new forms of urbanism that character-

ize the twenty-first-century North American

city.

Large city-regions are emerging as the new

building blocks of national and global econo-

mies. The largest one in the United States is

the urbanized Northeastern seaboard, a region

referred to as Megalopolis by Jean Gottmann

in the 1950s. Megalopolis stretches from the

southern suburbs of Washington, DC, north

through Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New

York to Boston and its northern suburbs. It is

responsible for 20 percent of the nation’s gross

domestic product. In 1950, the area that came

to be known as Megalopolis had a population

of almost 32 million people. Today, the popu-

lation is over 50 million.

Key Chapter Themes 51

North American megalopolitan regions,

modeled conceptually after Gottmann’s Meg-

alopolis, are defined as clustered networks of

metropolitan regions that have populations of

more than 10 million. In North America, there

are 11 megalopolitan regions (Table 2.1).

Collectively, they constitute only 20 percent

of the nation’s land surface but comprise 67

percent of the population. From 2010 to 2040,

they will account for approximately three-

quarters of all predicted growth in population

and construction.

Yet another term used to describe areas

transformed by global investment, sophisti-

cated communications, and widespread cor-

porate and individual mobility is the global

city-region. In an era of globalization, cit-

ies increasingly function as the nodes of the

global economy; and it is more appropriate to

see cities or networks of cities in their regional

(rather than local) contexts. As a result of

globalization, city-regions such as Los Angeles,

San Diego, Seattle, and New York are transi-

tioning from national or regional economic

capitals to more integrated cities of the world.

Toronto, which has traditionally been the

focus of an East-West Canadian economy, has

increasingly turned its attention to North-

South economic opportunities created by the

North American Free Trade Agreement. Dis-

tinguishing features of global city-regions are

global businesses and an elite work force, con-

trasting sharply with disadvantaged, insular

residential cities.

Numerous transformations that are occur-

ring in contemporary North American cities

contrast with long-held myths. One myth is

that cities in the United States and Canada

lack historic character. Yet many cities, notably

Savannah, Charleston, Boston, Montreal, and

Quebec City, have active preservation and res-

toration programs. Another myth is that the

Figure 2.2 toronto’s unique City hall was built in the 1960s to brand the city. Canada’s largest city is also a hub for international travelers, such as these young men from india. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

52 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

ubiquitous skyscrapers, freeways, shopping

malls, office parks, and bland suburban boxes

described as “distinct” to North American

cities (Figure 2.3) are actually found in cities

throughout the world.

U.S. and Canadian cities vary tremendously

in size, form, and fortune. In the United States,

recent urban growth has been robust in west-

ern and southwestern cities, while many cities

in the East and Midwest such as Detroit and

Buffalo have seen economic and demographic

decline. In Canada, the fastest growing metro-

politan areas are the Prairie cities of Calgary

and Edmonton; but within urban regions,

there has been a deconcentration of popula-

tion in central cities and growth in suburbs

and exurban zones (i.e., former rural areas).

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

North America’s cities are almost all less than

300 years old. Their origin and evolution are

best understood by examining them in the

historical context.

Colonial Mercantilism: 1700–1840

Beginning in the late sixteenth century, the

Spanish, Dutch, French, and British estab-

lished colonies in eastern North America in

order to gain access to raw materials. Each

European power exercised control over com-

mercial trade networks to maintain its own

advantage. These regulations resulted in an

export-based market where American com-

modities such as sugar, timber, furs, and

tobacco were developed to satisfy Europe’s

changing patterns of consumption. During

the colonial era, North American cities were

very small in both population and physical

size. They served primarily as export centers

for raw materials destined for Europe. The

largest cities during this era were found along

the Atlantic coast (e.g., Boston and Phila-

delphia) and along rivers (e.g., Quebec City

and Montreal). Along the St. Lawrence River,

Montreal controlled the northern route into

the center of North America. Near the mouth

of the Mississippi River, New Orleans con-

trolled the southern route into the continent.

Table 2.1 Megalopolitan Areas of the United States and Canada

Area Anchor Cities

Cascadia Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Eugene

NorCal San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Sacramento

Southland Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas

Valley of the Sun Phoenix, Tucson

I-35 Corridor Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Antonio

Gulf Coast Houston, New Orleans, Mobile

Piedmont Birmingham, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh

Peninsula Tampa, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Miami

Midwest Chicago, Madison, Detroit, Indianapolis, Cincinnati

Northeast Richmond, Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Boston

Golden Horseshoe Toronto, Hamilton, Buffalo

Source: Adapted from the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.

Historical Overview 53

The growth of cities during the colonial

era was greatly influenced by the popularity

of various North American exports. Quebec

City was founded by Samuel de Champlain in

1608. The French settlement served mainly fur

traders and missionaries. Settlers established

relations with the indigenous Algonquins,

who traded beaver pelts in return for metal

knives, axes, cloth, and other goods. Since

beaver pelts were highly prized and expen-

sive in European markets, trade flourished

between the settlers, Algonquins, and French

merchants. The physical layout of Quebec is

typified by narrow, winding streets and a city

wall—complete with watchtowers—built by

the conquering British.

The city of New Orleans owes its develop-

ment to the Mississippi River. French traders

and Jesuit priests traveled along the Missis-

sippi in search of pelts, converts, and allies.

The city of New Orleans was founded by

a French merchant company in 1718. The

first settlers in New Orleans encountered the

watery geography of a giant delta: half marsh,

half mud, a floating, spongy raft of shifting

vegetation. The city was located 120 miles

(73 km) from where the river flows into the

Gulf of Mexico. Sited at a bend in the river

close to Lake Pontchartrain, the settlement’s

advantageous location enabled the portage of

goods from the lake to the city. It was easier to

ship goods to the lakeshore and then overland

Figure 2.3 Skyscrapers, such as the Wrigley building in Chicago, became the cathedrals of urban commerce as steel-frame construction and the elevator enabled the design of ever taller buildings. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

54 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

to the city than to sail up the ever-shifting

Mississippi River. As an outpost of the French

empire, New Orleans became part of a global

network of colonial possessions that stretched

across the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Even

so, the city grew slowly. A 1764 map shows

that one-third of the planned-city blocks

were empty. The city plan was marked by the

French tradition of “long lots” fronting on the

river, rather than irregular or square parcels

of land.

In contrast to New Orleans and Quebec

City, Philadelphia was designed using a grid

system that incorporated four large mar-

ket squares. English Quaker William Penn

founded the city in 1681 and sited it at the

confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill

Rivers. Penn’s grid was a reaction to the dis-

order stemming from the narrow alleyway

and curved roads that he had observed in

his hometown of London. His symmetrical,

orderly plan became the template for Phila-

delphia’s later growth. The city became a busy

shipping port for external goods (feed, food,

and tobacco destined for England) as well as

a market town for frontier products (rifles

and Conestoga wagons) used in the westward

expansion. Philadelphia also gained status as

a major banking center and became home to

the first U.S. stock exchange in 1790.

For much of the colonial era, cities were

“walking cities.” They rarely covered more than

a few square miles or had more than 100,000

people. The outward expansion of many

North American cities was limited by geo-

graphic features such as rivers and hills. Plan-

ners often avoided the high ground because it

was difficult to pump water or to get horse-

drawn fire services uphill. Early forms of pub-

lic transport, primarily carts and carriages,

were also ill-equipped to handle steep slopes.

Economic growth, however, would later bring

new forms of transportation, and cities would

begin to grow outwards and upwards.

Industrial Capitalism: 1840–1970

During the era of industrial capitalism, the

U.S. and Canadian economies shifted away

from exporting raw materials to manufactur-

ing finished goods. An industrial economy is

one dominated by mechanized factory pro-

duction, which began in the United States

in 1793 (Figure 2.4). In 1800, approximately

7 percent of the U.S. population was urban.

By 1900, it was more than 40 percent, and by

1920, the country had become a majority-

urban nation. Urban growth went hand-in-

hand with industrialization. The economic

foundations of the industrial city were the

coal mine, the iron furnace, and the reliable

power of the steam engine. All of this industri-

alization was accompanied by unprecedented

growth in cities, in terms of both population

size and geographic area. By 1830, the east-

ern seaboard cities of New York, Philadelphia,

and Baltimore were the main industrial cit-

ies in the United States. Industrial expansion

also fueled growth in North America’s inte-

rior. Cities located along rivers and lakes took

advantage of advances in transportation, such

as canals and railroads, to become important

hubs in the distribution of goods (Figure 2.5).

By the 1860s, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, St. Louis,

Chicago, Toronto, and Cincinnati emerged

as key gateways alongside already established

Montreal and New Orleans. In Canada, Win-

nipeg became the hub of rail service for the

west, and Edmonton and Calgary emerged as

major regional service centers by the 1870s.

Between1885 and 1935, the U.S. economy

completed its transformation from an agricul-

tural and mercantile base to an industrial-cap-

italist one. In the early twentieth century, the

Historical Overview 55

Figure 2.4 Slater’s Mill is today an historical landmark in Pawtucket, Rhode island; it marked the beginning of the factory system in the United States. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Figure 2.5 the Erie Canal, running through downtown Syracuse, new york, was critical in pushing new york City to the top of the U.S. urban hierarchy.

56 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

emergence of powerful national corporations

and large-scale assembly-line manufacturing

prompted robust economic growth. While

many of the biggest cities were still located in

the Northeast, midwestern cities such as Chi-

cago, Detroit, and Cleveland had grown into

vital industrial centers by the 1920s. During

this time, Canada also experienced significant

growth in its western cities, spurred by the dis-

covery and development of oil and natural gas

fields near the urban centers of Calgary and

Edmonton.

Industrialization in North American cities

involved more than just the proliferation of

factories. Many key inventions had changed

the look of the cities and transformed their

spatial patterns. The use of iron, and then

steel, in building construction launched the

era of skyscrapers. In the 1880s, the electric

street-trolley helped make mass transit pos-

sible and laid the foundations for twentieth-

century suburbanization by allowing people

to live farther away from city centers. Conse-

quently, most industrial cities grew outwards

at the edges as well as upwards in the center.

The end of World War II marked a signifi-

cant turning point for cities in North America.

Many U.S. and Canadian corporations merged

or expanded into large multinational firms and

achieved dominance in the North American

market. The United States became the world’s

largest and richest economy. The late 1940s

also began an era of widespread automobile

ownership and suburbanization. Reliance on

private vehicles and weak investment in public

transportation resulted in low population den-

sities and increased sprawl, particularly for cit-

ies in the West. Cities such as Los Angeles, San

Diego, Houston, Phoenix, Dallas, Denver, and

Vancouver grew horizontally as much as they

did vertically. From 1950 onward, the United

States became simultaneously more urban

and more suburban. Urban regions continued

to grow overall, but there was also an exodus

of people moving out from city cores to newly

built suburbs. To lure suburbanites back to the

city, municipalities undertook immense urban

renewal and infrastructure projects including

highways, bridges, and civic centers. By the

late 1960s, however, three significant changes

materialized that would have profound

changes on cities throughout North America:

globalization, deindustrialization, and decen-

tralization (Figure 2.6).

Postindustrial Capitalism: 1975–present

By the 1970s, the era of global capitalism had

begun and many corporations were moving

manufacturing operations out of North Amer-

ica to developing countries where lower labor

costs and tax breaks promised higher profit

margins and larger market shares. In cities

such as Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Buffalo, Akron,

Cleveland, and Detroit, companies fired or

relocated workers, closed factories, and moved

out of the region or country. These industrial

cities became “Rustbelt” cities, vibrant manu-

facturing centers that had degenerated into

ghost towns. Even high-growth cities such

as Los Angeles and San Francisco struggled

to cope with the social and economic conse-

quences of a decline in manufacturing-based

employment. This decline marked a critical

shift in the North American economy. Michael

Moore’s 1989 documentary Roger and Me

chronicled massive job losses and factory clos-

ings in Flint, Michigan, which was then home

to General Motors. GM laid off 40,000 peo-

ple in Flint in the 1980s, a figure that repre-

sented half of Flint’s GM workforce and one

of the largest layoffs in American history. For

many industrial cities, high unemployment

rates continue to impact local economies. In

Historical Overview 57

Figure 2.6 Signs of deindustrialization, such as this abandoned steel mill, marked the landscapes of industrial-era cities such as Pittsburgh during the 1980s. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

response, political and economic leaders have

begun creating strategies to bolster employ-

ment and investment, especially in sectors

such as services and tourism.

At the same time that many cities in the

United States saw economic decline, oth-

ers experienced rapid growth. Cities such as

Seattle, Orlando, Miami, Phoenix, and San

Diego successfully blended an existing indus-

trial base with an expanding service sector.

Newer city-regions, such as Atlanta, Charlotte,

Dallas-Fort Worth, and Silicon Valley (an

urban techno-pole between San Francisco and

San Jose), came into their own at this time.

Silicon Valley is home to Apple and Hewlett-

Packard, leaders in the high-technology sector

that emerged after the 1980s.

The economies and populations of many

cities became increasingly decentralized dur-

ing this era. Decentralization occurs when city

centers lose either population or jobs. A decline

in the tax base, which limits municipal funding

for social services, results in disinvestment in

education and infrastructure. Residents and

jobs leave the center of the city for the suburbs

or other metropolitan and even nonmetropol-

itan areas. 1970 marked the first time there was

an actual decline in central-city populations,

and by 1980 the trend was intensifying. Most

people were relocating to the suburbs.

The rise of the service sector, also known

as the tertiary sector, has also played a criti-

cal role in urban development. Finance, insur-

ance, real estate, education, medical services,

wholesale and retail trade, and information

and communication technologies, among

others, have replaced manufacturing as key

components of North American urban econo-

mies. The service sector is highly diverse. Some

jobs are low-level and pay minimum wage or

slightly more; they include data entry, clean-

ing services, and retail (e.g., servers at a res-

taurant). Other jobs, referred to as quaternary

activities, generate far higher wages. These

58 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

Box 2.1 neoliberal-Parasitic economies in Chicago

Geographers david Wilson and Matthew Anderson have written about the rise of neoliberal- parasitic economies. this has coincided with an increase in Latino immigration to U.S. cities. Chicago’s experience is notable as its Latino population rose from essentially nonexistent in 1970 to 754,000 in 2005. Latino’s are now 30 percent of Chicago’s total population. With Mexican-origin residents alone occupying roughly 30 percent of the jobs in Chicago’s formal and informal service sector, this pool of immigrant labor has provided local businesses with an expanding source of dependable low-wage labor over the past ten years. the neighbor- hood of Little Village has become both the “Mexico of the Midwest” and the epicenter for parasitic economy formation in Chicago.

A “parasitic economy” is a set of businesses that target spatially immobile people and operates by plundering them despite their limited base of resources and wealth. in the domains of retail provision, housing provision, and work, people are exploited in similar ways as the sub-prime mortgage market has targeted other low-income populations (i.e., African-Americans).

Embedded in this landscape, along with day-labor sites, temporary agencies, and conveni- ence stores, is a host of parasitic institutions, such as payday lenders, pawn shops, and check cashers (Figure 2.7). Payday lenders service populations in need of credit through short-term cash loans typically at high interest rates, often as high as 20 percent. With bills often due before payday, these loans are in high demand as few other options are afforded to this spa- tially confined population. however, due to high interest rates, many are unable to pay and are forced to refinance, deepening their indebtedness. Pawn shops also provide fixed-term

Figure 2.7 Pawn shops are examples of the parasitic economies that mark the poorer sections of many American cities and suburbs. Source: Photo by Lisa benton-Short.

Models of Urban Structure 59

loans to customers who use assets (rather than credit checks) as collateral to back the loans. these loans are also often renewed at high interest rates to avoid appropriation of the col- lateral by pawnshop owners.

Check cashers, perhaps the most parasitic of these institutional forms, serve those paid by check but who lack bank accounts (due to bad credit, indebtedness, etc.). these agencies cash checks for fees that may range from 3 to 10 percent of the check’s value. these busi- nesses also write checks for customers (for $10–15 fees) as a means of paying bills. With no bank access, this has become a particularly popular service. the largest of these, in assets and stores, are Western Union, Segue, and Money Express, together numbering 19 stores in Little Village and representing the penetration of global financial capital into this local formation’s operation.

Residents who repeatedly use these services (i.e., turning checks into cash or other checks), due to few other options, accumulate additional costs in fees that often amount to thousands of dollars annually. yet, with employment typically at $8.00/hour, many have no realistic way to pay off their loans, which keeps them perpetually indebted. Arriving in America with dreams of a better life, and returning money to households in Mexico, they often become disillusioned with their new circumstances.

Source: david Wilson and Matthew Anderson. 2014. “Urban Economic Restructuring,” in L. benton- Short (ed.), Cities of North America: Contemporary Challenges in US and Canadian Cities. Rowman and Littlefield.

include research and development, brokerage

services, banking, medicine, law, advertising,

computer engineering and software develop-

ment. Richard Florida has referred to those

employed in these types of service-sector jobs

as the “creative class.” Cities have expended

tremendous efforts to attract the “creative

class” to reignite their economies.

MODELS OF URbAN STRUCTURE

There are two general features that character-

ize most North American cities. The first is

the grid system. The second is sprawl—the

low-density horizontal spread of development

from the central city.

The average city in the United States

and Canada has the following land-use

distribution: 30 percent residential; 10 percent

industrial/manufacturing; 4 percent com-

mercial; 20 percent roads and highways; 15

percent public land, government buildings,

and parks; and 20 percent vacant or unde-

veloped land (Figure 2.8). The patterning of

these land-use categories differs according to

the age of the city. For example, cities estab-

lished prior to 1840 tend to have very dense,

compact cores. In cities that developed in the

early twentieth century, industrial activities

might be located outside the core area to take

advantage of advances in transportation facil-

ities such as railroads. Still other cities that saw

development occur after 1950 have deconcen-

trated cores with expansive residential zones

due to the automobile and the emergence of

suburbs. The majority of North American cit-

ies, however, have both high-rent and low-rent

60 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

residential areas in the inner core, and a grad-

ually increasing gradient of housing prices as

one moves from the inner suburbs to the outer

suburbs. Patterns of expansion and land-use

sometimes follow the concentric zones model

developed by Burgess in the 1920s, the sector

model developed by Hoyt in the 1930s, or the

multiple nuclei model developed by Harris

and Ullman in the 1940s.

The grid plan, which imposes a rectangular

street grid on urban space, dates from antiquity.

The grid provides a simple, rational format for

allocating land by setting streets at right angles

to one another. Despite a multitude of geog-

raphies and topographies, many cities laid out

on a grid share common design features: a lack

of sensitivity to the physical environment, the

imposition of the grid regardless of topog-

raphy, a focus on straight lines (geometry

over geography), and an underlying sense of

control over urban space. The 1734 map of

Savannah shows the rigid adoption of the grid

(Figure 2.9). Similarly, San Francisco imposed

a grid on one of the most varied topographies

of any North American city.

The grid plan became nearly universal in

the construction of new towns and cities in

the United States and Canada. It allowed for

the rapid subdivision of large parcels of land.

As U.S. cities grew outward, however, particu-

larly after the mid-twentieth century, the grid

became less prevalent. Suburbs offer a free-

form pattern of growth, complete with cul-de-

sacs and winding lanes that contrast sharply

with the grid-plan city. When cities and sub-

urbs merge, the grid merges into a series of

loops, curves, and open spaces; and its rigidity

begins to disappear.

Figure 2.8 Roads and highways take up an enormous one-fifth of urban land in the United States, exemplified by this iconic photo of the Los Angeles freeway system. Source: Photo by Lisa benton-Short.

Models of Urban Structure 61

In contrast, under the influence of New

Urbanism, some recent suburbs have returned

to the grid system. New Urbanism longs nos-

talgically for lost community and the high-

density cities of the past. New Urbanist design

principles emphasize walkability, mixed-use

“town centers” and higher-density residen-

tial areas. Ironically, New Urbanism, which is

a response to suburban sprawl, has had less

impact on redesigning cities than it has on the

redesign of suburbs. The most cited example

of New Urbanism is the town of Celebration,

Florida, a community initially planned and

built by the Disney Corporation. Celebration’s

design elements include low-rise, high-density

residential areas where garages are at the back

of the residences; walkways and porches allow

for pedestrian movement; and a vibrant, car-

free, mixed-use downtown facilitates more

human interaction in public spaces.

The edge city offers yet another model of

urban structure. Edge cities consist of pre-

dominately large-square-footage office space

located beyond the central city. The journalist

Joel Garreau coined the term “edge cities” and

defined them as having:

Figure 2.9 “View of Savannah, as it stood the 29th March, A.d. 1734.” Source: Report on the Social Statistics of Cities, Compiled by George E. Waring, Jr., U.S. Census office, Part ii, 1886. Courtesy of the University of texas Libraries, University of texas at Austin (http://www.lib.utexas. edu/maps/historical/savannah_1734.jpg).

62 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

• more than 5 million square feet of office

space, enough to house up to 50,000

office workers (as many as some tradi-

tional downtowns).

• more than 600,000 square feet of retail

space, the size of a medium shopping mall.

• more jobs than bedrooms.

• no resemblance to cities developed

before 1960.

These edge cities attract large numbers of

service-sector workers during the day, but

empty each night as residential areas are scarce.

Garreau identified 123 places as being true

edge cities, including two dozen such areas in

greater Los Angeles, 23 in metro Washington,

DC, and 21 in greater New York City. Tyson’s

Corner, Virginia, west of Washington, is an

example of an edge city.

Today, edge cities are being rethought.

Since edge cities were built in and around

major highway intersections, traffic conges-

tion in these areas has become a problem.

Pedestrian access is poor and public transpor-

tation is nearly absent. Additionally, as devel-

opment continues in and around edge cities,

they may “merge” into megalopolitan areas

that comprise multiple residential and com-

mercial/business nodes well outside the urban

core. The recent demand for urban living has

had an impact on edge cities. Many “com-

mercial strips” and edge cities that were once

obsolete are now increasing in density. One of

the most interesting transformations is occur-

ring in Tyson’s Corner, which planners pro-

pose to transform into a walkable, sustainable

urban center. By 2050, Tyson’s will be home

to 100,000 residents and 200,000 jobs. Plans

call for new attention to urban design and the

pedestrian realm; growth will be focused at

Metro stops; and new parks and public facili-

ties will be constructed. The superblocks of

streets that are six lanes wide will be broken up

as the city transitions from an auto-oriented

suburban place into a more pedestrian-ori-

ented urban destination. It is possible the edge

cities of the twentieth century will be trans-

formed into new spatial forms during the next

decades (Box 2.2).

DISTINCTIVE CITIES

New York City: A Global Metropolis

New York City is the largest city in the United

States and the one most frequently identi-

fied as the financial and cultural capital of the

country. With 8.4 million people in its five

boroughs, and over 19 million in the metro-

politan area, New York is the only metropolis

in North America to rival the megacities of

Asia and Latin America in terms of population

size. As a true “global city,” New York is often

the starting point for global economic and

cultural trends. Recent events, however, have

shown that New York—like any other city—is

far from invincible. The World Trade Center

attacks of 2001, the blackout of 2003, and the

real estate crisis of 2008 and 2009 have shown

that New York City’s global and regional con-

nectedness can be a source of vulnerability as

well as status.

Despite these setbacks, New York contin-

ues to lead the world in commerce and indus-

try. The Port of New York and New Jersey,

traditionally the main connection between

the Atlantic Ocean and the interior of North

America (via the Erie Canal), now handles

the third-highest tonnage of ship cargo in

the United States and is counted among the

world’s top-20 busiest ports. New York—along

with Los Angeles—continues to dominate

the nation’s manufacturing base with over

20,000 establishments, but it has also gained

Distinctive Cities 63

Box 2.2 the Death of the Shopping Mall?

Figure 2.10 As architecture critic Michael Sorkin has observed, “Like the suburban house that rejects the sociability of front porches and sidewalks for private back yards, malls look inward, turning their backs on the public street.” Source: Photo by Lisa benton-Short.

A trend has been underway for some time—the fall and overhaul of the American shopping mall. From 1970 to 2000, enclosed shopping malls were constructed all over north America (Figure 2.10). Long trips to downtown department stores had fallen out of favor and the suburbs were the destination for new, clean, and air-conditioned shopping. during these three decades, about 1,500 malls were built in America’s suburbs.

but, since 2000, the mall has been on the decline. With shoppers and investment return- ing to the downtown, suburban malls are dying. in the next decade, as many as half of the malls in America could be torn down or reconfigured. in many suburbs, in fact, dead malls are already highly visible. Signs fade, facades crumble, and weeds sprout in parking lots. there is even a website that keeps track of such sorry decay: deadmalls.com defines a “dead mall” as one with a high vacancy rate, low consumer traffic, and that may appear dated or deteriorating. but, does all of this mean the death of the shopping mall?

developers in the United States have begun building a new type of shopping center known as the “lifestyle center.” Lifestyle centers were developed, in part, to counter the problems associated with the spatial segregation of suburban sprawl. ironically, developers of lifestyle centers looked to traditional downtowns as an inspiration. buildings are often made to look

64 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

traction and thrived in the increasingly valu-

able “creative industries” (Figure 2.11). These

sectors are concentrated in different portions

of the city, with music and theater in Times

Square, fashion in the Garment District, inte-

rior design and architecture in Chelsea and

SoHo, and advertising on Madison Avenue.

These industries not only benefit from city

tax incentives for television and film, but also

from the talent available at nearby educational

institutions, such as Julliard (music), the Pratt

Institute (design), and the Fashion Institute of

Technology.

New York sits in a strategically important

location where mainland New York State

meets the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island, south-

western Connecticut, and northeastern New

Jersey. This region is commonly called the

“tri-state area.” The hard metamorphic rock

making up Manhattan Island has allowed for

intense vertical development of skyscrapers.

Central Park, a product of the urban parks

movement of the Progressive Era, is the only

extensive open space on the island of Manhat-

tan. First inhabited by the Algonquin Indians,

the island was purchased and settled by the

Dutch in 1624 and named New Amsterdam.

By 1800, New York City, with its 60,000 resi-

dents, had become the largest city in the coun-

try. It has maintained this position since then,

now forming the center of the Boston-to-

Washington Megalopolis. Along with Tokyo

and London, New York is one of the three tra-

ditional “global cities” that anchor world trade,

commerce, banking, and stock transactions.

Even as New York becomes ever more glob-

ally interconnected, the city is in many ways

socially, economically, and spatially frag-

mented. Despite its world-city status, New

York has always struggled with its reputation

for poor sanitation and high crime. Many

geographers have argued that these problems,

rather than being truly corrected, are tempo-

rarily suppressed, confined to particular areas

of the city, or relocated to the outer boroughs

and suburbs. New York has frequently located

environmentally hazardous projects, such as

expressways and incinerators, in poor and

racialized neighborhoods (e.g., South Bronx,

Sunset Park) where public purview is reduced

like multiple storefronts that have evolved over time. Shops open directly to the sidewalk. Lifestyle centers feature mixed uses (retail, office, and residential space), pedestrian walk- ability, and are designed to open toward the street, thereby creating outside public spaces that include wide sidewalks, plazas, parks and public squares. Some might include libraries, movie theatres, or civic amenities. Unlike traditional shopping malls with anchor department stores like nordstrom or Macy’s, lifestyle centers focus more on specialty retailers such as Ann taylor, Williams Sonoma, talbots, banana Republic, nicole Miller, Eddie bauer, Pottery barn, Liz Claiborne, the Gap, and Restoration hardware

Lifestyle centers have become common in both affluent suburbs and revitalized down- towns. they are now among the most popular retail formats in America. in 2002, there were only 30 lifestyle centers in the United States; by 2004 there were 120; today about 19 lifestyle centers are constructed each year. Lifestyle centers continue to proliferate, even as conventional shopping malls are declining.

Distinctive Cities 65

and resistance is less likely. The city has also

tried to reconfigure itself as a safe, livable city

and tourist destination. In the 1990s, New

York implemented “quality of life” laws that

criminalized panhandling and homelessness

while policing and securitizing (e.g., through

closed-circuit cameras) highly trafficked and

visible public spaces. Even places that previ-

ously served as important sites of public pro-

test, such as the steps of City Hall, are now

frequently fenced off or guarded.

Gentrification has undoubtedly driven the

fragmentation of New York City. Although

gentrification is commonly understood as

the product of gradual, localized, ground-up

improvements to neighborhood properties,

much of the gentrification in New York since

2000 has been driven by corporate developers

and municipal interests. The New York Urban

Development Corporation, for example,

has forcibly purchased many Times Square

properties for redevelopment. Privately man-

aged business improvement districts (BIDs)

are now responsible for many of the public

space improvements (e.g., beautification, sig-

nage). As many economic geographers have

observed, the competitive advantage of the

creative industries located in New York is con-

tingent on the successful “branding” of the

neighborhoods in which they are located. By

the same token, previously decaying neigh-

borhoods such as the Meatpacking District

(Manhattan) and Williamsburg (Brooklyn)

strive to attract creative firms and workers by

cultivating their status as the city’s next arts

destination or nightlife center. Although this

intra-urban neighborhood competition has

expanded the range of living space available

for the upper class and the upwardly mobile,

it has also priced out middle-class residents

Figure 2.11 Peter Woytuk sculptures, playing off of new york’s nickname, the big Apple, became a public art exhibit that extended all along broadway, this one on the Upper West Side. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

66 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

of neighborhoods such as Park Slope (Brook-

lyn), Harlem, and the Lower East side of Man-

hattan. Critics of gentrification have claimed

that rapid redevelopment, securitization, and

branding of urban space creates “Disneyfied”

fantasy cities and “entertainment machines”

that put tourists and business tenants ahead

of residents.

Immigration has been central to both the

identity of New York City and the individual

identities of its neighborhoods. Over 12 mil-

lion immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Italy,

Poland, Greece, and elsewhere arrived in New

York City during the late 1800s and early

1900s. During the past three decades, how-

ever, newcomers from Latin America and Asia

have comprised the bulk of the immigrant

population. Despite being one of most ethni-

cally diverse areas in the United States, New

York City is still highly segregated. Real estate

agents, who serve as gatekeepers to the city’s

properties, often sort new immigrants toward

neighborhoods dominated by their respective

ethno-racial groups. Such practices, however,

reinforce self-segregating tendencies, ethno-

racial ghettos (e.g., Puerto Ricans in the Bronx,

Dominicans in Washington Heights), and

mutual antipathies between groups. New York

thus remains a city of extremes. Within a rela-

tively small area, extreme wealth meets with

extreme poverty, global integration encounters

local fragmentation, and individualistic eco-

nomic gain sits side by side with the increasing

management and regulation of public space.

These dichotomies, however, are likely to guar-

antee New York’s place as a fascinating site of

geographic study for years to come.

Los Angeles: Outward Glitz, Inner Turmoil

Los Angeles contrasts sharply with New York

City. The large, sprawling city covers 498

square miles (1290 sq km), has multiple busi-

ness districts (e.g., Hollywood, Beverly Hills),

and depends on complex, often congested,

networks of highways to connect the various

“nuclei” of the city. The sprawl of the city, typ-

ified by concrete structures, superhighways,

and low-lying residential and commercial

developments (e.g., strip malls) extends north

through the San Fernando Valley (“The Val-

ley”) and eastward into the “Inland Empire”

of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.

With a metropolitan-area population of about

13 million, the city of Los Angeles itself is the

nation’s second largest, a position that it took

from Chicago during the 1980s. Yet, like New

York, Los Angeles is also a city of extreme con-

trasts. Both the immense wealth of Beverly

Hills and the endemic poverty and disorder

of South Central Los Angeles have been fix-

tures in the U.S. media and the American cul-

tural imagination. A young, politically liberal

population in the arts and entertainment sec-

tor stands in stark contrast to the Republican

families (and the conspicuous consumption)

featured in the Real Housewives of Orange

County and of Beverly Hills. And in a city

perhaps less beholden to dominant notions of

social class and pedigree than New York City,

Boston, or Chicago, gated communities—

intended to protect and contain wealth—

abound in many areas.

Since the mid-twentieth century, Los Ange-

les has been perhaps best known for its role

as a premier “entertainment machine.” Coined

by Richard Lloyd and Terry Nichols Clark, the

entertainment machine comprises the vari-

ous industries that cities use to respond to

postindustrial elites that want to experience

their own cities as if they were tourists. These

practices impact considerations about the

proper nature of amenities to provide in con-

temporary cities. While Lloyd and Clark used

Distinctive Cities 67

Chicago as their case study, Los Angeles dif-

fers in that it is an entertainment machine not

only for its own residents, but for a global film

and television industry. Following the arrival

of the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe railroad

lines in 1876 and 1885, and the construction of

an artificial port in 1914, Los Angeles became

a West Coast metropolis that would truly rival

New York and Philadelphia. The port, now

referred to as Los Angeles-Long Beach, pro-

vided an export hub for the West’s growing oil

industry as well as an entrepôt for cruise ships

and imported goods from Asia. Today, Los

Angeles is known for being a national leader

in clothing and luxury goods manufacturing,

but especially film and television. Three major

film studios (Paramount, 20th Century Fox,

and Universal) are located within the city lim-

its, while NBC television studios are located in

Burbank, and CBS in Culver City. Many prom-

inent cable television networks (e.g., Bravo,

MTV, and VH1) are also located in Los Ange-

les, and the reality shows that now dominate

North American cable television often depict

mansion-and-driver lifestyles associated with

the city’s wealthiest jurisdictions. The demo-

graphics of Hollywood in particular reflect the

legions of starving actors aiming to land a job

with the film studios and television networks.

The median household income hovers around

$35,000, low for Los Angeles, and the average

household has about two dwellers. Renters

occupy well over 90 percent of the housing

units. The percentages of never-married men

(55 percent) and never-married women (40

percent) are among the country’s highest.

Although Los Angeles has a shorter history

of international immigration than New York—

most of the city’s migrants were from within

the United States before the 1960s—the city is

one of the most diverse in the United States.

More than a third of the city’s population is

foreign born, with the most recent waves of

immigrants coming from Latin America—

particularly Mexico—and Asia. The newness

of immigration also poses challenges for Los

Angeles. Most immigrants are not English

speaking, and both Los Angeles and Califor-

nia have debated whether to continue inte-

grating foreign languages (especially Spanish)

into school curricula and signage, or to make

English the sole official language. New immi-

grants in the Los Angeles area also tend to be

poor and experience discrimination in hous-

ing, employment, and education. While these

immigrants help support the quintessentially

“southern California lifestyle” by working in

service industries ranging from gardening to

dry cleaning, they often live in spatially and

economically marginalized neighborhoods

such as East Los Angeles and Compton. The

economic disadvantage of the city’s most vul-

nerable groups has created levels of organized

and gang-related crime that are among the

highest in the country. According to the Los

Angeles Police Department, the city is home

to 45,000 gang members, organized into

about 450 gangs. Among them are the Crips

and Bloods (African American), the Sureños,

(Mexican), and Mara Salvatrucha (mainly of

Salvadoran descent). The preponderance of

organized crime groups has led to the city

being referred to as the “Gang Capital of

America.”

Los Angeles is also marked by a number

of environmental problems, such as traffic

congestion and pollution. In this sprawling,

automobile-dependent city, most residents

commute and more than 7 out of 10 workers

drive to work alone. All of the streetcar lines

in Los Angeles were closed in 1963 in favor

of freeway development. Although the city

reinstituted a commuter rail system in 1990,

its five lines—designed mostly to connect

68 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

property owners began to leave, many resi-

dents lost their homes due to foreclosure and

eviction. Unemployment, the crack cocaine

epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, and result-

ing drug-related violence and property crimes

gave Detroit unwelcome notoriety as one of

the most crime-ridden cities in North Amer-

ica. Detroit’s woes have continued. In 2010, it

was estimated that about one-third of the city,

some 40 square miles (104 sq km), was vacant.

The current joke is that the only expanding

business in Detroit is demolition.

Redevelopment has become a buzzword

in Detroit since, but redevelopment strat-

egies have garnered mixed results. In the

mid-1990s, three casinos opened in Detroit’s

downtown. In 2000, Comerica Park replaced

historic Tiger Stadium as the home of the

Detroit Tigers, and in 2002 the NFL Detroit

Lions returned to a new downtown stadium,

Ford Field. The 2004 opening of “The Com-

puware” gave downtown Detroit its first sig-

nificant new office building in a decade. The

city hosted the 2005 Major League Baseball

All-Star Game and Super Bowl XL in 2006,

both of which prompted more improvements

to the downtown area. Currently, Detroit is

constructing a riverfront promenade park as

part of the Detroit International Riverfront

Project and is working with Canada on a

second bridge that will connect Detroit and

Windsor, Ontario.

Even so, the new infrastructure has not nec-

essarily improved economic growth. Detroit

remains one of the nation’s poorest cities.

Currently, almost 40 percent of residents

live below the poverty level, and the popula-

tion (83 percent African American, 9 percent

white, and 7 percent Hispanic) remains highly

segregated. Abandoned housing ranks as one

of the city’s most persistent problems. In 2010,

a total of 78,000 housing units were vacant or

downtown Los Angeles and the surrounding

suburbs—are insufficient to provide an ade-

quate alternative to car transport. The traffic

congestion, coupled with an unfavorable basin

location and dry climate, has made Los Ange-

les the smoggiest city in the country. Although

smog alerts have decreased since the 1970s—

when there were almost 100 per year—the

National Lung Association has consistently

ranked Los Angeles as the first or second most

polluted city in the United States. Los Angeles

also has insufficient water resources to sup-

port its population. Transfers of water from

northern California and the Colorado River

have reached their limits, and when combined

with the frequent droughts, the only alter-

natives seem to be conservation and a turn

toward the sea. In 1990, the first desaliniza-

tion plant opened along the California coast.

Finally, the ever-present threat of earthquakes

is announced by several low-grade tremors

each year. The potential for devastation is real,

and emergency planning is a priority item for

schools, businesses, and police.

Detroit and Cleveland: Shrinking Cities

Overall, the U.S. national economy has seen

growth and prosperity; however, some cities

confront a declining or stagnant economy and

a shrinking population. In 1950, the popu-

lation of municipal Cleveland, Ohio, was

900,000, but by 2014 it had fallen to 390,000.

Detroit, Michigan, was once home to both

GM and Ford and was dubbed “Motor City”

or “Motown.” It was home to 1.8 million resi-

dents in 1950. Today, its population is well less

than half of that number. These two former

urban industrial giants have experienced a

severe reversal of fortune.

In Detroit, as high-paying manufacturing

jobs became scarce and both corporations and

Distinctive Cities 69

abandoned and 55,000 of those were in fore-

closure. Detroit, already suffering from dein-

dustrialization in the twentieth century, was

also one of the U.S. cities hit hardest by the

2008 foreclosure crisis.

Cleveland has also struggled against the

legacy of deindustrialization in order to

reinvent itself in a more competitive global

economy. Initiatives to rebuild Cleveland have

replicated the formulae that many Northeast-

ern and Midwestern cities have employed:

new museums, sports stadiums, convention

centers, renovated industrial warehouse dis-

tricts for housing and retail, and waterfront

development. Pundits dubbed these efforts

“the Cleveland Comeback.” One of the city’s

most successful projects has been the Rock

and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, which

opened to the public in 1995. The building,

located on the shore of Lake Erie, was crucial

in regenerating Cleveland’s waterfront area.

New downtown stadiums for the city’s profes-

sional sports teams have also aided revitaliza-

tion. The Gateway Sports Complex cost $360

million and included an open-air stadium for

baseball and an indoor arena for basketball.

Currently, the city is redeveloping the water-

front along both Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga

River as a destination for tourists and locals

alike. The city has also become a regional and

national player in health services and bio-

medical technologies by capitalizing on the

wealth of educational and medical facilities

in the region. Both the Cleveland Clinic and

University Hospitals have announced bil-

lions of dollars of investment in new facilities.

Despite these efforts, some experts claim that

the Cleveland comeback has stalled. Between

2000 and 2007, Cleveland suffered one of the

largest proportional population losses in the

country, shrinking by 8 percent. In addition,

many of Cleveland’s inner suburbs continue

to decline and overall urban growth remains

negligible. The case studies of Detroit and

Cleveland show that both cities continue to

experience mixed results in efforts to realign

and reinvigorate their economies.

Montreal: Moving Uphill from Upheaval

While most North American cities’ economic

and demographic destinies have been shaped

by global economic trends, Montreal’s have

been shaped by cultural identity and the

resultant political clashes. In French-speaking

Quebec, beginning in the 1960s, many resi-

dents abandoned the Roman Catholic Church

and traditional family structures and now

frequently opt for common-law relationships

instead. Consequently, the provincial fertil-

ity rate—the number of children per woman

of childbearing age—has stayed below 1.5.

Yet Montreal was perhaps less affected by the

modernization imperatives of its 1960s’ gov-

ernment than it was by the Quebec separatist

movement that emerged at the same time. For

most of Canada’s history, Montreal had served

as the unofficial corporate and cultural capi-

tal of the country, hosting the World Expo in

1967 and the summer Olympics in 1976. But

even as these events were held, Montreal was

in a state of unrest. Between 1963 and 1970,

the paramilitary Quebec Liberation Front

became responsible for over 160 violent inci-

dents, which killed eight people and injured

many more, including the bombing of the

Montreal Stock Exchange in 1969 and the

October Crisis of 1970 where a British Trade

Commissioner was kidnapped and an anti-

separatist Quebec labor minister was mur-

dered. This extremism, however, belied more

mainstream efforts to ensure that the province

of Quebec, and especially Montreal, remained

French. In 1976, Law 101 made French the

70 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

official language of government, commerce,

and educational instruction in Montreal, and

took extra efforts to ensure that newcom-

ers and their children would have to learn

French. Unfortunately, many corporations

and their workers, who were used to operating

in an English business milieu, decided to leave.

Major firm headquarters, such as those for TD

Canada Trust and Canadian Pacific Rail, left

the city. Between 1990 and 2011, Montreal lost

21 of its Canadian top-500 companies (a loss

of 25 percent), with most moving to Toronto.

Referenda for independence in 1980 and in

1995 cemented Montreal’s fate as a corporate

second-fiddle to Toronto. While both refer-

enda failed (albeit only barely), they created an

atmosphere of hostility between many French

Quebeckers and the remaining Anglo minor-

ity as well as immigrants—who had been

blamed in French media for the failures of the

dual referenda. Despite the post-1980 provin-

cial immigration policies designed to prior-

itize French language ability and connection

to the province rather than solely education

and skills (as in the rest of Canada), immigra-

tion to Montreal has grown during the past

two decades—even if not to the same extent

as in Toronto. In his book Creating Diversity

Capital, Blair Ruble argues that the growth

of immigration in ethnically and racially

bifurcated cities such as Montreal (French-

Canadian/Anglo-Canadian) and Washington,

DC (black/white) has allayed some of the ten-

sions between opposing groups and allowed

for forms of cultural hybridity; for exam-

ple, the crowning of a bilingual, West Indian

queen in Montreal’s St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Yet immigrants have not necessarily been

the key player in Montreal’s slow rebound

from the decline of the late twentieth cen-

tury. The new global order that prioritizes

cultural cachet over corporate rankings and

specialized merchants over mass manufac-

turing means that Montreal’s unique history

and culture—coupled with cheap rents from

housing subsidies and the after-effects of

decline—have made it the home base for crea-

tive and design-based industries in Canada.

Given its eclectic architecture and broad avail-

ability of film services and crew members (it is

home to the National Film Board of Canada),

Montreal is now a popular filming location for

U.S. studios. The city is also home to festivals

such as Just for Laughs and the Montreal Jazz

Festival, as well as global cultural enterprises

like Cirque du Soleil. In recognition of these

arts-based industries and a budding fashion

district in the Plateau neighborhood, Mon-

treal was named a UNESCO City of Design in

2006. The growth of the arts, however, is also

having spillovers into hi-tech industries. With

the help of government subsidies supporting

video game designers, the city has attracted

world-leading game developers and publisher

studios such as Ubisoft, Eidos Interactive,

Artificial Mind and Movement, Bioware, and

Strategy First. The case of Montreal shows that

cultural differentiation has evolved from a pit-

fall to a strength in the new global economy.

Ottawa: A Capital of Compromise

More a tool of political compromise than an

economic boomtown, Canada’s federal capi-

tal, Ottawa, has long acted as a nexus of com-

promise between the many facets of Canadian

identity: French and English, urban and rural,

Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada

(Quebec and the Atlantic provinces), and the

interests of federal bureaucrats and a burgeon-

ing technology sector. Ottawa and its Quebec

neighbor, Gatineau, comprise the fourth-larg-

est census metropolitan area (CMA) in Can-

ada with1.24 million residents.

Distinctive Cities 71

Ottawa was designated the capital of Can-

ada by Britain’s Queen Victoria in 1857, even

before confederation and independence in

1867. Already an important lumber town at

the northern terminus of the Rideau Canal

linking the Ottawa River and Lake Ontario,

Ottawa was chosen for its defendable strategic

position (i.e., away from the U.S. border) and

its location on the Ontario-Quebec border,

midway between Toronto and Quebec City.

The location of compromise is evident in the

linguistic diversity of Ottawa-Gatineau today.

About 40 percent of the population declares

itself French-English bilingual, while another

45 percent claim to speak English only and 15

percent claim to speak French only. But, living

in an urban area straddling two provinces also

creates challenges. Many residents live in one

province and work in another, and frequently

negotiate the traffic laws, rental practices, and

tax structures of two different jurisdictions.

In addition to legislative and linguistic differ-

ences in the area, there are political differences

between downtown Ottawa residents and the

rural and suburban residents that joined the

city following amalgamation in 2001. Ottawa

politicians frequently avoid projects that may

irritate more politically conservative residents

in West Carleton, Osgoode, Greely, and other

towns that pay Ottawa taxes but do not always

receive Ottawa municipal services.

An additional challenge is the dominance of

the federal government in the development of

the area. The Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan

area is also part of the National Capital Region,

a federal jurisdiction managed by a corpora-

tion called the National Capital Commission

(NCC). Some see the NCC, which manages

the federal government’s vast properties in the

area, as a hindrance to developing Ottawa into

a world-class city. Buildings cannot exceed the

elevation of the National Parliament and most

development has been geared toward creating

a “green capital” dotted with parks and fringed

with a belt of woodlands and farmlands.

Ottawa, however, has refashioned its historic

and national emblems as focal points of devel-

opment. In 2006, Confederation Boulevard

was built to help pedestrians access attractions

on both sides of the Ottawa River, including

the Parliament, the Rideau Canal locks, and

the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau. The

historic Byward market in the center of down-

town Ottawa—originally a supply stop for the

lumber camps around Ottawa—is now the

center of a revitalized downtown nightlife and

shopping district.

In Ottawa, the cooperation of government

and industry has led to the city-region becom-

ing a tech-pole now known as “Silicon Valley

North.” The Ottawa-Gatineau hi-tech sector,

which is focusing on information technol-

ogy, telecommunications, and nanotechnol-

ogy, has employed anywhere between 50,000

and 85,000 workers per year during the past

decade and includes well-known firms such as

Corel, Nortel, and Adobe. Although the “gov-

ernment town” is usually seen as the antith-

esis of an open-market environment fostering

technology and innovation, the Canadian

federal government has actually been central

in the development of the region’s tech-pole.

The government is not only the largest user of

information technology in the area, it has also

funded hi-tech research and innovation in the

laboratories of the National Research Coun-

cil. Other public-private bodies, such as the

Ottawa-Carleton Research Institute and the

Ottawa Capital Network, provide the funding

and programming to ensure that local inno-

vations can be leveraged into the creation of

local startup firms. By capitalizing on these

networks and Ottawa’s highly educated tal-

ent pool (30 percent have university degrees),

72 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

Ottawa has developed its own version of Sili-

con Valley—one committed to local research,

development, and reinvestment.

Washington, DC: A New Immigrant Gateway

No longer are the world’s migrants moving to

the older, established destinations of the nine-

teenth and early twentieth centuries. In the

twenty-first century, many choose to settle in

cities where new economic growth is providing

opportunities for both high-skilled and low-

skilled workers. Washington (coextensive with

the federal District of Columbia) and its sub-

urbs in Maryland and Virginia have become

home to hundreds of thousands of new immi-

grants in the past 15 years. Despite the eco-

nomic recession of 2008, Washington, DC,

saw modest economic growth in federal gov-

ernment jobs, contract work, and information

technology. Military-funded aerospace firms

such as Northrop-Grumman and Lockheed

Martin have established East Coast headquar-

ters in DC to be close to the Department of

Defense. More recently, the Dulles “High Tech

Corridor,” which stretches westward from

Arlington, Virginia, toward Dulles Interna-

tional Airport, has attracted high-skilled soft-

ware engineers and other high-technology

workers. The firm AOL employs 5,000 in its

headquarters there. To address a shortage of

high-skilled workers in the 1990s, the U.S.

Department of Homeland Security created an

H1 Visa specifically to target foreigners with

college degrees in computer-related fields. As

a result, many skilled immigrants from India,

South Korea, Hong Kong, and mainland

China moved to the Washington, DC, region

during this time. The continued growth of a

prosperous, global “creative class” has led to a

simultaneous demand for domestic and man-

ual labor. Many immigrants from El Salvador,

Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, and Guatemala

have also come to DC to work as nannies,

Figure 2.12 Migrants make their presence felt in numerous ways. in this case, there are sufficient brazilian immigrants for a brazilian service at this baptist Church outside Washington, dC. Source: Photo by Lisa benton-Short.

Distinctive Cities 73

landscapers, construction workers, and hotel

and restaurant staff (Figure 2.12).

Washington has become a magnet for immi-

grants from diverse countries. In 1970, only

4.5 percent of the population of Washington,

DC, was foreign born. By 2009, Washington

was home to 1 million foreign-born residents,

which accounted for 20 percent of the urban

population. Cities such as Las Vegas, Orlando,

Atlanta, and Charlotte, along with DC, have

experienced the bulk of their immigration in

the past two decades, making them new immi-

grant gateways.

Immigrants arriving in these new gate-

ways, however, do not follow the same set-

tlement patterns and processes seen in more

established gateway cities such as New York

and Chicago. The conventional model of

spatial assimilation assumes that immigrants

first cluster with their own ethnic groups in

center-city enclaves such as Chinatowns and

Little Italys and—as they gain higher levels of

education and income—leave these enclaves

to reside in suburban areas with higher social

status and larger homes. In the Washington

area, many immigrants move directly to the

suburbs rather than the central city. In addi-

tion, many immigrants live in moderate- to

high-income neighborhoods, not in the poor-

est ones. In fact, many are settling in places

that only 30 years ago were mostly white and

had very few foreign-born residents. Now, the

historic image of a city polarized into “Black

and White” no longer holds true, and city

leaders and residents are grappling with how

to include and support increasingly diverse

communities.

New Orleans: Vulnerable City

Disasters remind us of just how vulnerable

cities are to environmental forces. To New

Orleans, hurricanes and floods are not new.

The city was originally located close to where

the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf of

Mexico, along a river bend south of Lake Pon-

tchartrain. It was sited on a relatively high

piece of land where French traders had already

been encamped. This area became known as

the French Quarter. The high water table cre-

ated construction difficulties and the volatile

river regularly flooded. In the early twentieth

century, improvements in pumping technol-

ogy encouraged more development in the

lower lying areas, which tended to be settled

by working-class, poor, and minority popula-

tions. Still, the river that acts as the city’s eco-

nomic lifeblood also threatens to destroy it.

In 2005, the city of New Orleans was dev-

astated by Hurricane Katrina. Hurricanes pro-

duce more than an inch of rain per hour, high

winds that can tear buildings and other struc-

tures away from their moorings, and damage

to infrastructure ranging from washed out

or flooded roads to power lines that are torn

apart by wind and waves. Storm surges asso-

ciated with the high winds can reach over 20

feet (6 m) above ordinary sea level. For most

coastal cities, flooding is a serious problem.

For a city below sea level, like much of New

Orleans, it is potentially catastrophic. It was

not the ferocious winds of Katrina that dam-

aged New Orleans, but the storm surge that

breached the levees. The city center flooded

when portions of the levees at 17th Street and

Industrial Canal collapsed. Almost 80 percent

of the city was under water, sometimes over 20

feet (6 m) in depth. An estimated 1,000 people

were killed, most of them drowned by rapidly

rising floodwaters.

At first glance, Hurricane Katrina seemed

like a natural disaster since a hurricane is a

force of nature. But Katrina’s impacts and

effects were intensified by socioeconomic

74 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

conditions. The flooding of the city was caused

by poorly designed levees that could not with-

stand a predictable storm surge. Levee pilings

that should have been 15 feet (4.5 m) high had

settled in the unstable soil to only 12–13 feet

(3.7–4 m) above sea level. It was not Katrina

alone that caused the disaster but the shoddy

engineering and poor design of inadequately

funded public works.

As Katrina approached New Orleans, evac-

uation orders were finally given. But there was

little provision made for those without cars

or for the city’s most vulnerable residents.

Many disabled, poor, black, and elderly resi-

dents were trapped. Thousands made their

way to the Superdome and the Convention

Center, where they remained for days, a stun-

ning indictment of social and racial inequality

in New Orleans. The same inequalities were

reflected in the damage caused by Hurricane

Katrina. Flooding disproportionately affected

poor neighborhoods such as the Lower Ninth

Ward. The more affluent, predominantly

white sections, such as the French Quarter,

Audubon Park, and the Garden District had

been built at higher elevations and escaped

flood damage. Most of the high-poverty tracts

were flooded. In closer detail, the “natural”

disaster appears to have been a social disas-

ter as well. Environmental disasters become

social in the way they are handled and how

the distribution of their effects reflects social

differences.

While most of the rest of the country has

long moved on to other headlines, the rebuild-

ing of New Orleans is not over (Figure 2.13).

Five years after Katrina, the damage of the hur-

ricane lived on in abandoned houses, in empty

storefronts, and in the ongoing debates about

how to rebuild the city. It is estimated that

Figure 2.13 in areas that were flooded during Katrina, houses have been raised above flood level in anticipation of future threats. Source: Photo by Lisa benton-Short.

Urban Problems and Prospects 75

about 236,000 people left New Orleans due

to Hurricane Katrina; many did not return.

The lack of jobs continues to be one reason

why the city has not fully recovered its pre-

Katrina population, and block after block in

the Lower Ninth Ward remains empty. While

government-sponsored rebuilding efforts

have been slow, nonprofit organizations initi-

ated many grassroots programs. The Make It

Right NOLA Foundation, established by actor

Brad Pitt, has had tremendous success build-

ing affordable homes for working families. By

2015, the Foundation had rebuilt more than

100 eco-friendly homes, allowing more than

350 people to return to the Lower Ninth Ward.

URbAN PRObLEMS AND PROSPECTS

Globalization and the Urban Hierarchy

A major driver of urban change today is the

growing linkages between cities and global

trends. During the past two decades, many

cities have become more competitive at the

global scale and processes of economic globali-

zation have restructured those cities spatially.

New financial districts, luxurious residential

areas, and unprecedented property booms

indicate success in the global marketplace and

a competitive position in the urban hierarchy.

Almost all cities are affected by globalization

and try to secure international investment,

but not all cities become world cities. Interna-

tional banks, global department store chains,

and other high-end retail establishments pro-

vide visual reminders of globalization’s effects

on the North American city.

Consider the changing locations of Fortune

500 company headquarters. In the 1950s and

1960s, large Northeastern and Midwestern

cities such as Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia,

Pittsburgh, and Montreal, were home to the

world’s largest industrial companies. In 1960,

New York had six of the top ten Fortune 500

headquarters, including Standard Oil, Gen-

eral Electric, U.S. Steel, Mobil Oil, Texaco,

and Western Electric. Today, the number of

Fortune 500 corporate headquarters in New

York has fallen by half. Firms such as General

Electric and Xerox have moved to the suburbs

or the Sunbelt. Recently, Hertz car rentals

moved its headquarters from New Jersey to

Fort Myers, Florida, following a merger with

Thrifty, while Volkswagen moved its North

American headquarters from Detroit to sub-

urban Washington, DC. The biggest growth

in corporate headquarters is occurring in

Orlando and West Palm Beach (Florida),

Greensboro (North Carolina), Atlanta, Dallas,

and Houston. This changing geographic dis-

tribution is the result of many factors: com-

pany relocations, rises and falls of local firms,

and the merging of companies. The lower costs

for office space and housing in medium-sized

cities such as West Palm Beach and Greens-

boro provide another reason for a company

to relocate. Most firms, however, have chosen

metropolitan areas of at least 1 million.

Because key drivers of globalization such

as finance and hi-tech have been concentrated

in Europe, North America, and East Asia,

cities in these regions tend to dominate the

global urban hierarchy. Some cities have ben-

efited from globalization and have eclipsed

their rivals. For example, many corporate

headquarters have moved from Montreal to

Toronto following the rise of Quebec’s sepa-

ratist movement. While Toronto has become

the major conduit between Canada and the

international capital markets, Calgary and

Edmonton serve as crucial links to the more

specialized international petroleum industry.

Quebec City has also transitioned from spe-

cializing in agricultural processing and basic

76 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

manufacturing to a more diverse, postin-

dustrial economy. The North American Free

Trade Agreement of 1992 has resulted in an

increase of exports from Quebec City to the

United States. In addition to a fairly robust

aerospace industry, tourism, information

technology, and biotechnology comprise

some of the growth sectors for Quebec City.

Other cities have fallen down the hierarchy.

Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh

have experienced a decline, as automobile fac-

tories and steel mills have closed. These cities

struggle to compete for coveted global link-

ages and networks that promise to reinvigor-

ate their economies. In Canada, Thunder Bay,

St. John’s, and Halifax contend with the chal-

lenges of urban economies based on natural

resources.

There are many different articulations of

the urban hierarchy (Table 2.2). Some cities

compete for financial command functions—

stock markets, banks, multinational corpo-

rate headquarters, and other forms of capital

exchange. New York is the most important

city in this regard, followed by Chicago and

Toronto. Other articulations include multi-

cultural command centers such as Vancouver,

Toronto, Miami, and Los Angeles, which forge

important linkages to other regions through

their immigrant populations. Some cities have

found a niche in the hierarchy by establishing

transportation connections through global

airline networks. These cities include Toronto,

Los Angeles, Seattle, Memphis (home to Fed-

eral Express), Atlanta (home to UPS), and

Anchorage, a stop along military and cross-

Arctic air routes. Some cities are resurrecting

their position in the urban hierarchy. Follow-

ing massive factory closures and job losses

associated with deindustrialization, cities such

as Pittsburgh and Cleveland have success-

fully realigned their economies with global

markets. While some of the old industrial

companies remain, these cities now capital-

ize on health-care facilities that have gained

national reputations. In contrast to Detroit’s

continued decline since the collapse of the

U.S. auto industry, Cleveland and Pittsburgh

have moved back up the hierarchy—albeit in

more specialized roles.

Globalization and Localization

As North American cities become part of

global circuits of people and capital, they also

seek out ways to maintain control over their

local character and identity. To attract ever

more global investment, they market local

attributes and amenities. Globalization and

localization therefore act as competing forces

in most North American cities. The increas-

ing density of connections between migrants,

their countries of origin, and North Ameri-

can gateway cities has led to the emergence of

cross-border practices and identities typically

referred to as “transnational.” Cities, eager to

capitalize on the cachet and dynamism of an

international population have also branded

themselves as transnational or “global.” Trans-

nationalism is celebrated in places like the San

Jose-Santa Clara metropolitan area of Califor-

nia, commonly known as Silicon Valley. Here,

Indian, Chinese, and Israeli professionals who

were educated in the engineering and com-

puter science programs of local institutions

like Stanford University and UC Berkeley—

and who stayed in the area to work—were

central in establishing Silicon Valley as the

chief U.S. hi-tech cluster and forming local

auxiliary organizations such as the Silicon Val-

ley Indian Professionals Association.

Many cities have tried to parlay the

diversity of their populations into identi-

ties as global or cosmopolitan cities.” In

Urban Problems and Prospects 77

Table 2.2 The World’s Most Globally Engaged, Competitive, and Connected Cities

A. K. Kearney’s Global Engagement

The Economist’s Global City Competitiveness

P. Taylor’s Global Network Connectivity

New york New york London

London London New york Paris Singapore Hong Kong

Tokyo Paris Paris

Hong Kong Hong Kong Tokyo

Los Angeles Tokyo Singapore Chicago Zurich Chicago Seoul Washington, DC Milan Brussels Chicago Los Angeles Washington DC boston Toronto Singapore Frankfurt Madrid

Sydney Toronto Amsterdam Vienna San Francisco Sydney Beijing Geneva Frankfurt

boston Sydney Brussels Toronto Amsterdam Sao Paulo San Francisco Vancouver San Francisco Madrid Los Angeles Mexico City Moscow Stockholm Zurich

Berlin Seoul Taipei

Shanghai Montreal Mumbai Buenos Aires Houston Jakarta Frankfurt Copenhagen Buenos Aires

Barcelona Vienna Melbourne

Zurich Dallas Miami Amsterdam Dublin Kuala Lumpur

Stockholm Madrid Stockholm

Rome Seattle Bangkok Dubai Philadelphia Prague Montreal Berlin Dublin

Atlanta

North American cities in bold.

1998, Toronto—known for its “hyperdiverse”

population adopted the motto “Our Diversity,

Our Strength.” The mere presence of transna-

tional immigrants, however, does not imply

that their skills or cultural contributions are

valued equally to those of the native-born

Canadians. Yet, not every city responds to

transnationalism. In Vancouver, the upsurge

of immigrants from Hong Kong in the 1980s

and 1990s created a “moral panic” over both

the city’s identity and Canadian identity at

large. Ironically, some claimed that the once-

colonized citizens of Hong Kong were becom-

ing the colonizers of British Columbia. The

1990s became a flashpoint for anti-Asian dis-

course in Vancouver: Media claimed that the

Asian domination of suburbs like Richmond

was creating “white flight” and that Hong

78 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

Kong immigrants were building contem-

porary-style “monster homes” in neighbor-

hoods that had previously been dominated by

“Anglo” Tudor-style homes. Asian immigrants

were even blamed for driving up the cost of

rent and the competitiveness of schools.

Many local jurisdictions have tried to take

control of the immigrant streams that bring

Box 2.3 Suburbs Still in Crisis

While it is true that the U.S. and Canadian society is highly suburban, most people do not appreciate the diversity of the suburban experience. For many years, scholarly and popular discussions of poverty focused on the inner-city. Suburbs were idealized as sites of success, opportunity, and prosperity. in recent decades, suburbs of north America have become sites of immense change. Some have flourished, but some have declined. one element of change that has received a lot of media and scholarly attention is the rise in suburban poverty. brookings institution scholars Alan berube and Elizabeth Kneebone reported that by 2005 the suburban poor outnumbered the city poor by about one million. With the advent of the 2008 recession, suburban poverty has risen dramatically. by 2010, there were an estimated 15 million Americans living under the poverty line in the suburbs. in her book Once the American Dream, urban scholar bernadette hanlon examines the downward trajectory for many suburbs, especially in the inner ring, and offers reasons for their decline: an aging housing stock, foreclosures, severe fiscal problems, slowed population growth, and increas- ing poverty.

An example of a declining suburb is Essex outside baltimore, Maryland. Located along the waterfront, this suburb has a long history of aerospace and aircraft production. the air- craft and aerospace manufacturer Glenn L. Martin Company located there in 1929, drawing thousands of workers from around Maryland and other parts of the United States. Gaining government contracts to build airplanes, the company employed some 53,000 workers during its heyday right around World War ii. After the war, it had to downsize, but residents found other jobs with a nearby steel manufacturer. the suburb of Essex once had a strong industrial base that supported the local economy.

beginning about the 1970s, decline in Essex began as industry slowly began to disappear. About 30 percent of the workforce of Essex was employed in manufacturing in 1980; this declined to 14 percent by 2000 and to about 8 percent by 2009. the loss of manufacturing jobs; the construction of shopping malls in suburbs a little further out; and contamination from local sewage plants each negatively impacted the economy, society, and image of Essex. income decline and increased poverty occurred. in 1970, the median household income of Essex was about $54,000, but dropped to an estimated $49,700 by 2009. in addition, pov- erty rates increased dramatically from six percent in 1970 to almost 16 percent by 2009.

Source: bernadette hanlon. 2014. “Suburban Forms and their Challenges,” in L. benton-Short (ed.), Cities of North America: Contemporary Challenges in US and Canadian Cities. Rowman and Littlefield.

Urban Problems and Prospects 79

them newcomers. In Canada, new policies

have been set largely by the provinces (though

often led by city-based employers). Since the

early 2000s, federally sanctioned programs

have given the provinces control over immi-

grant attraction, selection, settlement, and

integration. Provincial laws often relaxed lan-

guage requirements for new immigrants and

allowed individual employers to make nomi-

nations intended to incentivize immigration

to economically and demographically declin-

ing cities (e.g., Winnipeg and Halifax) rather

than the “MTV” cities (Montreal, Toronto,

Vancouver) that account for 80 percent of

immigration to Canada. In the United States,

county-based and municipal ordinances

range from “sanctuary” policies (e.g., accept-

ing Mexican consular cards as ID) to those

aimed at apprehending undocumented immi-

grants (e.g., checking the immigration status

of anyone arrested). Pro-immigration ordi-

nances are clustered in the West and in central

cities (areas with traditionally high levels of

immigration), while anti-immigration meas-

ures are clustered in the South, rural areas, and

suburbs—areas generally experiencing accel-

erating immigration.

North American cities also employ local

urban development strategies to manage

global flows of capital. Two relatively new

strategies are urban villages and business

improvement districts. While these strategies

seek to differentiate certain neighborhoods

amid a blandly upscale, cosmopolitan land-

scape, they also brand these places as worth-

while places to visit, live in, and invest in. A

global trend in and of itself, the urban village

concept was popularized in the United King-

dom in the late 1990s and typically delineates

an area for medium-density development,

pedestrian-friendly measures, and mixed-use

zoning rather than the single-use zoning that

has given rise to industrial parks and suburbs.

Self-contained villages, or “urban campuses,”

are often criticized, however, because they dis-

place groups such as artists who may be unable

to afford redeveloped studio space and may

fail to align with new neighborhood visions.

The BID, developed in both Canada and the

United States in the early 1970s, is a quasi-

governmental association in which businesses

and property owners within a delineated area

pay a surtax for collective, privately provided

services such as street cleaning, trash pick-

up, beautification, business recruitment, and

security. In cities such as Washington, DC,

large, corporatized BIDs created during a

period of dysfunctional urban governance in

the early 2000s have taken it upon themselves

to fully redesign many postindustrial areas for

the upwardly mobile buyer. Some have even

taken over city-provided services, even hir-

ing off-duty police officers as private security

guards to patrol areas that are still “in transi-

tion.” On the positive side, BIDs are seen to

enhance neighborhood amenities and to pro-

vide services that city budgets cannot fund.

On the negative side, it is unclear whether

BIDs accelerate gentrification and how they

protect social equity while promoting eco-

nomic development.

Immigration and Increasing Diversity

The millions of economic migrants to North

American cities provide a window onto the

reconfiguration of urban networks. Because

most immigrants initially go to cities, many

of North America’s “immigrant gateways”

are hyperdiverse and globally linked through

transnational networks. Hyperdiverse immi-

grant cities are those places where the per-

centage of foreign-born residents exceeds the

national level and where there is no single

80 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

dominant country of origin among the immi-

grant population. Immigrant gateways are

growing in number because of globalization

and the acceleration of migration driven by

income differentials, social networks, and var-

ious state policies designed to recruit skilled

and unskilled laborers.

As large numbers of foreign-born resi-

dents mix with more established populations,

North American cities become the places

where global differences are both celebrated

and contested. Immigrants add to a city’s

global competitiveness by enhancing cross-

border business connections, linguistic capa-

bilities, and attractiveness to tourists. With

birth rates declining in both Canada and the

United States, migration is now an even more

important determinant of urban growth or

decline. Although immigration is a global

phenomenon, some regions of the world

receive significantly more immigrants than

others. In North America, long an established

region of immigrant settlement, the rates of

immigration are still among the highest in the

world. Although the three largest immigrant

destinations are New York City, Toronto, and

Los Angeles, there are 60 other metropolitan

regions with more than 100,000 foreign-born

residents. In Canada, immigrants go primar-

ily to Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto. But

even in smaller Canadian cities such as Ottawa

and Calgary, over 20 percent of the popula-

tion is foreign born. In the United States,

immigrants are targeting newer gateways such

as Washington, DC, Phoenix, Charlotte, and

Atlanta.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, New

York City was the premier immigrant gateway

in the United States, and nearly all immigrants

were European. The city was linguistically and

ethnically diverse, but not racially diverse. In

the first years of the twenty-first century, New

York has become one of the most racially and

ethnically diverse places on the planet. Of the

top ten sending countries, which represent

half of New York City’s foreign-born popula-

tion, only one—Italy—is European. The other

countries, which are mostly Latin American,

include the Dominican Republic, Jamaica,

Mexico, Guyana, Ecuador, Haiti, Colombia,

and China (Figure 2.14).

A similar pattern holds true for Toronto. In

2011, 49 percent of the city’s population was

foreign born, one of the highest percentages

for any major metropolitan area. Nine coun-

tries account for half of the foreign-born pop-

ulation, led by China, then India, the United

Kingdom, Italy, the Philippines, Jamaica, Por-

tugal, Poland, and Sri Lanka. In New York,

Toronto, and many other metropolitan areas,

there is a growing tendency for immigrants to

come from a broader range of sending coun-

tries and for North American cities to become

ever more diverse.

Not all immigrant gateways are hyperdi-

verse, however. Mexican immigrants account

for about half the foreign-born population in

Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Dallas.

In the Los Angeles market, four of the top ten

television shows are in the Spanish language.

Similarly, foreign-born Cubans dominate in

Miami. Immigrants from mainland China

and Hong Kong account for over a quarter

of the foreign-born population in Vancou-

ver. It is fair to say that North American cit-

ies will continue to be home to many of the

world’s immigrants well into the twenty-first

century.

Women in the City

North American cities are being reconfigured

to ensure safe harbor for the world’s elite

workers and their wealth. Many cities aspire to

Urban Problems and Prospects 81

a cosmopolitan landscape, marked by loft liv-

ing, ever more arts and entertainment venues,

and the expansion of downtown residential

zones (Figure 2.15). At the same time, many

cities have placed more emphasis on groups

such as women that have not always felt safe

in the city. Increasingly, women are both the

buyers of in-town housing and the targets of

real estate marketing campaigns. In Toronto,

female one-person households are the larg-

est group of condominium owners, and

women are featured in the vast majority of

advertisements in publications such as Condo

Weekly. The trend toward women purchasing

condos in Toronto has been celebrated as a

new phase of liberation, in which women have

joined the institution of home ownership.

Typically incentivized through lending prac-

tices that favor young buyers, home ownership

has long been cast as a step toward becoming

a responsible Canadian citizen. Many women,

especially in single-income households, see

the purchase of property as a means to finan-

cial security or capital accumulation in a

Figure 2.14 new york’s Foreign-born Population. Source: M. Price and Lisa benton-Short. 2007. Globalization, Urbanization and Migration dataset (http://gstudynet.org/gum/).

82 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

volatile economy. A condominium may also

be more affordable than a house for a single

woman, eschewing some of the pressure to be

in a dual-income partnership before purchas-

ing property. The ads that market condos to

women echo these ideas, employing images

of the liberated, creative, independent woman

enjoying nightlife with her female friends,

working on an artistic endeavor, or holding a

meeting at a coffee house.

Efforts to include women may have a finan-

cial imperative as well as a humanistic one.

First, real estate agents often market certain

buildings to women on the basis of security:

24-hour concierge, key-card entry, security

cameras, and gated underground parking.

In this way, developers exploit preexisting,

gendered expectations about fear in the city.

Second, the extent to which condo ownership

actually facilitates women’s inclusion in pub-

lic life may be quite narrow. The securitized,

multiple-amenity condo may facilitate com-

munity within the building rather than

interaction with the surrounding city. Gyms,

patios, on-site coffee shops, and other quasi-

public areas of a condo building may become

women’s central social spaces while they care-

fully pick and choose where and when to

engage with the city around them. Moreover,

these types of buildings are geared toward a

female consumer who can both afford to pur-

chase the condo and use the revitalized down-

town core as she sees fit, while less privileged

women (e.g., poor, single mothers) may be

displaced into the decaying inner suburbs.

Third and finally, women are less frequently

involved in the organization of development

processes. Real estate companies, property

owners, and the executive boards of the busi-

ness improvement areas managing the neigh-

borhoods where these condos are located tend

to be mostly male. These men are therefore

Figure 2.15 in 2014, dC hosted its first international pop-up picnic, called diner en blanc, for 1500 people. the concept, which originated in Paris, requires that guests wear all-white clothing and bring their own food and chairs. Source: Photo by Lisa benton-Short.

Urban Problems and Prospects 83

articulating the supposed needs and demands

of the female market.

Urban LGBTQ Communities

A similar tension exists for lesbian, gay, bisex-

ual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people.

The centrality of the city in queer cultures

is historically rooted in the rural-to-urban

migrations of the industrial era, during which

single men and women were freed from

nuclear family structures. Given that homo-

sexuality was illegal in Canada and the United

States for most of the twentieth century,

early gay and lesbian life in cities centered on

unmarked bars and lounges, private parties,

and informal public meeting places. More

recently, however, the expression of nonnor-

mative sexual identities in cities has come to

be associated with “the gay village.” Early gay

villages reflected a territorialization strategy

in which LGBT people—usually gay men—

bought up businesses and residential prop-

erty in peripheral neighborhoods in an effort

to demonstrate the visibility and upward

mobility that they felt were integral to mak-

ing claims for equal rights. Some claim that

this territorialization stage, which occurred

in many landmark villages (e.g., the Castro in

San Francisco, Church Street in Toronto) dur-

ing the 1970s and 1980s, was just a preliminary

phase in the “evolution” of gay villages. The

evolutionary model suggested that gay villages

would become more “mainstream” as their

commercial districts became attractive to het-

erosexual residents and the growing accept-

ance of queer people rendered the village less

necessary. Since the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion

in New York City (Figure 2.16), where LGBT

people protested a police raid on a local gay

bar, gay and lesbian rights have advanced sig-

nificantly in North America. In 2005, Canada

legalized gay marriage at the federal level. In

2015, the United States followed suit when the

Supreme Court upheld the rights of same-sex

couples to legally marry nationwide.

Yet, the implications of these changes for

LGBTQ identities, and for gay villages spe-

cifically, seem far from uniform. In cities

like Montreal and Chicago, gay villages have

been heavily branded and marketed by busi-

ness associations and municipal governments.

They have not only evolved into established

commercial districts, they have also been criti-

cized as “boys towns” that exclude lesbians and

the broader array of queer identities. Chicago’s

village is actually named Boystown. Another

criticism is that they crassly commodify sexual

identity for the consumption of cosmopolitan

heterosexual consumers while offering few

venues or outlets for queer people who lack

high incomes or whose cultural identities fall

outside of the Euro-American mainstream.

In a few cases, gay villages may be stripped of

their “gay” identity by municipal governments

trying to re-market the area to the upwardly

mobile heterosexual mainstream. Urban plan-

ner Petra Doan finds that Atlanta has pur-

posefully “de-gayed” the neighborhood of

Midtown through rent increases, property

speculation, closures of bars, and denials of

applications for LGBTQ events.

In Canada, where gay rights are more

established (homosexuality decriminalized

in 1968, as opposed to 2003 in the United

States), “the village” has become a hot topic

in the gay media of many cities. In Toronto,

many suggest that because safe space is no

longer needed in a new era of full gay rights,

the idea of a gay village has become irrelevant

altogether. Two hundred miles away, in the

Canadian capital of Ottawa, a very different

story emerged. In a city more known for its

Cold-War era expulsions of gay men from the

84 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

Civil Service than for a highly visible queer

community, the mayor and the municipal

government designated a six-block section of

Bank Street as the official gay village in 2011.

Given its location in a medium-density com-

mercial zone with only a few gay establish-

ments—and its designation at a time when

most gay and lesbian rights had been attained

in Canada—it is doubtful that territorial vis-

ibility or commercialization are the aims of

this village. In contrast, the city, prompted by

a long campaign by local activists, has finally

decided to create a symbolic home for the

queer community in a city that has not always

been welcoming to it.

Security and Urban Fortification

Threats of terrorism, whether domestic or

international, have had a profound impact

Figure 2.16 the Stonewall riots took place on June 28, 1969, outside the Stonewall inn in new york’s Greenwich Village. they are now regarded as the beginning of the gay and lesbian rights movement in the United States. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Urban Problems and Prospects 85

on many North American cities. Intense sur-

veillance and security measures have chal-

lenged the perceived freedom of city life and

altered its physical landscape. Especially since

September 11, 2001, security measures have

become much more visible components of

urban landscapes. Given that many barri-

caded urban spaces are also valued public

places with connections to local, regional, and

national identity, this trend is of significant

concern to many citizens.

The rise of security policing and new forms

of surveillance are not new. Mike Davis’s book,

City of Quartz, diagnosed what he calls fortress

cities as a response to perceived urban disorder

and decay, primarily from domestic sources.

He predicted that urban authorities might

create fortress-style rings of steel around

potential targets, creating a landscape demar-

cated by physical barriers such as gates, walls,

and carefully hidden surveillance devices such

as closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras.

This is a vision of a city that can be controlled.

For some residents, security and surveillance

offer reassurance in an uncertain age; for oth-

ers, these measures are the architecture of

paranoia.

Although cities have long had police forces

and emergency plans, many did not have

comprehensive security and defense strate-

gies until the early 1990s as terrorists chose

to target high-profile cities to attract global

publicity. Since 9/11, it is clear that symbolic

targets—such as monuments, landmark

buildings, and other important urban public

spaces—are increasingly at risk. Cities have

responded by installing highly visible counter-

terrorist measures. In New York, Toronto, Los

Angeles, and Philadelphia, for example, bol-

lards, bunkers, and other barriers have been

placed around selected “high-risk” targets.

Since these structures often restrict access to

museums, monuments, memorials, and parks,

many see heightened fortification as a threat

to public space.

Washington, DC, for instance, is one of the

most visibly fortified cities in North America.

Miles of fences, jersey barriers, and bollards

surround federal buildings, monuments, and

memorials throughout the city. In addition,

CCTV cameras are mounted on libraries,

shopping malls, banks, and even the monu-

ments on the National Mall (Figure 2.17). Res-

idents of all North American cities, in fact, are

now more photographed and videoed than

ever before. Yet, it is still unclear whether ter-

rorism concerns merit fortification, the loss of

civil liberties, inhibited public access to public

space, and a new urban culture dominated by

a sense of hypersecurity.

Cities have also experienced an increase in

the militarization of police forces. In the 1990s,

Congress authorized the Defense Department

to transfer surplus military gear free of charge

to federal, state, and local police departments

to aid in the war on drugs. In the years after

9/11, this program (DOD 1033) accelerated.

In 1990, the Pentagon gave $1 million worth

of equipment to local law enforcement. In

2013, it increased to $450 million. Today,

SWAT teams and police wear camouflage and

military-grade body armor, carry night-vision

rifle scopes, stun grenades, military assault

rifles, and ride around in Humvees. There

has been a proliferation of military train-

ing among municipal police departments:

In some cities, local police have been trans-

formed into small armies. Increasingly, SWAT

teams are deployed to serve warrants for drug

searches (as opposed to hostage situations).

Critics are alarmed by this trend because it

seems to stress violence rather than working

with the community to make neighborhoods

safer. In fact, it runs counter to the concept of

86 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

intense debate about law enforcement’s rela-

tionship with urban African American com-

munities. For several weeks, there were both

peaceful and violent protests. There were

confrontations between predominately black

community protesters and the nearly all-

white police force. The U.S. Justice Depart-

ment launched a federal investigation of the

Ferguson police to determine whether offic-

ers had engaged in racial profiling or had a

history of excessive force. The legacy of Fer-

guson started a national debate about police

tactics. Less than a year later, in Baltimore,

where almost a quarter of the population lives

in poverty, a similar scenario played out with

similar results. A young African American

man was arrested on the flimsiest of charges,

thrown into a van, and transported to the

police department. When he exited the van, he

could neither talk nor breathe; a week later he

was dead. The city of Baltimore erupted, again

reminding us that racial segregation, poverty,

“community policing.” A 2014 American Civil

Liberties Union report titled “War Comes

Home: the Excessive Militarization of Ameri-

can Policing” noted that “our neighborhoods

are not warzones, and police officers should

not be treating us like wartime enemies.” The

report concluded that police militarization is

a pervasive problem, noting that an estimated

500 enforcement agencies have received com-

bat vehicles built to withstand armor-piercing

bombs. The same report also noted that the

use of paramilitary tactics primarily affected

people of color; 42 percent of those impacted

by a SWAT deployment were black and 12

percent Latino. And, with other hypersecurity

measures, this trend has been allowed to hap-

pen in the absence of any meaningful public

discussion.

Tensions rose in Ferguson, Missouri, in

2014 after a white police officer, shot an

unarmed 18-year-old black man. The disputed

circumstances of the shooting prompted

Figure 2.17 here, circled in blue, a security camera has been positioned atop the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, dC. What messages do surveillance cameras convey in a public space which memorializes freedom, liberty and independence? Source: Photo by Lisa benton-Short.

Urban Problems and Prospects 87

the meaning attached to them. In the days

after the collapse of the Twin Towers in New

York, families and friends of missing people

papered sections of New York with posters

and pictures of their loved ones. In a New York

Times Magazine article, Marshall Sella traced

the evolution of these posters. Initially, they

constituted a frantic effort to gain any pos-

sible information; then, the posters began to

and unemployment in many cities remain an

issue. For many who live in minority commu-

nities, the police are not typically seen as allies

(Figure 2.18).

Rebuilding and Memorialization

Sudden events, such as those of Septem-

ber 11, 2001, can transform city spaces and

Figure 2.18 Chicago and many other cities remain racially segregated, and minorities are concerned about police profiling and violence. Source: US Census bureau.

88 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

expansion of history and identity by includ-

ing the previously marginalized or ignored. In

the United States, for example, the demand for

new memorials is part of a larger politics of

identity that seeks to make memorial spaces

more reflective of a multicultural America.

Some commentators have noted, however,

that contemporary society now rushes to com-

memorate. Historically, it was not uncommon

for decades, or longer, to pass before a memo-

rial was erected. The Washington Monument

in DC, for example, was completed just prior to

the 100th anniversary of Washington’s death.

Today, weeks after a tragic event, communi-

ties may be discussing how best to memorial-

ize loss. The rush to commemorate, however,

may prove to be more about healing and less

about honoring. It often occurs when family

and friends who remain try to make meaning-

less death meaningful by transforming victims

into heroes. Some argue that allowing time to

elapse is important because it allows historical

perspective as well as a sense of whether the

event or individual made a lasting contribu-

tion. The seemingly urgent need to plan and

construct memorials also raises the more dif-

ficult question of whether it is appropriate for

survivors of victims to be intimately involved

in the commemoration process, or whether

this is best left for another generation.

URbAN ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

U.S. and Canadian cities face numerous envi-

ronmental problems, particularly water chal-

lenges, air quality, and climate change.

Water

A dependable supply of water is critical

to sustaining life and supporting healthy

include increasingly detailed physical descrip-

tions, apparently to make identification of the

bodies possible. Most of these were hung in

areas around Ground Zero. In a final evolu-

tion, posters began to address the missing peo-

ple directly through “good-bye letters.” The

site of the World Trade Center had become

sacred space not only because of tragedy, but

also because it became a place of spontaneous

commemoration.

In the years that followed, New York City

debated what to do with the World Trade

Center site. Proposals for its rebuilding were

immediate, but there were also calls for

memorialization. Eventually it became clear

that some of the buildings would be rebuilt,

but there would also be space for a memorial.

Disagreements and public protests over how

to design the memorial followed. Today, One

World Trade Center (nicknamed Freedom

Tower) soars above New York City at a sym-

bolic 1776 feet. It is currently America’s tallest

building and features some 3 million square

feet of office space, an observation deck, and

restaurants. The building opened in 2014.

Another component of the World Trade

Center site is the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

It features two reflecting pools, nearly an acre

each in size, which sit within the footprints of

the Twin Towers (Figure 2.19). More than 400

trees surround the reflecting pools. The names

of every person who died in the attack of 2001

are inscribed into bronze panels edging the

memorial’s pools. The design is intended to

convey a spirit of hope and renewal, while also

providing a contemplative space in what many

consider sacred space.

We have seen the emergence of a memo-

rial culture. The impulse to commemorate

is part of a broader social reconstruction of

national or cultural identity. Seen in a positive

light, proposals for memorials represent an

Urban Environmental Issues 89

variety of treatment processes including coag-

ulation, filtration, disinfection, ion exchange,

and absorption. Both the federal government

and states have responsibilities for providing

safe water. The Safe Drinking Water Act was

passed by the U.S. Congress in 1974 to regu-

late the nation’s public water supply. Canada

passed a similar law. While most North Ameri-

can cities take safe water for granted, some

threats remain: contaminants such as lead,

arsenic, and chromium; improperly disposed-

of chemicals; animal and human wastes; wastes

injected underground; and naturally occurring

substances. Drinking water that is not properly

treated, or that travels through an improperly

maintained distribution system, may also pose

a health risk. In the post-9/11 world, drinking

water utilities also face new responsibilities

due to concerns over water system security and

threats of infrastructure terrorism.

A recent challenge facing many cities is

that the existing drinking water infrastructure

communities. In every U.S. and Canadian city,

there are two broad water issues: water supply

and water quality, both of which rely on water

infrastructure. Water supply infrastructure

includes the systems of delivery (aqueducts,

pipes). Water quality infrastructure includes

treatment facilities and sewage systems.

Water Supply: Drinking water comes from

surface sources or ground water. It goes into

a water treatment facility and is purified to

certain standards. In cities, an underground

network of pipes delivers water to all buildings

served by a public water system. The United

States and Canada rank first and second with

regard to water consumption per capita, com-

pared to other highly developed countries.

In part, this is due to the lack of widespread

water conservation practices and water pric-

ing that does not promote efficiency.

Each day water utilities in the United States

supply nearly 34 billion gallons of water. To

remove contaminants, water suppliers use a

Figure 2.19 this view of the 9/11 Memorial shows one of the two reflecting pools that sit within the footprints where the twin towers once stood. Source: Photo by John Rennie Short.

90 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

mitigate CSOs since the 1990s. For example,

Ottawa has been working for many years to

separate sewers from the remaining combined

sewers. In southeast Michigan, prior to 1990,

the quantity of untreated combined sewage

discharged annually into lakes, rivers, and

streams was estimated at more than 30 billion

gallons per year. In 2005, it had been reduced

by more than 20 billion gallons per year. Many

other cities are undertaking similar projects

to address CSOs. But, these are billion-dollar

projects, and cities look to states and the fed-

eral government for supplemental funding.

Air Pollution

Residents in many North American cities

confront the reality of air pollution. Since the

1970s, the U.S. and Canadian governments

have taken steps to control emissions from

automobiles and factory smokestacks. Cata-

lytic converters capture much of the chemical

pollution emitted in automobile exhaust, and

vapor traps on gas pumps help prevent the

escape of carbon dioxide into the air. Recent

efforts to develop zero-emission vehicles

(such as electric cars) are another way of using

technology to alleviate air pollution. How-

ever, new sources of pollution, combined with

increased use of fossil fuels, has meant that air

pollution for many U.S. and Canadian cities

has continued to increase despite regulatory

efforts.

Smog represents the single most challenging

air pollution problem in most North America

cities. It is often worse in the summer months

when heat and sunshine are more plentiful.

Short-term exposure can cause eye irritation,

wheezing, coughing, headaches, chest pain,

and shortness of breath. Long-term exposure

scars the lungs and worsens asthma and res-

piratory tract infections. Plus, it particularly

affects weak and elderly residents, and those

(treatment plants and the underground net-

works of pipes) was largely built during the

late nineteenth century. This infrastructure is

now more than 100 years old and deteriorating.

In many cases, it cannot handle the volume of

demand due to population growth. Recently, the

EPA estimated that U.S. cities will need to invest

$160 billion over a 20-year period to ensure the

continued development, storage, treatment, and

distribution of safe drinking water.

Water Quality: Most cities in Canada and

the United States built sewage systems and

wastewater treatment facilities in the nine-

teenth and early twentieth century. However,

population growth has meant that the volume

of sewage and storm water now often exceeds

the processing ability of most treatment

plants. This is particularly noticeable during

heavy rains.

Combined Sewage Overflow (CSO) refers

to the temporary direct discharge of untreated

water. CSOs occur most frequently when a

city has a combined sewage system that col-

lects wastewater, sanitary wastewater, and

storm-water runoff in underground pipes,

which then flow into a single treatment facil-

ity (Figure 2.20). During dry weather, com-

bined sewage systems transport wastewater

directly to treatment plants. However, urban

storm runoff is comingled with household

and industrial wastes. When it rains, few

facilities can handle the sudden increase in

water volume, and the excess volume of sew-

age, clean water, and storm water may be dis-

charged untreated into nearby water bodies.

Forty types of disease-causing pathogens have

been found in raw sewage that discharges into

CSOs. CSOs are among the major sources

responsible for beach closings and shellfish

restrictions and the contamination of drink-

ing water.

Municipalities in Canada and the United

States have been undertaking projects to

Urban Environmental Issues 91

Box 2.4 returning to the tap

there was a time when brands like Evian and Perrier conjured up images of purity and luxury. in 2010, Coke sold about 293 million cases of its top brand, dasani, while rival Pepsi sold 291 million of Aquafina. the biggest player is nestle, which sells such brands as Poland Spring, Zephyrhills, and Pure Life. but there is now a backlash. Critics of bottled water point to negative economic, regulatory, and environmental consequences of its use. For example, it costs only $10 for 1,000 gallons of tap water, while consumers spend $1,000 for 1,000 gallons of bottled water. A recent natural Resources defense Council study found that an estimated 25 percent or more of bottled water was really just tap water in a bottle.

the U.S. EPA requires cities to disclose drinking water conditions; no such requirement is imposed on bottled water. the reality is that tap water is actually held to more stringent quality standards than bottled water, and some brands of bottled water are just tap water in disguise. While most consumers assume that bottled water is at least as safe as tap water, there are still potential risks. Although required to meet the same safety standards as public water supplies, bottled water does not undergo the same testing and reporting as water from a treatment facility. Water that is bottled and sold in the same state may not be subject to any federal standards at all, but bottled water manufacturers encourage the perception that their products are purer and safer than tap water.

Furthermore, bottled water is wasteful, contributes to ballooning landfills, and is being marketed as a necessity by an industry making billions on what consumers used to happily get for free. Americans buy an estimated 30 billion plastic water bottles every year, nearly 90 percent of which wind up in landfills. Approximately 1.5 million barrels of oil are used to make plastic water bottles, while transporting these bottles burns even more oil. Further- more, the growth in bottled water production has increased water extraction in areas near bottling plants, leading to water shortages that affect nearby consumers and farmers. in addition to the millions of gallons of water used in the plastic-making process, two gallons of water are wasted in the purification process for every gallon that goes into the bottles.

A growing coalition of cities and health organizations now advocates for “a return to the tap.” new york-based tapit, a nonprofit group launched in 2008, works to promote the use of tap water. they encourage restaurants to provide free refills of tap water to patrons who have their own reusable bottles. they have also worked with hundreds of colleges to install water fountains known as hydration stations so that students can refill water bottles rather than buy new ones. these fountains have taller faucets to allow tall bottles to be refilled. hydration stations are also popping up in airports, parks, office buildings, and restaurants. tapit is an example of a grassroots organization that leverages the power of the Web, social media, and mobile telephones to drive social change. it offers an iPhone app, mobile web- site, and tapit stickers on the windows of participating restaurants.

Sources: “tapped” http://www.tappedthemovie.com/; for more information on tapit, go to http:// www.tapitwater.com/; EPA office of Water. 2009. “Water on tap: What you need to know,” http://water. epa.gov/drink/guide/upload/book_waterontap_full.pdf

92 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

is trapped under cold air and cannot rise to

disperse the pollutants across a wider area. As

a result, smog may hover in place for days at

a time, generating a “smog soup” that envel-

ops the city. Montreal and Toronto experience

another realm of “smog geography.” These cit-

ies are downwind of major industrial cities in

the American Midwest, meaning that many of

their air pollutants originate across the border

in the United States. Many of the improve-

ments in air quality in North America’s cit-

ies have been offset by population increases

that drive up demand for energy and gasoline.

Despite decades of regulation and good inten-

tion, cities in North America remain far from

eliminating the threat of air pollution to both

public health and environmental quality. Air

pollution is also connected to climate change.

Climate Change

Around the world, cities today consume

75 percent of the world’s energy and emit

who engage in strenuous activity. While air

pollution has decreased in many urban areas

due to declines in heavy manufacturing and

the growing “green” movement, air quality in

many cities remains poor. In 2014, the cities

with the highest rates of smog were all in Cali-

fornia (e.g., Los Angeles), followed by Houston,

Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Washington,

DC. In Canada, the cities with the highest lev-

els of ozone and particulate matter were in the

Golden Horseshoe region (e.g., Toronto, Ham-

ilton), southwestern Ontario (Windsor, Sar-

nia), greater Montreal (Montreal, Laval), and

Atlantic Canada (Fredericton, Halifax).

Smog is one pollutant whose effects are

often exacerbated by geography. Cities located

in basins and valleys, such as Los Angeles,

are particularly susceptible to the produc-

tion of smog. Denver, the Mile High City,

suffers from smog and other air pollutants

that are made worse by its elevation. Because

of the high altitude, Denver experiences fre-

quent temperature inversions when warm air

Figure 2.20 on the Cincinnati waterfront, residents are reminded that the ohio River is subject to combined sewer overflows that create a danger to public health. Source: Photo by Lisa benton-Short.

Conclusions 93

in uneven development. Cities unable to tap

into global circuits of capital struggle to rejig

their economies in the wake of deindustri-

alization. Furthermore, cities are in greater

competition with each other to retain center-

city populations, attract domestic and inter-

national investment, and develop diverse

economies with multiple types of businesses

and sectors. Yet, economic diversification is no

guarantee of success. Future booms and busts

in North America’s regional economies will

undoubtedly produce new urban develop-

ment imperatives.

The demographics of North American cit-

ies are also changing, and suburban sprawl is

taking on new forms. Today, not all suburbs

are wealthy; some are in decline and experi-

encing increased poverty. Issues of immigra-

tion (both legal and undocumented) have

become part of a wider public debate around

citizenship, race, ethnicity, and gender. Tra-

ditional immigrant cities, such as New York

and Toronto, continue to see an influx of

immigrants; but cities without long histories

of immigration have also begun to attract

large numbers of foreign-born residents.

New immigrant gateway cities are challenged

to provide a range of social services (such

as English as a second language in schools

and translation services in hospitals). Diver-

sity is also an issue as lesbian, gay, bisexual,

transgendered, and queer communities look

beyond the acquisition of same-sex marriage

rights to ensure their safety and express their

identities in urban space. Finally, the con-

tinuing war on terror has resulted in physi-

cal changes to the urban landscape as cities

attempt to deal with safety, security, and the

vulnerability of urban populations. New

debates about the role of police and munici-

pal security forces reflect concerns about

racial profiling.

80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases,

which are the drivers of climate change. Until

recently, much of the debate about climate

change has been at the global or national

scale. Until recently, the urban scale was often

ignored. Two major effects of climate change

are rising sea levels and rising global average

temperatures. The major danger to human

populations in cities will probably occur from

extreme events such as increased storm surges

(related to increasing mean sea levels) and

temperature extremes (related to increasing

average temperatures).

The vast and varied geographies of North

America mean that cities will face different

vulnerabilities with climate change. Inland

cities such as Las Vegas, Denver, and Calgary

may see an increase in soil erosion and a loss

of water availability. Summer heat waves and

droughts may affect crops; underground

water sources may become stressed and over-

used; and competition for water may intensify.

Cities in the Midwest and Northeast may also

experience wetter winters with heavier snow-

fall. Cities located on lakes and rivers, such as

Kansas City, Cincinnati, Sacramento, Winni-

peg, and Quebec may see their rivers experi-

ence more flooding in the spring but reduced

flows late in the summer. Finally, coastal cities

everywhere may see increased flooding during

storms due to sea-level rise.

CONCLUSIONS

Cities in the United States and Canada

entered the twenty-first century facing com-

plex challenges, including increasingly rapid

economic, social, and environmental change.

Global economic restructuring, which mani-

fested in deindustrialization and the rise of a

diverse service-sector economy, has resulted

94 CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

Box 2.5 Staying Cool in toronto

Urban dwellers consume less electricity than their suburban counterparts—this much we know. however, the actual amount per capita in any given city can vary tremendously. the most important factor that helps to explain the difference is summer heat. Whether it is houston, texas or Miami, Florida, when temperatures spike in July and August, people reach for the thermostat. Even in more northern locations, such as boston, Massachusetts and Minneapolis, Minnesota, high summer temperatures and humidity can make our lives miser- able. they can also wreak havoc with monthly utility bills. Among north American cities, Vancouver, british Columbia, is often lauded for its sustainable and eco-friendly lifestyle. the reputation is well deserved. in this case, however, it is toronto that has taken a creative and bold step in the direction of sustainability.

While many cities rely on fossil fuels to generate the electricity that cools our homes in summer, the City of toronto has taken a different approach. in 1990, the Canadian Urban institute, along with numerous other interested parties, began to investigate the possibility of drawing cold water from the bottom of Lake ontario to modify air temperatures in gov- ernment buildings, office high-rises, hotels, and other structures in toronto’s downtown. A unique collaboration between the Enwave Energy Corporation and the City of toronto soon turned the dream into a reality. After an environmental assessment, the deep lake water cooling (dLWC) project was approved in 1998 and construction began. the system was offi- cially commissioned in 2004. today, toronto’s dLWC is the world’s largest lake-source cooling system. it has been deemed a stunning success, distributing chilled water to slightly more than half the potential market in toronto, while at the same time, lowering utility bills, attracting environmentally conscious businesses to the urban core, and significantly reduc- ing emissions of carbon dioxide and other air pollutants associated with the burning of coal.

how does the system work? Essentially, torontonians take advantage of a permanent res- ervoir of cold water that collects at the bottom of Lake ontario. during the winter months, the lake’s surface temperature cools to about 4° C. As the surface water’s density increases, it begins to sink to the bottom. in summer, the situation is reversed. Water at the surface of the lake warms up, but because its density does not increase it does not sink. the result is that cold water remains trapped at the bottom year round. to take advantage of this phenomenon, Enwave sank three intake pipes along the slope to a distance of about 5 km offshore. Water is pumped to a filtration plant where it is processed and then redirected to Enwave’s Energy transfer Station. here, an energy transfer takes place between the cold water drawn from the lake and the company’s closed chilled water supply loop. once this process is complete, the water flows to the city’s potable water system. how cool is that?

Source: Geoff buckley. 2014. “Urban Sustainability,” in L. benton-Short (ed.), Cities of North America: Contemporary Challenges in US and Canadian Cities. Rowman and Littlefield.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Anisef, Paul, and Michael Lanphier, eds. 2003. The

World in a City. Toronto: University of Toronto

Press. Analyzes the challenges of immigrants in

Toronto and the municipal policies that aid in

settlement and integration.

Benton-Short, L. 2014. Cities of North America:

Contemporary Challenges in U.S. and Canadian

Cities. Denver: Rowman and Littlefield. Exam-

ines critical issues including globalization, new

social identities, the income gap, and environ-

mental challenges.

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Cities of Middle America and the Caribbean ROBERTO ALBANDOZ, TIM BROTHERS, SETH DIXON, IRMA

ESCAMILLA, JOSEPH L. SCARPACI, AND THOMAS SIGLER

KEy URbAN FACTS

Total Population 213 million

Percent Urban Population 73%

Total Urban Population 155 million

Most Urbanized Countries The Bahamas (83%)

Mexico (79%)

Dominican Republic (78%)

Least Urbanized Countries Trinidad and Tobago (9%)

St. Lucia (19%)

Antigua and Barbuda (24%)

Number of Megacities 1

Number of Cities of More Than 1 Million 22 cities

Three Largest Cities (Metacity) Mexico City (21 m), Guadalajara (5 m),

Monterrey (5 m)

Number of World Cities (Highest Ranking) 1 (Mexico City)

Emerging World Cities Monterrey, Panama City, San José

KEy CHAPTER THEMES

1. The Mexican urban system was established in large measure by the Aztec pattern of urbani-

zation; it was militarily subjugated by the Spanish to facilitate the colonizers’ dual mission

of proselytizing and mining.

2. Today, urban growth in Mexico is occurring in intermediate cities located close to large cities,

in cities along the U.S.-Mexican border, and in cities far from large urban agglomerations.

3. The urban systems of Central America and the Caribbean developed under various Euro-

pean powers and followed an agricultural-driven model of colonial and postcolonial

growth.

98 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

4. Today, Central America is over 70 percent urban, and national poverty rates are inversely

proportional to urbanization rates in that the poorest countries are the least urbanized

countries.

5. Social and geographic segregation has deepened in Central America’s cities; crime and vio-

lence are serious problems there and in Mexico.

6. Four patterns highlight contemporary urbanization in the Caribbean: urban primacy char-

acterizes every island; cities with 1–5 million residents have more than doubled; mid-size

cities have held the same relative proportion of urban residents while smaller cities have

declined; and insularity has been a key constraint on urban growth.

7. Since the mid-twentieth century, Cuba has taken the most divergent path to urban and

national development with its variant form of socialist cities; improved relations with the

United States may bring significant change to Cuban cities.

8. Natural disasters in the Caribbean, Central America, and Mexico compound the challenges

of urban poverty.

9. Water concerns plague the region; they range from supplying potable water for expanding

urban populations to droughts that threaten the agricultural base of island economies to

sea-level rise that threatens low-elevation coastal cities.

10. Cross-border urbanization unfolds unevenly across the region, as, for example, the San

Diego-Tijuana example contrasts with the Dominican Republic-Haiti example; how-

ever, both processes driving urbanization result from unevenly sized economies, from the

demand for unskilled low-cost labor, and different commodity and retail pricing.

The cities of Middle America and the Carib-

bean reflect many of the historical processes

that have affected the region broadly. As home

to significant indigenous empires that were

decimated prior to and upon the arrival of

European colonists, the region’s cities reflect

a unique blend of cultures and political func-

tions tied to its primary sector economies. The

European conquest of the Americas and sub-

sequent nation-state formation imposed one

of the most dramatic landscape modifications

in the history of the human race. The changes

in the physical environment were mirrored by

profound shifts in human networks and insti-

tutions as the European conquest unleashed

a tragic chapter of intercontinental slavery

and the annihilation of millions of Native

Americans. The human drama that unfolded

over the ensuing five centuries built upon and

significantly transformed preexisting patterns

and processes of urbanization throughout the

region (Figure 3.1). This chapter shows how

the Caribbean’s urbanization has been shaped

by the plantation system and slave trade,

whereas the urban development of mainland

Mexico and Central America unfolded differ-

ently. Some Spanish settlements in Central

America, Mexico, and the Caribbean replaced

indigenous ones (Mexico City), while oth-

ers served as strategic transshipment points

(Havana, Cuba, and Colón, Panama) or mili-

tary outposts as part of a network of defen-

sive safeguards (Cuba’s original seven villas).

Urban design came from Spanish “military

engineers” who aimed to follow guidelines on

street width and length, block size, and land

use, all of which derived from versions of the

colonial Laws of the Indies. Some even trace

Historical Geography of Middle American and Caribbean Urbanization 99

the superblocks used to build Mexico’s new-

est city, Cancún, to the planning principles of

the Spanish Indies (Box 3.1). But influences

other than the uniform grid were also at work

in Middle America. Some cities evolved more

organically by succumbing to the demands

of topography, the whims of the region’s

elites, or security concerns (Figure 3.3). In

all instances, however, a spatially and socially

segregated settlement emerged, whose irasci-

ble imprint persists more than half a millen-

nium later.

The Mexican urban system was forged in

large measure by the Aztec pattern of urbani-

zation, which was subjugated militarily by

the Spanish so that the colonizers’ dual mis-

sions of proselytizing and mining could pro-

ceed. Mexico’s pre-Columbian mining and

agricultural system allowed the colonial and

independent nation of Mexico to enter the

Industrial Revolution before the rest of the

region. The urban geographies of Mexico

City and Monterrey highlight the relation-

ship between these resource endowments and

industrial-led urbanization.

Meanwhile, in Central America and the

Caribbean, colonial and postcolonial urbani-

zation followed an agricultural model of

urban growth. Primate city functions in two

capital cities—San José (Costa Rica) and

Panama City (Panama)—were deepened once

rail lines opened these cities and their hinter-

lands to world markets. Caribbean urbaniza-

tion developed slowly and was restrained in

large measure by limited flat terrain and tied

to the fortunes of monocultural exports such

as sugar, bananas, and spices. The urban geog-

raphies of Havana and San Juan highlight this

region’s urban development as one influenced

by external dependency on trade, sugar, slav-

ery and, in the case of San Juan, the United

States.

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHy OF MIDDLE AMERICAN AND CARIbbEAN URbANIzATION

Mexico

The modern Mexican urban system has many

deep roots in the precolonial era, when the

cities were originally founded. To this day, in

many pre-Columbian cities, elements of the

indigenous city still play a vital role in medi-

ating social and spatial relations. Tenochtitlán

(now Mexico City) is the most famous of these

and its tianguis (street markets) are a testa-

ment to the enduring legacy of precolonial

urbanism. At the time of the Spanish conquest

in the sixteenth century, Tenochtitlán was the

center of the Aztec Empire and, with a popula-

tion of approximately 300,000, it was the larg-

est settlement in the Western Hemisphere. The

Aztec Empire stretched across a large swath of

Meso-America that united some vital urban

settlements of various ethnic groups, includ-

ing the Mayan population in the Yucatán Pen-

insula; the Tarascos in the present-day states

of Michoacán, Jalisco, Colima, and Guana-

juato; and the Zapotecas and Mixtecs in the

state of Oaxaca.

Two aspects of pre-Columbian settlement

geography stand out. First, these large popu-

lation agglomerations adopted a “city-state”

model of organization, whereby a large com-

mercial and religious settlement dominated

rural communities and other smaller polit-

ical-religious localities within their hinter- lands. Second, the major urban centers were

particularly prominent in the central region

of Mexico. At the time of European contact

in 1521, it is estimated that the population

of this central region was 2.5 million peo-

ple. This region played a historically signifi-

cant role in the formation of the subsequent

urban agglomerations of the Spanish and is

100 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Box 3.1 From Cancún to Belize City

donald J. Zeigler, old dominion University

Cancún was nothing in 1970. no one lived there. the eastern side of the yucatán Peninsula, in fact, was so lightly populated it was a territory rather than a state of Mexico. today, Cancún is one of the most well-known tourist destinations in the Americas (Figure 3.2). the history of the island, with its zona hotelera, and the mainland city of Cancún stand as an example of how forward-looking public sector investment can stimulate the development of thoroughly isolated locales. the first six hotels on the island had to be underwritten by the government. today, there are well over 100 hotels on the island and twice that many on the mainland. by the mid-1990s, the city had grown to 200,000; two decades later it stands at 700,000. Cancún has become the Caribbean equivalent of Mexico’s Pacific-coast tourist meccas: Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlán and, most recently, Cabo San Lucas. Geographer Louis Casagrande called this collection of resort enclaves one of the “five nations” of Mexico. he dubbed them “Club Mex,” and called attention to the fact that they are in Mexico but are not Mexican. Rather they exist in tourist space; take their orders from the global economy; conform to international norms of orderliness, punctuality, and cleanliness; and offer more U.S.-style amenities than the Mexican cities that are actually on the U.S. border.

Figure 3.2 over 100 hotels in the Cancun’s zona hotelera offer thousands of jobs to Mexico’s youth, preparing them to make a living in the service economy. here they confront a native inhabitant of the island. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Historical Geography of Middle American and Caribbean Urbanization 101

today the core demographic region of Mexico.

Tenochtitlán, renamed Mexico City, became

the capital of the Spanish Empire.

Mining and agricultural centers consti-

tuted the first phase in the colonization of

the northern region of Mexico. Spanish min-

ing towns were founded close to important

silver mines, whose indigenous settlements

included Taxco, Pachuca, Zacatecas, and Gua-

najuato. These centers and company towns

functioned as enclave economies. Bajío, in

west-central Mexico, was (re-)constructed

during the colonial period as a key base of

the agricultural and livestock sector. Abun-

dant natural resources in this region—its fer-

tile plains supported food and fiber for the

colonial government—were key factors in its

colonization and in the establishment of con-

ditions favorable to future urban growth.

It was not until the second half of the nine-

teenth century, following Mexico’s independ-

ence in 1821, that new important regional

centers emerged. During this period, moder-

ate regional growth was stimulated through

foreign investment and the creation of high-

way and railroad networks. Until the 1910

Mexican Revolution, foreign investment

concentrated in railways and mining. Port

development linked the railway network to

maritime trade. Together, these technological

and commercial links led to a proliferation of

mining centers in northern Mexico, which, in

the tourist trade in Cancún soon outgrew its habitation. the result was the development of Playa del Carmen (initially a fishing village) about an hour’s drive south of Cancún, along with its offshore island, Cozumel. As this “tourism urbanization” spread even further south, a new name appeared to sell it as a destination of its own: the Riviera Maya. it incorpo- rated the Mayan city, now in ruins, of tulum, making cultural tourism an attraction, too. the Riviera Maya has not tried to mimic the glitzy intensity of Cancún island. Rather, it has gained fame for its self-contained resort enclaves and its eco-friendly parks, cenotes (sink- holes that invite diving), and natural landscapes. though vulnerable to hurricanes, neither hurricane Wilma in 2005 nor hurricane dean in 2007 damped the urban expansion of either Cancún or the Riviera Maya. in fact, growth tentacles have been clawing their way south right across the international border and into belize.

tourism is a fickle business, and it appears that belize’s barrier reef (second only to Australia’s) has been the most recent off-the-beaten path discovery. belize City, the coun- try’s former capital, has seized the opportunity to become a gateway to the offshore islands, which are only a quick water-taxi ride away. its airport (now linked directly to the United States by Southwest Airlines) and its cruiseport (large ships still anchor offshore) bring in tourists and the local economy makes it possible for them to enjoy island towns such as San Pedro and Caye Caulker, whose landscapes and economies have more in common with the Riviera Maya than they do with the rest of belize. the seed planted at Cancún in 1970 has generated an elongated and now transnational arcade that may not appear very urban. but, when considered as a single coastal region, it has well over a million people, more than enough to classify it as a metropolis of its own.

102 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

turn, triggered regional markets and urban

growth.

Railroad expansion played a crucial role

in stimulating urban growth in various cit-

ies in the central and northern regions of the

country. Mérida (the hub of commercial sisal

plantations on the Yucatán Peninsula) and

Guadalajara, Veracruz, Monterrey, and San

Luís Potosí (all with direct transport links to

Tampico on the Gulf of Mexico) grew rapidly.

Old mining towns in the north gave way to

new cities. Monterrey, at one time known as

the “Pittsburgh of Mexico,” became a major

center of heavy industry. Veracruz, a principal

transport node, handled nearly all import and

export cargo.

The economic, geographic, and political

changes that took place in the latter half of

the nineteenth century had long-term impli-

cations for Mexico’s urban system. Although

Mexico City remained the country’s primate

city, other regional centers provided a more

diverse economic base and stimulated for-

eign investment. A communication network

facilitated interaction between the central and

northern regions of the country. High depend-

ency on exports to the United States largely

inhibited the formation of a balanced urban

system; and those cities that were the largest

agglomerations at the start of the twentieth

century retained their economic and political

dominance in the subsequent years.

Particular national and international events

slowed urban growth in the first decades of

the twentieth century. The revolutionary

movement within Mexico of 1910–1921 and

the global economic depression of the 1930s

curtailed exports and funds for urban infra-

structure. Nevertheless, between 1900 and

1940, the urban population grew at a rate far

greater than the total population, increasing

from 1.4 to 3.9 million inhabitants, with the

Figure 3.3 A panoramic view of Monterrey illustrates how a distinctive topographic feature, the Cerro de la Silla, can influence the shape of a metropolitan area. Source: Google Earth.

Historical Geography of Middle American and Caribbean Urbanization 103

majority of the urban growth concentrated

in the largest cities of Mexico. In 1900, there

were only two cities with populations greater

than 100,000. Yet, these made up one-third of

urban Mexico and represented 10.5 percent

of the national population. By 1940, there

were six cities of this size, accounting for 12

percent of the urban population and 20 per-

cent of the total population. The population

of Mexico City had reached 1.5 million, and

its primacy ratio had increased; it was nearly seven times larger than the second-largest city,

Guadalajara.

At the beginning of the 1970s, a shift

toward metropolitan expansion emerged as a

new form of urban growth in Mexico City and

in some secondary cities. There was a massive

rural-to-urban migration flow, with approxi-

mately 3 million migrants moving to Mexico

City in the 1960s. This gave the capital an

annual growth rate of 5.7 percent, which was

a historic high. Eleven secondary cities experi-

enced notable metropolitan expansion; three

of these—Monterrey, Guadalajara, Puebla—

had populations of over half a million. Three

border cities—Tijuana and Mexicali in Baja

California, and Ciudad Juárez in Chihua-

hua—expanded significantly and strength-

ened their relationships with twin cities across

the border.

Mexico’s border cities grew in importance

when the demand for contractual migrant

labor during World War II cast these cities as

“staging areas” for border crossings of labor-

ers into the United States. Between the 1940s

and the early 1960s, the bracero workers’ pro-

gram (named for the day-laborers who were

contracted) brought specified numbers of

Mexican laborers into U.S. corporate farm

operations. When the program was discontin-

ued in the 1960s, concern grew for the service

industries that had developed on the Mexican

side of the “twin cities” and for potential

unemployment problems. In response, maq-

uiladora factories were established as part of

the Border Industrialization Program. This

arrangement allowed American companies to

import manufacturing parts to Mexican cit-

ies, have them assembled in maquiladora (i.e.,

piecemeal assembly) plants, and reimport the

finished products into the United States while

paying only value-added tax. However, with

the creation of the North American Free Trade

Act in 1992, the relative locational advantage

of being close to the United States dissipated,

as trade barriers excluding the rest of Mex-

ico fell for trade with the United States and

Canada. Today, Mexican/U.S. border cities

retain high levels of manufacturing and ser-

vice workers and, except for the Mexican twin

city of Reynosa-Tamaulipas, have even larger

labor markets than their U.S. counterparts

(Table 3.1). Accordingly, it is more appro-

priate to think of these twin cities as a single

conurbation, working in similar manufactur-

ing and service sectors, rather than as discrete

cities divided by an international boundary

(Box 3.2).

Between 1950 and 1970, Mexico’s urban

population grew at an annual rate of almost 5

percent, while the rural population (in settle-

ments of fewer than 2,500 inhabitants) grew

only 1.5 percent. From 1950 to 1970, most

demographic factors signaled improvements

in the quality of life. Despite this progress,

there were significant gaps between urban

and rural areas. Millions left the country-

side in search of work in cities. Almost half

of the rural migrants ended up in Mexico

City, and one-fifth went to Guadalajara and

Monterrey.

By the 1980s, a process of urban growth

decentralization was underway, as inter-

mediate cities in various regions began to

104 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Table 3.1 The U.S.-Mexican border Twin Cities Phenomenon: Population and Employment, 2009*, 2010**

City Population Formal Employment

El Paso, Texas* 751,296 313,882

Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua** 1,062,913 396,911

Laredo, Texas* 241,438 79,008

Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas** 373,725 75,210

McAllen, Texas* 741,152 213,458

Reynosa, Tamaulipas** 589,466 191,158

Brownsville, Texas* 396,371 115,855

Matamoros, Tamaulipas** 449,815 126,458

Source: *Table 5. Estimates of Population Change for Metropolitan Statistical Areas and Rankings: July 1, 2008 to July 1, 2009

(CBSA-EST2009-05).

Source: *U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division.

Release Date: March 2010.

Source: **INEGI, XIII Censo General de Población y Vivienda, 2010 y Censo Económico 2009.

experience greater growth rates than larger

cities. This process took advantage of the

opportunities offered by medium-sized cit-

ies located close to large cities. Such ameni-

ties included lower costs of land and housing,

newer infrastructure, more parks and open

space, and less congestion.

Today, about 80 percent of Mexico’s popu-

lation lives in cities, but it is important to note

that growth rates have dropped for cities of all

sizes. And, for the past several decades, growth

rates of cities in excess of 1 million residents

have been consistent with overall national

population growth. Today, 56 metropolitan

areas located in 29 of the 32 states in Mexico,

account for over half (56 percent) of the coun-

try’s population and over three-quarters (79

percent) of the urban population.

Central America

Contemporary Central America consists of

seven republics—Belize, Guatemala, Hondu-

ras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and

Panama. Current national populations range

from 340,000 in Belize to nearly 16 million in

Guatemala, rendering the region’s countries,

and the cities within them, relatively small by

global standards. Nevertheless, Central Amer-

ica’s cities incorporate considerable ethnic

diversity, including Amerindian, African,

European and, to a lesser degree, East Asian

and eastern Mediterranean influences. City

location and population distribution con-

form in part to the constraints of Central

America’s physical geography, which is criss-

crossed with extensive mountain ranges, fault

lines, and volcanoes, as well as innumerable

rivers, waterfalls, and lakes. Together with

its weather, these environmental conditions

combine to make most of the human set-

tlements of the region vulnerable to natu-

ral disasters including earthquakes, volcanic

eruptions, landslides, floods, and hurricanes.

Unfortunately, most Central American coun-

tries lack the resources to prevent, prepare for,

and/or manage these hazards. Yet, it was the

availability of water and land resources that

stimulated the growth of settlements on vol-

canic soil and floodplains, and which in turn

Historical Geography of Middle American and Caribbean Urbanization 105

Box 3.2 industrial Free Zones and transnational urbanization

in the era of globalization, even small cities become international. Goods are imported and exported across international boundaries not just in finished form but often as components of products that are truly international, whatever their apparent country of origin. Perhaps the most obvious example in the Central American and Caribbean context, as in much of the developing world, are the industrial free zones that assemble clothing, electronics, medical supplies, and other goods for shipment to the United States. Although local arrangements vary, the components for assembly are commonly imported from the United States partly processed and duty free, assembled by wage laborers in industrial enclaves subsidized by the Central American and Caribbean host countries, then re-exported—again, duty free—for sale in the United States. these industrial free zones, called zonas francas, maquiladoras, or zones franches in the non-English-speaking countries of the region, are often set apart from the rest of the urban landscape by walls or fences and by acres of single-storied white buildings.

Figure 3.4 Satellite image of the “sister” cities Quanaminthe (left) and dajabón (right). the border between haiti and the dominican Republic follows the Massacre River in the bottom half of the image but leaves it in the top half to run more directly north. the industrial free zone, visible as the row of large white buildings near the river at the top of the image, lies in a political no man’s land between the border and the river. Source: Google Earth.

industrial free zones have attracted special attention along the United States-Mexico border, but they can also be found along the border between the dominican Republic (dR)

106 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

allowed the development of agriculture as the

basic economic activity leading to consequent

urbanization.

Human habitation of Central America may

date back as far as 10,000 bce, and large-scale

civilization flourished between 3,000 and

2,000 years ago. However, given the diffuse

and decentralized nature of civilizations in

pre-Columbian Central America, the growth

of significant cities in Central America dates

to the colonial era when Spain set up admin-

istrative divisions to govern the region. The

Captaincy General of Guatemala—part of the

larger Viceroyalty of New Spain—first used

the city of Antigua, Guatemala, as its base.

But, after a series of earthquakes devastated

Antigua, the capital was moved to present-day

Guatemala City. Many of the region’s cities,

in fact, began as provincial capitals under the

Spanish: San Salvador in El Salvador, Comaya-

gua in Honduras, Granada in Nicaragua, and

Cártago in Costa Rica. Shortly after 1821, the

year in which independence from Spain was

achieved, most of these provincial capitals

became national capitals.

Climatic conditions in Central America

in the early colonial period proved unfavora-

ble to agricultural development. Land on the

and haiti. An industrial free zone has been established on the poorer haitian side of the border near the sister cities of dajabón (dominican Republic) and Quanaminthe (haiti) (Figure 3.4). to the casual observer, the zone seems to be on the dominican side of the border, on the outskirts of dajabón. in fact, the international border, which has followed the Massacre River down out of the Central Cordillera to the south, here diverges from the river to enclose a small slice of the “dominican” side of the river in haiti. the free zone sits on this narrow island between the river and the border, so that the haitians who work there cross a special bridge each day to arrive at work. Visitors who enter through the main gate on the dominican side are crossing the international border, though they might not know it. Like Mexican maquiladoras, this free zone takes advantage of the large pool of cheap labor on the haitian side of the border, though here the assembly plants are partly owned by dominican entrepreneurs, not just American companies.

dajabón and Quanaminthe are opposite sides of a deep political divide. their border is officially open at only a few points, all of which are well staffed by dominican soldiers. the Massacre River was the site of the brutal 1937 massacre of thousands of haitians at the order of the dR’s dictator-president, an event still in the living memory of many haitians in Quanaminthe. And yet the two cities are ever more closely tied by commerce. the border is opened twice a week for market days, when hundreds of haitians cross over to buy goods for later resale in haiti. hundreds more haitians cross every day to work in the free zone. hai- tians have flocked to Quanaminthe from the mountains and coastal plain to seek work; and its population grew from about 7,200 persons in 1982 to about 40,000 in 2003, without any urban planning and with few city services. Lena Poschet, of the École Polytechnique Fédé- rale of Lausanne, found that by 2004 Quanaminthe had five times the population density of dajabón, with one-twelfth the urban budget.

Historical Geography of Middle American and Caribbean Urbanization 107

windward Caribbean side receives more pre-

cipitation than the leeward Pacific side. At the

same time, the Caribbean coast is more prone

to hurricanes and is covered by jungle and

swampland. Frequent attacks by pirates who

roamed the Caribbean were also an impor-

tant factor in locating settlements at higher

elevations where the bulk of the indigenous

population resided. In the highlands, Central

American cities were dependent on agricul-

tural production in their hinterlands; many

settlements were created to group together

dispersed agricultural producers in order to

consolidate population, impose taxes, and

proselytize.

The urbanization process in Central Amer-

ica can largely be divided into three main

phases. The first period, from 1821 to 1930,

includes the first century of independence

from Spain and a subsequent peak of agricul-

tural exports. The second period dates from

the 1930s to the 1990s and marks a transition

in both the economic model in the region and

a new phase of accelerated urbanization. This

era was characterized by ideologically moti-

vated political movements which, in most

cases, resulted in civil wars. The final period

dates from the 1990s and is marked by the end

of the Cold War, which led to the easing of

tensions between “rebel” groups and national

governments, both of which had for decades

been co-opted by the United States and other

large geopolitical players. This period is also

marked by a greater incorporation of the

region into the new international division of

labor through trade agreements.

The era of independence after 1821 shifted

hegemonic control of Central America from Spain to Great Britain and opened new

external markets for the region’s agricultural

produce, which significantly influenced the

nature of urbanization in the region. The

early decades of independence marked a

transition for some countries from the small-

scale export of products such as indigo and

cochineal (used to make blue and red dyes,

respectively) to a more organized trade in

cash crops. In the early nineteenth century,

sugar cane, tobacco, and coffee were the three

main agricultural export products, and by the

end of the nineteenth century practically all of

the region’s countries had focused on coffee

exports to satisfy growing global demand. The

coffee boom consolidated the Central Ameri-

can capitals. This was especially apparent in

Guatemala City, San Salvador in El Salvador,

and San José in Costa Rica, where national

governments expanded to fill this new politi-

cal and economic role and city populations

and physical expanse grew accordingly. This

also laid the foundations for the expansion

of a regional landed oligarchy, whose power

would be fundamental in the urbanization

process for decades to follow.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth

centuries, much of the region’s export focus

shifted to bananas. Enhancements in storage

and sea transport, coupled with relative prox-

imity to the United States made the sparsely

populated tropical lowlands of Central Amer-

ica ideal for banana plantations. The industry

was dominated by two large U.S. corporations,

whose investments in banana production led

to the development of key regional infra-

structures. Extensive railway networks were

developed using national funds in Guatemala

and by multinationals in Honduras, which

also controlled the docks and port installa-

tions of Puerto Barrios in Guatemala and Tela

and La Ceiba in Honduras. Together with the

coffee economy, banana production actively

produced social differentiation through the

need for agricultural, transport, and dock

laborers in cities, ports, and hinterlands,

108 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

and for salaried employees in the emerging

urban centers. However, the social structures

that crystallized from the agricultural export

economies of Central America kept the region

mainly rural until the twentieth century.

The consolidation of economic activity in

agricultural export industries laid the basis for

subsequent urban growth, and a series of land

transformations catalyzed large-scale urbani-

zation beginning in the 1930s and intensifying

in the 1960s. As agriculture expanded in the

late nineteenth century, much of the region’s

common lands (baldíos) were privatized,

and various pieces of legislation led to forced

labor, which particularly affected indigenous

communities. Multinational companies and

banks, in particular from the United States,

held an increasing influence in local affairs,

and large landowning families consolidated

both power and land. The result of this was

that many peasants were left landless and at

the mercy not only of the family and corpo-

rate interests that subjugated them, but to

global export markets that determined the

price of commodities such as coffee.

By the mid-twentieth century, the region’s

demographic explosion led to a large-scale

cityward migration. Since 1966, the popula-

tion of Central America has tripled from 14

million to more than 45 million, which has

been one of the dominant drivers of rapid

urbanization. Rural inhabitants, particularly

the poor and landless, moved to the region’s

cities as Central America entered the second

stage of the demographic transition (steady

fertility rates combined with falling mortal-

ity rates). Cities grew in size during this time,

and urbanization was further accelerated by

the region’s civil wars, which had displacing

effects on populations. In-migrants sought

not only refuge from dire rural conditions,

but also access to health care, education, and

other social services that only cities provided

to any significant degree. Economic change

continued, as primary economies gave way to

the development of manufacturing in urban

centers. In some cases, the expectations of

new urban migrants were met; in other cases,

they encountered disappointment. Rapid

growth left urban governments without the

capacity to cope with the increase in popu-

lation, and the development of shantytowns

on the periphery of almost every Central

American city was an inevitable outcome.

Migrants not only sought better conditions

in the region’s cities, but a large number also

migrated to the United States and elsewhere.

Many families faced the difficult decision

of pushing one or more family members to

migrate, and it is common among Central

American women, particularly from El Salva-

dor, to make the long trip to Europe where

they characteristically labor in domestic or

care-giving work in an effort to support their

families economically.

Since the 1990s, urbanization has contin-

ued, but with a number of significant changes.

Several regional free-trade agreements (nota-

bly DR-CAFTA) spurred the expansion of

export-processing zones, which feature scores

of maquilas. This further developed industry

in cities such as San Pedro Sula, Honduras,

and San Salvador, El Salvador, but has only led

to modest increases in wages. Though cities

continue to grow in population, urbanization

shows signs of slowing as demographic expan-

sion is curbed by falling fertility and contin-

ued out-migration, particularly by younger

cohorts.

By 2014, Central America was almost 60

percent urban (Table 3.2), ranging from 44

percent in Belize to 76 percent in Costa Rica.

National poverty rates seem to mirror urbani-

zation rates. Poverty is highest in Honduras

Historical Geography of Middle American and Caribbean Urbanization 109

(60 percent) and Guatemala (54 percent),

and it is lowest in Panama (28 percent) and

Costa Rica (21 percent). The largest and most

important urban centers in Central America

largely correspond to the seven countries’ cap-

ital cities and their suburbs. National urban

systems are supplemented by a few medium-

sized cities such as San Pedro Sula (Hondu-

ras), León (Nicaragua), and Davíd (Panama),

which often play a commercial function com-

plementing the capital city’s administrative

role. The distribution of city sizes to some

degree reflects the central-place hierarchy

of agriculturally based societies, especially

within countries with large amounts of pas-

toral land. Cities such as Santiago (Panama),

Liberia (Costa Rica), and Quetzaltenango

(Guatemala) play secondary roles tied to com-

merce and service provision. A number of

port cities such as Colón (Panama), Limón

and Puntarenas (Costa Rica), and Puerto

Cortes (Honduras) serve as export hubs for

locally manufactured goods and agricultural

products and as importers of goods manufac-

tured overseas.

Despite the economic, cultural, and politi-

cal development that has occurred within

and around many cities, the urban panorama

in Central America is not promising. Private

developers, often members of the local elite

class, are increasingly responsible for subur-

ban housing development in which service

provision such as public transportation and

garbage collection are minimal. Child and

adolescent labor is rampant as impoverished

families press their children into petty com-

merce, service provision, and begging. And

aside from persistent poverty in the region’s

cities, public safety has become one of the

most important concerns. On the one hand,

this might be seen as a governance failure in

which local governments are unable to provide

Table 3.2 Levels of Urbanization in Central America

1970–2015

Country

*Level of urbanization (%)

1970 1980 2000 **2010 **2015

Panama 47.6 50.4 65.8 74.8 77.9

Costa Rica 38.8 43.1 59.0 64.3 66.9

Belize 51.0 49.4 47.7 52.7 55.3

El Salvador 39.4 44.1 58.4 61.3 63.1

Nicaragua 47.0 50.3 57.2 57.3 59.0

Guatemala 35.5 37.4 45.1 49.5 52.0

Honduras 28.9 34.9 44.4 48.8 51.4

*Total: Latin America & Caribbean 57.2 65.1 75.4 79.4 80.9

Central America 53.8 60.2 68.8 71.7 73.2

Caribbean 45.4 52.3 62.1 66.9 69.3

Countries are ordered by level of urbanization in 2000

*Urban population as a percentage of total population

**Based on 2009 projections, Source: http://esa.un.org/unup/p2k0data.asp, accessed February 11, 2011

Source: Data from United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects, 2009 Revision (New York: UN Population Division, 2009, http://esa.

un.org/unpd/wup/index.htm).

110 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Box 3.3 Gangs: a Violent urban Social Development

throughout the cities of Central America, the materialization of street gangs is a conse- quence of many factors. Some observers hold that gangs reflect the struggle of some young people in search of an identity. others argue that gangs are the outcome of widespread and persistent poverty and political disenfranchisement. Most observers concur that, in seeking to improve the quality of their lives and acquire what is otherwise unattainable, some youths resort to gang violence. Gangs are associated with such violent/criminal activities as organ- ized crime, arms trafficking, forgery, gangsterism, rape, kidnapping, extortion, and the sale and consumption of drugs. Some gangs demand “taxes” from bus drivers in order to pass through their territory, while others extort protection money from small business owners who operate on their turf.

in Central America, the most notorious and violent type of gangs are known as maras, the most infamous of which is the Mara Salvatrucha or MS 13. it is made up primarily of young men between the ages of 12 and 25. Although the Mara Salvatrucha is dominant in El Salvador, where it represents approximately 70 percent of all youth gangs, it has spread throughout the Americas from Canada to Colombia. it has taken particular hold in the impov- erished border regions of Mexico and cities of Central America where alternative sources of fulfillment are conspicuously absent. these gangs are particularly distinctive in their highly visible use of tattoos, with many gang members having identifying gang tattoos on their faces, necks, chests, and hands.

the word mara has become the generic term for youth gangs in Central America. Mara Salvatrucha was founded on the streets of Los Angeles by immigrant Salvadoran youths flee- ing the Salvadoran civil war. it is alleged that Mara Salvatrucha was formed in response to the discrimination and victimization that Salvadoran youths experienced at the hands of ethnic gangs proliferating in Los Angeles in the 1970s. Later, other Central American immi- grants were integrated into the gang. the word Salvatrucha refers to one who is a “shrewd Salvadoran.” it is widely thought that the current proliferation of violent gangs in Central and parts of South America is related to large-scale repatriations from the United States, including many gang members who find fertile conditions in the poverty that is so prevalent in the region’s cities. Gangs have come to represent (at least in the popular and political imagination) one of the most serious threats to security and democracy in the region. the formal political power vacuum created by many Central American governments enhances the power of gangs. in many cities, virulent attacks have become an issue of national security. the spread of the maras has undermined the authority of the police and weakened the ability of governments to protect communities.

for their citizens. Local police have resorted

to military-style tactics and equipment, and

armed private security guards are commonly

employed to protect businesses and commu-

nities. On the other hand, however, it reflects

the region’s economic woes and the respective

Historical Geography of Middle American and Caribbean Urbanization 111

social problems that they create. Much of the

crime is linked to gangs and their members,

who are typically young (12–24) and tend to

live in peripheral zones of large cities such as

Guatemala City, Tegucigalpa, and San Salva-

dor. Gangs’ range of crimes is vast, but their

source of income is almost always tied to

extortion and drugs, and many have links to

international crime syndicates (Box 3.3).

Ironically, Central America’s major gangs

were in fact developed in Los Angeles, Cali-

fornia, by Latino youth, many of whom were

displaced to the United States in the wake

of civil wars in Central America. The U.S.

State Department estimates that there are as

many as 85,000 members of MS-13 and 18th

Street—the region’s primary gangs—in the

“Northern Triangle” countries of Honduras,

El Salvador, and Guatemala. The influence of

the maras (gangs) has spread beyond Central

America into Mexican, Spanish, and North

American cities. The social and economic

instability in Central America, evidenced

in scarce educational and job opportunities

and family disintegration, leaves many urban

youths to believe that they have only two via-

ble options: attempt to migrate to the United

States or join a gang. Furthermore, many gang

members are deportees from the United States

with established criminal histories.

Central American countries have some of

the highest rates of homicide in the world, and

urban homicide rates are even higher in cities

such as San Pedro Sula (Honduras), which is

reputed to have the highest murder rate for any

city in the world (~170 per 100,000). Accord-

ing to a recent article in The Guardian, five of

the ten most violent cities on Earth are located

within Central America. While violence in the

region’s cities remains high, a truce between

El Salvador’s two main gangs brokered in 2012

has had a profound effect in reducing violent

crime and extortion. But, so far, most Central

American countries have not developed ade-

quate social infrastructure to curb the cycle of

poverty and violence.

Caribbean

There was little urban culture in the Carib-

bean prior to the arrival of, and subsequent

colonization by, the Spanish. The urban tradi-

tion of the region can be traced to two major

influences: the Iberian Peninsula and the Car-

ibbean island of La Española (present-day

Hispaniola), more specifically the settlement

of Santo Domingo. The Spanish urban tradi-

tion of the grid, utilized in the Caribbean at

the time of conquest and colonization, was

inherited from the Romans who, in turn,

inherited it from a more basic Greek grid sys-

tem. The Muslims followed the Greeks and

Romans to the Iberian Peninsula and became

the third group to contribute to the Spanish

urban tradition.

Both Romans and Muslims gave impor-

tance to the areas where the main axes inter-

sected, as places of religious, commercial, and

social importance—something that was per-

petuated in the grid system that the Spanish

Crown translocated to the New World. It is

worth noting that México’s main square, or

plaza, is commonly known as Zócalo, a word

that seems very similar to zoco, an Arabic word

referring to the main central market of Islamic-

influenced cities. Besides the urban tradition

accumulated in the Iberian Peninsula, the

planning experiences acquired between 1492

and 1508 by the first colonizers in the island of

La Española (later divided between the coun-

tries of Dominican Republic and Haiti) would

constitute the most important and direct

model of the urban forms implemented by the

Spanish in the rest of the Caribbean.

112 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

At the initial stages of the colonization

of La Española, Santo Domingo was not

only the capital of the Indies, but also the

urban planning model for other urban set-

tlements established in the Caribbean. Many

of the conquistadores were familiar with

Santo Domingo’s grid layout. Some plans

of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

for Santo Domingo show an almost perfect

urban grid.

It was not long before the Spanish realized

that the prospects of finding mineral riches

(gold, silver) in the Caribbean were dissipating

rapidly. This prompted a massive emigration

toward Central and South America, leaving

most of the Spanish Caribbean colonies in

a state of semi-abandonment. Only Havana

(Cuba) and San Juan (Puerto Rico), both pro-

tected by massive fortresses, remained impor-

tant due to their location on Spanish treasure

fleets’ routes. However, the lack of attention

from the Crown served to boost pirate activ-

ity in the Caribbean and to attract the atten-

tion of other European countries, particularly

England, France, and the Netherlands. By the

1600s, these less powerful nations began to

establish claims in the region, including west-

ern Hispaniola (now Haiti), Jamaica, and the

Lesser Antilles. They were not looking for gold

or silver, but for farmlands, salt, and forests

(for timber).

The development of the sugar plantation

system in Barbados in the 1640s accelerated,

once again, the pace of colonization and set-

tlement and caused the import of millions of

slaves into the region. The Spanish colonies,

where slaves and sugar had been introduced

from the Old World, came late to this revo-

lution, but by the late nineteenth century,

Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto

Rico had also become centers of the sugar

industry.

Together, the plantation system and the

slave trade established the basis for a distinc-

tive Caribbean geography and set the funda-

mental settlement pattern of Antillean cities,

which were first established on protected lee-

ward harbors as trading centers. Raw sugar,

molasses, and rum left these ports for Europe;

European foods, machinery, and capital

passed through them to the interior planta-

tions. The early sugar ports—Bridgetown,

Fort-de-France, Kingston, Port-of-Spain, and

Charlotte Amalie—have remained important,

even as tourism and industrial free zones sup-

planted sugar.

Four striking patterns highlight the con-

temporary urbanization and settlement pat-

terns of the Caribbean. First, no Caribbean

island is without its primate city. With the

exceptions of Havana and San Juan, most pri-

mate cities are located on the leeward coast,

immune from the steady trade winds and

often nestled along a protected bay. These his-

toric ports were well suited for loading sugar

and unloading slaves, machinery, and provi-

sions. Colonists built gun sites and forts on

commanding hilltops and ridges to protect

the locals from marauding pirates or rival

European powers.

Second, Caribbean urbanization in the

past half-century shows that mid-size cities

(500,000–1,000,000 residents) have held the

same relative proportion of urban residents,

while those cities with fewer than half a mil-

lion residents have declined (Figure 3.5).

Third, places with 1–5 million residents

have more than doubled. These trends are

particularly striking given the limited amount

of low-lying land along bay fronts, coastal

plains, and river valleys that can accommo-

date city growth. Sea-level rise, a consequence

of global climate change, is a looming threat to

these low-elevation cities.

Historical Geography of Middle American and Caribbean Urbanization 113

Fourth, beyond the Greater Antilles (Cuba,

Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica), insular-

ity is a key constraint. With the exception of

Barbados and Trinidad, most of the islands

are small, and many of them are restricted by

mountainous topography, particularly in the

volcanic Lesser Antilles. The scale of Carib-

bean cities therefore pales in comparison to

that of other Latin American cities.

Differing Spanish and English settlement

patterns provide historical backdrops to con-

temporary urbanization. Spanish settlements

needed to defend the windward approaches

into the Caribbean and major ports on the

route of the treasure fleets. These locations

marked early landfalls for those ships riding

the trade winds, and they relied on nearby for-

ests for shipbuilding and repair. Spanish towns

in the Caribbean followed the grid-style set-

tlement plan inherited from the Iberian Pen-

insula and subsequently dictated throughout

the Spanish colonial empire by the Law of the

Indies. Towns were centered on the main plaza,

usually anchored by a government building

(cabildo) and church at either end. Block size

and street width were predetermined; locally

unwanted land uses such as garbage dumps,

slaughterhouses, and cemeteries were sited at

the periphery of the new towns. Early Span-

ish Caribbean ports facilitated the extraction

of mineral wealth from Mexico and other

parts of the mainland, and little urban growth

took place in Caribbean ports of the sixteenth

century.

Non-Spanish settlements were less ortho-

dox and more haphazard in form. In British

settlements, for instance, royal favor was doled

out to loyalists by the Proprietary System.

Caribbean settlers from England had learned

from Atlantic seaboard settlements in North

America. Accordingly, their priorities entailed

clearing land for timber and agriculture, con-

structing fortresses, and coming to terms with

indigenous peoples. Although the British

originally planted tobacco and cotton, they

would gradually turn to sugar monoculture.

In both British and Spanish settlements, little

colonial architecture has survived other than

a few military structures, a few churches, and

some fortified (brick and stone) sugar plan-

tations because of fire, tropical storms, and

rebuilding.

Figure 3.5 Caribbean Urbanization by City Size, 1960 and 2010. Source: United nations, World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision and World Urbanization Prospects, 2005 Revision (new york: United nations Population division, 2006, http://esa.un.org/unup).

114 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Figure 3.6 the Revised Griffin-Ford Model of Latin American City Structure. Source: Larry Ford, “A new improved Model of Latin American City Structure,” Geographical Review 86 (1996): 438. Reprinted with permission.

Models of Urban Structure 115

MODELS OF URbAN STRUCTURE

Throughout Latin America, many cities have

significant similarities in city structure and

urban form. Despite the diversity of histories

and the local influences of economics, politics,

and topography, cities across the region share

such attributes as a clearly defined central

business district (CBD) and, more recently,

peri-urban highways connecting newer indus-

trial estates and suburbs (Figure 3.6).

Initially proposed in 1980, Ernst Griffin

and Larry Ford’s model of the Latin American

city serves as a valuable starting point for ana-

lyzing urban land use throughout the region.

Although each city is unique, there are many

commonalities—a history of colonial settle-

ment, co-location of commercial and admin-

istrative functions at the city center, industrial

development along a particular corridor, and

significant areas of blight, both in the inner

city and on the urban periphery. According to

Griffin and Ford’s model, the following char-

acteristics are visible in many Latin American

cities:

1. A geometric street pattern at the city

center surrounding one major plaza, laid

out in conformity with the Spanish “Laws

of the Indies” during the colonial period.

The elite resided as close to the plaza

mayor as possible.

2. An adjacent CBD, featuring retail estab-

lishments, restaurants, hotels, and office

buildings. These CBDs expanded from

the 1930s onward, but their growth has

been especially rapid in countries that

promoted market reforms starting in the

1990s.

3. A commercial “spine” (such as Mexico

City’s Paseo de la Reforma) along which

an expanding population of élites resides.

This serves as an extension of the CBD.

When it originally materialized, it con-

trasted with other residential zones in

being well provisioned with services such

as water, electricity, and trash pick-up.

4. A “zone of maturity” in which older,

“filtered-down” residential areas house

the working class and middle class as the

urban élite move to newer communi-

ties. This zone is characterized by much

mixed-use development with shops,

cocinas (kitchens), and small industrial

establishments.

5. A “zone of in situ accretion,” referring to

newer residential areas where a variety

of housing types are in various stages of

completion. These areas may still lack all

or some public services such as water and

electricity, and some streets may not yet

be paved.

6. “Disamenities,” such as rail or highway

infrastructures that interrupt the urban

pattern and cause noise and air pollution.

7. A “peripheral” zone of squatter settle-

ments on the city fringe, largely housing

new in-migrants from rural areas. These

zones are least well connected with urban

services and resemble urban “villages” in

their structure, with houses that are self-

built out of any available materials.

In 1996, Larry Ford published the “new and

improved” model of the Latin American city

to account for the fact that the region’s cities

had changed. Notable additions to the original

model were:

1. CBD split into a more modern business

precinct and a more traditional market

area.

2. An “edge city” on the urban periph-

ery, complete with shopping malls and

116 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

newer élite neighborhoods. This is often

connected by a periférico, or ring-road

highway.

3. New middle-class residential zones near

the city center, often in gentrified neigh-

borhoods that started as homes for the

urban elite, filtered down to zones of

maturity, and then became gentrified by

an expanding middle class.

Since Ford’s model was published two dec-

ades ago, suburbanization has become a more

important process. Gated communities have

sprung up around cities in the region, particu-

larly as violence and domestic security become

major issues for residents. Multinational com-

panies often prefer the security of suburban

office parks, which have direct highway access

and often offer better access to airports and

newer amenity areas such as shopping malls.

San José’s (Costa Rica) Escazu and Panama

City’s Costa Del Este are prominent examples

of this newer enclave urbanism.

DISTINCTIVE CITIES

Mexico City: Ancient Aztec Capital,

Contemporary Megacity

Mexico City was founded in the fourteenth

century by the Aztecs and called Tenochtitlán.

It was sited on a lake in the centrally located

Valley of Mexico and soon became the anchor

city of the largest empire in pre-Columbian

Middle America. As the current capital of

Mexico, it is also the country’s largest urban

center and serves as the nation’s economic,

social, educational, and political hub. With 21

million residents, Mexico City is the second-

largest urban agglomeration in the Western

Hemisphere, after São Paulo but larger than

the New York-Newark metropolitan area.

Its population in the twentieth century bur-

geoned from 3.4 million in 1950 to about 9

million in 1970, and was just shy of 15 million

by 1990.

In local parlance, “Mexico City” (known as

“day efay” for D.F., Distrito Federal, in Span-

ish) refers to the entire metropolitan area,

which covers not only the Federal District but

also parts of the states of Mexico and Hidalgo.

It stretches over an area of more than 3,000

square miles (7,850 sq km), almost three times

the size of the state of Rhode Island. Mexico

City is located in a high-altitude, closed-

drainage basin, which accounts for many of

its ecological difficulties. At an altitude of

approximately 7283 ft. (2,250 m) above sea

level and hemmed in by mountains, both air-

borne and waterborne pollutants are concen-

trated and difficult to disperse.

The Zócalo or Main Square—now officially

called the Plaza de la Constitución—is the tra-

ditional center of the city. On the northern

side of the square, close to the ancient site of

the main Aztec temple is the Metropolitan

Cathedral. Spanish conquistadores frequently

subjugated the Native American population

by having them rebuild churches atop the

ruins of indigenous temples (Figure 3.7). In

fact, the square was referred to throughout

the colonial era as “the pyramid” by Indians

who did not want to legitimize Spanish politi-

cal rule. To the east is the Palacio de Gobierno

(main government building). Built on the

ruins of the ancient Aztec emperor’s palace,

it is another symbolic replacement of politi-

cal power. The colonial city extended in an

orderly fashion for several blocks around this

square, as prescribed by guidelines specified

in the Law of the Indies. These orders, first

issued in Spain in 1494, became the military

engineer’s template and mandated the loca-

tion of many colonial and independence-era

Distinctive Cities 117

buildings in this zone. Many of the original

structures and buildings of the traditional

urban core—known as the Centro Histórico,

or Historical Center—remain intact.

In general, Mexico City typifies the urbani-

zation patterns and processes of Middle

America and the Caribbean, where the his-

toric quarters of most cities still remain some-

what intact. As a result, Mexico has dozens

of World Heritage Sites that celebrate these

colonial quarters. The more “modern” aspects

of twentieth-century urbanization developed

just beyond the Centro Histórico. Unlike the

Anglo-American and European models of

urbanization, the national elite in Spanish

America placed more social value on centrality

until the twentieth century when congestion

and the automobile fueled the need for new

suburban construction to serve middle-and

upper-income residents. The poor in most

Middle American and Caribbean cities tend to

concentrate at the city’s edge where land val-

ues are cheaper, and self-help housing devel-

ops. In the case of present-day Mexico City, the

wealthy districts are concentrated in the west

and various zones in the south, and in colonias

such as Lomas de Chapultepec, Polanco, and

Pedregal de San Ángel (Figure 3.8). These dis-

tricts contrast sharply with the poverty in the

northern zones and the illegal settlements in

the eastern edges, beyond Benito Juárez Inter-

national Airport, where many communities

lack basic services.

Suburban retailing now challenges the

traditional role of the city center as the main

shopping district. Examples include the Plaza

Figure 3.7 the Zócalo (main square) in Mexico City is surrounded by colonial buildings, most notably the Metropolitan Cathedral and the headquarters of the Federal and Capital Governments. Source: Photo by Seth dixon.

118 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Satélite in the north of the city, Perisur in the

South, and Sante Fé in the west. La Merced,

which had been the main food market for the

city since colonial times was replaced in the

1980s with a modern market in the east of

the city. Nevertheless, La Merced remains the

largest traditional food market in the entire

city.

The import-substitution industrialization

strategy implemented in the 1940s created

conditions of stability and prosperity that

made Mexico City the most important indus-

trial center in the country. Today, it is respon-

sible for 30 percent of national industrial

production. In the second half of the twenti-

eth century, encouraged by the Border Indus-

trialization Program of 1964, heavy industry

began moving from the capital to border cities

of the north. Just as many U.S. manufacturing

towns lost jobs to lower-wage labor in maq-

uiladoras, so too did Mexico City. As a result,

the under- and unemployed work in informal

commerce. The growth of the border cities has

somewhat stalled the growth of Mexico City.

Mexico City is also the hub of the national

transportation system, a relative location that

strengthens its hold on the national economy.

Five main highways link the capital to the dif-

ferent regions of the country, as well as with

Guatemala and the United States through the

75-year-old Pan American Highway. There is

an extensive intra-city transport network, as

well, including the Metro system that is used

by over 2 million people daily (Figure 3.9),

and a range of different types of buses.

As one of the most important cultural cent-

ers in the entirety of Latin America, Mexico

City boasts major cultural sites, and its cin-

ema, film, theatrical, and television industries

rival those of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The

Palacio de Bellas Artes in the center of the city

is an important opera and concert venue, and

Figure 3.8 the elite western corridor connecting Chapultepec Park and the Zócalo is the preeminent place to memorialize Mexican heritage and identity. here in the Alameda is a monument honoring benito Juárez, a Zapotec indian, in neoclassical style. Source: Photo by Seth dixon.

Distinctive Cities 119

the Cultural Center of the National Autono-

mous University of Mexico (UNAM) in the

south hosts the National Library, a large con-

cert hall, and various theaters. The National

Museum of Anthropology is considered one

of the most important of its kind, and some

monuments, such as the Chapultepec Castle

and the Independence Monument, are sym-

bols of Mexican nationhood. Mexico City is

a megacity of significant history, impressive

scale, and striking contrasts.

San José: Cultural Capital and

Ecotourism Gateway

San José is the political and economic capital

of Costa Rica. Like most Latin American cit-

ies, it is laid out in a grid pattern anchored by

a series of town squares fronted by churches.

San José has been declared the cultural capital

of Spanish America by the Union of Spanish-

American City Capitals. Costa Rica’s relative

economic prosperity and political stability

have made its capital the safest city in the

región, even if property crime (like theft)

remains a problem.

San José is the primate city of Costa Rica.

It is more than twice the size of Limón, Costa

Rica’s second-largest city located on the Car-

ibbean coast. The semi-humid and temperate

climate and fertile soils of the Central Valley

favor intensive agriculture, and high-quality

export products such as specialty leaf tobacco

do well here. Since the colonial era, settlement

and development have been concentrated in

this part of Costa Rica. With time, settlement

gradually spread outward toward the coastal

plains, a pattern that runs counter to that

experienced in most Latin American coun-

tries where settlements first took hold at navi-

gable ports on the coasts and gradually moved

inland.

The hills within the Central Valley have not

curtailed San José’s expansion. The metro-

politan area today encompasses the adjacent

communities of Alajuela, Cártago, and Here-

dia. This conurbation constitutes the “Cen-

tral Region” and spills into adjoining valleys

Figure 3.9 Mexico City’s federally subsidized subway system is incredibly congested at key transfer stations like the hidalgo interchange downtown. Source: Photo by Seth dixon.

120 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

and mountain regions. Although the Central

Region includes just 15 percent of the coun-

try’s land area, it accounts for more than half

of the nation’s population. Wealth generated

from Costa Rica’s mining and agricultural

sectors has historically supported business

investment in San José and the subsequent

expansion of its metropolitan region. Urban

sprawl has overtaken small towns and outlying

villages to such an extent that some peripheral

zones lack basic services such as housing and

schools.

Metropolitan San José, like most primate

cities, contains the most important and larg-

est industries, businesses, and residential areas

of the country. This concentration implies

changes in land use, private-sector invest-

ment, and the distribution of wealth. San José

consists of 14 cantones (administrative units

similar to counties in the United States). Most

cantones are residential areas that function as

bedroom communities and are distant from

most places of work, retail commerce, and

medical and educational facilities. There is

a growing demand in the more distant can-

tones for jobs, housing, and infrastructure to

accommodate the city’s growth.

Continued growth reinforces San José’s

primacy and disadvantages other regions

of Costa Rica that are less populated. Urban

sprawl imposes high economic costs, neces-

sitates the consumption of fossil fuels, and

exacts human costs in the form of long and

stressful commutes. A road network unable to

accommodate present usage exacerbates these

problems. Moreover, San José’s sprawl threat-

ens rich agricultural and protected lands in

the Central Valley. In general, rapid growth

and congestion threaten the sustainability of

this capital city.

Taking advantage of both its physical geog-

raphy and its reputation for safety and low

crime rates, Costa Rica has seen the rise of

a successful tourism industry over the past

several decades. The country has a number

of natural advantages: a variety of natural

ecosystems, vertically zoned climates, clas-

sic rainforests, scenic mountains, spectacu-

lar physical features such as active volcanoes,

and surfable beaches. Costa Rica has reaped

the benefits of these natural advantages by

promoting itself as a world-class ecotourism

destination. Together, ecotourism and cultural

tourism have energized the national economy

as they have attracted hard currency expended

by visitors from North America, Europe, and

Asia. Most tourist ventures start in San José,

the country’s transport hub, and fan out to

the interior of the country, to Arenal Volcano,

and to the Pacific Coast. Although this cre-

ates economic multipliers for San José and

its hinterland, it also creates economic and

environmental stress. The tourism infra-

structure (e.g., expansive networks of hotels,

restaurants, and land and air transportation)

must be maintained and upgraded continu-

ally to meet international expectations. San

José experiences the financial, infrastructural,

and environmental pressures that accompany

Costa Rica’s international notoriety as a safe,

secure, and high-quality tourist destination.

Havana: The Once and Future

Hub of the Caribbean?

Diego de Velázquez de Cuéllar founded San

Cristóbal de Habana in 1519 as one of seven

military outposts (villas) around the island of

Cuba. Havana was originally located in 1514

on the Broa Inlet, at the Gulf of Batabanó, on

the island’s southern (Caribbean) side. The

shallow port and the generally swampy (and

unhealthy) site forced colonists to relocate to

the northern side of the narrow island, where

Distinctive Cities 121

they found a deepwater harbor. The relative

location of this new site was enhanced by the

discovery of the Bahamian Channel, which

served as a key transshipment route for goods

exchanged between the Americas and Europe.

Military engineers enhanced the colonial

port by building a network of fortresses over

the next two and a half centuries (Figure 3.10).

Flotillas carrying wealth out of the ports

of Cartagena and Santa Marta in Colom-

bia, Nombre de Dios in Panama, and Verac-

ruz in Mexico would dock in the safe waters

of Havana before crossing the Atlantic for

Seville, Spain. Ranching, timber, shipping,

and allied services would define the colonial

city’s economy. It lacked the wealth of Lima

and Mexico City, but Havana served as a vital

link in the Spanish colonial empire; its loca-

tion on a pocket-shaped bay made it an ideal

warehouse and transshipment point. In fact,

the entrance to the harbor from the Florida

Straits is so narrow that military officers often

drew chains across it at night to entrap intrud-

ers. Located on a plain with mild marine-ter-

race escarpments, the city is unconstrained by

topographic barriers except for the bay, which

curtailed growth to the east until a tunnel was

completed in 1957.

A sugar boom in the late eighteenth century

brought commerce and residents to Havana,

and crowding exacerbated problems within

the walled city. New neighborhoods sprung

up outside the walls, and the elite gradually

left the walled quarters. In the early 1860s,

Havana’s walls were torn down, opening up a

huge expanse of city blocks that were ideal for

urban development.

When the United States occupied Cuba after

the 1898 Spanish-American War, they found

Havana to be a lackluster place, but one that

Figure 3.10 A lighthouse at Moro Castle stands at the entrance to havana harbor, while young Cubans use the deteriorating sea wall as a recreational resource. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

122 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

was ripe for investment. Road building, rail-

road expansion, banks, customs houses, sugar

and cigar-factory construction, telephone

services, and the newly arrived automobile

industry offered opportunities for American

capitalists. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

lent a hand, particularly in expanding, rais-

ing, and extending the seaside promenade El

Malecón—a striking seaside boulevard that

graces much of Havana’s northern edge.

Over the course of the twentieth century,

Havana became a horizontal city in the mode

of Los Angeles. It developed a series of sub-

urban enclaves west and south of the bay.

Automobile commuting for a middle class of

white-collar workers drove this suburbaniza-

tion model and led to a scattered and deeply

segregated pattern of urban growth. While

a streetcar network operated until the early

1950s, automobiles and buses linked Havana’s

new suburban and exurban developments.

When the Cuban Revolution of 1959 suc-

ceeded, about one in 20 residents were living

in shantytowns of some sort (Figure 3.11).

The socialist government imported models

of high-rise prefabricated buildings like those

used in the former Soviet Union. While only

1 million residents claimed Havana as their

home in 1959, the population had barely sur-

passed the 2 million mark fifty years later. Over

the same period, Mexico City and Lima, Peru,

had increased six- and threefold, respectively.

Warfare and revolutions have given

twenty-first-century Havana a unique urban

morphology. It is a polycentric city that has

preserved distinctive architectural designs

and land uses. Colonial, Republican, new gov-

ernment centers, and social/cultural districts

characterize this panoply of urban nodes

(Figure 3.12). Havana is one of the few Latin

American cities where rather benign light

industry (i.e., cigar making) surrounds a

city center that has served both colonial and

Republican governments.

During the first three decades of Com-

munist rule, Havana was largely a “closed”

Figure 3.11 here are two images of a Cuba frozen in time: Che Guevara, one of the leaders of the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and a classic American sedan (one of many still on the road) that arrived prior to the Revolution. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Distinctive Cities 123

destination; few tourists came, and those who

did hailed primarily from Soviet bloc states.

Immigration to Havana from elsewhere was

strictly controlled by a food-ration book (la

libreta) and other governmental controls.

However, the demise of the Soviet Union in

1991 led to a major crisis called the “Special

Period in a Time of Peace.” The government

tightened gasoline rations as Cuba’s ability

to exchange sugar for Soviet oil disappeared.

Thousands of un- and underemployed

Cubans have migrated illegally to Havana,

mainly from the eastern provinces where the

dwindling sugar economy has been devas-

tated. In typical Cuban humor, these immi-

grants are called palestinos because they hail

from the east.

Other post-Soviet changes are also visible

in Havana. As fuel subsidies from the USSR

ended, and the relative cost of gasoline soared,

bus routes were scaled back to half their num-

ber and bicycling as a means of transportation

boomed. Tourism was seen as a “necessary

evil” to sustain the island’s economy, and the

city’s Old Havana district (Habana Vieja),

a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1982,

became a prime destination for newfound

cultural tourism. In 1993, the City Historian

of Havana created a money-making corpora-

tion to address housing, hotel construction,

road paving, plaza reconstruction, and urban

revitalization. This firm, Habaguanex, has

become one of the most powerful state enter-

prises in post-Soviet Havana. It has embarked

on an ambitious project to rehabilitate build-

ings and spaces in Habana Vieja. Interna-

tional tourism has grown significantly from

about 25,000 annual visitors to Cuba in the

Figure 3.12 the polycentric city of havana. Source: based on J. Scarpaci, R. Segre, and M. Coyula, Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis (Chapel hill, nC: University of north Carolina Press, 2002), 87.

124 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

late 1970s to approximately 2.5 million visi-

tors today, comparable to the growth in tour-

ism experienced in nearby Cancún, Mexico. In

2011, the Communist Party approved radical

free-market changes such as the sale of private

homes (with minimum state intervention)

and an increase in the number of private-

sector jobs. In 2014, reversing sixty years of

nonengagement, the United States and Cuba

announced the reinstatement of diplomatic

relations; and in 2015, the countries opened

embassies in one another’s capital cities. Time

will tell whether these tentative steps toward

entrepreneurship and U.S. rapprochement

will change the face of a city that has been cen-

trally planned for half a century.

Unlike many other Caribbean cities, Havana

is home to a world-class biotechnology indus-

try and boasts the third busiest airport in the

region. It possesses the open space for more

growth, either in the form of vacation homes

for North Americans and returning Cuban-

American expatriates or to accommodate an

unfettered U.S. tourist market. In contrast to

many Caribbean port capitals, Havana attracts

only a few thousand cruise-ship passengers

annually largely because shipping companies

faced legal problems from the United States

if they conducted business in Cuba. Never-

theless, the Caribbean manages some of the

busiest maritime traffic in the world; approxi-

mately 50,000 ships carry 14.5 million tour-

ists annually. Havana will be on the radar of

urbanists who are interested in issues of smart

growth, sustainable development, and sus-

tainable tourism as the twenty-first century

progresses.

Panama City: Child of Globalization

Of all of the cities in Central America and

the Caribbean, no city has been linked to

globalization and international commerce as

much as Panama City, the capital of Panama.

Lying on the Pacific Ocean adjacent to the

southern entrance to the country’s famous

canal, Panama City has been a center of trade

for five centuries. It is the oldest continuously

inhabited city on the Pacific coast of the Amer-

icas, and is now one of the region’s most prom-

inent commercial centers, having been referred

to as a “Tropical Manhattan” and a “Singapore

for Central America” in the popular media.

Panama City’s long history of international

trade began in 1519 with the establishment of

a Spanish colonial outpost from which mis-

sions to what are today Peru and Ecuador

could be launched. From the outset, the city’s

role was trade-based, initially mediating flows

of gold and silver from the New World. The

city’s contemporary history began with the

completion of the Panama Canal in 1914,

which established a U.S. presence in Panama

to administer the canal and a strip of land on

either side known as the Canal Zone. Panama

City was located on the edge of the zone, and

much of the city’s infrastructure was built

by the U.S. government. In 1979, the Canal

Zone was abolished, and in 1999 the canal was

finally turned over to Panama.

While the onset of free-market econom-

ics and globalization was actively resisted

elsewhere in the region (notably Cuba and

Nicaragua), Panama embraced free trade

through the establishment of two large free-

trade zones, the adoption of the U.S. dollar as

its official currency, and the extension of tax

concessions to firms relocating to the coun-

try. These days, Panama City is a prosperous

national capital and one of the region’s most

economically bouyant cities. It is home to

over 90 internationally oriented banks, serves

as regional headquarters for several large mul-

tinational corporations and nongovernmental

Distinctive Cities 125

organizations (notably the UN), and is rapidly

emerging into the status of a true World City

(Figure 3.13). By virtue of its relative loca-

tion, the city is a major shipping and logistics

center, with 4 percent of global trade pass-

ing through the canal, and nearly a quarter

of the world’s ships registered in Panama in

terms of deadweight tonnage. Panama City is

also a regional shopping hub, attracting many

people from surrounding countries (notably

Colombia and Venezuela) to its mega malls.

Albrook Mall—which was built on a former

U.S. Air Force Base—is the largest mall in the

Americas, and the Multiplaza Mall is stuffed

with luxury boutiques. Despite the sharp

social divides between the city’s rich and

poor, high-end development continues with

the recent completion of the 70-story Trump

Ocean Club and Central America’s first

Waldorf Astoria hotel, and the gentrification of

the city’s historic Casco Antiguo quarter (Fig-

ure 3.14). Materializing now are vast improve-

ments to the Panama Canal that could pump

even more investment capital into Panama

City as longer and wider container ships are

able to navigate easily through the isthmus.

Two threats, however, are also materializing

to challenge Panama’s virtual monopoly on

interoceanic commerce. First, a Hong Kong

firm has been given a contract by Nicaragua

to begin building a canal that would pass

through that country, taking advantage of two

natural lakes. Second, as global warming con-

tinues and the Arctic Ocean becomes more

ice-free, the largest ships may find it profitable

to avoid the canal in favor of what has been

known historically as the Northwest Passage

through Canadian waters.

Figure 3.13 the fishing docks and the skyscrapers of Panama City reveal traditional and emerging economic geographies. Source: Photo by thomas Sigler.

126 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

San Juan: American City Under Stress

San Juan, Puerto Rico, serves as capital of

the world’s most populous dependency. The

island is not an independent state, but a U.S.

territory. While most other dependencies

in the Caribbean are but small islands with

small populations (e.g., Montserrat), Puerto

Rico has 3.5 million people, all of whom are

citizens of the United States. They travel back

and forth between the island and the main-

land (particularly New York City and Phila-

delphia) at will. One would think, therefore,

that the island’s primate city, San Juan, would

set the pace for urban well-being in the region.

Instead, the island’s governor in 2015 declared

Puerto Rico to be essentially bankrupt, unable

to pay its bills. Despite serving as the original

offshore location for U.S. firms (led by Maid-

enform) seeking cheap labor, the island has

lost its comparative advantage in the labor

market to other less developed parts of the

world. So far, nothing has emerged to sustain

the island’s economic growth, even though its

pharmaceutical industry is one of the world’s

largest and most sophisticated. Even tourism

lags behind many other Caribbean destina-

tions and must now face new competition

from Cuba.

San Juan is the hub of Puerto Rico. The city

is situated astride a large bay on the north-

ern (Atlantic) coast of the island. An elevated

promontory of fresh breezes offers an ample

view of sea and land. San Juan played a prime

role in the geopolitical scheme of the Spanish

conquest. More than a port, it was the key to

the Americas’ front door. The early settlement

consisted of agglomerations gathered around

churches and government buildings that

functioned as emblematic landmarks, consist-

ent with the Law of the Indies (Figure 3.15).

Sketches from 1625 show a somewhat devel-

oped, but still incomplete, rectilinear urban

outline with a rectilinear grid and central

plaza. Change came during the following

Figure 3.14 the Casco Antiguo quarter in Panama City is currently undergoing the process of gentrification. Source: Photo by thomas Sigler.

Distinctive Cities 127

century, when San Juan turned into a care-

lessly urbanized village. The poor barrios

became more concentrated, first on San Juan’s

periphery. Eventually, as the terrain occupied

by self-built housing became saturated, many

poor built their humble bohíos (straw huts)

and houses in the urban center itself.

The nineteenth century was definitive for

the construction of San Juan and the island.

It saw the formation of a unique Puerto Rican

identity and national consciousness. San

Juan reached its highest level of urbaniza-

tion, becoming a neoclassic urban settlement

and a center of distribution and marketing as

agriculture, commerce, and industry expe-

rienced vigorous growth. San Juan benefited

greatly from these economic developments;

the wealthy were able to replace their wooden

houses with stone ones, many of them mul-

tistoried, promoting urban densification. The

improved economy attracted more people to

the city, and, by the early nineteenth century,

the poor barrios were disappearing to make

space for new public works, for speculative

residences, and for wealthier families. By the

end of the century, the poor barrios inside the

walls had been eliminated, private construc-

tion had become more common, and San

Juan, limited by its walls, was overcrowded.

The interior patios that served as orchards

and gardens were occupied, and people began

building on the roofs of existing buildings,

beginning a process of vertical growth. Rooms

on the first floors of residences were subdi-

vided; the few remaining internal open spaces

and the streets became places of domestic

chores, artisanal jobs, and socialization. The

city became dense, messy, unruly, and unhy-

gienic. Poor living conditions included pests,

illnesses, high rents, hunger, work insecurity,

Figure 3.15 the Plaza de Armas in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is now used not for drilling troops but for enhancing urban life. Fountains are common components of plazas in Spanish cities. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

128 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

political tensions, and crime. Several wealthy

families decided to move their residences

outside the walls, a trend that would even-

tually transform San Juan. Nearby hills that

had previously been considered impregnable

due to their topography were occupied by

new settlements. The urban profile, previ-

ously dominated by church domes and bell

towers, and military structures, showed the

presence of new private capital with the addi-

tion of the Territorial and Agricultural Bank.

Despite other towns existing in the interior of

the island, San Juan maintained its supremacy,

even though it had left behind its role as Gate-

way to the Americas.

With the U.S. takeover of Puerto Rico in

1898, San Juan gained even more importance

as a commercial, political, and economic

center. New tourism developed, boosting the

proliferation of small hotels. Industrial com-

plexes took form outside the walls of the old

city, opening the way for urbanization along

the Central Road, which connected San Juan

to the interior and also leading to the growth

of poor barrios. Between 1899 and 1910, San-

turce, the capital city’s barrio with the most

area, tripled its population.

Urban developments of the early twenti-

eth century were pivotal in the history of San

Juan and the island. Schools began to operate

in English, medical centers were built on the

urban fringe, and new water, sewage, and elec-

tric power systems were installed. A boom in

private development accompanied the public

works. The construction of modern residences

for the wealthy outside the old city utilized the

services of local, and recently arrived, archi-

tects. Still, despite the economic bonanza,

overcrowding continued.

With the Americans also came the suburb.

The first suburb in San Juan was made pos-

sible by a streetcar network and was aimed at

the wealthier classes. Plots of land were sold

to private individuals, and houses of several

styles brought from the U.S. mainland—cha-

lets, bungalows, and cottages—were offered

as possible options. Situated on ample plots

surrounded by gardens, wealthy families of

Puerto Rico soon preferred this type of sub-

urban residence. Several plots were reserved

for civic, institutional, and touristic uses. This

was the beginning of San Juan’s, and eventu-

ally Puerto Rico’s, suburban landscape.

URbAN CHALLENGES

Shifting Patterns of City Growth

Some of Middle America’s and the Caribbe-

an’s largest metropolises, particularly those in

Mexico, reveal slowing rates of urban growth

that can be attributed to both the demographic

transition and a decline in rural-to-urban

migration. Nevertheless, these metropolitan

expanses increasingly spread out well beyond

their original limits. As a result, the urban set-

tlement has become more dispersed and cities

increasingly encroach on the adjacent coun-

tryside. Urbanization has spatially, economi-

cally, and socially incorporated many smaller

towns and cities in this process. Guadalajara,

Puebla, and Mexico City in Mexico, San José

in Costa Rica, and Guatemala City reflect this

process. Tools of urban and regional planning

are needed to manage this level of urbaniza-

tion. Despite a population loss or “hollowing

out” of the city center in these metropolises,

the capital city continues to dominate in most

countries.

Mid-size cities, on the other hand, have

maintained an impressive rate of population

growth. They offer new promise for job crea-

tion and enhanced quality of life as opposed

to the very large cities. Nevertheless, urban

Urban Challenges 129

planners and administrators in these cities

will be challenged to avoid replicating the

problems that have plagued larger metropoli-

tan areas. The viability of intermediate-sized

cities will depend mainly on their economies,

including the degree of integration at the

global scale, the type of articulation that they

maintain at the national and regional level,

and the extent to which they can tap into their

comparative advantages.

Social and Spatial Segregation

Social and geographic segregation in the

region’s cities has deepened and is a serious

problem. Demand for exclusive high-income

communities often leads to displacement of

poor groups from targeted urban neighbor-

hoods. Public-housing projects concentrate at

the city’s edge because of lower land values. In

turn, this exacerbates social and spatial segre-

gation. High-income groups increasingly iso-

late themselves defensively in limited-access

or gated communities that feature costly

houses; attractive retail, entertainment, and

recreational facilities; and proximity to work,

school, and other amenities. Houses of the

poor households continue to occupy precari-

ous locations on remote and marginal lands

near landfills, utility plants, factories, water-

treatment plants, flood plains, and on steep

terrain (Figure 3.16).

Natural Disasters and Vulnerable Cities

Natural disasters compound regional poverty.

Active earthquake faults run through Mexico,

Central America, and the Caribbean, and

active volcanoes line these fault zones, except

in the Greater Antilles. Most of the region

experiences periodic intense rainfall, tropical

cyclones, and sometimes severe hurricanes.

The steep, unstable slopes of the area’s moun-

tains encourage floods and mass landslides,

especially when stripped of their natural vege-

tation under pressure of urbanization. Natural

disasters such as hurricanes merely exacerbate

these conditions.

Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti,

serves as an illustration. The city is clearly in

harm’s way. It lies in the middle of the Car-

ibbean hurricane belt, on the edge of the

Enriquillo-Plantain Garden Fault zone, and

at the base of the steep Massif de la Selle. As

Port-au-Prince’s population exploded after

World War II, shacks and poorly built cin-

der-block houses spread beyond the city’s

traditional boundaries onto rapidly growing

coastal mudflats, urban washes, and the slopes

of Morne l’Hôpital, the mountain that looms

directly behind the city. Until 2010, flooding

and landslides were the most common risks;

even normal storms sometimes caused deadly

floods along the city’s crowded ravines.

These disasters were forgotten, however,

in the massive earthquake of January 12,

2010, which killed more than 200,000 people

and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

Satellite images of Port-au-Prince in 2010

illustrate some of the extensive destruction

and displacement caused by the 7.0 magni-

tude quake, which was made much worse by

the instability of the urban infrastructure.

The ornate presidential palace, reminis-

cent of French colonial times, collapsed; as

did many other buildings, displacing thou-

sands of people to tent camps like the one

that took shape in the former military air-

port just north of the city center (Figures

3.17 and 3.18). Such camps, conspicuous for

their blue tarps, popped up anywhere space

was available: vacant lots, parks, roadsides,

and even a golf course. One of the most con-

spicuous camps, perhaps symbolic of the

130 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

continuing plight of the refugees, is right

across the street from the destroyed presi-

dential palace.

Port-au-Prince is not unique, but rather an

extreme example of how natural and human

disaster work together in Latin American and

Caribbean cities. Nature presents risks, but

cities amplify them by destabilizing slopes,

by exacerbating flood peaks, by shunting the

poor onto flood plains, and by encouraging

construction of high-density homes willy-

nilly on every available hillside. In Middle

America and the Caribbean, poverty and

vulnerability are intimately intertwined with

natural hazard.

Early warning systems, capable manage-

ment, and institutional and political develop-

ment are fundamental steps in dealing with

emergency preparedness and rebuilding in

cities throughout Middle America and the

Caribbean. Strong political will is needed to

tackle the problems affecting the daily lives of

people living in cities throughout the region,

in keeping with twenty-first century goals of

economic development through environmen-

tal sustainability.

Figure 3.16 two aerial views of shantytowns (bidonvilles) in low-lying areas just north of the Port-au-Prince, haiti city center. Flooding occurred in these areas after hurricane noel struck the island of hispaniola on october 29–31, 2007. the storm claimed at least 30 lives in the dominican Republic and 20 in haiti. Source: Photo by Joseph L. Scarpaci.

Urban Challenges 131

Figure 3.17 Former military airport north of Port-au-Prince city center, July 2009, six months before January 2010 earthquake. Source: Google Earth.

Figure 3.18 tent camp at former military airport north of Port-au-Prince city center, november 2010, ten months after January 2010 earthquake. Source: Google Earth.

132 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Managing Flows: Tourism

and Drug Trafficking

Globalization tends to reduce barriers for

cross-border trade and cash flow, uphold pri-

vate property and bank secrecy, and facilitate

drug trade in popular tourist destinations.

The Caribbean, a region close to the Andean

region of South America, where 90 percent

of the world’s cocaine is produced, and the

United States, a major market in the region,

fits the profile of a locale where tourism and

drugs intersect. The geography of the region

is conducive to large-scale drug trafficking.

The larger islands and mainland countries of

Belize, Jamaica, Guyana, Dominican Republic,

and Haiti provide remote hinterlands neces-

sary to shelter trafficking activities, whereas

smaller, archipelagic states like Puerto Rico,

Grenada, the U.S. Virgin Islands, St. Vin-

cent, and the Grenadines provide numerous

unguarded entry and exit points for narcot-

ics transport. According to Interpol statistics,

drug offenses are positively related not only to

population density but also to visitor density.

As cities develop their tourist industries, they

must also guard against allowing conditions to

emerge that are conducive to drug activity.

The geopolitical situation of Puerto Rico

and the U.S. Virgin Islands make them ideal

transshipment points for drugs to the U.S.

mainland because, once inside the territories,

packages do not need to clear customs. The

Dominican Republic presents a complemen-

tary situation. Situated close to Puerto Rico,

its coasts are poorly monitored; its interior is

mountainous and underpopulated; it has sig-

nificant poverty levels and poorly paid, under-

equipped security forces. These factors make

it an attractive route to surreptitiously move

narcotics from northern South America to

Puerto Rico, the closest U.S. territory.

Gated Communities

Though many of the region’s cities were

founded within walled fortresses, modern

gated communities in Middle America had

their origins in the 1990s. The emergence of

gated communities was motivated by a set of

common reasons: fear of crime, desire to con-

trol environment, interest in private govern-

ance by the higher-income classes, and greater

control over the urban development process

by private developers. Increasingly, large tracts

of peri-urban, family-owned land are being

developed as master-planned estates, targeting

a range of social classes. This pattern of urban

development in the region could be character-

ized as “enclave urbanism”—a term indicating

an urban structure in which social life is geo-

graphically fragmented. Armed conflict and

everyday violence in the region have led to a

proliferation of live-in gated communities,

increasing the “new middle class” whose con-

sumption preferences are modeled on those of

the educated and landed elite.

Gated communities are often fenced- or

walled-off with only one or two main points

of entry. More affluent gated communities

have armed security. In addition to houses,

they usually contain community amenities

such as swimming pools and playgrounds. In

many cities, high-rise buildings have turned

into “vertical” gated communities, with con-

trolled access entry and parking. The same

phenomenon has penetrated commercial

nodes, which have over time migrated from

pedestrian-access streets in city centers to pri-

vately run shopping malls. Gated communi-

ties have been widely criticized for privatizing

social life, interrupting traffic flow, and divid-

ing previously interconnected neighborhoods,

but also of being instruments of socioeco-

nomic, and even racial, segregation.

Prospects for the Future 133

Although in most instances, this modern

“enclosure movement” has been self-imposed

by its inhabitants, there are cases in which the

government has gated a particular community

in its public-housing projects, as in the city

of Ponce in south-central Puerto Rico. Four

neighboring communities exist in Ponce; two

are poor and two are wealthy. Of the two poor

communities (Dr. Pila and Gándara), only

Dr. Pila is gated. Of the two wealthier commu-

nities (Alhambra and Extensión Alhambra),

only Extensión Alhambra is gated. Dr. Pila is a

government-housing project whose residents

did not ask to be gated but were gated by the

government. They compare their community

to a prison, or worse a zoo. Residents feel iso-

lated, not only from the outside world, but

also from each other because several inner sec-

tions of the project are also walled-off, which

hinders community-building behavior. After

further examination, the Dr. Pila project did

not improve the community. It was perceived

as an eyesore that would drive away tourism

(an important source of revenue in the area).

In contrast, the wealthier (and private)

Extensión Alhambra’s gates are self-imposed;

its residents agreed to it and feel it has

improved their safety. The Alhambra suburb

(nongated, wealthy) is one of the first subur-

ban neighborhoods in Ponce and has been

unable to cordon itself off. Its residents per-

ceive that this has changed the character of

the community since they have had to secure

their individual homes. Interestingly, criminal

acts against household gardens—symbols, it

seems, of wealth, civilization, and class—upset

these residents more than actual damage or

theft.

Critics claim that the gating of public

housing has converted relatively harmless, but

already stigmatized, communities into ghet-

tos making them even more stigmatized and

dreaded. Gating has also disrupted the func-

tion of the city as a place where strangers can

meet freely and learn from each other. It would

seem that Puerto Rico’s social experiment,

meant to bring the poorer and the wealthier

together in communities, has instead solidi-

fied and normalized urban inequality. The

gate has become a symbol of social respect-

ability to some and a palpable reminder of

contempt that criminalizes others.

PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE

Economic Strengths and Vulnerability

Industrial development has spurred urbani-

zation in Middle America. Initiated by the

government-led industrialization policies

leveraging relatively low labor costs, industry

has been catalyzed most recently by free-trade

agreements such as the North American Free

Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Domini-

can Republic-Central America Free Trade

Agreement (CAFTA-DR). Many of the poorer

cities of the region are able to attract light

manufacturing companies to produce textiles

since the cities can offer them a large supply of

low-skilled laborers, recent migrants from the

countryside. A few of the more affluent met-

ropolitan regions in politically stable coun-

tries are competing for more lucrative types of

manufacturing investment than textiles. Cities

in Mexico such as Monterrey, Mexico City, and

Guadalajara have been able to attract high-end

industrial corporations, and recently some cit-

ies in Central America and the Caribbean have

been able to leverage their geographic assets to

boost their economic global connections.

Costa Rica is an interesting case in point. It

is famously peaceful and politically stable with

the core of its labor force concentrated in the

greater San José region. In 1998, after studying

134 CITIES OF MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

sites in Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, Argen-

tina, Chile, and Mexico, Intel chose to build a

microprocessor plant in Alajuela, Costa Rica

within the metropolitan area. Intel micro-

processing chips are found in over 80 percent

of the personal computers sold, and that vol-

ume of business became the leading driver in

transforming Costa Rica’s economic focus,

propelling it into the globalized economy on

more equal footing with the consumers of

its electronic goods. Intel’s investment in the

San José metropolitan area created a climate

that earned the trust of other investors and

strengthened the overall business community.

Intel’s addition to Costa Rica also has affected

education, business practices, and other for-

eign investments. Corporate call centers, U.S.

medical-supply centers, and major banks are

investing in Costa Rica as well.

Ironically, economic globalization creates

vulnerabilities for both host countries and

transnational corporations located there. In

2014, Intel announced that it would be leaving

its Costa Rican microprocessor plant for lower-

wage sites in Asia. With the rapid proliferation

of smartphones and tablets, the demand for

personal computers and the microprocessors

in them has declined. Although some fear the

loss of an important employer in San José, the

number of workers laid off is relatively small.

Costa Rica has moved on; it is investing in

renewable, green energy. No fossil fuels have

been used to generate electricity since 2014.

Now the entire country is running on renew-

able, green energy and Costa Rica is garner-

ing international attention. The infrastructure

that Costa Rican cities have in place, coupled

with the attention for being a leader in renew-

able energy, will likely attract new businesses

and the country will likely survive the loss of

one (albeit important) company.

While cities such as Monterrey and Guada-

lajara (Mexico) also attract comparable eco-

nomic investments, many cities do not have

the infrastructure and labor pool to attract

high-end industry. Many of these cities are

textile production centers such as Tegucigalpa

(Honduras) and San Salvador (El Salvador).

San Salvador’s economic growth has been

stymied by political upheaval and civil war,

which has led to the loss of many manufactur-

ing facilities, forestalling investment by many

capital-intensive industries with the exception

of textiles. Port-au-Prince, another city with a

history of political chaos and limited opportu-

nities for global linkages, is currently working

on redeveloping its apparel export industry

after the disastrous earthquake of 2010. In an

effort to promote investment, the government

has created a streamlined electronic process to

reduce the time needed to register a limited

company in Haiti to 10 days.

Cities in Middle America and the Carib-

bean are neither at the center of global trade

nor on the periphery. As the twenty-first

century unfolds, many of the region’s cities

will encounter possibilities that are currently

unimaginable. Because Middle American cit-

ies are critically important to the national

economies of the region, prospects for sus-

tainable development may well hinge on the

extent to which governments throughout the

region can insulate important centers from

economic vulnerability while concurrently

embracing global opportunities.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Brothers, T. S., J. Wilson, and O. Dwyer. 2008. Car-

ibbean Landscapes: An Interpretive Atlas. Coco-

nut Beach, FL: Caribbean Studies Press. Surveys

SUGGESTED READINGS

Browder, J., and B. Godfrey. 1997. Rainforest Cities:

Urbanization, Development, and Globalization

of the Brazilian Amazon. New York: Columbia

University Press. Comparative study of urbani-

zation in Amazônia.

Goldstein, D. 2012. Outlawed: Between Security

and Rights in a Bolivian City. Durham, NC:

Duke University Press. Reveals how indigenous

residents of marginal neighborhoods in Cocha-

bamba, Bolivia balance security with rights

through “community justice.”

Goldstein, D. 2003. Laughter Out of Place:

Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio

Shantytown, Berkeley: University of California

Press. Paints an intimate ethnographic portrait

of women in Rio’s favelas who use black-humor

storytelling to deal with tragedy.

Holston, J. 2009. Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions

of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. Prince-

ton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Explores

struggles for homeownership and service provi-

sion of residents of São Paulo’s peripheries.

Kohl, B., and L. Farthing. 2012. From the Mines to

the Streets. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Draws on the life of a Bolivian political activist

to convey how profoundly political systems can

affect individual life.

Mann, C. 2006. 1491: New Revelations of the Ameri-

cas before Columbus. New York: Knopf. Reveals

that large indigenous populations actively

shaped their environments through early agri-

culture, trade, and urbanization.

McGuirk, J. 2014. Radical Cities: Across Latin Amer-

ica in Search of a New Architecture. New York:

Verso. Features Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires,

Caracas, Bogotá, Medellín, Lima, Santiago

(Chile), and Tijuana, among other cities.

Perlman, J. 2010. Favela: Four Decades of Living on

the Edge in Rio de Janeiro. Oxford: Oxford Uni-

versity Press. Restudy of author’s earlier work

finds that most favela residents are more pes-

simistic about prospects for social mobility and

fearful of violence in their communities.

Scarpaci, J. 2005. Plazas and Barrios: Heritage Tour-

ism and Globalization in the Latin American

Centro Histórico. Tucson: University of Arizona

Press. Examines local experiences of historic

preservation and heritage tourism in nine Latin

American cities.

Ward, P., E. Jiménez Huerta, and M. DiVirgilio.

2015. Housing Policy in Latin American Cities:

A New Generation of Strategies and Approaches

for 2016 UN Habitat III. New York: Routledge.

Considers policy choices in dealing with the

“first suburbs,” or squatter settlements, that

came to surround Latin American cities.

Figure 5.1 Major Urban Agglomerations of Europe. Source: United nations, department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population division (2014), World Urbanization Prospects: 2014 Revision, http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/.

Cities of Europe LINDA MCCARTHY AND COREY JOHNSON

KEy URbAN FACTS

Total Population 547 million

Percent Urban Population 73%

Total Urban Population 402 million

Most Urbanized Countries Belgium (98%)

(not including microstates) Netherlands (90%)

Luxembourg (90%)

Least Urbanized Countries Bosnia-Herzegovina (40%)

Moldova (45%)

Slovenia (50%)

Number of Megacities 2

Number of Cities of More Than 1 Million 41

Three Largest Cities Paris (11 m), London (10 m), Madrid (6 m)

Number of World Cities (Highest Ranking) 30 (London, Paris, Milan, Frankfurt,

Madrid, Amsterdam, Brussels)

Global City London

KEy CHAPTER THEMES

1. Europe is integral to the study of urban development because of its long history and the

extraordinary impact of European urban influences worldwide.

2. Europe’s urban system is dominated by the world cities of London and Paris, the result of

their dominance within former vast empires.

3. Europe has quite a few cities larger than 1 million people, but in general these cities are

growing more slowly than those in other world regions.

4. European cities exhibit great diversity in style and form, the result of a long history and

complex mix of people and cultures.

188 CITIES OF EUROPE

5. The demand for low-wage labor in western Europe has meant that immigration has gradu-

ally produced new cultural mixes in the largest cities.

6. Complex land-use patterns within European cities have certain similarities but also impor-

tant differences when compared with U.S. cities.

7. Cities within the European Union form part of an international trading bloc that contains

more than half a billion people with a combined gross national income greater than that of

the United States.

8. Since the end of the Cold War, Communist-era cities have undergone radical transforma-

tions, bringing them closer to their western European counterparts.

9. Europe became the birthplace of modern city planning as it reacted to the drawbacks of

uncontrolled growth during the industrial period.

10. Sustainable urban management, including a search for best practices in water management,

is increasingly becoming a priority in Europe.

Europe is a vital focus in the study of cities for

a number of reasons (Figure 5.1). First, Euro-

pean cities are interesting in their own right;

indeed, the great ones, like London, Paris, and

Rome, come to mind when we think about

Europe or plan a trip there. Second, because

European cities are quite old, they reflect the

history of many different economic, politi-

cal, social, and technological changes. Third,

a study of European urbanization then is

made all the more exciting by the tumultu-

ous changes since the fall of Communism.

Fourth, as a hearth area of urban design,

European cities are essential to understand

the urban landscapes elsewhere. Fifth, Euro-

pean cities are part of global networks that

they directly impact and are impacted by. A

global city, such as London, is an important

node in networks of capital investment, cor-

porate decision making, and transportation

infrastructure.

History, even recent history, has strongly

conditioned the character of European cities.

During the period of Soviet-style totalitarian

governments after World War II, for instance,

cities in much of central and eastern Europe

diverged in form and function from their

western European counterparts. In the early

twenty-first century, the once-pronounced

legacies of Communism and totalitarianism

on urban landscapes have in many places

given way to gleaming skyscrapers and subdi-

visions, although in others, socialist-era apart-

ment blocks and factories still predominate.

Today, cities within the European Union (EU)

fall under a single economic and political

framework that affects the living and working

conditions of urban residents. The predomi-

nantly urban European Union contains more

than half a billion people with a combined

gross national income greater than that of the

United States. Yet, while cities across Europe

share many characteristics, including bustling

city centers and compact form, differences

remain, in land-use patterns, quality of urban

infrastructure, and city planning and architec-

tural design, to name a few.

Europe is more than 70 percent urban, but

there is no continent-wide definition for a city.

National definitions range from a minimum

population of 200 in Norway and Sweden

to 20,000 in Greece and Spain. Nevertheless,

most Europeans live and work in urban areas,

and Europe’s urban population of about 400

Historical Perspectives on Urban Development 189

million represents approximately 10 percent

of the world’s urban population.

Just as there is disagreement over what

constitutes an urban population, there is also

disagreement about how to define Europe as a

region. A look at a world map shows that the

region labeled “Europe” is, physically speak-

ing, a peninsula of a much larger region, Eura-

sia. As sensitive debates illustrate, including

political disagreements in Brussels about the

accession of Turkey to the EU or Georgia to

NATO, a definition of Europe as a region is

not settled. Geographic labels such as those in

the chapter titles of this book are more con-

venience than objective truth. Indeed, Europe

is much more a cultural idea than a neatly

bounded region on a map.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON URbAN DEVELOPMENT

One of the exciting things about studying

cities is learning to decipher the landscapes

of bygone eras—their streets, buildings, and

monuments. An historical perspective is nec-

essary for understanding the evolution of the

European urban system because the same

forces that modify the built environment of

individual cities also determined where cities

were initially located and how they flourished

or declined.

Classical Period: 800 bce to 450 ce

In the ancient Greek realm, independent city-

states were located along coastlines, reflecting

their sea-faring culture, and on easily defenda-

ble hill sites, reflecting the need for security in

turbulent times. As cities like Athens, Sparta,

and Corinth grew, bands of colonists left to

establish cities around the Aegean and Black

Seas, along the Adriatic Sea, and as far west as

present-day Spain.

Greek towns shared common traits. At the

center was the acropolis, or high city, which

contained temples and municipal buildings.

Below the high city, in the “sub-urbs,” were the

agora (market place), more government build-

ings, temples, military quarters, and residen-

tial neighborhoods. These cities were laid out

in a north-south grid pattern and surrounded

by defensive walls. Greek cities, though,

remained quite small by today’s standards.

Although Athens probably reached a popula-

tion of about 150,000, most cities ranged from

10,000 to 15,000, while the majority had only

a few thousand people.

Greek civilization was displaced during the

second and first centuries bce by the expand-

ing Roman Empire. Although the structure

of Roman cities (like Pompeii) was similar

to their Greek predecessors—including the

grid system, central market place (forum),

and defensive walls—there were important

differences. Roman cities were established

mainly inland and operated as command-

and-control centers. They functioned within

a well-organized empire and were designed

along hierarchical lines, reflecting the rigid

Roman class system. By the second century ce,

the Roman Empire extended over the south-

ern half of Europe (Figure 5.2). Roman cit-

ies, though, remained fairly small. Although

Rome’s population probably reached the mil-

lion mark by 100 ce, large Roman towns con-

tained only about 15,000–30,000 inhabitants,

while most had fewer than 5,000.

The vacuum created by the collapse of the

Roman Empire in the fifth century was filled

by various tribes who greatly disrupted urban

life. Most urban centers became depopulated,

and their crumbling buildings were a source

of building materials for rural residents. At the

190 CITIES OF EUROPE

same time, the constant threat of attack spurred

the construction of castles and other fortifica-

tions, even in some parts of Europe that had pre-

viously seen more limited urban development.

Medieval Period: 450–1300 ce

Feudalism curtailed the development of cit-

ies during the early medieval period because

its highly structured nature favored the self-

sufficient country manor as the basic building

block of settlement. The only urban places to

thrive or even survive were religious, trade,

or defensive centers. With the resumption of

long-distance trade after 1000, many medi-

eval towns grew along commercial routes that

crisscrossed Europe (Figure 5.3).

At the center of the typical medieval city

was the town square. In larger cities, this

market square was surrounded by the main

cathedral or church, town hall, guildhalls, pal-

aces, and houses of prominent citizens. Close

to the center were streets or districts that spe-

cialized in particular functions, such as bank-

ing, furniture, or metalwork. The streets and

alleys were quite narrow. The enclosing walls

often had water-filled moats to enhance defen-

sive capability. Finally, medieval towns were

decidedly unhygienic. Given the cramped

conditions, lack of air circulation, poor sani-

tation, and absence of waste treatment, it is lit-

tle wonder that the Black Death (1347–1351)

progressed so easily, killing one-third of the

people in urban Europe.

Most development during the medieval

period was in the western and southern parts

of Europe that had a Roman heritage of city-

building. Urban development was impeded

in southeastern Europe where the Byzan-

tine Empire was in control, whereas much of

Figure 5.2 Roman Cities in Europe, second century ce. Source: Adapted from n. J. G. Pounds, An Historical Geography of Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 56. Reprinted with permission.

Historical Perspectives on Urban Development 191

western and northern Europe remained in a

pre-urban state. Conversely, the Moors, who

spread into Iberia in the early 700s, founded

or restored many cities and elevated urban

culture in what would become Spain. At the

close of the medieval period, Europe had

about 3,000 cities, most of which had fewer

than 2,000 people; only Milan, Venice, Genoa,

Florence, Paris, Córdoba, and Constantinople

(now Istanbul) had more than 50,000.

Renaissance and Baroque

Periods: 1300–1760 ce

The Renaissance, beginning ca. 1300, was

marked by significant changes: in the economy

(from feudalism to merchant capitalism), in

politics (rise of the nation-state), and in art

and philosophy. Beginning in Florence in the

1300s, these changes spread throughout west-

ern Europe; conversely, feudalism was still

strong in eastern parts of Europe; southeast-

ern Europe fell under the grip of the Ottoman

Empire; while much of northern Europe

remained outside the progressive influences

of the Renaissance.

Spurred by heightened demand for such

luxury goods as spices and silks introduced

during the time of the Crusades (1095–

1291 ce), merchants greatly expanded the

trade functions of Mediterranean cities. Later,

the economic center of gravity shifted to the

Figure 5.3 Ljubljana, Slovenia, took advantage of the collapse of Communist rule to bring out the medieval elements of the city’s center, including the dragon bridge and St. nicholas Cathedral. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

192 CITIES OF EUROPE

port towns along the North and Baltic Seas

in conjunction with the Hanseatic League,

an association of towns with the goal of pro-

moting trade. Remarkably, these networks of

trading cities presaged contemporary trading

patterns amid globalization. At the height of

the Hanseatic League, cities such as Lübeck,

Hamburg, and Visby were highly integrated

with each other through mercantile trade.

Today, a global city such as London is more

functionally networked with distant world

cities, such as New York and Tokyo, than it is

with much closer cities with dissimilar eco-

nomic and political profiles.

Changes in the political system, particularly

the growth of nation-states, had an impact on

European urbanization. Best exemplified by

Paris and Madrid, the central location of these

capitals aided the process of political consoli-

dation; in turn, both cities were given further

impetus for growth by their administrative

functions and enhanced status at the vor-

tex of social, economic, and political change.

Similarly, regional centers and seats of county

government emerged to fill out expanding

national urban networks.

The overall appearance and structure of

cities changed because of the new forms of art,

architecture, and urban planning. Especially in

capital cities, flourishing artistic and architec-

tural expression brought about greater use of

sculpture in public areas, other urban beauti-

fication such as fountains, and embellishment

on monumental buildings, which reached a

peak during the baroque period (1550–1760).

Changes during this period were not just

cosmetic. After the introduction of gunpow-

der, massive city walls became obsolete. In

many cities, the walls were removed to make

space for wide boulevards that were becoming

fashionable. Also, the accumulation of great

wealth by the nobility led to opulent palaces

being built in many cities, notably Vienna and

Paris, and to replanning parts of cities. Begin-

ning in Paris, many districts containing nar-

row medieval streets were torn down to make

way for wide boulevards that radiated outward

and connected the various palaces and formal

gardens laid out for the nobility. The empha-

sis on the control of visual perspective and

the rediscovery of classical models of design

marked a significant departure from medieval

times. Overall, the urban network remained

largely unchanged, although individual cities

had grown larger.

Industrial Period: 1760–1945 ce

Large-scale manufacturing began in the Eng-

lish Midlands in the mid-1700s and spread

to Belgium, France, and Germany, reach-

ing Hungary by the 1870s. New factories,

making a range of products from textiles to

machine tools, changed the structure of cities

and led to massive rural-to-urban-migration

(Figure 5.4).

In many cities, whole districts of factories

emerged, easily identified by their belching

smokestacks, deafening machinery, and gen-

eral hustle-and-bustle of industrial activity.

By the mid-nineteenth century, trains trans-

ported much of the industrial inputs and

products, so new tracks, stations, and rail traf-

fic began to play a significant role in urban

development. Public transportation—trolleys

and subway systems—also modified the look

and functioning of cities. Large tracts of often

cramped worker housing were constructed.

The industrial period also heralded the devel-

opment of the CBD with its office buildings

and corporate headquarters.

The growth of cities closely mirrored the

spread of industrialization. By the mid-1800s,

industrial towns in the English Midlands

Urban Patterns across Europe 193

(notably Birmingham) and Scotland (notably

Glasgow) had grown to more than 100,000

inhabitants and the proportion of the popu-

lation living in cities larger than 10,000 had

risen to 30 percent. The growth of indus-

trial cities in France, Belgium, and Germany

reflected the same pattern. In contrast, expan-

sion of the industrial sectors in southeastern

Europe did not occur until the early- or mid-

twentieth century.

URbAN PATTERNS ACROSS EUROPE

A glance at the map of Europe shows the

impact of central place theory on the size

and spacing of urban places. In southern

Germany, the largest metropolitan areas—

Frankfurt, Munich, and Stuttgart—are spaced

about the same distance apart. In Hungary,

centrally located Budapest is ringed by the

regional centers of Debrecen, Miskolc, Szeged,

and Pécs. Of course, political, economic, cul-

tural, environmental, technological, and other

changes can alter the role and rank of a place

within an urban hierarchy. Still, the empirical

observation of rank-size distribution holds

for Belgium, Germany, Italy, Norway, and

Switzerland. In other national urban systems,

a deviation occurs at the top of the hierarchy

to create primacy. Primate cities that are also

national capitals include Athens, Budapest,

Dublin, London, Paris, Reykjavik, Sofia, and

Vienna.

Historically, rural-to-urban migration

has been the most important component of

urban growth, especially during the industrial

period. This form of migration within Europe,

though, has largely ceased. And as birth rates

have fallen considerably in recent decades,

European cities are among the slowest grow-

ing in the world, averaging just 0.2 percent a

Figure 5.4 Much of the coal that fired the industrialization of cities came through the Welsh port of Cardiff. that era is commemorated with public art on the reclaimed waterfront, along with one of the chimerical animals from a bob dylan poem. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

194 CITIES OF EUROPE

year, with most of this growth accounted for

by immigration from abroad.

The cities of Europe, however, have coa-

lesced into conurbations in tandem with the

transportation and communications infra-

structure. Europe now contains about 50

conurbations with more than a million inhab-

itants. The metropolitan regions between Lon-

don and Newcastle form an area of extensive

urbanization in England. Germany’s Rhine-

Ruhr conurbation has a diameter of about 70

miles (110 km) and runs from Düsseldorf and

Duisburg in the west to Dortmund in the east

(Figure 5.5). Of similar diameter is the Rand-

stad, a densely populated horseshoe-shaped

region in the Netherlands that runs from

Utrecht and Amsterdam in the north through

The Hague and Rotterdam in the west, to

Dordrecht in the southeast (Figure 5.6). Only

about 60 miles (100 km) apart, these two con-

urbations may eventually coalesce to become

a dominant European metropolitan core.

Postwar Divergence and Convergence

Western Europe

After World War II, separate urban systems

developed on either side of the Iron Cur-

tain—the boundary that divided Europe into

a capitalist west and Communist east. Cit-

ies in western Europe cultivated connections

with the capitalist world, especially the United

Figure 5.5 the Rhine-Ruhr Conurbation in Germany. Source: Compiled from various sources.

Urban Patterns across Europe 195

Figure 5.6 the Randstad Conurbation of the netherlands. Source: Compiled from various sources.

196 CITIES OF EUROPE

States, whose Marshall Plan funded rebuilding

in cities that had suffered appalling wartime

destruction. The reconstruction effort was

seen as an opportunity to replan bombed-out

urban areas. Some of the most heavily dam-

aged cities, like Rotterdam and Dortmund,

completely redesigned their street systems

for new commercial and industrial buildings

(Figure 5.7). Most cities, including Cologne

and Stuttgart, incorporated the surviving his-

toric structures and medieval street patterns

into their reconstructed city centers. Rouen

and Nuremberg went so far as to rebuild exact

replicas of their destroyed historic buildings.

Rapid economic and demographic growth

fueled remarkable urban growth. Cities of all

sizes grew in residents as well as in extent due

to suburbanization. But this period of remark-

able urban growth began to slow by the early

1970s as widespread economic recessions fol-

lowed the end of the postwar Baby Boom. In

addition, counterurbanization (metropolitan

decentralization) promoted development in

nearby towns and rural areas, while growth

slowed toward the urban core. Peripheral

areas attracted residents and businesses look-

ing for more space and less pollution and

crime. Most city centers lost retail and office

employment to outlying areas. Medium-sized

cities attracted employment in expanding sec-

tors of the economy like information services,

high-tech industries, or modern distribution

activities. These smaller cities at the periphery

of major metropolitan centers had lower rents

and congestion while enjoying nearby trans-

portation routes, airports, universities, and

skilled workers.

Deindustrialization and corporate restruc-

turing contributed to massive job losses

and urban decline in traditional centers of

industry. The jobs created by the relocation

of labor-intensive manufacturing benefited

some urban areas in Ireland, Spain, Portugal,

and Greece. Branch plant operations, however,

Figure 5.7 nation building is a function of every capital city’s landscape. in Amsterdam, a statue says thank you to Queen Wilhelmina, who gave her subjects hope during World War ii. next to the dutch flag is the U.S. flag. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Urban Patterns across Europe 197

are vulnerable to decisions made outside the

area and to company relocations when gov-

ernment tax incentives expire. Since the early

1990s, competition for investment has come

from central and eastern Europe where pro-

duction costs are lower.

During the last few decades, the city centers

have seen quite significant changes as employ-

ment has shifted to professional and business

services such as banking and insurance. New

developments include shiny new high-rise

offices, luxury condos and apartments, and

gentrified neighborhoods with expensive res-

taurants, bars, and boutique stores. In world

cities like London and Paris, the most visible

group of people on the streets of the CBDs

are young professionals chatting on their cell

phones and wearing the latest fashions.

Socialist Urbanization

Following World War II, cities behind the Iron

Curtain developed independently of their

western counterparts. Totalitarian govern-

ments engaged in sweeping reforms that led to

considerable changes to their national urban

systems, which evolved in response to central-

ized planning rather than market forces.

Communist governments had to con-

tend with the pressing need to rebuild cities

left in ruins after the war. The damage sus-

tained by these cities, particularly Dresden,

Berlin, and Warsaw, was more severe than in

western Europe, but subsidies were not avail-

able to Communist bloc cities through the

Marshall Plan. The earliest stage of postwar

economic development involved rapid expan-

sion of heavy industry, particularly iron and

steel, chemicals, and machinery. Coupled

with collectivization and increased mecha-

nization in agriculture, this extensive indus-

trial development soon led to unprecedented

rural-to-urban migration. Levels of urbaniza-

tion rose quickly in conjunction with rising

levels of primacy, severe housing shortages,

insufficient social infrastructure and basic ser-

vices, and environmental degradation.

So, beginning in the mid-1970s, Commu-

nist governments set out to erase the difference

between city and village life by emphasizing

light industry and services, decentralizing pro-

duction from capital and larger cities to smaller

ones, developing transportation networks,

and increasing levels of public infrastructure

and housing in cities. Rural-to-urban migra-

tion slowed significantly. Despite these efforts,

by the fall of Communism, the urban network

in much of central and eastern Europe was still

less developed than in the West.

Post-Socialist Changes

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Commu-

nist governments were toppled, Germany was

reunited, and Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and

the USSR were broken up. Central economic

planning was abandoned in favor of democra-

tization and transformation from socialist to

market economies. The demise of the Soviet

Union opened the way for western investment

to move in and people to move out. Many

countries have since joined the western politi-

cal, economic, and military alliances, includ-

ing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO) and the European Union.

These changes impacted cities and urban

systems in a number of ways. First, city

names that were inspired by revolutionaries,

such as Leninváros (Lenin City) in Hungary

(now Tiszaujvaros) and Karl-Marx-Stadt

in Germany (now Chemnitz) were changed

back to their prewar names or to honor indi-

viduals or events associated with the 1989

revolutions. Statues of Communist and Soviet

198 CITIES OF EUROPE

leaders were removed and some were later put

on display in statue parks or museums like

Memento Park in Budapest. Second, foreign

direct investment flooded in, targeted mainly

at capital cities. This boosted the transition to

capitalism and fueled speculative construction

booms and gleaming, Western-style commer-

cial and residential developments. Warsaw’s

skyline, for example, was once dominated by

the Stalinesque Palace of Culture and Science,

the tallest building in the Eastern Bloc outside

of Moscow. Today, its unmistakable “wedding

cake” architectural style building is dwarfed by

newer steel-and-glass skyscrapers (Figure 5.8).

Third, decentralization gave more authority to

city planners.

More color and neon lights now character-

ize the cities of central and eastern Europe.

Advertising has replaced Communist slogans

on billboards. Shabby, old department stores

have been renovated or replaced by boutiques

and shopping malls. Beggars have appeared, as

well as casinos and night clubs; crime has risen

and congestion is ubiquitous. Social differen-

tiation in housing has increased tremendously.

Democratization and market economies are

erasing the Communist legacy and bringing

these cities closer to their western European

counterparts.

Core-Periphery Model

A core-periphery model is often used to

describe urban patterns in Europe (Figure 5.9).

The dominance of cities and conurbations at

the European core is based on their superior

endowment of factors influencing the loca-

tion of economic activity, such as accessibility

to markets. The largest cities are connected by

the most advanced transportation and com-

munications systems. Labor force quality and

government policies make the core the most

attractive area for modern companies. French

geographer, Roger Brunet, identified the

“Blue Banana,” a curving urban corridor of

high-tech industry and services that includes

London, the Randstad and Rhine-Ruhr con-

urbation, and Milan.

Cities in the core and periphery are linked

in a symbiotic if unequal relationship. Core

cities prosper and maintain their economic

dominance at the expense of the periphery

by capturing flows of migrants, taxes, and

investment in cutting-edge industries such as

high-tech manufacturing and in command-

and-control functions like the headquarters

of transnational corporations (TNCs). At the

other extreme, peripheral cities have more

limited potential for economic development,

and attract tourists and investment in branch

plants from core locations.

The European core, however, has been

shifting to the south and east, to areas of

high-tech industrial growth. Newer core cities

include Munich in Germany, Zürich in Swit-

zerland, Milan in Italy, and Lyon in France.

This southeastward shift intensified after the

fall of the Iron Curtain; people and com-

panies have been attracted to cities such as

Bratislava and Budapest because of the surge

in economic activity, as well as to the region

as a whole due to its relatively low produc-

tion costs. London and Paris, however, have

retained their historic importance because of

their size and established positions as major

national and international cities. The con-

tinued economic strength of the core is rein-

forced by the considerable political control

that comes with the role of the largest cities

as major centers of international decision

making.

European cities are also part of a global

core-periphery model of urbanization. World

cities, such as London, Paris, Frankfurt, and

Urban Patterns across Europe 199

others, are vital nodes in international net-

works of investment capital, business decision

making, and transportation infrastructure,

while other once important centers have

melted into relative oblivion, at least as far as

global processes are concerned. One measure

of this is rents: central Frankfurt’s commer-

cial real estate is in a league with such cities

as Tokyo, Hong Kong, and New York, given its

status as a banking center, while in comparably

Figure 5.8 Warsaw’s skyline, once dominated by the Stalinesque Palace of Culture and Science’s “wedding cake” architectural style, and the tallest building in the Eastern bloc outside of Moscow, is today dwarfed by newer steel-and-glass skyscrapers. Source: Photo by Linda McCarthy.

200 CITIES OF EUROPE

sized cities such as Essen and Dortmund, rents

are dramatically lower.

IMMIGRATION, GLObALIzATION, AND PLANNING

The Challenge of Integrating Immigrants

The rebuilding of western Europe’s urban

infrastructure and industry after World War II

generated strong demand for labor, especially

in the more prosperous countries. In the 1950s

and 1960s, rural-to-urban migration fueled

growth, especially in the largest cities. In addi-

tion, foreign guest workers were brought in to

fill low-wage assembly-line and service-sector

jobs that the more skilled domestic labor force

would not take. Guest workers came from

Mediterranean Europe and former colonies.

Then West Germany attracted immigrants

from Turkey and Yugoslavia; France brought

in workers from northern and western Africa;

and Britain drew on Commonwealth citizens

from the Caribbean, India, and Pakistan.

In the European Union today, about 7 per-

cent—about 35 million—of the people were

Figure 5.9 Europe’s conurbations within the context of Europe’s “blue banana” and core- periphery conceptualizations. Source: Photo by Linda McCarthy.

Immigration, Globalization, and Planning 201

born outside its 28 member countries (Figure

5.10). More than one-third of the foreign-

born immigrants in France are concentrated

in the Paris region, where they represent over

15 percent of the population. Foreign-born

residents from outside the European Union

comprise 15–25 percent of the population in

German cities such as Frankfurt, Stuttgart,

and Munich. More than half the population

of Amsterdam is non-Dutch, being strongly

represented by individuals from Morocco,

Turkey, and Indonesia. In addition to the

demographic data, the presence of recent

immigrant arrivals is reflected in other data

such as the list of most popular baby names

for cities like Brussels or London (Table 5.1)

or in the most popular ethnic food in different

cities across Europe (Table 5.2).

Europe’s aging population coupled with

demand for low-wage labor means that some

jobs will continue to be filled by immigrants.

But there has been an anti-immigrant backlash

by some people, often xenophobic and racist,

against newcomers as well as minorities, such

as the Roma, who have lived in Europe for

centuries. They have been the target of dis-

crimination and persecution, including by the

Nazis who murdered hundreds of thousands

Figure 5.10 the salon de thé (tea house) is a common element of urban landscapes in French-speaking north Africa. As Arab immigrants arrive in brussels, they bring with them their preferences for particular tastes and social settings. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Table 5.1 Top 10 boys’ and Girls’ Names in London

Boys Girls

1. Muhammad Amelia

2. Daniel Olivia

3. Alexander Sophia

4. Mohammed Isabella

5. Joshua Mia

6. Oliver Emily

7. Harry Jessica

8. Samuel Sophie

9. Thomas Ava

10. James Chloe

Source: London Evening Standard, 2014, http://www.standard.

co.uk

202 CITIES OF EUROPE

of Roma. More recently, in a 2009 referendum,

the Swiss voted to ban the construction of

new minarets. Since then, France and Belgium

have passed legislation banning the wearing

of face-covering veils and other conspicuous

religious symbols in public. Most countries

have enacted immigration restrictions. The

contradiction between rising demand for low-

wage labor and an unwillingness to accept

nonnationals has proven quite costly and dan-

gerous, as the weeks of rioting in the largely

Muslim working-class suburbs of Paris amply

demonstrated in 2005.

European and Global Linkages

European cities are part of urban networks

that operate at different spatial scales. Since

1989, cities on either side of the former Iron

Curtain have become more interconnected.

Increasing EU economic and political inte-

gration has influenced the development of

the European urban system. For example, the

removal of national barriers to trade within

the European Union, with the internation-

alization of the European economy, has

encouraged population increase along certain

border regions. Urban growth zones strad-

dle the boundaries between the Netherlands

and Germany, Italy and Switzerland, and the

southern Rhine regions of France, Germany,

and Switzerland.

European cities are linked through trade

and other mechanisms to major urban areas

throughout the world. A select group of cit-

ies contain the headquarters of major interna-

tional agencies, many of which were founded

after World War II to promote economic,

political, or military cooperation. Geneva

is the main European center for the United

Nations. Paris is the headquarters for the

Organization for Economic Cooperation and

Development (OECD) and the European

Space Agency. Vienna is the headquarters for

the Organization of Petroleum Exporting

Countries (OPEC).

Table 5.2 Popular Ethnic Food in European Cities

City Country Ethnic Food Description Original Influence

Amsterdam Netherlands loempi spring roll Indonesia (former Dutch colony)

Berlin Germany döner kebab “rotating” grilled meat on a spit (aka gyros (Greek)), served sliced, typically in flatbread

shawarma (Arabic) (e.g., pita)

Turkish immigrants

Bucharest Romania covrigi pretzels Italian monks; German bakers later

London United Kingdom chicken tikka masala

chicken curry India (former British colony)

Paris France falafel deep-fried chickpeas +/or fava beans, typically served in flatbread (e.g., pita)

Middle Eastern immigrants

Sarajevo Bosnia & Herzegovina burek filled baked phyllo dough pastries

Ottoman Empire

Immigration, Globalization, and Planning 203

Important decision-making functions are

located in the EU’s “capital cities”: Brussels

(both the Council and the European Com-

mission), Strasbourg (Parliament), and Lux-

embourg (Court of Justice). Brussels is also

the headquarters of NATO and Strasbourg

additionally serves as the headquarters of

the Council of Europe, an organization of

nearly 50 countries that promotes European

unity, human rights, and social and economic

progress.

The major centers of international bank-

ing and finance in Europe have been London

and Paris, but now include Frankfurt and Lux-

embourg. Frankfurt hosts the Bundesbank,

Germany’s influential central bank, as well as

the European Central Bank that manages the

euro, making Frankfurt the financial capital

of the European Union. Luxembourg, on the

other hand, is the headquarters of the Euro-

pean Investment Bank and over 150 other

banks serving an international clientele.

London and Paris rank among the select

number of world cities that contain the head-

quarters of some of the most powerful TNCs

in the world. London contains about 21 of

the 500 largest global companies (78 percent

of the United Kingdom’s total), including BP,

HSBC, and Lloyds. Paris has even more—28

of these companies (90 percent of France’s

total), including BNP Paribas, Christian Dior,

and Vivendi. In addition to housing 3 of the

500 largest global companies, Rome contains

Vatican City, the seat of the Roman Catholic

Church. Paris and Milan are major centers of

fashion and design, while London is the pre-

mier insurance center. In addition, despite the

proliferation of fast-food restaurants such as

McDonald’s, a city such as Paris can still be

recognized as the global capital of haute cui-

sine and is the European city with the most

restaurants with Michelin stars for fine dining.

Adding to Parisians’ cultural pride and iden-

tity, the United Nations cultural organization,

UNESCO, added France’s multicourse gastro-

nomic meal to the world’s “intangible cultural

heritage” list in 2010.

Accessibility via the latest transportation

and communications technologies allows

some cities to strengthen their interna-

tional positions. High-speed trains reinforce

the dominance of London, Paris, Brussels,

Amsterdam, and Frankfurt. The cities with the

busiest airports are London, Paris, Frankfurt,

and Amsterdam. These four cities form one of

the world’s major clusters of airline hubs in

a global network of air travel. As such, these

airports are important not only as final des-

tinations for passengers and cargo, but also as

transit hubs where people and goods change

planes along their route.

At the mouth of the Rhine, Rotterdam is

Europe’s largest port and one of the largest in

the world. Its annual turnover of more than

400 million metric tons of cargo is third only

to Shanghai and Singapore. Rotterdam’s water

and pipeline connections with the Ruhr in

Germany make it the main oil distribution

and refining center in Europe. Antwerp, Mar-

seille, and Hamburg are other major ports.

Trucking is the most important mode of

ground transportation for freight. Nearly

2,000 billion tons of goods are transported by

road annually in the European Union alone

compared to about 400 billion by rail. There

are close to 500 passenger cars for every 1,000

people in the European Union. With about

600 cars per 1,000 inhabitants, German and

French levels already match those of Canada,

but even Italy’s higher rate of nearly 700 is

still far below the U.S. level of more than 800.

Steadily increasing automobile ownership,

with the distance traveled tripling since 1970,

has overwhelmed existing and new highway

204 CITIES OF EUROPE

capacity and led to traffic congestion within

and between cities.

Formerly Communist areas of Europe still

lag behind in terms of the extent and efficiency

of their transportation systems, though this is

rapidly changing. In Germany, rail and road

links abandoned during 40 years of Commu-

nism that divided the country into West and

East have been rebuilt. Even though Com-

munist states were allied with each other and

the Soviet Union, this did not ensure a high-

performing network of connecting infrastruc-

ture. Traveling between Budapest and Warsaw

by land, for example, entailed multiple border

crossings, transit visa requirements, and long

waits. Travel was slowed by narrow, danger-

ous, often prewar roads. In part due to large

investments by the European Union, new

multilane highways are being built, but it will

be years before transport linkages resemble

those in the West.

Urban Policy and Planning

Europe became the birthplace of modern city

planning as it reacted to uncontrolled growth

during the industrial period. Planning to

address urban problems now pervades Euro-

pean city life. After World War II in western

Europe, national policies promoted regional

decentralization. Industry, commercial activ-

ity, and population were redirected from the

large congested cities to new towns, as in the

case of Abercrombie’s Plan for Greater Lon-

don. Postwar planning for growth ended,

however, in the early 1970s. Declining popu-

lation growth rates and widespread economic

recessions forced governments to reconsider

large-scale publicly funded projects and the

need for new towns.

Given the dissatisfaction with alienating

high-rise buildings and open spaces, policy

shifted to planning for conservation and

restructuring, and combating urban decline.

This reappraisal has had two, often conflicting,

components: budgetary constraints forcing

governments to seek private-sector investment

in revitalization projects, and growing concern

for social equity, citizen participation, envi-

ronmental protection, and aesthetic quality.

A shift to neoliberal policy and planning

reflected factors such as the severity of decline

in the central parts of larger cities and their

importance as national engines of growth

in a global economy. The government of the

United Kingdom established Urban Develop-

ment Corporations to attract businesses to

declining industrial and port areas in cities

like London and Liverpool. In recent years,

most countries in western Europe have decen-

tralized power and responsibility for urban

planning to local governments. In addition,

smaller units of local government have been

consolidated into larger regional ones to

achieve economies of scale. These policy and

administrative changes have set the scene for

more coordinated regional planning. The

Dutch “compact city” policy in the Randstad

endeavors to curb counterurbanization by

concentrating new development within exist-

ing major cities in an effort to maintain their

economic competitiveness.

The urban revitalization policies in the

older industrial cities of western Europe have

promoted economic restructuring away from

traditional manufacturing. Cities use local,

national, and EU funds to attract private-sec-

tor investment in high-tech and service indus-

tries. The transition toward K-economies

(knowledge economies) has favored diver-

sified metropolitan economies with highly

skilled workforces, major universities, and

good quality of life. Traditionally in southern

Europe, cities in lower-cost production areas

Immigration, Globalization, and Planning 205

attracted labor-intensive branch plant indus-

tries. More recently, cities like Montpellier in

France, Bari in Italy, and Valencia in Spain

have focused on providing attractive environ-

ments for high-tech industries.

In Communist central and eastern Europe

after World War II, government planning was

guided by the basic tenets of Marxist-Lenin-

ist ideology: to remove the “contradiction”

between living standards in urban and rural

areas and to create a classless society. Urban

planners sought to avoid excessive population

concentration in large cities and to achieve a

balanced urban infrastructure. These social

goals, however, often clashed with economic

directives, especially the development of heavy

industry.

In an attempt to increase overall indus-

trial capacity and provide urban functions

to underserved areas, governments imple-

mented a program of new town construction

away from existing cities. These towns were

developed around a large industrial facility,

typically an iron and steel mill or chemical

processing plant. New towns included Eisen-

hüttenstadt in East Germany and Nova-Huta

in Poland. By the 1970s and 1980s, Commu-

nist planners had turned their attention away

from promoting large-scale industry and new

towns to developing light industries and fill-

ing out the national urban systems. In many

countries, central place theory became an

explicit guide as planners tried to create mul-

titiered urban hierarchies that provided goods

and services to particular regions according to

their size and function.

Since the early 1990s, central and eastern

European cities have experienced dramatic

changes because the transition to a market

economy involved rapid, large-scale privati-

zation of state-owned housing, industry, and

services. Similar to their western counterparts,

Communist-era cities like Dresden, Budapest,

and Warsaw, now work to attract new com-

mercial and industrial investment. National

policies have evolved to address urban prob-

lems that were unknown in the former social-

ist states, such as unemployment, crime,

poverty, and homelessness. EU integration has

helped alleviate somewhat some of the prob-

lems through a number of urban redevelop-

ment projects.

In fact, Europe is the scene of significant

international urban planning and manage-

ment initiatives. The Council of Europe and

the European Union, for example, celebrate

Europe’s cultural heritage through European

Heritage Days. Cultural events are planned in

cities and towns across the European Union

that are aimed at bringing European citizens

together through highlighting local traditions,

skills, and works of art and architecture. The

European Union also selects two cities every

year as European Capitals of Culture, with

Donostia-San Sebastian in Spain and Wroclaw

in the Poland selected for 2016.

The European Union established the Euro-

pean Green Capital Award to promote local

government efforts to improve their urban

environment, and to showcase best practice.

The first award winner in 2010 was Stock-

holm; Copenhagen won in 2014; and the first

eastern European city to win was Ljubljana,

Slovenia, in 2016. In terms of more measure-

able environmental quality, Copenhagen and

Stockholm also lead the rankings on the Euro-

pean Green City Index (Table 5.3).

EU integration efforts have led to unprec-

edented achievements in international policy

and planning. The publication of the “Green

Paper on the Urban Environment” in 1990

reflected the need for EU policies to address

specifically urban issues. European cities are

generally predisposed to being “green” because

206 CITIES OF EUROPE

of their high density and compact form and

associated walkability and high usage of public

mass transit. Even so, European cities are not

exempt from environmental problems associ-

ated with issues such as climate change and

sea-level rise (Box 5.1) or traffic congestion

and associated high levels of airborne particu-

late matter and unhealthy ozone levels. Over

the years, the European Union has adopted

policies that have provided funding for

innovative environmental management pro-

jects, including the Sustainable Cities project

involving research, information exchange, and

networking in conjunction with the imple-

mentation of Local Agenda 21, the TRUST

(Transitions to the Urban Water Services of

Tomorrow) project involving sharing best

practice for urban water cycle solutions, sup-

port for Mayors Adapt, which involves adapta-

tion to climate change in cities, and Eurocities,

a network of well over 100 major cities across

more than 30 countries that provides a plat-

form for best practice exchange.

CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES WITHIN CITIES

“Our cities are like historical monuments to

which every generation, every century, every

civilization has contributed a stone” (Ilde-

fons Cerdà, Spanish town planner, 1867). The

landscape of European cities today represents

an incomplete catalog of urban development

and redevelopment over time. Typical historic

and contemporary features include:

Town Squares

The town square, the heart of Greek, Roman,

and medieval towns, has often survived as an

important open space. Some medieval town

squares boast a continuous tradition of open-

air markets. In central and eastern Europe, the

large open square, typical of socialist cities,

was used for political rallies. Today, like their

western European counterparts, many central

squares and their historic buildings contain

modern commercial functions, such as tourist

offices and fashionable restaurants and cafés.

Major Landmarks

Historic landmarks in western European city

centers have become symbols of religious,

political, military, educational, and cultural

identity. Many cathedrals, churches, and stat-

ues serve their original purpose and some

still dominate the skyline. Town halls, royal

palaces, and artisan guildhalls have been con-

verted into libraries, art galleries, and muse-

ums. Medieval castles and city walls are tourist

attractions. Today, of course, the major land-

marks are expressions of economic power—

offices of TNCs and sports stadiums, for

instance.

Table 5.3 European Green City Index: Top 10 Cities

Rank City Score*

1 Copenhagen 87.31

2 Stockholm 86.65

3 Oslo 83.98

4 Vienna 83.34

5 Amsterdam 83.03

6 Zurich 82.31

7 Helsinki 79.29

8 Berlin 79.01

9 Brussels 78.01

10 Paris 73.21

*Out of a possible 100, based on eight categories (CO2, energy,

buildings, transport, water, waste and land use, air quality, envi-

ronmental governance) using 30 indicators, conducted by the

Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Siemens, 2012.

Characteristic Features within Cities 207

Box 5.1 Venice and the Challenges of Climate Change

the stark reality of climate change and the resulting sea-level rise raise significant chal- lenges for European cities. An extreme case is Venice, italy. Situated in the 210-square-mile (550 km2) Venetian Lagoon on italy’s northern Adriatic coast, Venice is famous for an iconic urban landscape that dates from the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries, when it had a mer- chant empire of its own. the city itself sits atop a human-made foundation of wooden piles that are now hundreds of years old. its location at the interface of land and water served it well in the past, but Venice is now facing multiple threats to its very existence from climate change and environmental degradation.

the health of the Venetian Lagoon is vital to the well-being of the city. Apart from serv- ing as home to humans and wildlife alike, the lagoon is also a source of economic prosperity in the form of fishing and, of course, tourism, which is the biggest economic engine of the region. the natural processes that initially created the lagoon have been altered by Vene- tians since the city’s founding. these environmental alterations often come at the expense of the lagoon’s ecosystem. Sea-level rise means that the balance between saltwater and freshwater is changing in the estuarine environment, which impacts everything from fisher- ies to the iconic summertime odors of the city’s canals.

A far more serious challenge is flooding. As a city built on canals, Venice is barely above sea level and experiences frequent tidal floods in the fall and winter months during the acqua alta (high water) season. this regular flooding has become more severe recently because of the rising sea level. Photos of the iconic Piazza San Marco submerged under more than a foot of water are becoming more frequent. if action is not taken, flooding will become more severe.

the problem of sea-level rise and flooding is exacerbated by the sinking and shifting of the lagoon’s silt floor upon which Venice rests. Centuries ago, in-flowing river sediment was seen as a threat to the watery advantages of the lagoon, so rivers flowing into the lagoon were diverted to the Adriatic Sea to halt the silting process. but now this loss of sediment is threat- ening the city. the city’s subsidence is a natural phenomenon, but the rate of sinking has been increased due to urban development, fresh water and natural gas extraction from beneath the city, and pollution of the lagoon’s water. While urban growth and underground extraction have created pressure differentials, pollution from industrial dumping and inadequate sewage infrastructure has substantially changed the ability of native plant species to thrive. yet the lagoon plants are essential to preventing faster erosion rates of the lagoon floor.

the italian government is close to completing the MoSE (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromec- canico), a massive engineering project designed to protect Venice from the sea. MoSE con- sists of a system of gates located on the lagoon floor near the inlets that connect the lagoon to the Adriatic. the system is designed to protect the city from the extreme flooding events during high tide that have been exacerbated by subsidence and sea-level rise. As a city uniquely tied to water, Venice provides an example of why the needs of the human com- munities and the natural environment must be balanced in order to maintain a sustainable relationship between the two.

208 CITIES OF EUROPE

In central and eastern Europe, in addition

to prewar landmarks, the hallmarks of social-

ist cities included massive buildings in “wed-

ding cake” style, red stars, and “heroic” statues.

Since the late 1980s, socialist political symbols

have been replaced by billboards advertising

the trappings of consumer culture.

Complex Street Pattern

The narrow streets and alleys of the medi-

eval core developed in the pre-automobile era

(Figure 5.11). During the medieval period,

suburban areas grew around long-distance

roads that radiated outward from the city

gates. In the nineteenth century, cities like

Munich, Marseille, and Madrid made radial

or tangential boulevards the axes of their

planned suburbs.

High Density and Compact Form

The constraints of city walls kept population

density high during medieval times. Several

factors maintained the compact form that

is now characteristic of many large cities in

Europe. A long tradition of planning that

restricts low-density urban sprawl dates back

to strict city-building regulations in the earli-

est suburbs. Compact urban form also reflects

the relatively late introduction of the automo-

bile, as well as high gasoline prices.

Bustling City Centers

Their high density and compact nature cre-

ate city centers that bustle with activity

(Figure 5.12). Heavily used public transpor-

tation systems of buses, subways, and trains

converge on the core, and central train sta-

tions figure prominently.

In larger cities, distinct functions dominate

particular districts. Institutional districts house

government offices and universities. Financial

and office districts contain banks and insurance

companies. A pedestrianized retail zone often

leads to the train station. Cultural districts offer

museums and art galleries. Entertainment areas

include theater and “red light” districts.

Many buildings in the city center have

multiple uses. Apartments are found above

shops, offices, and restaurants. Large depart-

ment stores, such as Harrods in London and

Kaufhaus des Westens in Berlin, are promi-

nent features in most city centers. Modern

quite centrally located malls include Westfield

Figure 5.11 here on Ludgate hill in the City of London, a new immigrant from bangladesh directs people to the nearest Mcdonald’s. in medieval times, this area would have been a shadowy tangle of narrow alleys that passed for streets. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Characteristic Features within Cities 209

London (more than 300 stores) and Prague’s

Palác Flóra, both accessible by mass transit.

Suburban malls are becoming prevalent.

Many cities on a coast or a river have also

refurbished old port and industrial buildings

to house mixed-use waterfront developments

like Ķīpsala in Riga and HafenCity in Ham- burg. Other cities have renovated obsolete

historic structures, such as London’s Covent

Garden, as festival marketplaces with special-

ized shops, restaurants, and street performers.

Low-Rise Skylines

For North American visitors, the most striking

aspect of the older parts of many European

cities is the general absence of skyscraper

offices and high-rise apartments. City centers

were developed long before reinforced steel

construction and the elevator made high-rises

feasible. Building codes designed to mini-

mize the spread of fire maintained building

heights between three and five stories during

the industrial period. Paris fixed the building

height at 65 feet (20 m) in 1795, while other

large cities introduced height restrictions in

the nineteenth century. Still regulated today,

high-rises are found in some cities only in

redevelopment areas or on land at the periph-

ery of the city, such as La Défense in Paris.

Skyscrapers have also been built in the central

financial districts of some of the very largest

cities, including London.

Neighborhood Stability and Change

Western European cities historically have

enjoyed remarkable neighborhood stability.

Europeans change residences much less fre-

quently than North Americans. As a result,

some older neighborhoods at or near the

center of large cities enjoy remarkably long

lives, despite suburbanization.

Some districts of handsome mansions built

by speculative developers for wealthy families

in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

remain stable, high-income neighborhoods,

such as Belgravia and Mayfair in central

London. High-income suburban neighbor-

hoods developed in the western parts of older

industrial cities, upwind of factory smoke-

stacks and residential chimneys.

Wealthy residents, in fact, have situated

themselves at or near the city center in west-

ern Europe since before the Industrial Revolu-

tion. Higher taxes on city land until the late

nineteenth century kept the poorest people

outside the city walls. Beginning in Paris in

Figure 5.12 busy, pedestrianized shopping streets, such as this one in the heart of dublin, are typical of the European city centers. Source: Photo by Linda McCarthy.

210 CITIES OF EUROPE

the mid-nineteenth century, this tradition was

strengthened by the replacement of slums and

former city walls with wide boulevards and

imposing apartments.

Since the eighteenth century, however, urban

growth has also spread to suburban areas and

even enveloped freestanding villages and towns.

These separate urban centers became distinct

quarters within the expanding city as they

maintained their long-established social and

economic characteristics and major landmarks

and links to the city center by public transit.

During the second half of the nineteenth cen-

tury, annexations of these suburban areas pro-

duced distinctive city districts with their own

shopping streets and government institutions.

In the past few decades, city governments

funded urban renewal projects designed to

attract higher-income residents to the revi-

talized parts of central areas. The success of

these large-scale redevelopments has given

rise to gentrification in the surrounding area.

Demand for housing that can be renovated for

higher-income occupants, however, has raised

property values in certain areas and pushed

out lower-income residents.

The presence of recent immigrant arrivals

is evident in the cultural diversity reflected in

the names of stores and restaurants in some

neighborhoods. Immigrants typically live in

poor quality suburban high-rise apartments

or inner-city enclaves left vacant through sub-

urbanization. Each enclave is dominated by a

particular ethnic group. Enclaves in Frankfurt

and Vienna are home to mostly Turks, while

in Paris and Marseille, they house Algerians

and Tunisians. In large British cities, in con-

trast, there is significant mixing of different

ethnic groups. Within each neighborhood,

however, the ethnic groups are highly segre-

gated from each other. And although there

are large numbers of Asians and West Indians,

the foreign-born population represents only

15–20 percent of the population within most

neighborhoods.

In addition to outright discrimination, the

labor and housing markets help create inner-

city enclaves. Low wages force immigrants to

rent lodgings in deteriorating inner-city loca-

tions. The internal cohesiveness of the ethnic

groups also contributes to residential segrega-

tion. Existing residents are more likely to share

information about vacancies in their neighbor-

hood with members of their own ethnic group.

Housing

Apartment living is common in Europe.

Apartments are a good land-use choice when

space is at a premium and land values are

high. Instead of growing outward, cities grew

upward, to the limit of the height regulations.

The multistory apartment building origi-

nated in northern Italy to accommodate the

wealthy during the Renaissance. By the early

eighteenth century, apartment buildings

had spread to the larger cities in continental

Europe and Scotland. Until the invention of

the elevator, social stratification within indi-

vidual buildings was vertical: wealthier fami-

lies occupied the lower floors; poorer residents

lived in smaller units above. Horizontal social

stratification also developed within apart-

ment blocks. Larger expensive units faced the

front; small low-rent units faced the rear. By

the late eighteenth century, as the Industrial

Revolution spurred increasing urbanization,

apartment blocks had spread to medium-size

cities. Speculators built large-scale standard-

ized tenements for middle-income occupants

and barracks for low-income residents.

The two-story, single-family row houses

with small gardens are found in England,

Wales, and Ireland (Box 5.2). This tradition

Characteristic Features within Cities 211

Box 5.2 Growing Power: urban agriculture in europe

With growing concerns over environmental sustainability and food security, attention in European cities has turned to the possibilities for urban agriculture. Liberalized laws mean that apartment dwellers in London and Rome, for instance, can keep chickens. Rooftops and garden patios now double as vegetable gardens, while old allotments are seeing new life as people want food security and quality assurance about the food they eat.

Urban agriculture is not new. Rapidly industrializing Germany became a pioneer in the nineteenth century as socially conscious lords and later city governments sought to offer relief to migrants who lived in squalid conditions in cities such as berlin, Munich, and Leip- zig. Urban community gardens had their origins as part of larger projects of providing low- income residents with a means to feed themselves. Allotment gardens, in Germany called Kleingärten (small gardens) or Schrebergärten (after a physician who promoted gardening as a means for urbanites to escape the ills of city life), were usually located on low value land, such as railroad rights-of-way. in Scotland, the 1892 Allotments Act provided a legal means for working-class people to petition for an allotment garden. during wartime in the twentieth century, allotments served a crucial role as sources of food. “dig for Victory” was a rallying cry for britons during World War ii in the same way as victory gardens sprouted across the United States. After the war, when critical shortages of food in central Europe caused widespread malnutrition in cities, small plots provided much needed vegetables. As Europe became more and more prosperous after World War ii, though, increasingly the population’s food requirements were met by an increasingly industrial, large-scale system of agriculture. this lengthening of the food chain meant that the food for most people in European cities was coming from an ever more complicated web of suppliers spanning the world.

Urban agriculture’s recent strong comeback across Europe is not about fear of starvation, but about a trend toward a “return to roots.” the slow food movement, which originated in italy and spread throughout the world, emphasizes that overall physical and psychological health is tied to healthy eating and locally produced food. trends such as the slow food movement can be seen as a desire to shorten food chains—making them closer to what they had been historically—in order to gain environmental and human-health benefits. the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP), which constitutes the largest share of the massive EU budget, has historically privileged large, rural farms in its payment schemes, but recent initiatives have called upon the CAP to fund more urban agriculture.

the geography of urban agriculture reflects general shifts in urban morphology during the last century. Where market gardens once occupied peripheral lands around European cit- ies, those areas have long been overtaken by suburbanization. Since urban land commands premium prices, gardeners have found novel locations for farming. old tourist boats that once plied Amsterdam’s canals have found new life as floating greenhouse gardens. Sections of the former “no-man’s land” of the berlin Wall are now community gardens. Paris rooftops

212 CITIES OF EUROPE

hum with beehives, providing honey to kitchens and restaurants. And the nineteenth cen- tury allotment gardens are abuzz with a rejuvenated agricultural economy centered on the sustainable local provision of food.

Resources on the Web: (a) CoSt—Action Urban Agriculture Europe, and (b) European Federation of City Farms.

can be traced back to efforts to restrict conges-

tion in London in the late 1500s that made it

illegal for more than one family to rent a new

building.

The serious housing shortage that started

with the economic recession of the 1930s was

exacerbated by the lack of construction and

significant destruction during both world

wars. The public-housing programs that began

in Vienna in the early 1920s were stepped up

after World War II across western Europe.

Modern architecture and urban design were

combined with low-cost factory produc-

tion. Many war-damaged historic houses and

dilapidated nineteenth-century tenements

were replaced by monotonous high-rise apart-

ments after World War II.

In the 1950s and 1960s, most governments

adopted a policy of metropolitan decentrali-

zation. Massive modern high-rise apartment

blocks were concentrated in large periph-

eral housing estates known by their French

name—grands ensembles. The amount of

public housing was highest in cities with seri-

ous housing shortages and liberal municipal

governments such as Edinburgh and Glasgow

in Scotland, where the number of public units

grew to well over half the housing stock. Tradi-

tionally, public housing comprised 25 percent

of the total in England, France, and Germany,

and 10 percent in Italy. Public housing rep-

resents only 5 percent or less of the housing

in the more affluent and conservative Swiss

cities. Since the 1970s, however, dependence

on public housing has declined significantly

due to government cost cutting and privatiza-

tion programs.

In contrast, cities that developed under

socialism were less spatially segregated. Cer-

tainly mansions, the prewar residences of the

social elites, were used for political purposes

to house party officials, foreign delegations, or

institutes. But housing was viewed as a right,

not a commodity, and each family was entitled

to its own apartment at reasonable cost.

In the face of the tremendous housing

shortfalls following World War II, as well as

the needs of rapid industrialization, Com-

munist governments built massive housing

estates. Prefabricated multistory apartment

blocks were constructed in groups to form a

neighborhood unit, with shops, green space,

and play areas for children at the center. Indi-

vidual apartments were small. The housing

estates were typically built in large clusters,

forming massive concrete curtains, on land

near the edge of cities. As a result, urban pop-

ulation densities could actually increase near

the urban periphery.

MODELS OF THE EUROPEAN CITy

The concentric zone model, with concentric

circles of increasing socioeconomic status with

distance from the center, is most applicable to

Models of the European City 213

British cities. In contrast, Mediterranean cit-

ies, as in Latin America, exhibit an inverse

concentric zone pattern. There, the elite typi-

cally concentrate in central areas near major

transportation arteries, while the poor live in

inadequately serviced parts of the periphery.

In Europe, the number of people per house-

hold usually increases with distance from the

city center.

The sector model explains the pattern

of socioeconomic status in which different

income groups congregate in sectors radiating

outward from the city center. The wealthy may

prefer to locate along monumental boulevards

or upwind of pollution sources. Poorer resi-

dents are left with unattractive sectors along

railway lines or strips of heavy industry.

Finally, the multiple nuclei model describes

the pattern of ethnic differentiation in which

different groups are concentrated in ethnic

neighborhoods within the inner city or in

high-rise public housing near the periphery.

Northwestern European City Structure

The preindustrial city center contains the town

square and historic structures such as a medi-

eval cathedral and town hall (Figure 5.13).

Apartment buildings host upper- and middle-

income residents above shops and offices. Nar-

row, winding streets extend out about a third

of a mile. Some wider streets may radiate out

from the square to form a pedestrianized cor-

ridor that runs to the train station and con-

tains major department stores, restaurants,

and hotels. Skyscrapers are concentrated in

the commercial and financial district. There

are downtown shopping malls or festival mar-

ketplaces in refurbished historic buildings.

Some old industrial and port areas may have

been recycled into new retail, commercial, and

residential waterfront developments.

Encircling the core are some zones in tran-

sition. The area of the former wall is a circular

zone of nineteenth-century redevelopment.

Some of the deteriorated middle-income

housing has been gentrified, while other sec-

tions provide low-rent accommodation for

students and poor immigrants.

Surrounding this area is another zone in

transition—an old industrial zone with dis-

used railway lines. In the 1950s and 1960s, new

industrial plants (e.g., light engineering, food

processing) replaced many of the derelict old

factories and warehouses. Low-income rent-

ers and owners live in run-down nineteenth-

century housing. Some houses have been

refurbished or replaced. Certain neighbor-

hoods are quite distinctive because they house

foreign immigrants who often live above their

exotically painted stores and restaurants.

Beyond this inner area is a zone of “work-

ingmen’s homes”: a stable, lower middle-

income zone dating from the early twentieth

century. These streetcar suburbs contain apart-

ment blocks and houses without garages, and

are typically anchored by small shopping areas,

community centers, libraries, and schools.

Beyond these areas are middle-income auto-

mobile suburbs containing apartments and

single-family homes with garages that corre-

spond with the zone of better residences in the

concentric zone model. Farther out are clus-

ters of the most exclusive neighborhoods.

The multiple nuclei model best explains

the estates of public high-rise apartments and

new middle-income “starter” homes at the

urban periphery that lack basic amenities like

shops and banks. The periphery also contains

commercial and industrial activities, such as

shopping malls, business and science parks,

and high-tech manufacturing.

Beginning in the early twentieth century,

cities like London established a greenbelt at

214 CITIES OF EUROPE

the edge of the built-up area where devel-

opment was prohibited. The greenbelt was

intended to prevent urban sprawl and provide

recreational space. Commuters live outside

the greenbelt in dormitory villages and small

towns that correspond with the commuters’

zone in the concentric zone model. Airport

and related activities, such as hotels and mod-

ern factories, are located farther out on major

freeways.

Mediterranean City Structure

The structure of the preindustrial core reflects

the history of each city (Figure 5.14). In Greece

and Italy, the historic core can show traces of

the grid pattern of streets from the first walled

enclosure of Greek or Roman origin. In Spain

and Portugal, remnants of narrow alleys of the

Arab quarters date back to Moorish control.

The central town square is home to markets

and festivals; and in Spain, bullfights. The

Figure 5.13 Model of northwestern European City Structure. Source: Linda McCarthy.

Models of the European City 215

area around the town square contains the

cathedral, town hall, and the narrow streets of

the walled medieval city. Lower-income resi-

dents live at high densities above street-level

shops and offices. A retail corridor runs from

this old commercial core to the train station.

The high-rise offices of the modern CBD are

nearby. As in the multiple nuclei and sector

models, new industries are found in former

old industrial sites and in locations well served

by the Mediterranean region’s generally more

limited transportation infrastructure.

Until the nineteenth century, urban growth

was absorbed in increasing densities within

the medieval city. Larger cities like Barcelona

that removed their medieval walls in the nine-

teenth century laid out new monumental dis-

tricts. A grand new thoroughfare lined with

public works such as statues and fountains was

extended out from the city. This area attracted

Figure 5.14 Model of Mediterranean City Structure. Source: Linda McCarthy.

216 CITIES OF EUROPE

commercial development and wealthy resi-

dents, as suggested by the sector model. These

elite residential areas of parks and tree-lined

boulevards were flanked by middle-income

neighborhoods.

In the early twentieth century, suburban

sprawl began to be an issue, especially in cities

experiencing rapid growth due to industriali-

zation and rural-to-urban migration. Squat-

ter settlements encircled the outskirts of cities.

After World War II, these were replaced with

low-cost, high-rise public housing that today

contains low-income households. Farther out,

near a natural resource or industrial plant,

are the remote, poorly serviced satellite com-

munities for low-income residents and recent

immigrants.

Central and Eastern European City Structure

Prior to World War II, the internal structure

of cities in central and eastern Europe was

much the same as in western Europe. Begin-

ning in the late 1940s, however, the imposition

of socialist planning set “Eastern Bloc” cities

on a different trajectory, resulting in a set of

features that typified Communist-era cities.

These cities did not conform to Western mod-

els of urban structure because land use was

based more on government decisions than

economic forces.

A typical socialist city contained a central

square for political gatherings. Following the

imposition of socialism, former mansions

were converted to government use, religious

establishments were used for other purposes,

and statues of revolutionary heroes dot-

ted the cityscape. Clusters of housing estates

and neighborhood units were interspersed

with factories, transportation hubs, and retail

establishments. Not all cities exhibited these

features to the same degree. Few socialist

elements are evident in central Prague, which

escaped major destruction during World War

II. The socialist city model was most clearly

achieved in cities such as Warsaw that had

been severely damaged during the war, in the

industrial new towns, and in countries where

socialist ideology was especially strong.

One of the first changes to occur in the

structure of Communist-era cities after 1989

was an increase in tourist facilities—hotels,

restaurants, and entertainment—to cater to

foreign visitors. A building boom, especially in

the capitals, larger cities, and tourist centers,

resulted in foreign-financed office buildings,

trade centers, and shopping malls becoming

a common feature of cities like Berlin, Buda-

pest, and Prague (Figure 5.15). These are also

found in brownfield redevelopments. Corpo-

rate logos and billboards have become very

visible signs of change. Suburbanization has

increased dramatically, but relatively strict tra-

ditions of planning regulation often mean that

a suburban development will have a core of a

historic village and be linked to the city center

by public transit. Nevertheless, many cities are

becoming increasingly oriented toward the

automobile, as witnessed by large commercial

and office park developments at the periphery

along ring roads.

DISTINCTIVE CITIES

London: Europe’s Global City

As hub of the British Empire, London became

the center of global economic and politi-

cal power in the nineteenth century. Today,

London enjoys global city status shared by

New York and Tokyo. Greater London has a

population of over 8.5 million, and, its metro-

politan area boasts more than 14 million peo-

ple. At the head of navigation on the Thames

Distinctive Cities 217

River, London dominates the United King-

dom from southeast England. It is the seat of

national government, core of the English legal

system, headquarters for TNCs, and a leading

center for banking, insurance, advertising, and

publishing.

Figure 5.15 Model of Central and Eastern European City Structure. Source: Corey Johnson.

218 CITIES OF EUROPE

In 1666, a fire destroyed virtually the

entire city, setting off an immediate building

boom. Many historic structures survived until

bombed in World War II. London’s old nick-

name, “The Smoke,” recalls the days when a

haze of pollution from industrial and domes-

tic chimneys hung over the city. London has

since undergone deindustrialization and a

shift to services and modern manufacturing.

Despite these changes, London remains firmly

rooted in its historic past.

Central London grew around two core

areas, both along the Thames: the City of Lon-

don (port and commercial hub) and the City

of Westminster (government and religious

hub). The former developed from a Roman

fort, Londinium, which became the fifth-larg-

est city north of the Alps with trade networks

extending as far as the Baltic and Mediterra-

nean. In the medieval period, London’s pro-

tected inland site and strategic location for

North Sea and Baltic trade allowed port and

commercial activities to thrive. The docks

spread from the Tower of London into the

East End. Specialized market areas developed

near St. Paul’s Cathedral in the original square

mile of the Roman city. This “City of London”

is now the financial precinct, containing the

offices of the world’s largest banks and insur-

ance companies. The City also houses pow-

erful institutions such as the Stock Exchange

and the Bank of England.

About two miles (3.2 km) upriver, the

“City of Westminster” developed around

Westminster Abbey to become a second

core during the medieval period. The pre-

sent Houses of Parliament were built in the

mid-nineteenth century and Queen Victoria

made Buckingham Palace the monarch’s res-

idence in 1837. This institutional core grew

eastward toward the commercial core along

Whitehall, where government offices include

10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s resi-

dence (Box 5.3). The royal hunting grounds

in the west became St. James’s, Green, Hyde,

and Regent’s Parks. The area attracted man-

sions of the nobility, centers of culture such

as the National Gallery, and exclusive shops.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

large-scale townhouse developments were

speculatively built for the aristocracy. Belgra-

via, the last of these West End developments,

has survived as an affluent neighborhood.

In the nineteenth century, major retail-

ing axes developed along Oxford and Regent

Streets. In addition to the The City, the inner

city (12 of London’s 32 boroughs) comprises

a ring of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-

century suburbanization. From the early

1840s, the railways allowed wealthier fami-

lies to move farther out. The higher-density

Victorian and Edwardian housing nearer to

the center included middle-income detached

and row houses such as those in Islington

and laborers’ cottages in the East End. With

increasing industrialization and the incredible

growth of new docks, the East End became

home to the poorest immigrants.

Much of the original housing in the East

End is gone—destroyed in World War II air

raids or replaced by high-rise public housing,

now deteriorating. Other housing, dispersed

among old factories, warehouses, docks, and

railway yards, is in poor condition too. Many of

the decaying middle-income residences have

been subdivided into low-rent apartments.

Within the inner city, however, residents are

differentiated into neighborhoods, each with

its own high street, socioeconomic and ethnic

mix, and political and sporting allegiances.

Since the early 1980s, an extensive area of

London, the Docklands, has been revitalized

through public and private investment. The

British government established an Urban

Distinctive Cities 219

Box 5.3 Security and Surveillance in london

Cities—especially world cities such as London—are a preferred location for terrorist attacks, for several reasons. First, they have symbolic value. they are not only dense concentrations of people and buildings but also symbols of national prestige and military, political, and financial power. A bomb in London’s Underground (subway) arouses international alarm and is communicated instantly to a world audience. Second, the assets of cities—densely-packed with a large mix of industrial and commercial infrastructure—make them rich targets for ter- rorists. third, cities are nodes in vast international networks of communications—reflecting not only their power but also their vulnerability. A well-placed explosion can cause enormous reverberations by triggering fear and economic dislocation. Finally, word gets around quickly in high-density localities. these kinds of environments can be a source of recruits for ter- rorist organizations.

Central London has attempted to reduce the real and perceived threat of terrorist attacks. Physical and increasingly technological approaches to security have been adopted at ever more expanded scales. in 1989, the prime minister installed iron security gates at the entrance to downing Street to control public access (Figure 5.16). in 1993, a security cordon was set up to secure all entrances to the financial zone of the City of London (the “Square Mile”).

Figure 5.16 the iron security gates at the entrance to downing Street in London prevent the public from getting close to the official residence of the Prime Minister. Source: Photo by Linda McCarthy.

220 CITIES OF EUROPE

the 30 entrances to the City were reduced to seven, with road-checks manned by armed police. over time, the scale of this security cordon was increased to cover 7 percent of the “Square Mile” (Figure 5.17).

Figure 5.17 Since the 1990s, terrorist threats have increased and so has the security zone in London’s financial district, “the City.” Source: Adapted from J. Coaffee, “Rings of Steel, Rings of Concrete and Rings of Confidence,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28 (2004): 204.

As a territorial approach to security, this cordon was augmented by enhanced surveil- lance, especially by retrofitting the closed circuit tV (CCtV) system. the police, through its “CameraWatch” partnership effort, encouraged private companies, such as retail estab- lishments, offices, and warehouses, to install CCtV. At the seven entrances to the security cordon, 24-hour Automated number Plate Recording (AnPR) cameras, linked to police data- bases, were installed. the City of London is now the most surveilled space in the United Kingdom, and perhaps the world, with some estimates of the number of private and public CCtV cameras as high as nearly half a million. this level of surveillance raises important questions about how best to balance the benefits of surveillance associated with crime pre- vention and detection against the drawbacks for urban residents associated with the loss of privacy and threats to civil liberties.

Sources: J. Coaffee, “Rings of Steel, Rings of Concrete and Rings of Confidence,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28 (2004): 201–11; h. V. Savitch with G. Ardashev, “does terror have an Urban Future?” Urban Studies 38 (2001): 2515–33.

Distinctive Cities 221

Development Corporation that used public

funds to stimulate private development. Until

the Shard was built at London Bridge, the city’s

tallest building was a 50-story tower contain-

ing offices and specialty stores built at Canary

Wharf. Dockland revitalization projects such

as this now extend as far west as upscale Saint

Katharine Docks (just east of the Tower of

London). These dockland developments have

attracted higher-income occupants and pro-

moted gentrification.

Outer London is a lower-density belt of

interwar housing with some shopping streets

and industrial parks. These outer suburbs

comprise the remaining 20 of London’s 32

boroughs. Between 1918 and 1939, the expan-

sion of the London Underground (subway)

and private automobile use promoted subur-

banization. Middle-income residents live in

well-maintained houses with gardens. Neigh-

borhood stability is strong. Second-gener-

ation immigrants have moved into pockets

of older housing. An innovative approach to

London’s traffic congestion was the introduc-

tion of a daily congestion charge for motor-

ists driving into the most heavily congested

zone of the city. The estimated benefits have

been a more than 20 percent reduction in traf-

fic entering the zone, and funds to reinvest in

public transportation.

The outer suburbs end abruptly at a 5–10

mile (8–16 km) wide greenbelt within which

development is restricted to prevent sprawl

and provide recreational space. Villages and

small market towns remain much as they were

when the greenbelt was established in 1939.

Growth pressures are evident only in the rural

dwellings that have been gentrified by newer

wealthy residents. Prohibiting development

within the greenbelt has forced growth into

either the existing built-up area or farther

out. Eight new towns were built beyond the

greenbelt to house London’s overspill popula-

tion and migrants from the rest of the United

Kingdom. This metropolitan fringe extends

more than 50 miles (80 km) from the city

center and includes large towns like Guildford,

Reading, and Luton. The relatively strong

economy, the removal of trade barriers within

the European Union, and business from the

Channel Tunnel have put pressures on hous-

ing, government infrastructure, and transpor-

tation services. The high-speed rail line that

includes the Channel Tunnel (or “Chunnel”)

passes under the English Channel and con-

nects London to Paris and Brussels.

Paris: France’s Primate City Par Excellence

The city of Paris has a population of over 2

million people, but with more than 12 million,

it is Europe’s second-largest metropolitan

area. As France’s primate city, Paris dominates

the national urban system and the country’s

economy, politics, and culture. In the wake of

deindustrialization, Paris has become a major

international center for modern industry and

finance. The outer suburbs contain high-tech

plants and research and development compa-

nies. Inner-city workshops produce haute cou-

ture and jewelry.

Since World War II, Paris has grown almost

continuously due to migration from the rest

of France and the former French empire, and

the city’s high proportion of young adults

of childbearing age. Much of this growth

has been concentrated in the outer suburbs.

The city center and inner suburbs are losing

population.

The original site of Paris was an island in the

Seine, today called Île de la Cité (Figure 5.18).

The Romans seized the island in 52 ce from the

Parisii, a Gallic tribe. They built a temple and

a palace for the city’s governor, and the island

222 CITIES OF EUROPE

settlement attracted convents and churches.

The magnificent Gothic cathedral of Notre

Dame was begun in the twelfth century and

took more than 170 years to complete.

As a royal center, the grandeur of its archi-

tecture and planning made Paris an intensely

monumental city. The “Royal Axis” is the

imposing entry to the city. It runs from the

Louvre (a royal palace, now national art gal-

lery) and Tuileries Gardens across the Place

de la Concorde, along the Champs-Élysées,

to the Arc de Triomphe. The nearby Eiffel

Tower was erected for the Paris exposition

of 1889. The tallest structure in Paris, the

Eiffel Tower is one of the most recognizable

monuments in the world. Paris still produces

imposing architecture. Initially, controversial

structures include the sleek glass pyramid in

the nineteenth-century forecourt of the Lou-

vre and the Pompidou Center, the national

museum of modern art, nicknamed the “arty

oil refinery” for its multicolored exterior ven-

tilation and steel-and-glass escalators.

The Paris region, Île de France, comprises

eight administrative units (départements) that

date from the French Revolution. Most famil-

iar to tourists, the innermost coincides with

the historic City of Paris. This high-density

area developed within the confines of the

medieval wall. Its distinct quarters include Île

de la Cité. Facing downstream, the “right bank”

of the Seine has become the economic heart

of Paris. It contains offices, fashionable shops,

hotels, restaurants, and high- and middle-

income apartments. The “left bank,” the seat

of intellectual and cultural life, is dominated

Figure 5.18 Paris evolved around an island in the Seine River: Île de la Cité. today, it is most famous for the cathedral of notre dame, whose spire is barely visible here. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Distinctive Cities 223

by its oldest part, the Latin Quarter, with the

Sorbonne University, bookshops, theaters, and

middle- and low-income apartments. Unlike

London, there are few large parks. Paris gets

its feeling of openness and greenery from the

wide boulevards and tree-lined river walkways.

The outer parts of Paris include the “little

ring” (petite couronne) of inner suburbs that

extends out about 15 miles (24 km) from the

center. It developed between the late 1800s

and World War II. Interwar speculative devel-

opments of single-family homes were built on

prime sites. Public high-rise apartments were

erected later on the less marketable land. The

big ring (grande couronne) of outer suburbs

spreads out another 10–15 miles (16–24 km)

and contains the postwar grands ensembles of

poorly serviced public high-rise apartments.

These poor suburban communities contain

the highest proportions of Muslims in France.

Three groups of immigrants—from North

Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Turkey—

together comprise about 50 percent of the

immigrant population in the Ile-de-France

region. As many as one-third of suburban res-

idents—increasingly not only newly arrived

but also second- and third-generation—live

below the poverty line. Although France

prides itself on being a progressive society,

discrimination against many of these subur-

ban residents continues to fly in the face of the

ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

Beginning in the late 1940s after the publi-

cation of Jean-François Gravier’s book, Paris

and the French Desert, planners began to focus

on counteracting the extraordinary economic

and demographic primacy of Paris. National

decentralization policies attempted to limit

growth and congestion problems within the

Paris region, while promoting development

in the eight métropoles d’équilibre of Lille-

Roubaix-Tourcoing, Metz-Nancy, Strasbourg,

Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and

Nantes-St. Nazaire. Five new towns (St. Quen-

tin-en-Yvelines, Evry, Melun-Senart, Cergy-

Pontoise, and Marne-la-Vallée) were built

along two east-west axes of growth to the

north and south of Paris. These new towns

grew as extensions to the city, however, and

became middle-income dormitory communi-

ties for some of the more than 1 million daily

commuters to central Paris.

Complementing the new towns are four

suburban employment centers. The largest and

most successful is La Défense. It boasts high-

rise offices containing the headquarters of

TNCs, shops, public buildings, and housing. Its

modern Grand Arche is visible from the Arc de

Triomphe along Avenue Charles-de-Gaulle—

the modern extension of the “Royal Axis.”

Barcelona: Capital of Catalonia

With more than 1.6 million people, Barcelona

is Spain’s second-largest city after the capital,

Madrid. On the northeastern coast of Spain,

Barcelona is the country’s largest port and

leading industrial, commercial, and cultural

center. Housing the seat of the Catalan gov-

ernment, this regional capital of Catalonia is a

bilingual city: Spanish and Catalan are widely

spoken official languages (Figure 5.19).

The Phoenicians founded Barcelona more

than 2,000 years ago. The street plan reflects its

three main phases of growth—its ancient and

medieval origins, nineteenth-century addi-

tions, and late-twentieth and early twenty-

first-century suburbs. The old town is the

symbolic and administrative center of the city.

Remnants of the Roman wall and grid pattern

of streets are overlain by the narrow streets of

the medieval core. Here, residents and tour-

ists alike stroll along the famous Ramblas.

Barcelona is the most popular tourist port

224 CITIES OF EUROPE

in the Mediterranean with more than 7 mil-

lion annual visits, including 2.5 million from

cruise ships.

In 1859, Ildefons Cerdà drew up a plan of

expansion into the area of the former medi-

eval wall. His pioneering design was based

on a grid pattern with wide, straight boule-

vards and unique 8-sided city blocks contain-

ing parks surrounded by apartment houses.

Largely ignored during the nineteenth- and

early-twentieth-century era of speculative

growth, Cerdà’s plan was fully realized only in

the Eixample district, a new precinct that was

built just north of the old city. This new devel-

opment also contains the high-rise offices and

apartments of the modern CBD.

At the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939,

when the country was still a dictatorship, Bar-

celona’s Catalan culture was suppressed and

the city experienced uncontrolled speculative

development without adequate public infra-

structure and services. Massive rural-to-urban

migration fueled rapid population growth.

Tens of thousands of illegal squatters ended

up in shantytowns at the sprawling edge of

the city. In the 1960s and 1970s, several hun-

dred thousand poorly designed and serviced

peripheral high-rise public apartments were

built to address the acute housing shortage.

Since the mid-1970s and the establish-

ment of Spain’s parliamentary democracy,

the increased autonomy of Barcelona’s elected

local governments contributed to a rebirth of

planning as well as growing prosperity. Barce-

lona’s urban renewal program benefited from

funding for infrastructure from the European

Union. The construction of the 1992 Olympic

village helped rejuvenate an area of derelict

docks into waterfront redevelopments (Box

5.4). Popular World Heritage sites include

a park by Antoni Gaudí—Park Güell—and

his unfinished church—Sagrada Familia—

financed by private donations since 1882!

At the same time, a continued influx

of poor residents puts pressure on hous-

ing, infrastructure, and services. These poor

migrants become socially, economically, and

locationally polarized in the poorest inner-city

Figure 5.19 throughout Catalonia, signs of Catalan nationalism— and separatism—are to be found. this banner, in Girona, speaks to the world in English. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Distinctive Cities 225

Box 5.4 Making the Spectacular Happen: Mega-events in european Cities

Mega-events such as the olympics, FiFA’s World Cup, and world expos, involve huge public expenditures, massive construction projects in already dense built environments, and logis- tical and security nightmares. Why, then, do cities across Europe continue to covet them? Some people see mega-events as a way of putting their city on the map. the spectacle and intense scrutiny that a mega-event brings are seen as potentially associated with investment and tourism long after the event is over. Whether the legacies of mega-events justify their incredible upfront costs remains open to debate.

nevertheless, these legacies do have long-lasting impacts on urban landscapes across Europe. barcelona, Spain, hosted the 1992 Summer olympic Games, and it is often touted as a city that was transformed positively by hosting this mega-event. Local and national govern- ments invested in infrastructure projects, such as demolishing waterfront factories and ware- houses and building parks and an olympic village in their place. nearly 50 miles (80 km) of new roads were constructed (15 percent more than before), the airport was renovated, and hotel capacity was dramatically increased. barcelona now ranks among Europe’s most popular tourist destinations, and this in part can be attributed to the city’s reputation shifting after 1992 from a run-down industrial city to a vibrant, culturally rich, and beautiful city on the sea. other Euro- pean cities to host Summer olympic Games recently include Athens (2004) and London (2012).

London’s 2012 olympics illustrate some of the challenges of organizing mega-events in big cities. Coming in the wake of terrorist bombings in the city several years before and generalized fears about terrorists targeting spectacles with spectacular attacks, the London games were a massive security operation. by some accounts they were the largest peacetime security operation in the country’s history. during the games, 13,500 military troops—in addition to tens of thousands of police—were deployed to help keep order, an aircraft car- rier docked on the thames, and surface-to-air missiles were stationed on apartment roof- tops. Protestors protested, and debates raged in the London newspapers about displacing low-income people to build venues, banning displays of brand names that were not official sponsors, and costs to the public in the wake of the financial crisis and government belt tightening. At the conclusion of the games, the success seemed to be measured by the world press in large part by the fact that nothing truly disastrous or embarrassing occurred.

there is growing debate in Europe and elsewhere as to whether the production costs of hosting mega-events are worth the potential benefits. Certainly investments in infrastructure carry benefits for host cities long after the visitors leave, but specialized stadiums and other venues often simply fall into disuse, as the case of Athens illustrates. the swimming pavil- ion, beach volleyball arena, and softball arena built for the 2004 olympics are crumbling, causing many Athenians to ask themselves if the $15 billion dollars to host the games might have been better spent.

Source: Ferran brunet y Cid. The economic impact of the Barcelona Olympic Games, 1986–2004. barcelona: Centre d’Estudis olímpics UAb, 2005.

226 CITIES OF EUROPE

neighborhoods and peripheral public apart-

ment blocks. In contrast, higher-income

residents live in nicer central districts or well-

serviced lower-density parts of the suburbs.

Oslo: Low-Key Capital of Norway

Oslo is the largest urban center in Norway as

measured by both the more than 600,000 peo-

ple that inhabit the city and its metropolitan

area population of about 1.5 million. At the

mouth of the Oslofjorden (Oslo Fjord), this

city is Norway’s capital, main port, and lead-

ing commercial, communications, and manu-

facturing center.

Oslo was founded around 1000 ce and

became the national capital in 1299. After a

devastating fire in 1624, King Christian IV

of Denmark designated another site for the

town nearer Akershus Castle on the east side

of the inner fjord. The new town was named

Christiania (later Kristiania). It was planned

with a grid system of spacious streets, a square

located between the town and castle, and

ramparts protecting its northern flanks. For

fire resistance, buildings were required to be

constructed of brick or stone; soon, however,

extensive tracts of wooden houses were built

on the outskirts of the built-up area. The

town grew slowly: in 1661 only around 5,000

residents had made Christiana their home; by

1800 the population had risen to only 10,000.

During the mid-1800s, the administra-

tive function of the city was augmented by

industry, based mainly on textiles and wood

processing. Many landmarks, such as the

university, royal palace, parliament, national

theater, and stock exchange, were built. The

city expanded in a largely unplanned manner

as the population swelled to 28,000 by 1850

and 228,000 by 1900. In 1925, the city reverted

to its original name, Oslo. After World War II,

Oslo’s outward expansion continued, largely

as a result of public policies that subsidized

owner-occupied housing.

Oslo has 40 islands and 343 lakes; about

two-thirds of the city comprises protected

natural areas, which give it a picturesque

appearance. While most of the surround-

ing forests and lakes are private, the public is

strongly against developing them. As is com-

mon throughout northern Europe, the city

extends around the port, is flanked by the

centrally located train station, has a royal pal-

ace overlooking the historic core, and pedes-

trianized shopping streets. Oslo is where the

Nobel Peace Prize is awarded because Alfred

Nobel decided that this prize—awarded to the

International Campaign to Ban Landmines,

Doctors without Borders, and the European

Union, to name a few—was to be awarded by

a Norwegian committee (while the other four

prizes were to be awarded by Swedish com-

mittees). Despite being Scandinavia’s oldest

capital, Oslo today is a modern, though low-

key, city.

Berlin: The Past Always Present

in Germany’s Capital

Around every corner, across every bridge,

and in nearly every U-Bahn (subway) station,

Berlin offers tantalizing morsels from its fasci-

nating past. Relatively unimportant for most

of its 800-year history, Berlin found itself in

the middle of many important political strug-

gles of the nineteenth and twentieth centu-

ries. More recently, as the capital of reunified

Germany and a key political node in the Euro-

pean Union, Berlin continues to undergo pro-

found changes.

Berlin had rather humble beginnings in

the thirteenth century on the flat, glaciated

marshlands of the North European Plain at a

Distinctive Cities 227

convenient crossing point on the Spree River.

The growth of Berlin reflected its political for-

tunes as the center of what would become the

Kingdom of Prussia. The architectural hey-

day of the city came after 1701 as the official

capital of Prussia. The royalty sought to give

the capital an impressive built environment

worthy of long-established capital cities such

as Paris, Vienna, and London. Walking along

Unter den Linden, the city’s most important

axis, you see the bravado of the Prussian ruling

family, the Hohenzollerns, who built up the

boulevard during the early nineteenth century

to project their pride after helping to defeat

Napoleon’s armies. The street culminates at

the Brandenburg Gate, a monument symbolic

of Prussian power, German Imperial preten-

sion, Cold-War division, and since 1990, a

reunified Germany. As people walk through

the Brandenburg Gate, they are confronted by

more history: to the south, the Memorial to

the Murdered Jews of Europe; to the north, the

center of Germany’s government in the reno-

vated Reichstag building with its huge glass

dome symbolizing the transparency of the

Federal Parliament. Perhaps more than any

other spot in the city, modern and old, painful

and joyous coexist in an almost surreal urban

assemblage.

The growing power of Prussia during the

1800s was accompanied by industrialization.

Large companies such as Siemens and AEG

were founded, while Berlin-based insurance

firms (e.g., Allianz) and banks (e.g., Deutsche

Bank) served the booming industrial econ-

omy. Reflecting shifting political fortunes,

none of these TNCs remain. But the evidence

of Berlin’s status as one of Europe’s major

industrial cities can still be seen. Working-

class apartment houses from its industrial

heyday are found in neighborhoods such as

Wedding and Kreuzberg, which encircle the

historic core. The city’s old industrial brew-

eries have found new life in post-unification

Germany as cultural and arts centers. The

Schultheiss brewery in Prenzlauer Berg is now

a cultural center and shopping area called Kul-

turbrauerei, and the Kindl brewery in Neu-

kölln houses artist studios and apartments.

Berlin also became a major transportation

hub during the nineteenth and early twentieth

centuries. The major trunk rail line winds its

way through the city center, stopping at iconic

stations like Zoologischer Garten, Lehrter Sta-

tion (the main station, the largest in Europe),

Friedrichstrasse, and Alexanderplatz.

Berlin’s economic and demographic peak

came in about 1940 when it was the industrial,

transportation, and government center of the

Third Reich. Its population was over 4 million

in 1939 on the eve of Germany’s invasion of

Poland, compared with just over 3.5 million

today. The Nazis left their indelible mark on

Berlin, although not entirely as planned. Hit-

ler’s planned Germania, a megalomaniacal

rebuilding of Berlin’s core as the capital of the

German Empire, was never realized. The most

readily apparent legacy of the war is destruc-

tion. The core of the city was up to 95 percent

destroyed during bombing raids by the Allies

and the bloody campaign of the Soviet Army

during the last days of the war.

After World War II, when Berlin was divided

into four sectors by the Allies (France, Britain,

United States, Soviet Union), the priority was

constructing housing for the remaining peo-

ple and large refugee population in both East

and West Berlin. The results were often more

functional than architecturally appealing.

Though bland housing blocks are still appar-

ent, some Cold-War prestige projects remain.

The Stalinallee (later Karl-Marx-Allee) in East

Berlin was designed as a showcase of Com-

munist architecture, and it offers remarkable

228 CITIES OF EUROPE

insights into the aesthetic ideals of the Com-

munist regime. In West Berlin, projects such

as the Cultural Forum, home to the concert

hall of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, is

a modernist icon, which was designed to show

off the merits of West Germany’s social mar-

ket economic system.

Since reunification in 1990, Berlin has been

the site of one of the largest urban reconstruc-

tion efforts of all time. Potsdamer Platz, a

prewar buzz of activity, was in the area of the

Berlin Wall during 1961–1989. Shortly after

reunification, it was rebuilt in the then popu-

lar steel-and-glass style. Friedrichstrasse, the

major north-south axis that the Wall once cut

in two, has blossomed as Berlin’s most fashion-

able shopping and office address. Meanwhile,

Kurfürstendamm, an icon of West German

consumerism, appears frozen in 1980’s time.

One of the few new airports to be constructed

in Europe in the last 20 years is on the out-

skirts of Berlin. The massive project, designed

to replace two airports close to city center, was

completed in 2011, but embarrassing plan-

ning mistakes and faulty construction, includ-

ing a fire suppression system that was not up

to standard, delayed the airport’s opening by

several years.

Berlin’s fascinating history is also the sub-

ject of frequent debates over appropriate land

uses, and nearly every major building decision

is accompanied by sensitive emotional excava-

tions of the more sordid periods of that past.

In recent years, this is perhaps best illustrated

by the reconstruction of the Stadtschloss (city

palace). The damaged nineteenth-century

original was destroyed after the war by the

East German regime, and on its site a modern-

istic Palace of the Republic was constructed,

a building intended to distance the site from

a militaristic, Prussian history. Demolished in

2008, the Parliament voted to rebuild an exact

replica of the city palace that would be called

the Humboldtforum and house the Humboldt

collection and gallery of non-European art.

Reconstruction began in 2013 and is sched-

uled to be completed in 2019.

Bucharest: A New Paris of the East?

On the Romanian Plain between the Car-

pathian Mountains to the north and the Dan-

ube River lowlands to the south, Bucharest is

by far Romania’s largest city, with a popula-

tion of nearly 2 million. In addition to being

the capital, it is the country’s most important

economic and industrial city. Like Berlin,

Bucharest bears the marks of its Communist

past, in the form of monumentalist Stalinist

architecture, large Communist-era apartment

blocks, and a somewhat run-down prewar

built environment. Prior to World War II and

the postwar Communist era, however, its ele-

gant architecture and social elite made it the

“Paris of the East.” Since Romania’s accession

to the European Union in 2007, there are signs

that Bucharest would like to reclaim that title.

Bucharest is relatively young by European

standards: the first references to the city date

to 1459. During the 1800s, Bucharest became

an important transportation hub, acquired

a manufacturing base, and became Roma-

nia’s capital when the country was formed

in 1862. By the end of the century, Bucharest

boasted a tram system and the world’s first

electric streetlights. The city enjoyed contin-

ued growth until World War II. The popula-

tion rose from about 60,000 in 1830 to slightly

more than 1 million at the end of World War

II. During the 1930s, a master plan for the city

sought to vastly change the compact medie-

val core and envisioned expansion like Berlin

and Paris with their wide boulevards, parks,

and grand public buildings. This laid the

Urban Challenges 229

groundwork for what would come later under

postwar Communist rule.

Bucharest suffered heavy damage during

World War II from Allied and Nazi bomb-

ing. After the war, socialist planning guided

development: industrial capacity was greatly

expanded; new housing was constructed;

and former villas were converted into gov-

ernment offices and foreign embassies. The

population increased to 1.4 million by 1966,

the year Ceauçescu came to power. Perhaps

no city in Europe bears the personal imprint

of an individual to the same extent as Bucha-

rest at the hands of this deposed leader, who

was executed in 1989 along with his wife after

a hasty trial amid a democratic revolution.

Romania’s capital allows fascinating insights

into the impact of a megalomaniac personal-

ity. Ceauçescu’s program for urban redevelop-

ment and systematization led to single-family

houses in some suburbs being replaced with

apartment blocks. He greatly expanded hous-

ing estate construction within existing dis-

tricts and redesigned certain boulevards as

impressive entryways to represent the revolu-

tionary aesthetics of socialism.

After a 1977 earthquake caused significant

damage, Ceauçescu turned his attention to

central Bucharest. By 1989, approximately

25 percent of the historic central area had

been bulldozed for a new civic center. An

estimated 40,000 families were evicted prac-

tically overnight, and those with dogs were

forced to let them go (giving rise to Bucha-

rest’s intractable stray dog problem). At the

heart of the construction scheme was The

House of the Republic, which was to be the

new seat of government. This grandiose

structure became one of the world’s largest

buildings. Over a thousand acres of neigh-

borhoods were torn down to make room

for the complex. This building consumed

virtually all the country’s marble during con-

struction and featured hand-carved wood

paneling and crystal chandeliers. The second

component of the scheme was the construc-

tion of the Victory of Socialism Boulevard.

This finely appointed ceremonial route was

intended to be longer and grander than the

Champs-Élysées in Paris and eventually

was adorned by a lavish fountain and lined

by Bucharest’s finest apartments. A rather

bizarre element of Ceauçescu’s modifica-

tions involved churches. He simply did not

like them; but rather than being accused

of ordering their destruction, he had many

moved behind other buildings.

For much of the 1990s, Bucharest suffered

the aftermath of Ceauçescu’s experimental

planning. The city was run-down and known

to visitors more for its stray dogs than as the

“Paris of the East.” The completed House of

the Republic became the seat of Romania’s

democratic parliament, symbolizing a com-

ing to terms with the past and a more forward

orientation for the country and its capital city.

More recently, as Romania has benefited eco-

nomically from its integration into Europe,

including accession to NATO and the Euro-

pean Union, Bucharest is again blossoming.

Wide boulevards that were once used to show-

case a regime’s hold on power are now monu-

ments to consumerism. Bucharest still has its

stray dogs—40,000 by recent estimates—but

the number is declining due to a controversial

municipal “killing law” that has resulted in the

extermination of 10,000 strays.

URbAN CHALLENGES

Compared with the problems faced by cities

in many other regions of the world, European

cities are fairly well off. They do, however,

230 CITIES OF EUROPE

face challenges similar to those in other more

developed parts of the world.

As the earliest place to industrialize, Europe

was also the first to suffer deindustrialization.

Rising long-term unemployment among

inner-city residents has concentrated poverty

and a wide range of social problems in some

neighborhoods of older industrial cities. These

neighborhoods also contain the city’s oldest

and most deteriorated housing and urban

infrastructure. Privatization of public hous-

ing by governments attempting to cut back on

expenditures has exacerbated the shortage of

decent affordable housing.

As private automobile ownership has risen,

traffic congestion and air pollution, especially

in the medieval cores, have reached critical lev-

els. Transportation policies in western Europe

typically shifted from investment in freeways

and central parking facilities to transportation

demand management involving ride shar-

ing and public transit. Many cities built or

extended their subway and light-rail systems.

The inadequate road system throughout

central and eastern parts of Europe, particu-

larly given the dramatic increase in car owner-

ship rates since 1990, has placed considerable

strain on roads and parking facilities. Before

the fall of Communism, most people could

not afford a car, waiting periods for car orders

were long, and restrictions on ownership

applied in some countries. A major challenge

continues to be to improve the transporta-

tion infrastructure as part of a European-wide

transportation network.

The presence of significant numbers of for-

eign workers and their families has generated

problems in some parts of Europe. Language

differences create difficulties for the educa-

tional system in countries with large numbers

of children born to foreign workers. These

students represent more than 10 percent of

the school population in some French, Ger-

man, and Swiss cities. During times of reces-

sion and rising unemployment, existing

prejudices can be intensified based on stereo-

typing associated with differences in religion,

language, culture, or race. Anti-foreigner sen-

timent (xenophobia) has contributed to some

governments, as in France, banning head-

scarves worn in public schools and universi-

ties. Vicious attacks on migrants by violent

elements such as skinheads have occurred,

especially in some German and French cities.

Discrimination against African immigrants,

as well as high unemployment and lack of

opportunities in France’s poorest immigrant

suburbs (banlieue), has sparked riots.

More recently, the considerable economic

and social changes in central and eastern

Europe have increased the opportunities for

criminal activities. The incidence of petty

crime, such as pickpocketing and graffiti, has

increased (Box 5.5). Organized crime has also

grown. Besides the more typical drugs, gam-

bling, and prostitution, “Mafia”-type crime

organizations are common in some cities.

Pollution is a problem in nearly every city

of the world, though many European cities

rate more favorably than most. Indeed, Swiss,

Austrian, and Scandinavian cities are practi-

cally sanitized daily and citizens are conscious

not to litter. Many street frontages in countries

such as France, Italy, and Spain are routinely

washed down by proprietors before they open

for business. Levels of pollution in most of the

former heavy industrial regions have fallen.

Indeed, air quality in the English Midlands

has improved since polluting industries have

closed or relocated, and even the Ruhr area

boasts clear skies and clean lakes.

Formerly Communist parts of Europe are

still tackling the legacy of weak Soviet-era

environmental standards, use of higher-risk

Urban Challenges 231

Box 5.5 urban Graffiti: is the Writing on the Wall?

Art or eyesore? Free expression or vandalism? European urban landscapes bear the marks of urban graffiti. on a stroll through just about any neighborhood in brussels, Paris, Prague, or Warsaw, you will see spray paint adorning buildings, signs, buses, and trains. An aesthetic issue for many, graffiti in European cities is also often a political issue tied up with ethnic, socioeconomic, or generational conflict.

Urban graffiti is nothing new. Ancient Greek and Roman cities had graffiti, including a caricature of a politician etched on an outdoor wall in the excavated Roman city of Pom- peii from around 79 ce. More recently, graffiti has played an important role in some of the ethno-political struggles in Europe. the basque separatist group EtA and sympathizers with their cause have used graffiti as a means of protesting the lack of autonomy within Spain and France. during Spain’s 40-year dictatorship under Francisco Franco, which lasted until 1975, graffiti was one of the few forms of protest that the EtA could get away with. Since then graffiti as political statement has continued alongside more publicized acts of violence. Similarly, irish Republican Army (iRA) markings are common in contested northern ireland cities, while politically motivated graffiti by bosnians and Serbians can be found in Sarajevo nearly two decades after the war that broke up yugoslavia.

in recent years, socially and politically conscious works of art have sprung up in Athens, Greece, a city whose middle class has been hit exceptionally hard by pressures brought about during the recent financial crisis. the city’s younger residents, many of whom are unemployed, have taken to the street and used graffiti to express disenchantment with eco- nomic uncertainty and ineffective government institutions. Some have suggested that the frustration has fueled the production of graffiti to such an extent that Athens has become a “contemporary mecca” for street art in Europe.

With a rise in graffiti, new forms of policing have emerged to combat it. Also, public offi- cials have commissioned street artists to paint murals in designated public spaces thereby giving street art an air of public approval. Such attempts by the city governments to combat unsanctioned graffiti while encouraging “official” murals are viewed by many street artists in Athens as an attempt by the authorities to control or neutralize the power of graffiti as a form of political expression.

An example of more drastic efforts taken against European street artists can be found in berlin, Germany. berlin’s cold war history and its numerous potential spaces for art have made it a blank canvas for street artists within the city and beyond. in 2013, the operator of the city’s commuter railway, deutsche bahn, proposed using drones to monitor trains in an effort to discourage graffiti—the company’s plans to use tiny remote-controlled helicopters equipped with infra-red cameras to patrol the company’s stations and train yards. While deutsche bahn claims that the drones will not target the traveling public in open spaces, the plan has met with much opposition. in a country still highly sensitive to the surveillance of law-abiding citi- zens, given a history of dictatorial nazi and Communist rule, such opposition is not surprising.

232 CITIES OF EUROPE

Sources: L. Alderman, Across Athens, Graffiti Worth a thousand Words of Malaise, New York Times, April 15, 2014; M. Eddy, Some Germans balk at Plan to Use drones to Fight Graffiti, New York Times, May 28, 2013; t. Moreau and d. Alderman, Graffiti hurts and the Eradication of Alternative Landscape Expression, Geographical Review, 2011, pp. 106–24; A. tzortzis, “bombing” berlin, the graffiti capital of Europe, New York Times, March 3, 2008.

Figure 5.20 Communism brought extensive industrial development (evident in the background) and isolation to Plovdiv, but post-Communist cell phone networks now connect a new generation of bulgarians to the world. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

industrial processes, and greater reliance on

aging Soviet-type nuclear reactors. The EU’s

stricter environmental regulations have closed

most of central and eastern Europe’s iconic

smoke-belching plants (Figure 5.20).

Since the end of the Communist era,

improved air, rail, and road transportation link-

ages connecting the major urban centers across

Europe have been laying the foundation for the

complete reintegration of the urban system.

Businesses and city governments in the eastern

European countries that joined the European

Union in the 2000s (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech

Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithu-

ania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia)

have already developed stronger ties with their

counterparts in the preexisting member states.

Membership in the European Union has

enhanced the opportunities for former social-

ist cities to address their pressing social and

economic problems. Certainly, the future and

prosperity of Europe as a whole in the global

economy depend on creating a more econom-

ically and socially equitable situation for all

European urban residents.

As the common currency, the euro, is grad-

ually extended to more countries, the urban

system will undergo more profound changes

as governments, businesses, and people in cit-

ies across Europe and elsewhere reorient their

activities to take advantage of the changing

economic environment.

At some point in the future, serious con-

sideration will be given to moving some of

SUGGESTED READINGS

Beatley, T., ed. 2012. Green Cities of Europe: Global

Lessons on Green Urbanism. Washington, DC:

Island Press. Examines some of the world’s best

examples of urban sustainability to show how

cities can be green and livable.

Hall, P., and R. Pain. 2009. The Polycentric Metropo-

lis: Learning from Mega-City Regions in Europe.

London: Routledge. Examines eight networked,

polycentric megacity regions in northwest

Europe.

Hamilton, F. E. I., K. D. Andrews, and N. Pichler-

Milanovic, eds. 2005. Transformation of Cities

in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards Globali-

zation. New York: United Nations University

Press. An overview with rich examples of major

cities on the road to globalization and European

integration.

Herrschel, T. 2014. Cities, State and Globalisation:

City-Regional Governance in Europe and North

America. New York: Routledge. Examines how

city-regions are governed by comparing Euro-

pean and North American examples.

Kazepov, Y., ed. 2005. Cities of Europe: Changing

Contexts, Local Arrangements, and the Challenge

to Urban Cohesion. Malden, MA: Wiley-Black-

well. Chapters focus on issues such as segrega-

tion, gentrification, and poverty.

Kresl, P. K. 2007. Planning Cities for the Future: The

Successes and Failures of Urban Economic Strate-

gies in Europe. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Examines the relationship between competi-

tiveness and economic strategic planning for 10

internationally networked cities.

Murphy, A. B., T. G. Joran-Bychkov, and B. Bychkova

Jordan. 2014. The European Culture Area: A Sys-

tematic Geography. 6th ed. Latham, MD: Row-

man and Littlefield. A major text with chapters

on cities, culture, the EU, and the environment.

Ostergren, R., and M. Le Bossé. 2011. The Euro-

peans: A Geography of People, Culture, and

Environment. 2nd ed. New York: Guildford. A

comprehensive view of Europe with two chap-

ters on towns and cities.

Penninx, R., K. Kraal, M. Martiniello, and S. Ver-

tovec, eds. 2004. Citizenship in European Cit-

ies: Immigrants, Local Politics, and Integration

Policies. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Examines

citizenship in European cities with a focus on

immigration policies and immigrant participa-

tion in civil society.

van den Berg, L., P. M. J. Pol, W. van Winden, and

P. Woets. 2005. European Cities in the Knowledge

Economy. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Examines

the knowledge economy using case studies of

Amsterdam, Dortmund, Eindhoven, Helsinki,

Manchester, Munich, Munster, Rotterdam, and

Zaragoza.

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Cities of Russia JESSICA K. GRAYBILL AND MEGAN DIXON

KEy URbAN FACTS

Total Population 143 million

Percent Urban 74%

Total Urban Population 105 million

Annual Urban Growth Rate (2010–2015) 0.1%

Number of Megacities (> 5 million) 1

Number of Cities > 1 million

Populations of Megacities (> 5 million) Moscow (12 million)

Fastest Annual Urban Growth Rate (2010–2015) 0.1%

Largest Urban Agglomerations

World Cities Moscow

KEy CHAPTER THEMES

1. Russia’s urban development reflects the impact of three distinct eras in the country’s his-

tory: tsarist, Soviet (communist), and post-Soviet.

2. Russia’s cities experienced two reconstruction phases in the twentieth century, one after

the creation of the Soviet Union in 1917 and the other when the Soviet Union collapsed in

1991.

3. The main pattern of the urban system, with its strong reflections of European urban plan-

ning characteristics, was established in the tsarist era.

4. Russia’s rapid urbanization in the early twentieth century accelerated the country’s historic

patterns of urban growth and contraction over the last thousand years.

5. As a result of the disintegration of the Soviet-era socialist support system, crime and cor-

ruption have hindered the emergence of a democratic post-Soviet governance and civil

society, especially in cities with increasing in-migration.

6. Environmental issues in Russia’s urban centers are increasingly recognized as severe and

have become an important issue requiring attention from post-Soviet city leaders.

236 CITIES OF RUSSIA

7. The need to overhaul and redesign urban places and urban governance raises new ques-

tions about the roles of government and citizens in the post-Soviet era.

8. Changing demographics and shifting cultural and religious identities have reinvigorated

questions about tolerance and acceptance of multiculturalism in post-Soviet cities.

9. In the post-Soviet period, cities are no longer subsidized by the central government; many

have experienced economic recession, significant population loss and, at least, seasonal

deurbanization or ruralization.

10. Cities that are prospering are those with superior locations, strong historic roots, or attrac-

tive environments for foreign investment and economic growth.

The urban landscape of the Russian Federa-

tion, commonly known as Russia, is today

characterized by ornate tsarist-era buildings

and monuments (palaces, churches, muse-

ums) standing alongside utilitarian, concrete-

and-steel structures of the Soviet era (office

buildings, communal apartments, commu-

nity centers) and the newly erected European-

style, elite apartments and shopping centers of

the post-Soviet era. This landscape reflects the

impacts of urban development during three

distinct periods in the country’s history: tsa-

rist, Soviet (communist), and post-Soviet.

Diverse ethnic groups have inhabited this

region of Eurasia for at least a thousand years,

continually contributing to Russia’s diverse

population. A blending of many cultures,

religions and histories across the European

and Asian realms of Russia for several centu-

ries resulted in multicultural settlements that

eventually grew into towns and cities dur-

ing the Tsarist Russian Empire (1721–1917).

Under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

(the USSR, or the Soviet Union) from 1917 to

1991, that multiculturalism was celebrated but

also tempered by communist universalism;

standardized Soviet urban forms spread across

a Eurasian territory, either rebuilding existing

cities or creating new ones (Box 6.1). Across

Russia, but especially in cities, the collapse of

the Soviet Union was symbolically marked on

December 25, 1991, as the Soviet hammer-and-

sickle flag lowered, replaced by the red, white,

and blue flag of the Russian Federation, now

one of 15 independent post-Soviet nations.

Russia began the twentieth century with

less than one-fifth of its population classified

as urban; by 1989, 74 percent of Russia’s pop-

ulation lived in urban places. The average per-

centage leveled off in the late 1990s at about

73 percent, a figure that remains stable today.

Although it has been two decades since the end

of the Soviet period, the imprint of Soviet-era

urban policy and form still profoundly affects

the larger territory—urban and rural—of the

Russian Federation (Figure 6.1) and other

post-Soviet states. The Soviet attempt to pro-

vide greater cultural, educational, employ-

ment, and housing opportunities in cities

produced specific urban landscapes; many of

these remain as Russia continues to undergo

a series of socioeconomic, political, and cul-

tural transformations, shaping urban trends

that contradict some expectations common in

the West. For example, the severity of the eco-

nomic collapse following the end of the Soviet

Union and Russia’s abrupt confrontation with

the global economy prompted many urban

workers to fall back on dacha settlements

(rural areas established in the Soviet era) to

practice subsistence farming, a process known

as ruralization.

Key Chapter Themes 237

Box 6.1 Where does Soviet influence Begin or end?

Cities evolving under post-socialist regimes are breaking away from the urban plans so strictly enforced by communist/socialist governments. Socialism’s largely compact, compre- hensively planned cities were structured internally and regionally to be self-sufficient, but this is changing today as individuals and businesses make their own decisions about where to locate residences and businesses in freer market economies. the rate of change in urban planning for the post-socialist city depends on many factors, including a city’s location and involvement in a regional or global economy, and the visions of individual city leaders.

three growth trends alter the urban form, function, and internal spatial structures of post-socialist cities, reforming socioeconomic and political processes in addition to the built environment. First, emerging land markets and commercial real estate spaces transform the urban fabric as new housing, shopping, and sometimes industrial developments are created within city limits and in suburban or exurban locations. Second, increased automobile and cargo truck ownership causes new kinds of movements in and around cities, causing conges- tion in the city but the possibility of movement into suburban locations by businesses and individuals. third, as suburban growth develops, there is a tendency for previously compact post-socialist cities, often radial or quadrangular in form, to become linear in form, as eco- nomic activities occur along arterial routes out of cities into the surrounding countryside.

While city centers, urban peripheries, and suburban locations are all foci for redevelop- ment and new growth, often-outward development is chronological. in early post-socialist city development, the most important growth region is the inner city, where densification of the urban fabric occurs as new residences and small entrepreneurs appear. in later post- socialist city development, inner city development continues but is joined by peripheral urban and suburban growth, where small-scale development is replaced by mega-shopping complexes and gated residential communities. As development continues, land outside cit- ies but along transportation routes is redeveloped first because it has the greatest access points to customers and infrastructure. thus, post-socialist city growth is both vertical and horizontal, integrating commercial and residential development in new ways in city centers and peripheries.

Not surprisingly, in a country nearly twice

the size of the United States, the effects of

“wild” capitalism and its visual imprint on

the landscape are unevenly distributed across

Russian cities. In some Russian cities, the

built environment has changed so dramati-

cally since 1991 that many cities are nearly

unrecognizable to those accustomed to quiet,

somber Soviet landscapes. Commercial retail-

ers, private transportation, and new housing

construction have altered Russian social and

cultural urban landscapes (Figure 6.2). For

example, Moscow’s Red Square is no longer

a nearly deserted public space awaiting mili-

tary parades; instead, this central-city land-

mark area abuts a bustling high-end retail and

238 CITIES OF RUSSIA

tourist space (Figure 6.3). This new socio-

economic landscape changes how people use

the built environment, creating new cultural

spaces and practices; luxury shopping and

café lifestyles have become daily activities for

Muscovites and tourists alike.

Construction of tsarist and Soviet cit-

ies emphasized urban planning principles

such as pedestrian walkways and mass tran-

sit, thus ignoring or minimizing the needs

of automobiles. Indeed, across the territory

of the former USSR, over 20 metros (subway

systems) were developed, far more than any

other country in the world. The Soviet vision

of accessible transportation for all urban

citizens thus predates many sustainability-

minded mass-transit projects now becoming

popular in the West. However, an exponential

increase in private and commercial vehicles

has occurred in post-Soviet Russia, and cities

were neither built nor have been redeveloped

to accommodate them. The concept of rush

hour has great meaning now, and for many

Russian cities, especially Moscow, rush hour

begins mid-afternoon and extends through

the evening (Figure 6.4).

The typical Soviet rings of monolithic

apartment complexes on city outskirts are

increasingly mixed: new elite apartment build-

ings are constructed alongside Western-style

suburban developments of “cottages” and

gated communities (Figure 6.5). Soviet neigh-

borhoods were often ethnically and socioeco-

nomically intermixed, but today, depending

Figure 6.2 new construction in cities around Russia (Vladivostok is pictured) relegates Soviet urban landscapes to the background as new commercial and residential buildings vie for valuable real estate locations. Source: Photo by Sergei domashenko.

Key Chapter Themes 239

on the city, stratification by socioeconomic

class and sometimes by ethnicity is beginning

to occur, as upwardly mobile residents choose

to live in newly constructed, high-security

apartments or McMansions in suburban or

exurban locations. Cultural and social change

is noted in the replacement of Communist

Party billboards (formerly present in every

city and town) with brilliant neon and ban-

ner-type commercial advertisements for con-

sumer goods and services along major urban

thoroughfares.

Post-Soviet Russia still grapples with the

legacy of the spatial framework created by

Soviet urban development. The Soviet plan-

ning regime often located settlements near

natural resources in isolated, inhospitable

environments, resulting in far-flung, poten-

tially unsustainable urban growth. In the

post-Soviet period, capitalist notions of effi-

ciency have made such cities’ locations and

industrial operations unprofitable, resulting

in economic decline and population outflow.

This type of development has been called

“archipelago urbanization,” because Soviet

cities arose like urban islands in a vast rural

Eurasian hinterland that remained—and

remains—seemingly unchanged culturally

or economically for centuries. Cities’ posi-

tion as islands within Russia’s vast territory

persists due to a lack of transportation infra-

structure connecting them or, today, the lack

of affordable transportation to any destina-

tion but Moscow. For example, the price of a

round-trip plane ticket from Petropavlovsk-

Kamchatsky to Magadan (a 1-hour flight) is

usually greater than a round-trip ticket from

either of these cities to Moscow (a 9-hour

flight), indicating the centralized power that

Moscow still wields over individual Russian

regions.

In both tsarist and Soviet Russia, many

cities owed their existence and location to

questions of national security, but military-

industrial complexes now play a lesser role in

determining the location of urban investment

and growth. Today, cities previously favored

by Soviet urban and economic policies are

undergoing economic restructuring processes

not dissimilar to the restructuring experienced

by major North American and European cities

during deindustrialization, beginning in the

1970s. For example, cities such as Ekaterin-

burg in western Siberia are becoming service-

based transportation and corporate centers for

European businesses, and other gateway cities

near the Chinese border (e.g., Vladivostok and

Khabarovsk in eastern Siberia) are transform-

ing Russian-Asian business relations.

Figure 6.3 Renovations in GUM shopping center on Red Square make it a top destination for tourists and Russia’s elite seeking high-end shopping experiences. Source: Photo by Jessica Graybill.

240 CITIES OF RUSSIA

Figure 6.4 Since the fall of communism, automobile ownership in Moscow has soared, and with it has come urban gridlock. Source: Photo by Alexei domashenko.

Figure 6.5 new microrayon developments, with varied architectural styles and imposing gates and fences, are rapidly changing the face of Russia’s suburbs. this picture is from balakovo. Source: Photo by Jessica Graybill.

Historical Evolution of the Russian Urban System 241

The early post-Soviet period exposed many

cities to increasing poverty, economic collapse,

and restructuring, with large inflows of refu-

gees from more troubled parts of the former

Soviet Union (Table 6.1). Many people from

Ukraine sought residence in Russia in 2015

due to conflict in and near Crimea. Today,

rather than buying subsidized goods and ser-

vices from the state, urban governments are

challenged to transform into self-sufficient

capitalist entities responsible for self-promo-

tion in an economic climate marked by rapid

and widespread changes in the distribution of

development both within cities and between

them. Urban in-migration and development

has led to increased growth of larger cities

(e.g., 100,000 or more) in western and south-

ern Russia (Figure 6.6). Just as throughout

Russian history, harsh climate, a poorly devel-

oped (and frequently impassable) network of

roads, and immense distances still exacerbate

the fragmentation of the Russian urban sys-

tem. Russian cities will continue seeking suc-

cessful solutions to these challenges well into

the twenty-first century.

HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE RUSSIAN URbAN SySTEM

The Pre-Soviet Period: Birth

of the Urban System

Historical settlement patterns have depended

on access to water, transportation, and the

location of military and economic outposts.

The eastward spread of Russia’s urban popula-

tion dates to the first Slavic cities that appeared

in the Valdai Highlands of the Russian plain

at the end of the ninth century. A vast river

network provided connectivity through this

region, often called Rus, creating vital trade

routes between Scandinavia, Russia, and the

eastern Mediterranean regions. The Vikings

established a set of city-principalities, at once

both military outposts and trading centers,

where they collected tolls from merchants

traveling through the region. Kiev (or Kyiv, the

capital of independent Ukraine), Novgorod,

and Smolensk were among the earliest urban

settlements of this period.

The region gradually began to function

independently from the Viking settlers, and

Table 6.1 Percent Urban Population in Each Federal Okrug

Federal Okrug 1926 1939 1970 1989 2002 2010 Percent change,

1926–1989 Percent change,

1989–2010

Central 19 34.2 64.3 78 79.1 81.3 310.5 4.3

Northwest 29.2 48 73.3 82.2 81.9 83.5 181.5 1.6

Southern 19.2 31 52.1 60 57.3 62.4 212.5 4.1

North Caucasus – – – – – 49.1 – –

Privolzhskaya 12.1 23.8 56.1 70.8 70.8 70.8 485.1 0.0

Ural 21 45.4 71.3 80.2 80.2 79.9 281.9 −0.3

Siberia 13.3 32.6 62.5 72.9 70.5 72.0 448.1 −1.3

Far East 23.4 46.5 71.5 75.8 76 74.8 223.9 −1.4

Russian Federation Total 17.7 33.5 62.3 73.6 73 73.7 315.8 0.1

Sources: Percent urban population in each federal okrug. The North Caucasian Federal District was split from Southern Federal

District on January 19, 2010. Percent urban population in each federal okrug. The North Caucasian Federal District was split from

Southern Federal District on January 19, 2010. 2010 Census Data; www.perepis-2010.ru.

242 CITIES OF RUSSIA

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Historical Evolution of the Russian Urban System 243

Kiev became the focal point for Slavic politi-

cal and economic development because of its

location on the navigable Dnieper River with

access to the Black Sea and Constantinople. In

988, Orthodox Christianity became the official

religion, constraining the open practice and

tolerance of other beliefs (e.g., Islam, Judaism,

paganism, and pantheism). Most cities in Kievan

Rus were located along rivers and were origi-

nally established as kremlins, or forts, because

of constant conflict among the settlements as

well as for protection against raids by Mongols

and, later, Mongolian Tatars. The importance

of hills for defense and rivers for communica-

tion lines during this period explains common

features of many city centers. Kremlins were

always located on high riverbanks and streets

were radially planned, to facilitate rapid dis-

patch of troops. Many of these cities have sur-

vived today with their kremlins still intact. The

famous Golden Ring cities around Moscow

(e.g., Yaroslavl, Suzdal, Vladimir) have origins

in Kievan Rus and remain important centers of

Russian Orthodox Christianity.

After an important victory against the Tatars

in 1480, a new polity called Muscovy arose and

aided in the development of a new type of urban

network that developed east of Rus. The grow-

ing city of Moscow dominated this new region

of settlement from its location at the center of

another river system, allowing cultural and eco-

nomic growth in new directions. Access to the

Volga and its tributaries aided eastward expan-

sion; the Western Dvina led to the Baltic; and

the Don and Dnieper rivers led to the Black Sea.

Theologians who envisioned Moscow as the

‘Third Rome’ provided Muscovy with a vision

and self-proclaimed mission to build a new

Russian empire firmly rooted in Christian mis-

sionary traditions with expansionist intentions.

Indeed, Russian settlements expanded east-

ward across the Ural Mountains into Siberia,

encountering little resistance after final defeat

of the Tatars at Kazan in the middle of the

sixteenth century by Tsar Ivan the Terrible.

New settlements, such as Tobolsk and Yakutsk,

began as military outposts; they remained iso-

lated frontier towns until Soviet expansion.

Trappers plundered Siberia for furs; explorers

and scientists who sought to map the territo-

ries to the East and South also brought back

tales of ethnic groups and raw resources in

Siberia, the Far East, and Central Asia.

As the seventeenth century ended, Russia’s

network of cities had become landlocked.

Seeking access to the sea, Tsar Peter the Great

founded St. Petersburg in 1703, touching off

spectacular urban transformations within

Russia. Consistent with Russian urban history,

St. Petersburg was built for cultural, economic,

and security reasons, to be a showcase naval

and commercial port with crucial access to

maritime routes (Figure 6.7). New to Russian

urban development, however, was the cultural

purpose of becoming the country’s “window

on the West”; the city was designed accord-

ing to European planning principles. Peter

the Great also expected adoption of western

cultural norms. For example, he required men

in cities to cut off their long beards or pay an

annual beard tax, thus hoping to shear away

old Muscovite customs and traditions in favor

of new styles and habits of living.

As the new national capital, St. Petersburg

quickly supplanted Moscow. The urban focus

moved westward physically and culturally.

Reforms undertaken by Tsar Peter revitalized

both local and long-distance trade, encourag-

ing growth in new market centers as well as

in more established ones. The creation of this

new, Western-oriented city fueled social and

spatial tension between those who believed

in modernizing the country and those who

emphasized Russia’s traditional Slavic origins.

Current debates about Russia’s direction of

development mirror these earlier ones; some

244 CITIES OF RUSSIA

look to the West or East for support, and some

look inward for purely Russian inspiration

and solutions. The development of St. Peters-

burg in originally inhospitable swampy land

was also a precursor to the Soviet belief that

humans can conquer nature in the name of

economic progress. By the end of the nine-

teenth century, about 16 percent of Russia’s

population lived in urban areas. Factories

in the region around Moscow and several

nearby centers (e.g., Tver, Vladimir, Ivanovo,

Kostroma) fueled economic and urban

development.

The Soviet Period: New Urban Patterns

After the Russian Revolution (1917) and

ensuing civil war, the Communist Party took

Figure 6.7 the Church of our Savior on the Spilled blood, in St. Petersburg, was built on the spot where Emperor Alexander ii was assassinated in March 1881. built from 1883 to 1907, the Romanov family provided funds for this glamorous cathedral. Source: Photo by Jared boone.

Historical Evolution of the Russian Urban System 245

steps to consolidate its political power and

reshape the economy, establishing a political-

economic and urban system unlike any other

worldwide. In 1918, the leadership moved the

capital from St. Petersburg (renamed Len-

ingrad in 1924) back to Moscow. The move

was both symbolic and strategic: the relatively

recent capital built by the tsars as a window

on the West was replaced by an older capital

(Moscow) in the country’s heartland, which

would be easier to defend. It also made a state-

ment that the country’s gaze was no longer to

the West but to the East and within empire.

Soviet doctrine privileged urban life over

rural as the proper environment for com-

munist man, drawing on British and French

models and experiments in worker housing.

Urbanization was seen as necessary to create

an industrialized working class that would

embrace communist ideals and thus became

synonymous with the construction of com-

munism. Russia rapidly urbanized after the

communist era began in 1917 and significant

levels of urbanization continued in every

region of Russia throughout the Soviet period,

bringing electricity and indoor plumbing to

many regions. Even in predominantly agricul-

tural regions, more than half of the popula-

tion lived in urban places by 1979.

The Communist Party established a new

economic system guided by communist and

socialist principles instead of market forces,

called the command economy because a

group of central planners located in Moscow

made all decisions. Central planners allocated

all investment resources and set standards for

urban development, privileging national over

local needs. This meant that cities had little

influence over local economic development,

urban growth, and internal city structure.

Private property was abolished. To pro-

vide immediate housing for the crush of

population moving into cities to supply indus-

trial labor, private apartments were appropri-

ated and subdivided to create kommunalka,

or communal apartments, which provided

immediate housing in the era of urban indus-

trialization. Multiple households had to share

spaces that formerly accommodated a single

family. At first, such lack of privacy was tol-

erated as part of the excitement of building a

new communist society. Later, however, kom-

munalka became slum-like dwellings for the

urban poor where sharing was largely prac-

ticed out of economic necessity, not out of

idealism about a better future.

Obeying another ideological principle,

Soviet planners attempted to distribute urban

settlements evenly across the Soviet expanse,

even into harsh, inhospitable regions, obeying

the injunction of Friedrich Engels to distribute

large-scale industry equally across the country.

Using algorithms based on European and North

American urbanization models, Soviet planners

chose so-called optimal locations for industrial

development and built cities around them. This

led to the construction of new cities with pre-

determined sizes (e.g., less than 50,000 people,

more than 100,000 people) in previously lesser

developed and less populated regions. This

approach created a seemingly irrational pattern

of economic flows between quite distant cities;

the locations of suppliers, intermediate pro-

ducers, markets, and managerial bureaucracies

were of little concern in a system where trans-

portation and energy costs were state subsidized

and therefore perceived to be virtually free.

The artificiality of this urban planning pol-

icy is especially visible in the rapid urbanization

and settlement of Siberia, the Far East, and the

Far North. Soviet planners regarded mastery

of these regions as an ideological necessity and

as a challenge to their technological ability to

tame harsh environments, such as permafrost

246 CITIES OF RUSSIA

or steppe regions. Prior to the Soviet period,

small, autonomous villages and indigenous

settlements dotted the vast territory of the

Russian Far North and East. Modernization

of lifestyles in these regions in the early Soviet

period was achieved by pushing people off

their native lands and into regional towns and

collective farms (kolkhozi). Ostensibly under- taken to ease central management and regional

planning for cities and towns, resettlement

of nomadic and semi-nomadic indigenous

peoples from small villages across the for-

mer Soviet territories ultimately enlarged the

Soviet industrial workforce but greatly altered

residential patterns and traditional ways of life.

High rates of urbanization in the Arctic

and Siberian regions existed as early as 1959

and persist today (Table 6.1). Even into the late

twentieth century, the population of the Far

North (the Arctic region) remained nearly 80

percent urban, well above the Russian average

of 73 percent. The ideologically based subsi-

dies that enabled this process included higher

salaries offered to persuade people to join the

social and physical construction of commu-

nism in the new industrial settlements. This

practice highlights a significant mismatch

between the location of labor resources, mar-

kets, and urban-industrial power in the west-

ern portion of the country, and the location

of natural resources, including energy, in the

eastern and northern portions of the country.

After World War II, national security needs

also prompted the creation of a vast urban

network connected to the military-industrial

complex (MIC). Closed to outside visitors,

these cities grew in economic importance and

population only because of their attachment

to the MIC. Decades of defense-related invest-

ment in these cities’ industrial bases, housing

stocks, roads, schools, and other urban infra-

structure influenced their urban geographies

in ways impossible in capitalist economies (in

Figure 6.20, note the enclave of Zelenograd

near Moscow but distinct from it).

Subsidization of transportation included

spectacular megaprojects that aimed to

increase connectivity in the urban system.

Joseph Stalin envisioned the construction of

a canal network across northern European

Russia to promote trade. While never com-

pleted, it is remembered for the use of pris-

oners to construct it, especially the White

Sea-Baltic Canal (Belomorkanal) portion. In

the 1970s, Soviet planners began construct-

ing a second Siberian rail route, the Baykal-

Amur Mainline (BAM), to supplement the

capacity of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The

BAM facilitated new natural resource exploi-

tation and the transportation of goods across

Russia’s vast expanse, providing lifelines to

cities located thousands of miles from cen-

tral Russia. In the Far North, cities primarily

depended on boats using the Northern Sea

Route along the Arctic coastline or Siberian

rivers. Even today, frozen rivers are used as

winter roads until the ice breaks. Crucially,

however, the USSR never developed a net-

work of highways such as those in North

America or Europe, thus greatly hampering

circulation between cities.

To help carry out political and economic

agendas, as well as to reflect the new ideol-

ogy, the communist leadership established a

hierarchical urban administrative system that

located all power in Moscow. Administrative

centers in the oblasts (political units compa-

rable to states or provinces) were subordinate

to central planners in Moscow, who controlled

resource allocation and use in each region. Not

surprisingly, administrative centers benefited

disproportionately from central investment

decisions. Oblast centers became the loca-

tions for massive industrial investment and

Historical Evolution of the Russian Urban System 247

grew rapidly. Historic industrial centers such

as Moscow, Yaroslavl, and Kazan were joined

by administrative/industrial centers in Sibe-

ria and the Far East (e.g., Omsk, Novosibirsk,

Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, and Vladivostok). Many

oblast centers still function like primate cities

in other world regions, where investment, ser-

vices, and labor are concentrated in one city,

creating uneven regional development.

Planners also used investments to develop

a system of secondary industrial cities focused

on heavy industry (e.g., the automotive indus-

try in Tolliatti, aluminum production in

Bratsk) or natural resource exploitation (e.g.,

nickel in Norilsk, oil near Surgut). Thus, a

new system of large cities (i.e., cities of more

than 50,000 people) developed in Russia. In a

country where bigger was seen as better, plan-

ners and politicians spoke glowingly of cities

with more than 1 million inhabitants. Indeed,

many Russians have a cultural urban bias; they

consider it more prestigious and advantageous

to live in cities and, despite urban hardships,

prefer not to leave them for rural settings.

While planners directed investment

resources to specific cities, they simultane-

ously pursued a contradictory policy: limiting

population growth in many of the same cities

through formal control mechanisms such as

the propiska (legal permission to live in a spe-

cific city). Many individuals found legal ways

around the system, such as marrying someone

who had a propiska or finding employment

and having the employer secure a propiska.

Ultimately, pressure for ever-greater produc-

tion made investments in established sites

more economically rational. But additional

production created demand for increased

labor. This had the dual effect of increasing

city sizes beyond intended targets and inten-

sifying industrial production (and thus pollu-

tion and waste) inside city boundaries.

Urban and Regional Planning

in the Soviet Period

Central planners also influenced the internal

spatial structure of Soviet cities. To create cit-

ies consistent with socialist ideals, planners

adopted specific principles to guide urban

planning that included adopting urban growth

boundaries in order to constrain city sizes,

distributing consumer and cultural goods and

services equitably to the population, minimiz-

ing journeys to work and providing public

transportation for spatial mobility, and segre-

gating urban land uses. Interestingly, some of

these Soviet principles, such as urban growth

boundaries and reduced commuting, have

been abandoned in Russia today but are pro-

pounded in the West as “smart” growth.

The basic building block of Soviet cities

was the microrayon. Constructed near indus-

try and other places of work to minimize

journeys to work, microrayons housed 8,000–

12,000 people in living areas designed as inte-

grated units of high-rise apartment buildings,

stores, and schools, providing residents with

cultural and educational services required by

Soviet norms. In this urban planning scheme,

all daily life activities (e.g., education, shop-

ping, and the use of city services like post

offices and utilities payments) could be con-

ducted without leaving the microrayon, thus

influencing how children, workers, the elderly

and others moved through the city. People

living in close proximity in the same city, but

not in the same microrayon, might never meet

on the street because of the highly structured

nature of urban life in these neighborhoods.

Built using standardized plans irrespective

of local environmental conditions, microray-

ons are numbingly similar whether in Novo-

sibirsk, Vorkuta, or Moscow, and large tracts

of identical or similar multistory apartment

248 CITIES OF RUSSIA

buildings still ring all Russian cities. For

example, similar construction materials

and designs were used to build microrayons

located in diverse physical geographic regions

found across the former Soviet Union, such

as in earthquake hazard zones (e.g., Almaty

in Kazakhstan); in cold, damp climates (e.g.,

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky); in flood hazard

regions (e.g., St. Petersburg); or on the semi-

arid steppe (e.g., Barnaul). Microrayon loca-

tions were set by the so-called General Plans,

which determined the location of microrayons within cities, as well as all other land uses. General plans were so detailed that a milk

store could not be built legally on a site des-

ignated for a bread store. General plans were

intended to complement the shorter-term

five-year economic plans, which determined

what would be made, how it would be made,

who would make it, who would receive the

final product, and at what price.

The Urban Environment in the Soviet Period

Absent from Soviet planning principles were

concerns about the impact of industrial or

urban development on the environment or

about ecosystem limits. Planners, and the

Soviet system in general, believed in and prac-

ticed technological control over nature. This

practice, combined with the zeal to reach eco-

nomic goals, resulted in almost complete disre-

gard for the ecology in and near Russia’s cities.

Teams of planners, geo-engineers, and eco-

nomic geographers choreographed large-scale

development projects to modernize society,

especially in large urban areas. For example,

dams, hydroelectric power stations, and indus-

trial complexes were constructed in and near

cities. “Progress” was narrowly conceptualized

as industrialization at all costs, and nature was

society’s tool to create the new socialist reality.

For example, near the city of Okha on

Sakhalin Island, onshore oil deposits have been

exploited since the early 1900s. Exploitation

increased in the Soviet period, and the evidence

of poor environmental standards for extrac-

tion remains today. On a road out of town,

adjacent to local residents’ summer homes

(dachas) and within sight of high-rise apart-

ment buildings, numerous rusting and leak-

ing oil pumps stand in pools of stagnant water

mixed with leaked oil. Although signs posted

in this suburban oil field warn pedestrians of

the toxins in the area, they are often illegible or

half buried in oil muck. This mixture runs into

local creeks, which in turn empties into the Sea

of Okhotsk, where discharge from runoff pipes

disrupts ecologies in nearshore bays and coast-

lines. This environmental and human-health

hazard was—and remains—less important

than the economic bottom line.

Examples like these abound in and around

Russian cities and can be understood as exam-

ples of environmental and social injustice.

Although many urban residents were and are

aware of urban environmental issues, Soviet

newspapers and scientific-engineering litera-

ture remained silent about the growing envi-

ronmental problems across most of Russia’s

industry-driven cities until the late Soviet

period, when the extent of environmental

degradation began to be publicized. Only

in the late 1980s did people openly begin to

express concern about environmental health

issues after nationwide reporting of air, water,

and land pollution; environmental degra-

dation with economic consequences (e.g.,

decreased fishing catches in lakes and rivers);

and human-health issues (e.g., asthma, kidney

diseases, lung diseases). Many urban dwellers

found a silver lining in the industrial decline

of the 1990s—the spiraling decline of urban

environments was temporarily halted until

Historical Evolution of the Russian Urban System 249

massive increases in automobile use caused air

pollution to rebound. Disregard for the impact

of economic development on ecology shaped

investment practices that continue today.

The Soviet history of urban and regional

planning has left an indelible mark on Rus-

sia’s built and natural environments, precisely

because buildings and industries were located

without reference to market forces and envi-

ronmental conditions. In the command econ-

omy, land was not bought and sold in Soviet

cities, but allocated roughly in accordance with

the socialist ideology and planning principles

outlined above. The absence of a free market

meant that land was not recycled for other

purposes, as would have been the case in mar-

ket economies. As a result, new construction

tended to continue moving outward from the

city center. Compare, for instance, the popula-

tion density of Paris and Moscow as it varies

with distance from the city center (Figure 6.8).

In Paris, market forces mean that valuable land

near the city center is more densely populated

than less valuable land on the city outskirts. In

Moscow, just the opposite was true. The most

densely populated parts of the city were on

land far from the city center, which was often

reserved for culture and political symbolism.

Clearly visible historic rings of develop-

ment remain. Beginning in the 1930s, huge

factories were erected outside tsarist-era city

cores as part of the industrialization drive.

In subsequent years, especially after the late

1950s, a near catastrophic housing short-

age and renewed determination to improve

people’s living conditions began decades of

construction of microrayons on city outskirts

while historic buildings crumbled in city cent-

ers (Figure 6.9). Instead of developing technol-

ogy to build skyscrapers on valuable land in the

city center, central planners focused on build-

ing high-rise apartment buildings on the out-

skirts, creating a characteristic “bowl” skyline

in many cities. Ironically, this undervaluing of

Figure 6.8 Comparative density Profiles in the built-up areas of Moscow and Paris. Source: beth Mitchneck and Ellen hamilton.

250 CITIES OF RUSSIA

centrally located land preserved many older

buildings up until the post-Soviet period.

Late Soviet Period: The Beginning of Change

Noticeable urban restructuring preceded the

final economic and political collapse of the

Soviet system in 1991. Starting in the 1980s, a

phenomenon of “disappearing cities” revealed

a pattern of manufacturing and industrial

decline. Towns in European Russia lost so

many people that they no longer appeared

in Soviet statistical accounts of urban places.

While distributed throughout Russia, more

than half of these towns were in the industrial

core regions around Moscow and St. Peters-

burg and in the Urals. By the mid-1990s,

however, Siberian cities accounted for a larger

proportion of shrinking urban areas. The

exodus of residents from shrinking towns,

combined with new migration patterns west-

ward, contributed to the worsening situation

of overburdened and decaying urban infra-

structure, including housing and utilities, as

Figure 6.9 historic buildings in Vladivostok’s urban core crumble today from neglect in the maritime climate of this port city. Source: Photo by Jessica Graybill.

Contemporary Russia: Reconfiguring the Urban System 251

population became concentrated in many

large Russian cities. Thus, despite natural pop-

ulation decline (a greater number of deaths

than births), many Russian cities—especially

in the south and west—are growing rapidly

even as others shrink (Figure 6.6).

Analysis of the profile of disappearing and

shrinking towns reveals the impact of eco-

nomic restructuring on the urban system.

Because of the boom-bust economies sur-

rounding mineral and other resource exploi-

tation, mining towns account for a large

proportion of declining towns (roughly a

quarter by 2000). Urban centers related to the

MIC comprise another large proportion of

declining cities. Previously, MIC cities received

special attention from the central government,

including better-than-average access to goods

and services as well as higher salaries. This

special treatment does not continue today. For

example, in the border zone of Kamchatka in

the Far East, MICs have become near ghost

towns due to a perceived end in the need for

border control in this region.

An interesting counterpoint to the disap-

pearance of many towns is the appearance

of previously unacknowledged cities, known

as secret cities or, in Soviet parlance, “closed

administrative-territorial formations.” Secret

cities never appeared on maps, and some esti-

mates place the number of secret cities around

40. Located throughout Russia, but with clus-

ters in Murmansk Oblast, the Far East, the

Urals and Moscow Oblast, employment was

focused on highly classified military produc-

tion including nuclear research and missile

production (Figure 6.10).

CONTEMPORARy RUSSIA: RECONFIGURING THE

URbAN SySTEM

In the post-Soviet period (1992–present),

heavy industry was especially hard hit by the

Figure 6.10 A submarine in Kaliningrad, a former secret military city in the former Soviet Union, is now used as a tourist attraction. Source: Photo by Annina Ala-outinen.

252 CITIES OF RUSSIA

reintroduction of market forces and the reori-

entation of the economy away from defense.

As Russia’s borders opened, it was flooded

with cheaper and better consumer goods, and

demand for locally produced goods—every-

thing from steel to planes—dried up. Cities

experienced economic restructuring processes

not dissimilar to those in major North Ameri-

can and European cities during deindus-

trialization in the 1970s. At the same time,

regions began scrambling for new investment

capital to replace the funds that used to flow

in from Moscow. Economic restructuring

away from manufacturing to increased raw

resource extraction and export means that cit-

ies dependent on manufacturing now struggle

to cope with high unemployment rates and

few opportunities for new development. It is

precisely these deindustrializing cities that are

losing population in the current period.

In the post-Soviet period, the places with

the highest rates of gross regional product

today are found in just a few natural resource-

rich regions in Siberia, the Far East, and in

Moscow. As a direct result of the change from

Soviet central planning to market-driven

processes, there has been significant move-

ment out of Siberian and Arctic cities (as

well as from cities in the newly independent

countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus)

back to European Russia. The introduction

of market forces in cities in harsh and inac-

cessible places, such as Norilsk and Surgut,

caused rapid increases in costs for energy and

transportation, food, housing, and industrial

production. As subsidies dropped sharply,

urban-industrial complexes closed and unem-

ployment surged. Many who could simply

pulled up stakes and moved. One unique

urban phenomenon in the former Soviet

nation of Kazakhstan, is the creation of a new

national capital (Astana), ostensibly to replace

the heavily Russified older capital (Almaty)

and renew economic growth and sociocultural

importance of this place by and for Kazakh

citizens (see Box 6.2).

The uneven spatial distribution of the ben-

efits of economic reform has created vast dif-

ferences among individual cities in Russia’s

urban network. Some cities are clearly thriv-

ing in the transition to a market economy,

but those whose geographic locations are not

conducive to taking part in transformation are

struggling. However, many people (including

the elderly and the poor) stay in these cities

because of strong social or kinship ties forged

in the urban archipelago, or a strong belief in

the Soviet system. For those who stay behind,

the “new” traditional economy depends on

activities like hunting, gathering, fishing, and

domestic agricultural production. For exam-

ple, people have intensified agricultural crops

and livestock husbandry on household plots

and at dachas (Figure 6.11). In some places,

foresters report increased gathering of com-

munal forest resources such as mushrooms,

berries, or herbs. In this way, traditional agri-

cultural activities are woven into everyday life

in shrinking urban places across Russia.

Cities in regions with growing econo-

mies and growing populations (like Moscow,

Yakutsk, Vladivostok, and Kazan) have become

attractive destinations for migrants from more

depressed areas of Russia and other parts of

the former Soviet Union. This phenomenon

has rearranged hierarchical relationships in

the urban system by increasing the population

and economic clout of previously minor cit-

ies. For example, migrants from other former

Soviet republics are attracted to economic

growth and jobs associated with natural

resource development in booming northern

locations such as Sakhalin Island and Norilsk

(Figure 6.12). Cities in the Southern Federal

Contemporary Russia: Reconfiguring the Urban System 253

Box 6.2 new Capital Cities in the Post-Soviet Sphere: astana’s amazing Growth

natalie Koch, Syracuse University

“the goal is to have people talk about Astana like dubai,” explained the Master Plan chief of Astana in 2011. Some years prior, Kazakhstan’s president nursultan nazarbayev tasked urban planners in the capital with using the capital city’s development to raise the inter- national prestige of this young, oil-rich Soviet successor state. this is a task that dubai is frequently understood to exemplify. but long before the city’s spectacular rise, capital cities have frequently been treated as the “face” of a nation, or a “shop-window” to broadcast its modernity and importance to the global community. nowhere is the continued salience of this practice better illustrated than in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Astana, which simply means “capital” in Kazakh, became Kazakhstan’s official capital in 1997. Astana has served many ideological agendas of the authoritarian nazarbayev regime, which has dominated Kazakhstan since the collapse of the Soviet Union. through the city’s fast-paced development, the leadership has promoted the idea that the entire country is rapidly modernizing. Explicitly treated as the “business card” of the developing country, Astana’s rise is used to advertise the country’s new market orientation and to entice foreign investors. What has this process looked like in Astana?

in their efforts to raise Kazakhstan’s international prestige, state and urban planners use many of the same urban development strategies that have helped to raise the international profile of dubai. Specifically, these have included developing Special Economic Zones and technology parks; hosting mega-events such as international conferences, festivals, sporting events; introducing state-of-the-art new educational facilities, and developing a hypermod- ern image for the built landscape, through prioritizing a pastiche of iconic architecture by internationally renowned architectural firms like Foster + Partners.

While Astana’s transformation has been remarkable (and remarkably costly), it is not based on popular demand. Rather, like numerous other boom cities in Asia, Astana’s explo- sive growth is justified on the basis of the “build it and they will come” cliché. that is, planners claim that building in itself will create the demand. As many scholars have shown, this logic of “urban boosterism” routinely fails to deliver on its promised benefits. indeed, many of the iconic new towers, stadia, and palaces that have redefined the urban landscapes across Eurasia stand largely empty and underused. but the development continues apace. Why?

in Kazakhstan, there are several reasons. First, construction contracts are an important way of distributing state oil revenue to political elites. Many are connected to companies headquartered abroad, which are typically overpaid for their work. Skimming money off the top, elites can thus transfer funds abroad—making the continued building boom quite attractive to top decision makers. Second, the authoritarian political system is such that

254 CITIES OF RUSSIA

Okrug, such as Krasnodar, Stavropol, Vladi-

kavkaz, and Novorossisk, are also growing, but

mostly as a result of large influxes of migrants

from conflict-ridden areas of the North Cau-

casus and the former Soviet republics. This

trend, also in the capital city of Moscow, has

also brought about high populations of non-

Russians and with them, a variety of languages

and other belief systems (e.g., Islam).

Significant population losses nationwide

and depopulation of many urbanized regions

in the post-Soviet period (Table 6.1) are

clear signs of the failure of the communist

approach to city planning. In the early twenty-

first century, Russia is experiencing a dramatic

restructuring of urban centers. Whereas the

centralized economic authorities used to des-

ignate the political and economic importance

of any particular city as well as the location

of residences, individual Russians can now

choose from a widening array of housing

options. A growing trend is suburbaniza-

tion and new housing developed outside city

limits (Figure 6.5). Many new housing devel-

opments are video monitored, guarded by

security officers, and approachable only by

ordinary people cannot hold their government accountable for using state funds in a more socially responsible manner. there are no free elections, opposition figures are systemically persecuted, and popular protests are put down with swift and severe action. but lastly, many ordinary people actually believe that a beautiful capital city is important and truly makes them feel proud—especially at a time when everyone in the world is laughing at borat’s imagined homeland.

Figure 6.11 Space around many Russian homes, such as this one near Moscow, and apartment buildings is devoted to subsistence agriculture during the short summer season. Source: Photo by nancy Ries.

Contemporary Russia: Reconfiguring the Urban System 255

automated private transportation; although

this contributes to increased traffic woes, it

satisfies a desire for private space for those

who can afford this lifestyle. While there are

no systematic data on suburbanization pro-

cesses across Russia, it is clear that this trend is

especially prevalent in the European portion

of the country. Yet like past urban processes, it

is spreading eastward.

Political Urban Transformation

Democratization and political decentraliza-

tion have also influenced post-Soviet urban

geographies. The first democratic elections

took place in cities throughout Russia shortly

before the end of the Soviet Union. For the

first time, local politicians, at least in theory,

became accountable to local populations

instead of to higher-level government offi-

cials. During the 1990s, this accountability

had important new implications for the spa-

tial structure of cities, as urban geographies

began to reflect local economic needs and

social desires instead of national ones. For

example, one result of local autonomy in the

1990s was the popularity of renaming cities

and streets; names associated with prominent

Soviet leaders have been replaced with historic

names of the tsarist past. For example, Len-

ingrad reverted to St. Petersburg and Sverd-

lovsk (named after a local communist leader)

reverted to Ekaterinburg (literally, Catherine’s

City, after Tsar Catherine the Great). Similarly,

streets were renamed: Moscow’s Gorky Street,

named after the Soviet writer, was renamed

Figure 6.12 opened in 2010, “City Mall” in yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is the largest shopping mall in the Russian Far East and boasts a microbrewery for beer and loudspeaker announcements in Russian and English. Source: Photo by Jessica Graybill.

256 CITIES OF RUSSIA

Tverskaya Street. The changes contributed to

a feeling among Russians of reclaiming their

cities and neighborhoods.

Following the Soviet era, it became increas-

ingly possible to express political visions for

cities and the state that departed from the offi-

cial line, and many groups chose public urban

space as a venue. For example, since the early

2000s, extremist nationalist groups whose

views were long kept quiet by Soviet mul-

ticulturalism have held gatherings and tar-

geted non-Slavic populations (e.g., Africans,

African-Russians, ethnic peoples of the for-

mer Soviet Union, especially from the south-

west), sometimes resulting in violence. Under

Putin, these possibilities in public space have

steadily decreased. Dissident political groups

strove to hold parades on Nevsky Avenue in

Petersburg and on Red Square in Moscow, but

have been increasingly diverted to less cen-

tral spaces in the city. While a series of visible

anti-Kremlin political demonstrations took

place throughout the 2000s, particularly from

2006 to 2013, the murder of prominent politi-

cian Boris Nemtsov in February 2015 just one

day before a planned demonstration against

Putin’s government chilled a climate already

hostile to alternate viewpoints. The arrest

of several members of Pussy Riot, a feminist

protest group, after a guerilla performance of

a song in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the

Savior and the house arrest of Alexei Navalny,

candidate for mayor of Moscow and critic

of Putin, have both been taken as warnings

to political groups that criticize the Kremlin.

Groups seeking to hold a public meeting

must follow restrictive protocols and obtain

permission from city authorities. A gradual

return to a more open urban political scene

may come from the work of groups like Open

Russia—with branches in cities including

St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Voronezh, and

Ekaterinburg—organized by former oil oli-

garch and political prisoner Mikhail Khodor-

kovsky, released in late 2013.

Changing Urban Structure and Function

Notable changes to urban structure include

new kinds of infill within the city, subur-

banization, and “slumification.” Important

changes to urban function include increased

finance and retail commerce at multiple scales.

Processes absent during most of the twentieth

century govern these changes—market forces

and the active participation of municipal and

regional governments.

New infill appears in city cores as old facto-

ries on land surrounding historic city centers

are increasingly torn down and the land reused

for other purposes, such as housing (apartment

buildings) or retail. Existing buildings in poor

condition but in good locations are purchased,

upgraded, and converted into office space or

upscale, gated apartments (Figure 6.13). In

Moscow and some other Russian cities, this

has led to gentrification and displacement of

long-time residents from city cores.

Suburbanization is another visible change in urban form that results from the develop-

ment of real estate markets in cities where they

had been prohibited for most of the twenti-

eth century (Figure 6.5). Carefully guarded

single-family housing has appeared seemingly

overnight in what has become a new ring of

housing developments referred to as cottages

(kottedgi) surrounding the older Soviet and

new post-Soviet multifamily high-rises.

“Slumification” of parts of Russian cities

is a result of transition from a command to a

market economy. Run-down high-rise apart-

ment buildings far from the city center are

located on nearly worthless and often polluted

land near former industrial production sites.

Contemporary Russia: Reconfiguring the Urban System 257

These high-rises, and sometimes entire micro-

rayons, are deteriorating rapidly as better-off

tenants move to superior locations, leaving

only poorer residents behind in what will

likely become vertical slums.

Finance and banking—particularly inter-

national banking—is increasingly a feature

of larger post-Soviet Russian cities. Just as

in deindustrializing North American and

European cities, the economic function of

Russian cities and the new labor market are

more oriented toward services in general, and

toward financial and retail services in particu-

lar. Members of the international financial and

banking sector have added Russian locations

near manufacturing or natural resources. For

example, European and Japanese banks can

be found in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk today, which

marks a change in the function of this city

from a small regional capital to a globalizing

city involved in oil and other natural resource

exploitation. Other Russian cities actively seek

Figure 6.13 tsarist-era buildings in Vladivostok’s urban core are being revitalized in the post-Soviet era. Source: Photo by Sergei domashenko.

258 CITIES OF RUSSIA

foreign investment to restructure their cities

via partnerships among government and local

and international businesses.

Retail commerce, powered by market forces, has also visibly changed the economic

geography of Russian cities. Previously, retail

trade occurred in state-owned stores or in a

limited number of farmers’ markets. Now,

the spatial structure of urban retail has been

altered dramatically. Transportation hubs

(subways, rail stations) are multiscalar centers

of retail trade where peddlers vend wares and

where retail centers, such as malls, have been

built (Figure 6.14). Some prerevolutionary

shopping centers have regained their func-

tions; for example, Moscow’s famous GUM

department store was remodeled as a high-

end shopping mall. The urban periphery has

turned into a new retail environment; megas-

tores, such as IKEA, are opening outside of

traditional retail centers, extending urban

retail spaces.

Sociocultural Urban Transformation

Notable social transformations include

changing labor and leisure structures. There

is a growing class with extra money to spend,

resulting in increased consumerism and more

availability of goods. A revived entertain-

ment sector has also sparked a service indus-

try catering to 20- and 30-year-olds who have

cash to spend. However, goods, services, and

entertainment remain expensive; many people

cannot afford a high quality of life in the new

Russia, or cannot afford it after leaving home

or college, as the costs of buying and furnish-

ing apartments are out of reach for many.

Recent devaluation of the ruble and economic

sanctions against the Russian economy follow-

ing support for military aggression by Russian

separatists against (see Box 6.3), particularly,

the annexation of Crimea has also constrained

the growth of this new consumer sector.

Although the propiska no longer exists,

the current registration system exasperates

people moving around the country for jobs.

Nonpermanent residents working away from

their hometowns must purchase temporary

urban registration in a semi-legal system, thus

increasing their cost of living and jeopardiz-

ing their ability to succeed in Russia’s chang-

ing spatial economy. This type of registration

system relegates them to second-class citizen-

ship in their city of employment, often putting

them and their children last in line to receive

government services, such as socialized health

care, education, or employment services.

Transition from the Soviet to the post-

Soviet era was difficult for those who were

raised, trained, and already employed in the

Soviet system, as it led to the disappearance of

many jobs, the depletion of pension funds, and

an unknown future. Many turned to the coun-

tryside to survive (ruralization), but others

(considered “victims” of economic transition)

turned to alcohol, theft, and/or prostitution.

Because of Russia’s slow response to provid-

ing social services to people in need, a new and

growing class of the very poor, the homeless,

and the disenfranchised exists in cities today.

Urban governments have meager funds to

allocate for social services; in Moscow, only

1,600 beds in 2005 gave shelter to the entire

homeless population (with homeless popula-

tion estimates ranging from 30,000 to 1 mil-

lion). Official sources reported in 2006 up to

55,000 homeless children in Moscow alone and

16,000 in St. Petersburg, but the problem occurs

across Russia. These figures include children—

many teenagers but some younger—living

without parents on the streets in Russian cities.

Many of Russia’s homeless children are

escaping domestic situations that include

Contemporary Russia: Reconfiguring the Urban System 259

extreme poverty, alcoholism, domestic vio-

lence, and neglect. Research suggests that these

social ills result from the post-Soviet economic

restructuring and are experienced at the

household level. Other causes include forced

migration as a result of civil unrest in particu-

lar regions of Russia and a migration process

in the 1990s that brought people from former

Soviet republics to Russian cities, where they

often failed to find housing or employment.

These forms of displacement especially affect

children: street children often do not attend

school, experience harmful health impacts

(e.g., contraction of infectious diseases), and

Figure 6.14 Street peddlers hawk a variety of fresh goods along the railroad tracks across eastern Sakhalin island. Source: Photo by Jessica Graybill.

260 CITIES OF RUSSIA

Box 6.3 russia in ukraine: understanding the annexation of Crimea

Michael Gentile, University of helsinki

Crimea is a strategically located peninsula extending from the Ukrainian mainland into the black Sea. it has the legal status of Autonomous Republic within Ukraine, providing resi- dents with a degree of self-determination. on February 23, 2014, ”little green men” started appearing near strategic objects in Crimea; the Russian Federation had annexed the entire territory from Ukraine in a move for which the international community was unprepared. the official “reunification,” as the landgrab is known in Russia, took place on March 18, 2014, and Russian president Vladimir Putin’s declining popularity rebounded almost overnight to unprecedentedly high levels.

While annexation was unexpected, it transpired against a background of long-term, but mostly low-grade and decreasing, political unrest with ethnic undertones within Crimea. this unrest is related to the complex nature of Crimea’s cultural geographies, to the contested political status of the region, and to the peninsula’s role within the demised Soviet and, before that, tsarist empires. Crimea was under ottoman rule between 1475 and 1774, after which a short but turbulent period of independence, under the Crimean khanate, followed. in 1783, it was annexed by Russia under the rule of Catherine the Great. the territory was subject to rapid colonization, which particularly influenced the cities. With the advent of the Soviet Union, it was included in the Russian Republic, but was transferred to the Ukrainian Republic in 1954. When Ukraine became independent in 1991, Crimea became its constituent part, backed by the support of the majority of its population in the immediately preceding independence referendum.

despite Vladimir Putin’s recent attempt to “sacralize” Russia’s connection to Crimea, sug- gesting that the two are united by an unchallengeable historical affinity, the nature of this relation is debatable.

the territory retains an important regional identity, which relates, in part, to the region’s ethnic composition, characterized by a majority share of Russians (about 58 percent at the time of the 2001 census, but decreasing since then), followed by large minorities of Ukrainians (24 percent), Crimean tatars (12 percent), and smaller communities of Armeni- ans, bulgarians, Greeks, Germans, Jewish, and others. however, the relative shares of these groups have differed dramatically over the centuries, and the Crimean tatars generally view themselves as the peninsula’s true indigenous population. they were the majority ethnic group until 1783, but declined to about 35 percent in 1897—still the region’s largest ethnic population—and 26 percent in 1921. in 1944, the entire remaining Crimean tatar popula- tion was deported to Central Asia by decree of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who suspected the group of collaborating with Germany’s nazi forces. in 1989, the Crimean tatars were allowed to return, and by 1993 they composed about 11 percent of the population, which has since stabilized at around this level.

Contemporary Russia: Reconfiguring the Urban System 261

become targets for illegal activities. Some

work in slave-like conditions, whereas others

engage in child prostitution or drug trading.

The post-Soviet period has also brought

new kinds of residents to Russia’s cities. For

example, the influx of Asian migrants into

Russia creates fairly large groups of Chinese,

Indian, and Japanese in cities across Rus-

sia, especially in border cities of the Far East

but also in Moscow, complete with their own

banks and social organizations. The Soviet-era

representative populations of Central Asians

and Caucasian Muslims—praised by the mul-

ticultural rhetoric—have been swelled by eco-

nomic migrants who do much of the unskilled

labor in urban construction and seek to

establish or expand their places of worship

(Box 6.4). These migrants bring new world-

views, cuisines, religions, and lifestyles to Rus-

sia, which is increasingly curious about these

people and their homelands, as noted in the

increasing interest and ability to travel abroad.

Twenty-first-Century Environmental Concerns

First raised openly in the late 1980s, envi-

ronmental concerns are now growing across

Russia. Ever-increasing publications relate

the harmful environmental legacy of Soviet

urban development, suggesting an energized

engagement with socio-environmental issues

today. For example, one prominent issue

plaguing urban areas is garbage. Soviet goods

were often wrapped only in paper and string;

larger amounts of waste in the post-Soviet

era from imported packaged goods have not

led to increased infrastructure to contain

or remove garbage from urban centers. This

results in garbage accumulating in public

spaces (Figure 6.15), increasing environmen-

tally hazardous conditions, and contention

between citizens and city governments.

Urban environmental concerns, such as

motor vehicle emissions and chemical poi-

soning (e.g., lead) from contaminated water

supplies, remain largely unaddressed in many

cities. Urban environmental problems are

largely understudied and misunderstood in

the post-Soviet era. Many people feel that

solving environmental woes is the govern-

ment’s responsibility and that they individu-

ally cannot respond because socioeconomic

and political issues are currently more press-

ing. In some cases, where urban and regional

growth infringes upon land valued by envi-

ronmentalists, conflict arises when citizens

join forces to criticize or block urban growth.

Protests around the development of a road

While fears that the region was a potential powder keg of ethnic strife have long existed, political forces on the peninsula never succeeded in fully mobilizing ethnic particularism to create strong divisions within the community, not least because the Russians and Ukrainians of Crimea consistently express similar political (including geopolitical) preferences. there- fore, the 2014 annexation by Russia had nothing to do with inter-ethnic tensions in the region and neither did the doctored 96.7 percent referendum vote in favor of reunification with Russia. Rather, many consider the “reunification” to be, instead, a landgrab by Russia that has created, rather than soothed, ethnic and cultural tensions in a region already strug- gling with socioeconomic and political rebuilding in the post-Soviet era.

262 CITIES OF RUSSIA

Box 6.4 islam, language, and Space in Moscow

Meagann todd, University of Colorado—boulder

Every Friday around 1 p.m., the Zamoskvorechnye neighborhood in central Moscow fills with men of differing nationalities—Russian, Kyrgyz, tatar, Kazakh, Chechen, and more. devout islamic practitioners, the men are heading to historical Mosque to attend Jum’uah, a weekly Muslim prayer service. Many wear tubeteikas, traditional caps made of velvet designed after the yurt. others wear t-shirts or business suits. this scene emerges every Friday and becomes part of the everyday landscape of this historically tatar neighborhood.

best known for onion domes and Stalin’s gothic spires, Moscow’s architectural iconography does not represent on-the-ground realities. A center of capital and business, Moscow attracts skilled and unskilled immigrants. officially its population is 11.5 million, but when undocu- mented workers are included, the population is estimated to be between 13 and 17 million. Many of these immigrants are from areas of the former Soviet Union with traditions of islam—primarily from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Without including the illegal migrant Muslim population, Mos- cow has an estimated two million Muslims, leading to overcrowding at the city’s four mosques.

tensions exist between the devout and city dwellers, and among Moscow’s diverse islamic communities. this is best illustrated by police presence at the historic Mosque. the riot police serve many purposes: they protect mosque attendees from violence, check documents of illegal migrants, and help conduct traffic. however, many attendees consider their pres- ence as a holdover of Soviet monitoring of religions, impeding their freedom to worship.

because Moscow has been a site of terrorist attacks by the Caucasian Emirate, many locals express conflicting values with migrants and often refer to them with the derogatory term chyorni, or black. While these workers are valued for their cheap labor, they often do not speak Russian and have difficulties communicating with other Muscovites or even among themselves, as they come from numerous other places and religious or cultural backgrounds that were formerly included in the Soviet melting pot. indeed, not all of them are islamic. Many live in enclaves or on the outskirts of the city.

despite recent unrest, Moscow is also a traditional homeland of some Muslim communities. For example, a tatar ethnic group has lived and practiced islam in Moscow for over 600 years. Members of this group dominate islamic religious clergy in Moscow’s mosques, where prayers are conducted in Arabic, tatar, and Russian. one solution enacted by mosque leaders to ease tensions between Moscow’s islamic migrants and Muscovites is language instruction. For example, free Rus- sian language classes for migrants are offered at mosques and many Russian orthodox churches. Mosques also offer tatar language lessons so that tatar attendees can learn their ethnic language.

After state-sponsored atheism, Russia’s islamic community is growing. one effect is the growing number of Russians and Muslims studying Arabic and the increase in Arabic language offerings at universities and mosques. Moscow is a global city where many nationalities, cultures and religions converge, providing places in the city where worshippers grow in faith and connect in this megacity.

Distinctive Cities 263

through the Khimki Forest near Moscow is an

example. Such instances, however, are not the

norm in today’s Russia, where most citizens

are not well versed in opposing the govern-

ment and instead see the state as responsible

for protecting its people and the environment.

Antidevelopment movements have succeeded

in a few cases where they have been linked

to protection of sites with a particular role

in local urban culture, such as the successful

effort to block the Gazprom/Okhta-Center

skyscraper in St. Petersburg.

At the federal and international levels,

however, environmental discussions since

the mid-1990s have included the concept of

sustainability. In creating new environmen-

tal policy directives, Russian policymakers

invoke tsarist-era Russian and Western ideas

about living in harmony with the biosphere

as a foundation for creating sustainable devel-

opment. Indeed, recent legislation that rec-

ognizes the need to address anthropogenic

climate change provides hope that achieving

economic growth while balancing social and

environmental goals is a real concern among

politicians and will increasingly become so

among citizens in Russia today.

DISTINCTIVE CITIES

Moscow: Russia’s Past Meets Russia’s Future

Perhaps no city captures Russia’s long his-

tory as vividly as Moscow. Modern Moscow

is a chaotic blend of brash and unfettered

capitalism, seen in its casino lights and chic

boutiques; monolithic apartment blocks from

the Soviet period (where most residents live);

Figure 6.15 increasing consumption and lagging public services are reflected in the garbage-strewn landscapes surrounding many Russian apartment buildings. Source: Photo by Sergei domashenko.

264 CITIES OF RUSSIA

new construction of glass skyscrapers and

gated communities; and buildings renovated

in the old Russian style. New Russian Ortho-

dox churches join places of worship of many

faiths (including other forms of Christianity

and Islam) on the urban landscape. Museums

and theaters have undergone much revitaliza-

tion and reconstruction in the post-Soviet era,

bringing new cultural capital to the city.

In Moscow, Russia’s past lives alongside its

future (Figure 6.16). Founded over 850 years

ago in the declining years of Kievan Rus, the

city grew rapidly in importance until Peter the

Great moved the capital to St. Petersburg. The

1917 Russian Revolution returned the seat of

power to Moscow. On December 25, 1991,

resignation of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail

Gorbachev, once again brought Moscow into

the international limelight and launched mas-

sive socioeconomic and cultural changes.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union,

Moscow exploded with the signs of capital-

ism. Foreign investment flooded the city, and

new foreign and Russian capital created busi-

ness centers, real estate companies, and a new

retail sector. Once-empty avenues filled with

cars—seemingly overnight. In the early 1990s,

kiosks appeared everywhere stocked with an

improbable mix of everything from candy

bars to vodka, socks, and toys. Now, more per-

manent stores selling food, liquor, clothing,

and toys, as well as every other possible con-

sumer good, largely replace kiosks. Mega-scale

shopping malls in the city outskirts also have

replaced hastily built and remodeled stores.

Historically the political, economic, media,

educational, and cultural center of the coun-

try, restructuring of Moscow’s new economy

has added importance for the city’s exist-

ing functions, especially as it rises to be the

nation’s banking and consumer capital.

Moscow is vastly richer than most other

parts of Russia, partially as a result of inher-

iting immensely valuable real estate from the

Soviet government and Communist Party. But

the introduction of capitalism has still resulted

in a highly fractured city. City residents expe-

rience life in vastly disparate ways. For the

expatriate community, continuously growing

as a result of foreign investment, Moscow is

Figure 6.16 iconic Moscow River and Kremlin view at night. Source: Photo by ian helfant.

Distinctive Cities 265

ranked as one of the most expensive cities in

the world depending on choices for housing,

dining, and other forms of consumption. For

“New Russians,” the city is a 24-hour shop-

ping, dining, and business extravaganza.

For the vast majority of Muscovites, how-

ever, life in the city is, as they say, normal’no

(normal). In addition to choking traffic jams,

overcrowded metro commutes during morn-

ing and evening rush hours, and a decrease in

environmental quality along major roadways

due to the explosion of automobile ownership

in the city, normal’no also includes a dizzying

array of consumer services, fulfilling every

desire, such as 24-hour gyms and sushi and

coffee bars, businesses offering extended edu-

cational opportunities (e.g., computer science,

foreign language training), rental agencies,

and much more. In Moscow, it is no longer a

question of seeking out something new to do

or become; rather the challenge is to choose

among the many options.

Along with growth in consumer options,

the city is slowly expanding beyond its urban

growth boundary, a road that rings the city

20 kilometers outside the city center. Deline-

ated by urban planners in the Soviet era, land

outside the boundary was meant to be a green

zone for leisure purposes (e.g., hiking, pic-

nicking, camping). With the development of

megashopping centers and the single-family

housing market, the green zone is slowly

diminishing as the city creeps outwards radi-

ally, especially along major transportation

routes.

Always a multiethnic city, Moscow is now

increasingly so because of a large, constant flow

of labor migrants from other parts of Russia

and former Soviet republics. While migrants

arrive from all regions of Russia—urban and

rural alike—perceived increasing numbers of

ethnic migrants from the south (e.g., Georgia,

Chechnya, Uzbekistan) causes inter-ethnic

conflict in Moscow and other major Russian

cities (see Box 6.1). While some ethnic migrants

are actually Russian citizens, some ethnically

Slavic portions of the population feel that

increased numbers of non-ethnically Russians

threaten the economic and cultural futures

of ethnic Russians in Russian cities. Largely,

however, Moscow’s long-standing tradition of

being a multicultural locale remains, and the

city is highly cosmopolitan and vibrant. In the

post-Soviet era, Moscow now also ranks as a

world city, the first in Russia.

St. Petersburg: Window on the West—Again?

Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg in

1703 as Russia’s “window on the West,” mak-

ing it Russia’s capital city; although thousands

of Russians lost their lives while building the

city, its ornate palaces and bridges over wind-

ing canals came to symbolize Russia’s effort

to join the European community. In 1917,

the battleship Aurora, now a museum, fired

shots at the tsars’ Winter Palace, thus signal-

ing the start of the Russian Revolution. When

victorious Soviet leaders centralized economic

and political resources in Moscow, again mak-

ing it the capital, St. Petersburg was freed of

its tsarist-era bureaucratic atmosphere and

was renamed Leningrad in 1924. Aggressive

neglect by Stalin ironically preserved the city’s

many parks and its architectural heritage.

While Leningrad did not grow as quickly as

Moscow, the population doubled from 1917

to reach a high of about 5 million in 1989. In

the post-Soviet period, its official population

size declined to about 4.6 million in 2006 but

the 2010 census reported it as 4.85 million.

It remains Russia’s second largest city. Well-

known worldwide as the home of a unique

cultural legacy, including the renowned

266 CITIES OF RUSSIA

Hermitage Museum, Leningrad gained its

prestige in Soviet times from its many prestig-

ious universities and research institutions. The

city’s economy depended on educational and

research activities, particularly defense-related

industries in the Soviet military-industrial

complex.

After 1991, the city’s original name was

restored and it moved to capitalize on its dis-

tinctive past. A deteriorating economic and

financial situation caused by the near col-

lapse of government support for education,

culture, and especially defense signaled a

need for significant restructuring. In the mid-

1990s, as a result of leadership from Mayor

Anatoly Sobchak, a former lawyer active in

the political transition, the city embarked on

a strategic planning process—the first city

in Russia to do so. In contrast to top-down

Soviet central planning, this plan aimed to

be participatory, building on a partnership

between local government, private busi-

nesses, and citizens to analyze possible sce-

narios for the city’s development. Extensive

discussions with private businesses, residents,

and local organizations in St. Petersburg pin-

pointed the city’s highly educated popula-

tion; its ranking as the largest-capacity port

in Russia; and its favorable location, not far

from Finland and the rest of Europe, with

excellent access to major railroads and high-

ways. An initial concept document laid the

foundation for the subsequent Master Plan

and new legislation to standardize the con-

struction and development process as well as

to modernize city zoning. Under City Gov-

ernor Valentina Matvienko (2003–2010), the

city embarked on numerous high-profile

projects to improve its appearance and infra-

structure, including a ring road to divert

industrial traffic away from the city center. It

remains to be seen whether the government

of St. Petersburg can improve living stand-

ards and promote long-term restructuring.

Halting attempts to increase hotel capacity

and urban amenities suggest that tourism

has not grown as expected. Meanwhile, road

congestion and air pollution have increased

dramatically because per-capita car owner-

ship has more than doubled recently; the city

struggles to provide adequate traffic flow and

parking throughout the historic area.

St. Petersburg touted its success at attract-

ing investment, including plants for General

Motors, Ford, Caterpillar, and Hewlett-Pack-

ard. However, due to lowered oil prices and

other economic factors, the car market, for

example, has contracted in Russia (according

to Fortune magazine, car sales fell 10 percent

in 2014 and are expected to fall further in

2015). General Motors closed a plant in early

2015 and Ford started to operate one in the

oblast on reduced shifts. In March 2015, the

CEO of Caterpillar, Inc., which has a plant

in Tosno outside St. Petersburg, even sug-

gested that regime change will be needed to

secure increased foreign investment. As long

as the Russian economy relies primarily on its

petroleum exports to generate capital, a slow-

down in foreign investment will probably slow

related developments in Petersburg.

The protection of St. Petersburg’s architec-

tural fabric has also weakened since the late

2000s. Although the city’s culture of partici-

patory urban development has produced vig-

orous public outcry over aggressive land-use

choices in the historic center, protests against

these have increasingly failed, aside from cer-

tain highly visible examples. For example,

from 2006 to 2010, a struggle took place over

plans by the state-owned natural gas corpora-

tion, Gazprom, to build a new skyscraper in

St. Petersburg called Okhta-Center. Fueled by

residents’ pride in the traditional low-rise city

Distinctive Cities 267

skyline punctuated by cathedral spires, resist-

ance to construction of a central skyscraper

became an international cause célèbre. Since

the entire historic city center is on the list of

World Heritage sites, UNESCO asked the city

of St. Petersburg to halt the project in order

to study potential impact on the city’s his-

torical monuments. Protest against the plan

was a central theme in a series of unprec-

edented street demonstrations in 2007 and

2008; several prominent cultural figures in

St. Petersburg and eventually Moscow joined

the opposition. While plans for Okhta-Center

were eventually scrapped, other less high-pro-

file buildings are evidence of the power that

business interests wield in the city administra-

tion and have quietly shaped a new skyline.

These include the Stock Exchange building

on Vasilievsky Island, erected in 2007, and the

new Stockmann shopping center behind his-

toric Ploshchad Vosstaniya.

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk: The

International Power of Oil

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, located on Sakhalin

Island in Russia’s Far East, is an oil boomtown

fueled by multinational investment. This city,

long a small urban hub for the military and

natural resource exports (coal, oil, fish, tim-

ber), is ushering in the era of globalization in

the Russian Far East because of its proximity

to offshore oil and gas reserves in the Sea of

Okhotsk. The oblast is a leading destination

for foreign direct investment—second only

to the city of Moscow—indicating the impor-

tance of natural resources and regional cent-

ers to Russia as a whole. Located 4,000 miles

(6,500 km) from Moscow and only 110 miles

(175 km) from Japan, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk

is sited on a tsarist-era settlement for exiled

prisoners (Vladimirovka) that later became a

Japanese village (Toyohara) during Japanese

rule of southern Sakhalin Island from 1905–

1945. After World War II, the USSR reclaimed

the entire island, and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk was

created as the new oblast capital for Sakhalin

and the Kuril Islands.

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk embodies the multi-

ethnic character of Soviet-era cities. Home to

about 175,000 people, the urban population

is comprised of ethnic Russians, Ukrainians,

and other Slavs; native peoples of Sakhalin

(Nivkh, Evenk, Orok); and ethnic Koreans.

Koreans, the last “newcomers,” were brought

to Sakhalin during World War II to work

the coal mines. Expatriates associated with

the hydrocarbon industry have arrived since

1995, and it is common to find workers from

Europe, North America, and Russia’s neigh-

boring states residing semi-permanently in

city hotels. The city’s multiethnic history is

noted in the mélange of architectural styles in

the city. The few remaining traditional Japa-

nese structures stand next to tsarist-era fron-

tier houses (turn-of-the-twentieth-century

wooden multifamily dwellings with rudimen-

tary utilities), Soviet-era five-story apartment

buildings, post-Soviet suburban kottedgi on

the city’s outskirts, and gleaming Western-

style offices and houses occupied by expatri-

ate executives. Previously a small urban center

connected to the MIC, the large and increasing

presence of foreigners in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is

a big change for this formerly closed city. Off-

shore hydrocarbon sites lie further north than

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, but smaller settlements

there lack the infrastructure and political

capital necessary to accommodate interna-

tional companies. Hence, as the oblast center,

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk has become the bustling

urban hub for the hydrocarbon industry. New

service industries associated with hydrocar-

bons are changing the labor market for the

268 CITIES OF RUSSIA

city, but not for the entire island. Current spa-

tial patterns of economic growth mimic the

Soviet urban settlement pattern where large

urban centers were favored. The economic

boom occurring in this city provides hope

for future regional economic growth and is

a refreshing change from the Soviet period

when the government had to send people to

work on Sakhalin using the propiska system.

Today, it is a destination city both for younger

generations from the Russian Far East and for

international migrants associated with the

hydrocarbon industry, each seeking promis-

ing jobs.

While Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk enjoys inter-

national investment and a relatively high

standard of living, many residents wonder

when they will see benefits from oil extrac-

tion promised to them by the regional gov-

ernment and multinational companies. Many

fear that the promises made in the mid-1990s

to develop the island will remain unfulfilled.

For example, infrastructure projects (e.g.,

transportation, education, health facilities.)

promised in return for allowing hydrocarbon

extraction have not actualized, and residents

remain saddled with decrepit Soviet-era

dwellings, transportation systems, and ser-

vices. Gated and gleaming buildings for expa-

triate workers taunt neighboring buildings

lacking decently operating heat, hot water,

or electricity. This disparity raises questions

about the strength of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk as

an emerging hub in Russia’s globalizing econ-

omy, as well as the preparedness of urban and

regional governance to secure even economic

growth for all citizens in the post-Soviet era.

Many residents of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk strug-

gle to understand their rapidly changing

socioeconomic and cultural place in the post-

Soviet era.

Norilsk: The Legacy of Heavy Industry

Planned, developed, and federally subsidized

to house over 100,000 people above the Arctic

Circle, Norilsk is the northernmost large city in

the world (population 175,300; 2010 Census).

Temperatures in the city can reach –58°C, and

snow cover lasts 70 percent of the year. Gulag

laborers (prisoners in the Soviet penal system of forced labor camps) worked from the 1920s

until the mid-1950s to construct many of the

city’s buildings, mines, and smelting facili-

ties. Norilsk remains a closed city, ostensibly

maintaining security of nationally valued

metallurgic operations by restricting travel

and residency of nonresident Russians and

foreigners. It is the world’s largest producer of

nickel and palladium and one of the world’s

largest producers of platinum, rhodium, cop-

per, and cobalt.

The city was carved onto the tundra home-

land of the indigenous peoples of the Taimyr

Autonomous Okrug, bringing modernization

and traditionalism into close spatial contact;

it is not surprising to see native Evenk driv-

ing caribou-drawn sleighs through the city,

vividly juxtaposed with the city’s modern

transportation and high-rise buildings. As

a Soviet creation, Norilsk’s urban landscape

consists of high-rise, concrete-panel micro-

rayons intermixed with and surrounded by

mining and metallurgical industrial facilities

(see Figure 6.7). At 69º N, the city lies in the

continuous permafrost (soil at or below the

freezing point of water) zone. As a result of

the urban heat island effect and anthropo-

genic climate change, the permafrost warms

under the city’s foundations, compromising

the city’s transportation networks and build-

ing foundations.

Although Norilsk’s history as an “urban

gulag” is legendary, the longest lasting legacy of

Distinctive Cities 269

Norilsk may be as Russia’s most polluted city.

One percent of global emissions of sulfur diox-

ide are estimated to come from Norilsk. Air,

soil, and water pollution degrade the physical

environment and health of all living inhabit-

ants. For example, in the process of ore smelt-

ing, sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) is emitted. Acid rain

forms and precipitates back on the city, releas-

ing contaminants (acid, heavy metals) into

the soil and water supply. The legacy of envi-

ronmental damage to vegetation and waters is

noticeable at a regional scale (Figure 6.17) but

is highlighted in the city, where the surfaces

of buildings and monuments decay where

Figure 6.17 False-color image of norilsk. Shades of pink and purple indicate bare ground (e.g., rock formations, cities, quarries) where vegetation is damaged from heavy pollution. brilliant greens show mostly healthy tundra-boreal forest. South and southwest of the city are moderately to severely damaged ecosystems, and ecosystems northeast of the river and away from the city and industrial centers are healthier. Source: nASA.

270 CITIES OF RUSSIA

acid rain eats away at the stone or cement.

Some businesses propose mining Norilsk’s

urban soils, because the proportion of met-

als in them is economically viable. As in many

industrial Russian cities, illnesses (e.g., lung

cancer, asthma,) affect the young and old

alike. Despite the risks, many residents remain

because of the importance of resource extrac-

tion and industry in Russia, noted in high

wages (up to four times the national average)

and because of the strong historical roots or

social networks linking people to place. Once

state owned but now in private hands, the

smelting operations of Norilsk Nickel, the pri-

mary regional employer, drive the continued

existence of the city. Ongoing urban pollution

problems remain largely unchecked by Norilsk

Nickel’s corporate headquarters in Moscow (a

remnant of command economic planning).

The combination of being situated physi-

cally in the environmentally sensitive far

north and economically as crucial to Russia’s

resource industry makes addressing Norilsk’s

environmental issues both timely and neces-

sary. As awareness of Norilsk’s power to alter

regional and possible global environments

(through global climate change) becomes

increasingly known in Russia and abroad,

industrial managers and the government are

beginning to implement environmental man-

agement systems, providing environmental

and social impact statements of urban-indus-

trial activity. Some industry leaders also desire

to streamline Russian environmental legis-

lation to meet international environmental

safety standards, hopefully reducing regional

and global pollution derived from Norilsk. In

this way, Norilsk is poised to become a leader

in addressing urban environmental concerns

of the north, especially regarding resource

extraction, industrial pollution, and local and

indigenous concerns.

Kazan: Volga Port in Tatarstan

Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan,

is the seventh largest city in Russia (1.1 million)

and one of the largest outside of European

Russia. Kazan is distinctive for many reasons,

not least of which is the political struggle of

the 1990s that resulted in the establishment

of the republic as one of the leaders of the

independence movement within the Russian

Federation. Two recent events have drawn

worldwide attention to this city along the

Volga River. In 2000, UNESCO included the

historical city center on its World Heritage

List, which denotes places of universal value

to the world community. And in 2005, the city

celebrated its 1,000th anniversary.

While most cities in Russia are largely mul-

tiethnic, few have as large and powerful a non-

Russian population as this city and republic.

Tatars, whose origins are in the Central Asian

steppes, make up the largest ethnic group in

the republic. Russian settlement and domina-

tion of the city, however, goes back to the six-

teenth century when Ivan the Terrible invaded

the region. Even today, despite a plurality of the

Tatar population in the republic, the city has a

slight majority of Russians—about 50 percent

relative to about 42 percent Tatar. Other non-

Russian populations from the Volga region

also live in the city including the Chuvash, a

Turkic group, and the Maris. Migration in the

1990s brought new ethnic groups to the city,

namely those from the Caucasus and Central

Asia.

The Tatar population is traditionally

Islamic. Kazan’s history as a prominent Mus-

lim city extends back to the fourteenth cen-

tury. Today, the city is home to a new school

training Russians in the Islamic religion, the

Islamic University. Since the early 1990s, at

least 40 new mosques have been built in the

Distinctive Cities 271

city. The city government helped construct a

new mosque on the grounds of the historic

kremlin. The political and social significance

of both the site and the leading role of the city

government should be recognized as a symbol

of cultural as well as political independence

from Russia. The city’s cultural independ-

ence from Russia is also seen in the historic

forms of architecture that make up the urban

built environment. Buildings in the city com-

bine many architectural styles, ranging from

Baroque to Moorish. Bas-reliefs created by tra-

ditional Tatar stone workers embellish build-

ings in the city, and minarets dot the skyline.

Kazan and the region have major economic

significance to the Russian economy. The city

is a major port on the Volga River, the main

water route through European Russia. The

city and the region have been a transportation

gateway for centuries. Currently, the European

Union is helping to modernize its port facili-

ties, and in 2005, it became one of only a few

cities in Russia to receive a direct loan from

the World Bank. The city’s economy is also

strongly tied to the production of transpor-

tation equipment. It produces military trans-

port equipment, including helicopters, and is

home to KamAZ, still a gigantic automotive

production firm.

Vladivostok: Russia’s Pacific Capital?

Home to the Russian Navy’s Pacific Fleet,

Vladivostok from 1958 to 1991 was a closed

city where even Soviet citizens needed permis-

sion to enter. Before this time, Vladivostok had

been an international city. Valuable for its port

facilities and proximity to Asian markets, the

city drew a diverse international population,

including Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and

Americans. Since 1991, these populations are

back, as the city is now a gateway into Russia,

largely for Asian tourists and businesses. Many

Pacific Rim nations operate consulates in

Vladivostok.

Founded in 1860, Vladivostok is the capital

of Primorsky Krai and is the Russian Far East’s

largest city, with nearly 600,000 residents. It is

the largest Russian port on the Pacific Ocean

and historically has been an important regional

industrial center for shipping and fishing.

Located 3,800 miles (6,430 km) from Moscow,

it is the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian

Railroad. The great distance to European Rus-

sia feeds the imagination of Vladivostok as a

gateway to exotic, Asian Russia. Historically, it

led Vladivostok residents to be self-reliant and

to expect little from Moscow; indeed, the first

Soviet leader to visit Vladivostok was Nikita

Khrushchev in 1954. Also headquarters of the

Far Eastern Division of the Russian Academy

of Sciences, the city hosts many academic

and research institutions. These factors have

fueled hopes that Vladivostok could become

an urban economic hub for a range of busi-

nesses. For example, entrepreneurs dream of

Vladivostok-based regional ecotourism, and

port facilities are a strong asset in rebuilding a

strong import-export city on the Pacific. The

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Sum-

mit was held here in 2012, for which the fed-

eral government provided funds for urban

improvements. Stunning views of the Golden

Horn Bay from the hilly city also provide

incentive for restoration of the historic center

and its tsarist-era buildings and monuments,

many of which could be refurbished to rival

those in St. Petersburg. As the intellectual cap-

ital of the Russian Far East, Vladivostok has

much to offer post-Soviet Russia, despite the

need for crackdowns on polluters and numer-

ous illegal activities.

Because much international trade with

Asia is funneled through this Russian city,

272 CITIES OF RUSSIA

organized crime in Vladivostok and Primor-

sky Krai since 1991 purportedly involves not

only Russian mafia but numerous mafia-like

groups from former Soviet republics in Cen-

tral Asia. It is unfortunate that, since the early

post-Soviet years, many elected government

officials work with, instead of against, organ-

ized crime. Illegal trade includes marine

resources from China, cars from Japan, heroin

from Central Asia, and timber exports from

Russia to China and the Republic of Korea.

The rise of informal and mafia-driven econo-

mies has hindered the growth of legitimate,

tax-paying businesses, which slows overall

development. The city is also an aviation

gateway to Asian cities, since its airport is one

of the few that handle international flights.

When Russians from across the Far Eastern

region return from destinations across Asia

via Vladivostok, they often bring commodi-

ties to sell in Russia.

In addition to economic difficulties, Vladi-

vostok suffers from severe air, water, and soil

pollution. Ecologists consider much of the

city to be hazardously polluted by heavy met-

als and industrial (cadmium, mercury, arse-

nic) and agricultural (nitrates, phosphates)

waste. Despite the city’s location adjacent to

the Pacific Ocean, local wind and water cir-

culation patterns in the Amursky Bay do not

remove pollutants from densely populated or

intra-urban-industrial areas. Unchecked, pol-

lutants have built up over time in the soil and

nearshore environments, and their detrimen-

tal effects on ecosystem and human health are

only slowly being recognized.

Despite its distance from European Russia

and from the federal center, Vladivostok (and

other Siberian and Far Eastern cities) remains

in the cultural, political, and economic orbit

of Moscow. While the rich economies of Japan

and the Republic of Korea and the rapidly

developing economy of China are far closer

neighbors than Western Russia, Vladivostok

is a city settled by ethnic Slavs (largely Rus-

sian and Ukrainian), who remain the largest

percent of the population today. Indeed, many

Ukrainian refugees moved to Vladivostok in

2014 because of unrest in Crimea, and long-

term Ukrainian heritage in the region creates

mixed emotions about Russia’s involvement

in Ukraine today. Generally, Russians are

suspicious of the Chinese and their interests

in Russia’s vast raw and land resources. The

facts that the Russia-Chinese border is largely

unmanned and many Chinese enter Russia

illegally to reap resource rewards are not

unnoticed by Russians; indeed, many in this

region deeply distrust the Chinese. Thus, cul-

tural allegiance to European Russia is stronger

than new Asian economic ties. The loyalty of

Vladivostok’s political elites to the center is

being rewarded by massive capital investment

in Vladivostok by the federal government.

Recent construction in this city, including

new infrastructure—sewage treatment plants,

underground freshwater reservoirs, highways,

bridges, dams, and airport terminals—are

positioning this city to become a center of

international cooperation in the Asian Pacific

region (Figure 6.18). This can only aid Russia

in stabilizing the population and growing the

economy in the Far Eastern region.

PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE

Cities in Russia today are the products of tsa-

rist, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russian societies,

as well as of the many different ethnic groups

and cultures that have inhabited the region

for at least 1,000 years. The blending of this

diverse set of cultures and histories results in

cities with varied built and social landscapes.

Prospects for the Future 273

The natural environment, however, has always

wielded an important influence over the loca-

tion of urban settlements, irrespective of the

time period or the dominant ethnic group.

The harsh Siberian landscape originally posed

barriers to Russian expansion and settlement,

but widespread urban settlement of Siberia

became a great accomplishment of Soviet

central planners—in spite of environmental

degradation wrought by settlement and the

immense social and cultural costs of strand-

ing people in isolated and inhospitable places

along with the immeasurable financial impli-

cations. Cities in the post-Soviet period con-

tinue to struggle with the consequences of

harnessing nature.

The federal and municipal governments

are attempting to integrate economically,

politically, and geographically disparate cit-

ies into a larger geopolitical and economic

framework, with implications for Russian

transportation and communications systems.

For example, should cities closer to Tokyo or

Beijing than to Moscow rely primarily upon

trade within Russia for economic direction,

or should they look to Asia for new markets

and influence? What will happen to cities

constructed within the Soviet system but now

functioning under another? How will existing

structures such as factories, housing, roads,

school, and other buildings be adapted for

new uses in a market economy? How (and

Figure 6.18 new urban infrastructure (bridges, roads) in Vladivostok, built for the 2012 Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, revitalizes this regional capital and port city in the Far East. Source: Photo by Sergei domashenko.

274 CITIES OF RUSSIA

by whom) should pollution in urban envi-

ronments be addressed? How sustainable

are cities in extreme environments, such as

the Arctic and Siberia? How can cities quite

distant from one another remain connected

both economically and politically? Perhaps

most importantly, what will happen to the

people who live and work in Russian cities?

Should the Russian government promote

integration into the European Union? How

far down the path of destroying the Soviet

housing system should Russian cities go?

How best should Russian cities manage land-

use change, especially in the face of increas-

ing suburbanization (Figure 6.19)? Will the

nascent increase in birth rates stem the over-

all population decline in Russia? If not, what

will the national declining population mean

for the regeneration of many Russian cities?

Answers to these and many other questions

confront the people of Russia today as they

continue the process of reinventing their

cities.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Axenov, K, I. Brade, and E. Bondarchuk. 2006. The

Transformation of Urban Space in Post-Soviet

Russia. London, New York: Routledge. Focuses

on the transition from socialism and commu-

nism to democracy and capitalism in urban

areas of post-Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe.

Barnes, I. 2015. Restless Empire: A Historical Atlas

of Russia. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. A

graphical explanation of the cultural, political,

economic, and military developments of Rus-

sia’s past including up-to-date coverage of cur-

rent land claims in Ukraine.

Bassin, M., and C. Kelly, eds. 2012. Soviet and Post-

Soviet Identities. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-

versity Press. Provides an overview of issues of

identity and culture in post-Soviet Russia.

Blinnikov, M. 2010. A Geography of Russia and

Its Neighbors. New York: The Guilford Press.

Thorough coverage of Russia and cultural,

economic, and geographic relations to former

Soviet states.

Chernetsky, V. 2007. Mapping Postcommunist

Cultures: Russia and Ukraine in the Context of

Globalization. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Uni-

versity Press. Focuses on post-Soviet cultural

developments, puts them in a global context,

and suggests that Russia and Ukraine form the

basis of post-Soviet culture.

Clowes, E. 2011. Russia on the Edge: Imagined Geog-

raphies and Post-Soviet Identity. Ithaca: Cornell

University. A discussion of what it means to be

Russian today using examples from popular

culture and literature.

Figure 6.19 Suburban development on the fringes of compact Soviet-era cities, such as balakovo, brings socioeconomic division and expansion into agricultural zones to previously mixed and compact urban settings across Russia. Source: Photo by Jessica Graybill.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Abu Lughod, J. L. 1971. Cairo: 1001 Years of the

City Victorious. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni-

versity Press. A chronicle of Cairo from 969 to

1970, and a glimpse of how to make sense of any

urban landscape.

Benvenisti, M. 1996. City of Stone: The Hidden

History of Jerusalem. Berkeley: University of

California Press. Offers a balanced view of

Jerusalem’s urban landscapes, boundaries, and

demographics.

Dumper, M. 2014. Jerusalem Unbound: Geogra-

phy, History, and the Future of the Holy City.

New York: Columbia University Press. Presents

Jerusalem as a city of enclaves that undermine

Israeli control of the city.

Elsheshtawy, Y. 2004. Planning Middle Eastern Cit-

ies: An Urban Kaleidoscope. London and New

York: Routledge. Presents urban planning in the

context of globalization, with separate chapters

on Cairo, Dubai, and Algiers.

Hitti, P. K. 1973. Capital Cities of Arab Islam.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

320 CITIES OF THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST

Thoughtful profiles of historical capitals:

Mecca, Medina, Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, and

Cordova.

Hourani, A. H., and S. M. Stern. 1970. The Islamic

City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania

Press. Delves into the question of whether there

is an “Islamic” city, with specific reference to

Damascus, Samarra, and Baghdad.

Kheirabadi, M. 2001. Iranian Cities: Form and

Development. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University

Press. A thorough treatment of the spatial struc-

ture and physical form of Iranian cities.

Salamandra, C. 2004. A New Old Damascus. Bloom-

ington, IN: Indiana University Press. Presents a

portrait of Damascus’ cultural anthropology,

with considerable attention focused on the

problems of historical preservation.

Saliba, R. 2015. Urban Design in the Arab World:

Reconceptualizaing Boundaries. Farnham, UK:

Ashgate. Draws on case studies to articulate a

regional geography of urban design, which is

conceptualized as discourse, discipline, research,

and practice.

Serageldim, I., and S. El-Sadek, eds. 1982. The Arab

City: Its Character and Islamic Cultural Herit-

age. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Arab Urban Devel-

opment Institute. Photographs, drawings, and

readable text on city form and urban planning.

Figure 8.1 Major Urban Agglomerations of Sub-Saharan Africa. Source: United nations, department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population division (2014), World Urbanization Prospects: 2014 Revision, http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/.

Cities of Sub-Saharan Africa GARTH MYERS, FRANCIS OWUSU, AND ANGELA GRAY SUBULWA

KEy URbAN FACTS

Total Population 963 million

Percent Urban Population 37%

Total Urban Population 359 million

Most Urbanized Countries Gabon (87%)

Djibouti (77%)

South Africa (64%)

Least Urbanized Countries Burundi (12%)

Uganda (16%)

Malawi (16%)

Number of Megacities 2 cities

Number of Cities of More Than 1 Million 43 cities

Three Largest Cities Lagos (13 m), Kinshasa (11 m), Luanda (5 m)

Number of World Cities (Highest Ranking) 2 (Johannesburg, Cape Town)

Emerging World Cities Nairobi, Lagos, Durban

KEy CHAPTER THEMES

1. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is among the least urbanized of the world’s regions, but it has

some of the world’s most rapidly urbanizing countries.

2. A rich urban tradition preceded the arrival of colonialism in several parts of Sub-Saharan

Africa.

3. Colonialism had profound impacts on urban development, particularly in the creation of

what would become primate cities along the coast.

4. Rates of urban primacy are generally high across the region, with a few exceptions, and

economic production and political power are concentrated in the primate cities.

5. Many, though not all, primate cities are also capital cities.

324 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

6. Many SSA cities have experienced major impacts from cultural globalization, as in chang-

ing patterns of consumption and personal security, but minimum impacts from economic

globalization, in terms of production and investment.

7. Most SSA urban land-use patterns and urban economies develop outside of formal regula-

tion, but with significant overlap of the “formal” and the “informal” urban structures and

economies, both of which are highly gendered spaces.

8. Many Sub-Saharan African cities are characterized by spatial, socioeconomic, and gender

inequalities and high rates of urban poverty.

9. Water is a major concern in Sub-Saharan cities, as urban growth and climate change impact

water availability and quality.

10. Great cultural diversity and creativity help shape very dynamic urban life experiences for

residents of the region’s cities.

SSA’s interlocking urban environmental prob-

lems are magnified by shortcomings in man-

agement and oversight by both governments

and the private sector. Patrick lives in Dar es

Salaam, Tanzania, where he works as a chef at

a Chinese restaurant. Patrick is a mixed-race

South African, born in Cape Town. He worked

for many years as a cook on oil tankers, where

many of the crew members were Bangladeshi,

Filipino, or Tanzanian, the latter often from

the Zanzibar islands or from Dar es Salaam.

After a stint cooking for an offshore oil rig in

Cabinda, Angola, he took up an offer from a

Tanzanian friend to come start a new high-

end restaurant in the rapidly gentrifying inner

city Kariokoo neighborhood in Dar es Salaam.

Patrick has found it exciting to learn KiSwa-

hili, which will be his sixth language once he

conquers it, but he posts messages on Face-

book and tweets for his South African friends

around the world in Afrikaans or English. He

loves the mix of foods and cuisines available in

Dar es Salaam, but favors Chinese food, which

gained a foothold in Tanzania and much of

Africa along with Chinese investments in the

region’s cities in the early twenty-first century.

He hopes that the restaurant will take off, with

an eclectic mix of Tanzanian African, Asian,

and European customers.

Meanwhile, across the world in Houston,

Jamila, a Nigerian-born software engineer,

receives a text message from her father in Cal-

abar asking her to call home. She knows what

this means, but hesitates because she wants to

have good news for him before she calls. She

sends an email to the secretary of the local

hometown association for southeastern Nige-

rians in Texas, and asks for an update on her

plea for help in raising funds—because her

father will be telling her, she knows, to come

home for her mother’s funeral. Jamila has

the money for her own plane ticket, but she

knows the family will expect her to pay all of

the funeral costs and to bring her twin daugh-

ters with her. She is conflicted, since she knows

that the whole extended family feels that they

have invested in her education and emigra-

tion with the expectation that she will pro-

vide support through remunerations. She has

succeeded for many years in sending enough

money home to build her parents the nicest

house in their neighborhood in Calabar; but

her husband’s recent death has put a major

strain on her household financially, to say

nothing of her sadness. The hometown associ-

ation secretary tells her the news she has been

waiting for: in just two days, the large south-

eastern Nigerian community in Texas has

African Urbanization 325

raised more than $10,000 on her behalf. She

does not know how she will ever thank these

people, many of whom she does not know and

only a handful of whom would ever have met

her mother. She would do the same for them,

she tells herself because “all of us in what we

call The Remote Lands have to stick together

to help our Motherland.” She calls her father

in Calabar, Skype-to-Skype since it is free,

with the good news, and on her laptop video

camera box, through the Skype software, she

sees tears on her father’s face, for the first time

in her life.

AFRICAN URbANIzATION

SSA has long been among the least urbanized

world regions. But many Sub-Saharan coun-

tries have been urbanizing rapidly since the

1960s (Figure 8.1). This rapid urban growth

has come with limited opportunities for

employment in the formal economy or for

effective governance. African cities also suffer

from a lack of decent and affordable housing,

failing infrastructure and basic urban services,

alongside increasing inequalities (Figure 8.2).

But negative views of contemporary cities are

overly simplistic and pervasive. African cities

are also creative engines of cultural change

and dynamic centers of political and associa-

tional life (Figure 8.3). Many accounts of cities

in SSA miss the resourcefulness, inventiveness,

and determination of millions of ordinary

people who manage to negotiate the perils of

everyday life, to make something out of noth-

ing (Box 8.1).

Cities in Sub-Saharan Africa are diverse

and heterogeneous. Scholarly efforts to con-

struct an ideal model of a generic “African

Figure 8.2 Chronic flooding necessitates near-constant, major efforts to drain residential areas of Pikine, an informal city on the outskirts of dakar, Senegal. Many of SSA’s informal settlements are flood-prone, yet their residents often experience the deprivation of limited access to clean drinking water. Source: Photo by Garth Myers.

326 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Figure 8.3 bustling markets, such as this one in Monrovia, Liberia, are common features of Sub-Saharan cities. Source: Photo by Robert Zeigler.

city” in terms of urban structure have failed to

find a single profile that fits all cases. Anthony

O’Connor, for example, tried to fashion such

a general scheme more than 25 years ago,

but his effort led him toward not one but six

possible types. O’Connor identified and dia-

grammed city morphologies that he classified

as the indigenous city, the Islamic city, the

European city, the colonial city, and the dual

city with examples across the continent. His

sixth category—what he termed the hybrid

city—actually functions as a kind of catch-all

for cities with multiple morphological charac-

teristics. Over time, more cities in Africa seem

to have become hybrid cities.

The paths to such African hybrid cities

are complex and sometimes contradictory.

While many cities came into existence as over-

seas extensions of European colonial powers

seeking to establish beachheads on the Afri-

can continent, their subsequent growth and

development did not conform to one pattern.

City-building processes that took place under

the dominance of European colonialism often

left an indelible imprint on the original spa-

tial layout, built environment, and architec-

tural styles of cities in Africa. Yet with time,

these features have sometimes been modified

beyond recognition. Thus cities that were

built specifically for Europeans, such as Cape

Town or Nairobi, still have clear European

influences, but these have been overwhelmed

by African urbanism. The colonial urbanisms,

too, have been dramatically transformed by

what amounts to 50 years of independence for

most cities. Likewise, indigenous, Islamic, and

dual cities have in nearly all cases witnessed

the steady overlay and erasure of their origi-

nal forms through colonial and postcolonial

impacts (Figure 8.4).

In SSA cities, previous patterns of govern-

ment dominance in urban centers have been

replaced by more reliance on the private sec-

tor and/or nongovernmental institutions.

African Urbanization 327

Box 8.1 Water, Water, everywhere

Water is one of the most complicated aspects of urban Africa. half of all large SSA cities are within 50 miles of the coast, and many of them are on river mouths, estuaries, or deltas. Many others (including some of the region’s largest urban areas, such as Kinshasa, Khartoum, and brazzaville) are located in low-lying riverine settings. this means that a great many cities in SSA face significant flood risks, which are often most severe in poor settlements. Even in cities at relatively high average elevations, poorer areas and informal settlements are typically at lower elevations in zones subject to seasonal flooding. Khartoum, dar es Salaam, dakar, and many other major urban areas have experienced severe flooding in the last few years alone. Moreover, the Climate Change Vulnerability index points toward high or severe risk from rising sea levels along Africa’s urban coastline. Urban flooding has also increased water-borne disease threats, including the spread of malaria into East African highland cit- ies, such as Addis Ababa and Kigali, that were previously malaria-free.

in a bitter irony, many SSA cities face potential water shortages caused by climate change and rapid growth. the most severe threats of freshwater shortages, unsurprisingly, appear to be in cities in arid and semi-arid areas such as the Sahel. but, even cities with plentiful precipita- tion have failed to keep pace with the rise of consumer water demand under conditions of rapid urbanization. Most everywhere, potable water supply shortages are severe and increasing.

Water may present certain risks in SSA cites, but it also presents abundant opportuni- ties. After all, so many cities in Africa are on coasts or navigable rivers because of trade opportunities that continue to increase. African cities are among the world’s leaders in urban agriculture. Parks, preserves, forested areas, and natural open spaces are also widespread in SSA cities, despite stereotypes of African cities as “cities of slums.” Centers of higher learning across the continent tend to be urban, and the curricula in many countries feature environmental education lessons from primary levels onward that are improving popular knowledge of healthy and efficient water usage. Environmental awareness and activism are on the rise across the continent, especially in urban areas, and water issues are often cen- tral to this activism. in the peri-urban slum of Pikine outside dakar, hip-hop artists, other musicians, graffiti artists, and Senegalese professional wrestlers have played major roles in raising awareness of flood relief and prevention. Water provisioning can also be an impor- tant entrepreneurial arena, particularly in informal settlements (see Figure 8.2). A nigerian- American geography research team has highlighted the policy implications of the ignorance of officials about the struggles of poor niamey residents to obtain water, and the crucial role of entrepreneurial water vendors in providing this most basic need. Water and sanitation activists in nairobi also built a highly successful business, ikotoilet, from environmentally efficient toilets. innovation and creativity abound in water and sanitation services, proving that one must be cautious about seeing water only as a source of problems in urban Africa.

Sources: A. bontianti et al., Fluid experiences, Habitat International 43 (2014): 283–92; R. Fredericks, the old man is dead, Antipode 46, no. 1 (2014): 130–48.

328 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Municipal authorities have not kept up with

the demand for infrastructure, social services,

or access to resources. Many urban residents

have looked outside the formal economy and

conventional administrative channels to gain

access to income, shelter, land, or social ser-

vices (Box 8.2).

The wide range of seemingly unsolvable

problems has led some to conclude that cit-

ies in Africa just “don’t work.” Others, like

the urban scholar AbdouMaliq Simone, pre-

fer to see them as “works in progress,” driven

forward by inventive ordinary people. In city

after city, urban residents rely on their own

ingenuity to stitch together their daily lives.

SSA cities are often distressed places in need

of good governance, management, or infra-

structure, greater popular participation in

decision making, sustainable livelihoods, and

expanded socioeconomic opportunities. Yet

they are much more than some form of failed

urbanism. To see SSA cities more complexly,

we must appreciate the historical specificity

and heterogeneous cultural vibrancy of differ-

ent cities in Africa.

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHy OF URbAN DEVELOPMENT

Simply because SSA is often considered among

the least urbanized world regions, outsiders

assume that its cities must be recent. Because

European colonialism was such a pervasive

regional experience, it is also assumed that the

urbanization of Africa ought to be attributed

to colonialism. In fact, many SSA urban set-

tlements are much older than the colonial era,

and the relationships between formal coloni-

alism and the urbanization process in Africa

Figure 8.4 the Victoria and Albert Waterfront is a major shopping destination, center of tourist activity, and gathering place for Cape town’s diverse population. Source: Photo by Garth Myers.

Historical Geography of Urban Development 329

Box 8.2 Multiple livelihoods Strategies

the economic crisis that spread across Africa in the 1970s and 1980s and the structural adjustment programs that were introduced have caused major upheavals in the livelihood strategies of millions of people in African cities, including formal-sector employees.

Since the early 1990s, an increasing number of studies have documented how people of various socioeconomic backgrounds seek additional income by engaging in multiple eco- nomic activities. Many formal-sector employees supplement their incomes with part-time informal-sector jobs, such as cab driving or petty trading. other members of their households may also supplement the family income by engaging in similar activities. For instance, many civil servants in Kampala engage in urban agriculture and poultry keeping, own taxis or oper- ate small kiosks, and about two-thirds of households in Accra are engaged in at least two income-generating activities. Such multiple livelihood strategies have become “the way of doing things” in many African cities. As a result, the traditional distinction between formal sector and informal sector has become more blurry and complex.

the proliferation of multiple livelihood strategies has significant implications for urban planning in the region. First, it signifies the need to revise African city models to include urban cultivation, a ubiquitous feature of the urban landscape, as a legitimate urban activ- ity. this requires documenting the benefits and disadvantages of urban agriculture and find- ing ways of creatively integrating the practice into the urban fabric. Second, the house or dwelling as a mono-functional (residential) unit is increasingly out of sync with the reality in many African cities. Many urban residents of different socioeconomic backgrounds have economic enterprises that are located in their homes. Urban planners need to introduce relevant changes in zoning regulations and housing design standards to accommodate home- based enterprises. third, multiple livelihood strategies also challenge the conventional defi- nition of households and the distinction between urban and rural residence. historically, households, especially in southern Africa, have used migration as a strategy to overcome limitations of particular local economies. but, involvement in multiple livelihood strategies requires different and more creative living arrangements that allow members to participate in multiple urban and/or rural economies. the final issue relates to the increased involve- ment of public-sector employees in multiple economic activities and the implications for public-sector efficiency. While participation in multiple economic activities by public-sector employees benefits those directly involved in the practice, the overall impact on society is often negative. As the involvement of civil servants in multiple income-generating activities becomes widespread, the moral authority of supervisors to reprimand moonlighting staff is compromised, especially when the officials themselves are guilty of the same.

Sources: Francis owusu, “Conceptualizing Livelihood Strategies in African Cities: Planning and develop- ment implications of Multiple Livelihood Strategies,” Journal of Planning Education and Research 26, no. 4 (2007): 450–63.

330 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

are more complicated than they first appear.

Roughly speaking, we may divide contempo-

rary African cities into categories, including

urban areas with origins in the: (1) ancient or

medieval precolonial period; (2) period of the

trans-Atlantic slave trade or European trade

and exploration; (3) period of formal colonial

rule; and (4) postcolonial period. However, it

rapidly becomes difficult to differentiate cities

by these categories. For instance, take the case

of Zanzibar, Tanzania, where an indigenous

urban center with origins in the 1100s was

refashioned under the domination of outsid-

ers from Portugal in the 1500s and Oman in

the 1690s; the city then became caught up in

the slave trade and trade with Europe and

the Americas in the 1700s and 1800s, then

became a British colonial capital, and then

the symbolic heart of a postcolonial socialist

revolution. Like so many hybrid cities of con-

temporary Africa, Zanzibar has elements of

its fabric that belong to all four of the catego-

ries above. Rather than making sharp breaks

between city types based on their origins,

it is more helpful to simply lay out some of

these different types of origin stories and to

appreciate that most contemporary African

cities are woven together from threads of each

origin.

Ancient and Medieval Precolonial

Urban Centers

Many urban centers that were prominent

before 1500 ce—and in some cases, promi-

nent before the Common Era even began—

are ruins now. Other prominent centers of

ancient and medieval times were bypassed

by the new economic geographies that arose

in Africa’s relationships with Europe and

the New World after 1500, which developed

strong associations with coastal urbanisms.

There were at least five major centers of

urbanism before 1500, with the oldest being

the ancient Upper Nile/Ethiopian centers of

Meroë, Axum, and Adulis (Figure 8.5). The

medieval Sahelian (or Western Sudan) cities

of West Africa’s great trading empires, such

as Kumbi Saleh, Timbuktu, Gao, and Jenne,

arose as middle-agent ports of a network of

caravan routes that crisscrossed the Sahara.

They achieved significance in the medieval

world as nodes of empires, trading entrepots,

or centers of learning. Timbuktu, Gao, and

Jenne were widely regarded for their scholar-

ship in medieval times, but they disappeared

or stagnated after the fifteenth century. Tim-

buktu has about the same population as it

had seven hundred years ago, while Gao and

Jenne no longer exist. Other early Western

Sudan urbanisms survived the new circum-

stances of the post-1500 world and developed

into important contemporary settlements,

for instance the Hausa cities of today’s north-

ern Nigeria and southern Niger, particularly

Kano, because their nineteenth-century rulers

derived great strength from Islamic religious

jihad movements.

This adaptation and growth after 1500 was

even more common for many ancient and

medieval cities of Nigeria, like Oyo, Ibadan,

and Benin in the Benin-Yoruba area of early

urbanism. The Yoruba cities of southwestern

Nigeria had developed metalwork artistry

and skill unsurpassed in the first millennium

world. Benin-Yoruba cities, and neighbor-

ing urban areas further to the west, were well

positioned to capitalize on the new trade with

Europeans after 1500, as is seen below.

Some of the trading city-states along the

Swahili coast and the East African coast more

broadly, including Mogadishu and Mom-

basa, also grew after 1500; but many coastal

settlements, like the settlements further to

Historical Geography of Urban Development 331

the southern interior (the Zimbabwean zone

of urbanism, in particular) with whom they

traded, largely disappeared. The ruins of the

Great Zimbabwe in today’s Zimbabwe still

demonstrate the remarkable organizational

and architectural features of the medieval

empire whose central city was located there.

The southern interior cities were connected by

trade to those along the coast for many centu-

ries before 1500.

Coastal trading centers on the Red Sea and

Indian Ocean arose in ancient times, and an

extensive trade linking the African interior

from Zimbabwe north to Lake Victoria with

the Arab and Persian peoples of Asia flourished

for more than a thousand years. Beginning in

the ninth century, the significance of the Swa-

hili coast ratcheted upward with increased

trade with the Arabian peninsula and the Gulf

area, based around the export of gold, ivory,

Figure 8.5 historical Centers of Urbanization in Africa. Source: Assefa Mehretu.

332 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

and slaves from Africa in exchange for textiles,

jewelry, and other commodities. East African

coastal centers such as Kilwa, Malindi, and

Mombasa derived their growth, character, and

political organization from the encounters

and exchanges between the African mainland-

ers that founded them and small numbers of

Arab, Persian, and even South Asian settlers

who made permanent homes there. Their rise

is considered part of the medieval golden age

of Swahili civilization. The greatest of these,

Kilwa, now in ruins in southern Tanzania, had

diplomatic exchanges with China in the fif-

teenth century.

Urban Development after 1500

Nearly all SSA urban centers of the pre-1500

era were comparatively quite small, with less

than 50,000 residents. Europe’s impact on

SSA changed both the locations and the sizes

of major centers. European influence began

with the Portuguese in the fifteenth century.

For about two and a half centuries, most con-

tact between European traders and Africans

occurred in coastal installations, from which

Europeans gradually developed trade net-

works for various tropical commodities. The

slave trade arguably contributed the most to

the development of many coastal trade centers

between about 1500 and 1870, but this impact

was not an unambiguously positive one. Dur-

ing those years, more than 20 million Africans

were forcibly relocated to the Americas or

died en route; roughly an equal number died

or were displaced within Africa. Nonetheless,

it is remarkable how many of the major and

secondary cities of coastal West and Central

Africa in particular grew up in the midst of

the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The Portuguese established the first of these

towns, St. Louis, in the 1440s at the mouth of

the Senegal River, later creating centers at Bis-

sau in today’s Guinea-Bissau; Luanda and Ben-

guela in Angola; and Lourenço Marques (now

Maputo) and Mozambique in Mozambique.

The Dutch, French, and British followed the

Portuguese lead. The Dutch founded Cape

Town in 1652, and the French and British

established West African coastal towns such

as Conakry in Guinea and Calabar in Nige-

ria. Most towns were merely forts—Accra, for

example, was originally the site of Fort Ussher,

established in 1650 by the Dutch, and Fort

James, founded in 1673 by the British.

During the nineteenth century, the trans-

Atlantic slave trade declined, superseded by

what was termed the “legitimate trade” in

African raw materials. In combination with

competition between European firms and

states as the century progressed, African urban

areas that participated in this increasingly

high-volume and high-value trade grew dra-

matically. Precolonial towns such as Ibadan in

Nigeria witnessed considerable growth. The

nineteenth century also saw the rise of new or

rejuvenated urbanisms in eastern and south-

ern Africa. The city-state of Zanzibar grew

into the “island metropolis of Eastern Africa”

as the center of a mercantile empire whose

tentacles stretched to the Congo. Khartoum

emerged in the Sudan. A number of South

Africa’s major cities, including Port Elizabeth,

Durban, Bloemfontein, East London, and Pre-

toria, were founded via European settlement.

During the period of European contact

before formal colonialism in the 1880s, SSA’s

urban geography began to take form, but

under constraints. First, most European con-

tributions in settlement development were

coastal with minimal impacts in the inte-

rior. Second, many coastal settlements were

intended as transshipment points for trade

and lacked regular urban facilities, except

Historical Geography of Urban Development 333

those structures that served as European

housing or as port and defense establish-

ments. Third, there was a lack of diffusion of

European technology and culture to the inte-

rior’s indigenous urban centers.

African Urbanization in the Era

of Formal Colonial Rule

The European Scramble for Africa lasted from

the 1880s through the 1914 outbreak of the

First World War. By that point, virtually the

entire continent had fallen under European

domination. Ethiopia and Liberia remained

independent states, and South Africa became

an independent, white-minority-ruled state

in 1910; but the British, French, German, Ital-

ian, Portuguese, Belgian, and Spanish colonial

powers controlled the rest of SSA. Urbaniza-

tion followed suit, since social and physical

aspects of urban development followed the

social and political objectives of these Euro-

pean powers. Colonial regimes moved aggres-

sively into the interior of their colonies; and

urban settlements sprang up or expanded

from existing towns along infrastructure lines

(roads or railroads), near mines or large-

scale plantation areas, or in regions requiring

administrative centers. Virtually all coastal

ports and railheads from Dakar to Luanda

became the capitals and/or primate cities in

their respective countries, with external trade

as their major function. In East Africa, where

the resource hinterlands are far in the interior,

towns such as Kampala, Nairobi, and Salisbury

(Harare) were linked by railways to ports in or

near each country, such as Mombasa in Kenya,

and Beira in Mozambique. Other East African

centers, such as Dar es Salaam (Figure 8.6) and

Maputo, became important ports.

In South Africa, the pattern was somewhat

different. Major European settlement in the

interior pre-dated the formal colonial era of

most of SSA (i.e., the 1880s to the 1960s), and

major mining and agro-industrial towns were

well established by 1900. In South Africa, as a

result, there are now numerous urban centers

in the interior served by a number of ports all

around the southern tip of the continent. The

railway pattern is much more intensive, with

a high degree of connectivity between urban

centers in the plateau hinterland as well as

between the interior settlements and the port

cities.

In most of SSA, under European coloni-

alism, little real industrialization occurred.

Figure 8.6 the historic African Cbd of dar es Salaam, Kariakoo, has undergone rapid gentrification in the twenty-first century, where the pace of new construction has outrun the ability of the government to provide basic services. Source: Photo by Garth Myers.

334 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Colonial regimes prioritized the export of

minerals, metals, or primary goods to Europe,

so that industrial development was most

intensive in places like the Zambian Copper-

belt (in cities such as Ndola or Kitwe) and

the neighboring mining province of Shaba

(Katanga) in Congo. In many colonies, and in

white-ruled South Africa, severe limits were

placed in African residency in urban areas. To

support the scale of trade that flowed between

Africa and Europe and to control the colonies,

larger administrations emerged, leading to an

outsized service sector for the comparatively

shrunken state of secondary sector activi-

ties. Urban services were also generally quite

warped by race and class.

As a result of the limited economic oppor-

tunities and restrictions on movement, many

SSA urban centers remained relatively small

until after World War II. The so-called second

colonial occupation of the postwar era, when

colonial regimes invested in African develop-

ment largely in an effort to shape decoloni-

zation movements away from the influences

of the Soviet Union, led to the growth of

investments in many urban areas. Relaxa-

tion of migration and residency regulations

with independence brought massive rural-to-

urban migration in SSA.

There are differences between the respec-

tive colonial powers (particularly Britain,

France, and Portugal) in terms of their legacies

in urban areas, but there are also facets of their

legacies held in common. British colonies with

substantial white settlement developed more

highly segregated urban settlement patterns

regulated by more rigid building rules and

land laws than would be the case for colonial

cities in the interior areas of many French

West African colonies, for instance. Cities with

significant white populations in the colonial

era tended to have larger investments from

colonial states for infrastructure and from

the private sector for industrial develop-

ment. Yet exceptions to these differentiations

existed, and the distinctions between different

colonial powers’ strategies in urban areas are

often overridden by the commonalities. One

can still see some distinctly British features of

eastern and southern African cities in archi-

tecture (many colonial government build-

ings that are still in use were designed by the

British architect Herbert Baker and an army

of his protégés) or urbanism more generally

(the many small urban parks just adjacent

to Central Business District (CBDs) with the

same strict use rules on signs at their entrance

that one sees in London or Hong Kong). Many

of the neighborhoods formerly segregated by

race are now just as segregated, but by class,

as illustrated by the dramatic air photo from

the late 1990s in Lusaka, Zambia, of what was

until 1964 the whites-only and separately gov-

erned township of Roma and the informal

settlement of Ng’ombe on its eastern edge

(Figure 8.7). Today, Roma is populated pre-

dominantly by the African professional class

and the political elite of Lusaka, and their

maids and gardeners—also African—still

live in Ng’ombe, although it is beginning to

gentrify (Figure 8.8). Distinctively French

architectural or planning legacies are also

in evidence up until today in former French

colonies. But over time, cities all across the

region are becoming more and more alike in

their hybrid form and function as the postco-

lonial era brings unprecedented urban growth

to SSA (Box 8.3).

Postcolonial Urbanization

From the 1960s through the 1980s, SSA con-

tained the world’s most rapidly urbaniz-

ing countries. Eastern and southern African

Historical Geography of Urban Development 335

countries have led the world in urbanization

rates for nearly half a century. Even during the

1990s and 2000s, when many observers noted

a slowdown in African urbanization, several

countries had estimated urban growth rates

near or above 5 percent. In less than 50 years,

some eastern and southern African countries

have gone from being largely rural societies to

being places where almost half the people live

in or around cities.

The rapid growth of many cities and the

path of urbanization in most countries have

been somewhat distinct from what has been

seen in other regions, particularly in wealthy

European or North American settings. With

some exceptions, the extraordinary story

of urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa has

not accompanied a substantial economic

transformation of society toward indus-

try and manufacturing. In some countries,

Figure 8.7 A dramatic air photo of Lusaka, Zambia, today shows the formerly all-white township of Roma. Source: Photo by Garth Myers.

336 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

notably South Africa, industrial development

occurred with the urban-ward trends. But in

much of SSA, the ever-expanding numbers

of urban residents have become increasingly

dependent on what are termed informal activ-

ities—small-scale, low-technology manufac-

turing, petty wholesale trading, and informal

service provision—for basic needs and daily

life (Figure 8.9). Many of these informal eco-

nomic activities are highly gendered activities

that are defined by—and often challenge—

traditional understandings of gendered divi-

sions of labor (Table 8.1). Especially in the

case of southern Africa, the informal sector is

sometimes associated with another problem,

HIV/AIDS.

Current Urbanization Trends

Compared to the other regions, SSA still

has one of the lowest levels of urbanization.

According to UN estimates, only 41 percent of

the region’s population will live in urban areas

by 2020. There are, however, significant differ-

ences in the levels of urbanization within the

region. Coastal western Africa and southern

Africa have the most developed urban hier-

archies. Eastern Africa is the least urbanized

(Table 8.2).

Unlike the other regions of the world that

play dominant roles in the globalization pro-

cess, SSA lacks many major “world cities”

given its marginality to the world economic

system. Although Johannesburg plays a domi-

nant regional role and Lagos is growing in

economic importance regionally, most large

SSA cities are centers of national economies.

Urbanization in the region has continued,

but at a slower pace over the last decade in

many countries. The proportion of its popu-

lation in urban areas was 15 percent in 1950;

it then jumped to 25 percent in 1970; and it is

Figure 8.8 A billboard advertising a new, high-security elite housing enclave, Silverest Gardens, on the outskirts of Lusaka, built by the henan-Guoji development Company. it is one of nine such neighborhoods built by this Chinese company in SSA cities since 2010. Source: Photo by Garth Myers.

Historical Geography of Urban Development 337

Box 8.3 BriCS, urban investment, and the Middle Class

the last ten years have brought a profound shift in the sources of foreign investment in SSA, with China becoming the region’s biggest trading partner and donor. trade between China and Africa is now valued at more than $200 billion. india, Russia, and brazil are also increasing in significance as trading partners, investors, and donors in the region, and South African investment in the rest of Africa has increased. of the new players in the development and investment game in Africa, the group of five states which calls itself the bRiCS (standing for brazil, Russia, india, China, and South Africa) are the most significant, especially since they formed a development bank to serve as an alternative to the World bank, in part with African development in mind.

traditionally, the interest of bRiCS in the region has been tied to natural resource extrac- tion, often impacting urban areas only indirectly. however, a surprising trend has been the extent to which these countries have entered the urban housing and real estate markets. Some of the most dramatic examples have involved the construction of gated communities, high-security suburbs, or even entirely new satellite cities, often built by private firms from the bRiCS countries. For example, a Russian firm registered in Cyprus, Renaissance Capital, developed and financed plans for satellite cities in South Africa, nigeria, and Kenya, while China’s henan-Guoji development Company created nine high-security suburbs in eight dif- ferent African countries (see Figure 8.8).

this trend is often treated with near-derision, either because of media frenzies over glitzy new ghost cities or because of the galling inequity of luxurious developments in some of the world’s poorest cities. to wit, Kinshasa’s Cité du Fleuve, built by a Chinese-Zambian engineer- ing team on two artificial islands in the Congo River, opened in 2015 with a plan for more than 10,000 luxury apartments with asking prices beginning at $175,000 and a minimum down payment of $50,000—on the edge of a megacity with per capita income estimated at $280 per year. on the other hand, there is certainly a degree to which the new satellite cit- ies and secure suburbs meet the growing demand for high-end housing from SSA’s expanding urban middle class. the most infamous of the bRiCS-built “ghost cities,” Luanda’s Chinese- built satellite city of Kilamba, quietly gained 40,000 Angolan residents between 2012 and 2014 by lowering the asking price for its apartments; even though the new low prices were well out of reach of the average Luanda citizen, other Angolans clearly had the cash.

there is a healthy dose of skepticism surrounding the much-ballyhooed rising tide of SSA’s economies, since so much of the growth is in the familiar oil-and-minerals sector, with its notoriously limited benefits for ordinary urban Africans. yet, across the region, there is no mistaking the expansion of high-end consumerism, as mall after mall emerges in dakar, Accra, nairobi, and many others urban settings. A great many cities are witnessing a housing and construction boom to accommodate the new growth of this urban middle class, and the bRiCS donors, investors, and engineers are a big part of the story. it remains to be seen how durable SSA’s growing middle class will be, and the same may be said for the bRiCS’ interest in them.

338 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

now projected to exceed 50 percent by 2040.

Between 1950 and 1995, SSA’s urban popula-

tion increased by an average of 5 percent per

annum—this represents about twice the aver-

age population growth rate of the region. Since

then, however, the growth rate has slowed and

it is projected to be slightly above 3 percent

by 2030. There are also significant variations

in the urban population growth rates of the

countries in the region.

Although the overall growth of urban

population in SSA has slowed in recent years,

most of the major cities continue to increase

their populations. For instance, the 2015

population of Lagos, Nigeria’s metropoli-

tan area is estimated to be over 13 million;

Kinshasa-Brazzaville is 11 million; greater

Johannesburg 9.9 million, and Abidjan 4.9

million. Between 1990 and 2010, Luanda tri-

pled its population from 1.6 million to 4.8

million, and Conakry doubled its population

to 1.7 million. Also, some of the secondary

urban centers have experienced some growth

since the 1960s due to deliberate government

policies to slow the growth of the capital

cities.

Figure 8.9 Along Great East Road in Lusaka, Zambia, the informal economy punctuates the streets as vendors sharpen the pitches that they need to clinch each sale. Source: Photo by Angela Gray Subulwa.

Historical Geography of Urban Development 339

Most of the largest cities in SSA are the

national capitals of their country. In most

cases, the other urban centers are much

smaller, except when such cities house major

economic activity like a mine or a port. Devel-

opment efforts have focused on such national

cities while ignoring the many smaller urban

centers. Most administrative, transport, com-

munications, commercial, educational, and

industrial functions are concentrated in the

major national cities.

Many SSA cities derive their importance

from the role that they played during the colo-

nial and/or postcolonial eras. An important

postcolonial SSA urban development phe-

nomenon is the creation of newly planned

cities. The first of such cities was the port

of Tema, Ghana, built in the early 1960s in

anticipation of the country’s industrial devel-

opment. Several countries have since estab-

lished new cities as their capitals, including

Dodoma in Tanzania, Lilongwe in Malawi,

Yamoussoukro in Côte d’Ivoire, and Abuja in

Nigeria. These new capitals were meant to give

the nation a “fresh start” and to direct growth

away from existing cities (Figure 8.10). How-

ever, considering that none of the new capi-

tals, other than Abuja, have grown to much

more than about half a million inhabitants,

one can say that these new cities have not had

significant influence on the growth of the

already established cities. And in Abuja’s case,

the staggering rates of growth that the city

has experienced (its population jumped from

800,000 to 2 million between 2000 and 2010

alone) have far outstripped Nigeria’s planning

capacity for coping with it.

Another characteristic of SSA urban cent-

ers is the importance of port cities. Apart

from the landlocked countries in the region

and those that have created new capitals,

many of the rest of the countries have port

Table 8.1 Female and Male, age 15–24, in Informal Employment (in percent)

Female Male Year

Benin 79.8 69.8 2006

Burkina Faso 82.8 20.7 2003

Cameroon 69.9 62 1998

CAR 96.8 75.2 1994

Chad 83.6 60.2 2004

Comoros 93.4 54.5 1996

Congo 92.5 52 2005

Cote d’Ivoire 77.6 35.3 1998

Ethiopia 69.9 16.8 2005

Gabon 75.6 71 2000

Ghana 85.2 30.1 2003

Guinea 98.6 – 2005

Kenya 63.8 5.3 2003

Madagascar 77.7 – 1997

Malawi 72.6 – 2000

Mali 91.2 53.3 2001

Mozambique 70.9 8.5 2003

Namibia 38 – 2000

Niger 92.1 57.2 1998

Nigeria 59 16.8 2003

Rwanda 60 23.2 2005

Senegal 84 23.9 2005

South Africa 39.3 – 1998

Togo 94.3 60.1 1998

Uganda 74.4 14.9 2001

Tanzania 70.6 4.7 2004

Zambia 68.7 11.4 2002

Zimbabwe 53.6 – 1999

Source: Global Urban Indicators Database 2010.

Table 8.2 Urban Population as Percentage of Total Population

Regions 1990 2020 Projected

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 28.2 40.7

Eastern Africa 17.7 27.3

Middle Africa 32.4 46.1

Southern Africa 48.8 62.7

Western Africa 33.2 49.9

Source: UN Habitat (2014): 266–67.

340 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

cities as their capital city (see Figure 8.1). This

is often a carryover from the colonial period

when the main function of the capital city was

to provide access to the metropolitan coun-

try. In addition, SSA’s role during the colo-

nial era as the producer of natural resources

led to urban development that was based on

resource exploitation. Zambia provides a good

example of urban centers that grew out of the

copper mining centers. For instance, Chingola

grew up around the Nchanga copper mine;

Kitwe is at the site of the Nkana mine and

Luanshya stems from the Roan Antelope cop-

per mine. Another important feature of SSA’s

urban evolution is the increasing importance

of tourism cities. Mombasa, the second-larg-

est city in Kenya and the center of the coastal

tourism industry, continues to attract immi-

grants from the interior of Kenya because of

the employment opportunities in the tourist

industry. Gorée Island, located just off the

Dakar Peninsula also attracts many tourists

annually because of its slave history. Simi-

larly, Cape Coast and Elmina in Ghana attract

many tourists, who are interested in the expe-

riences of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, to the

castles from where the slaves were shipped to

the New World.

DISTINCTIVE CITIES

Kinshasa: The Invisible City

About 40 percent of the Democratic Repub-

lic of the Congo’s (DRC) population lives in

cities, with that percentage expected to top 50

percent by 2040. Kinshasa’s population was

conservatively estimated to be 11 million in

2015. This capital city has more than 15 per-

cent of the DRC’s population. Instability and

Figure 8.10 A downtown shopping street in dodoma, tanzania. tanzania’s socialist government relocated the national capital from the colonial port of dar es Salaam to the deliberately non- monumental new capital of dodoma, beginning in the 1970s, as an attempt to overturn the colonial legacy. Source: Photo by Garth Myers.

Distinctive Cities 341

warfare (especially from 1996 to 2002) have

hindered Kinshasa’s economic development,

even while enhancing incentives for Congo-

lese people to migrate to it. Its rapid growth in

the last half-century has outstripped the gov-

ernment’s political and economic capacity to

provide for its needs.

For Sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest

city, Kinshasa has a relatively brief and not-

ably turbulent history. The British-American

explorer-agent for the Belgians, Henry Morton

Stanley, built a new city just adjacent to a set

of preexisting settlements in 1881, naming it

Leopoldville to honor Leopold II, the Belgian

king. A railway connection with the coastal

port of Matadi soon made Leopoldville a

key town for linking the vast interior of the

basin with the world economy, and in 1923

Leopoldville became the Belgian Congo’s capi-

tal. Eventually, the Belgians extended the city’s

boundaries; at independence, this expanded

entity became Kinshasa.

Kinshasa had only about 30,000 residents

in the 1880s, but this had risen to 400,000 by

independence in 1960. As was the case in many

cities in SSA, colonialism held the population

down by enforcing restrictions on urban resi-

dence. At independence, the new government

ended these controls, opening the doors for

massive rural-to-urban migration. For much

of the last half-century, the annual growth

rate of the city’s population has been above 5

percent; it is estimated to have slowed to 3.8

percent for 2010–2020.

Until 1945, most of Leopoldville’s Afri-

cans lived not in the city itself, but in adja-

cent riverine settlements. After World War II,

new neighborhoods arose, some planned for

African workers by the colonial regime. These

planned neighborhoods were nearly the only

serious investments in African areas of the

city made during the Belgian era; Leopold II’s

Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo that

replaced it in 1908 are considered by many

scholars to demonstrate the worst case for

colonialism’s negative impacts, with extremely

limited investments in human welfare or

security in the colony’s capital city. Thus, Kin-

shasa’s infrastructure woes are not entirely the

result of warped postcolonial era’s politics—

the colonial regime failed to provide urban

services to African areas even when investing

heavily in European areas of the city.

The governments that have ruled Kinshasa

since 1960 and the private-sector entities that

have invested in the Congo’s vast resources

have not improved matters. Both government

and the formal private sector failed to keep

pace with Kinshasa’s housing, infrastructure,

or employment demands. Despite this, migra-

tion to Kinshasa continues to rise. Warfare,

violence, hunger, insecurity, and the departure

of industries from rural areas drive people

to Kinshasa. Their perceptions do not match

with realities—some 60 percent of Kinshasa’s

workforce is estimated to be unemployed;

housing and sanitation conditions remain

poor; and environmental health problems are

rampant.

Population-wise, the largest zones in the

city are at the far eastern and far western edges

of its urban expanse. Growth in these and other

areas is mostly unregulated and uncontrolled.

Postindependence efforts to provide public

housing, credit facilities, or transport have

been marred by gross corruption, mismanage-

ment, and negligence, particularly under the

notorious dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko,

who ruled the DRC (which he renamed Zaire)

with brutal inefficiency from 1965 to 1997. As

a result, Kinshasa’s residents do as much as

they can informally, outside of the state’s pur-

view or the formal private sector. So much of

what comprises Kinshasa in both physical and

342 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

economic terms is undocumented, giving rise

to discussion of it as an “invisible city.” Geog-

raphers Guillaume Iyenda and David Simon

estimate that three-fourths of Kinshasa’s

houses are self-built by their owners, often in

such close proximity to one another as to pro-

hibit sufficient road construction. Roads, rail-

roads, airports, port facilities, river transport,

bridges, and public vehicles in Kinshasa have

deteriorated steadily.

Industry in Kinshasa has been declining for

30 years or more. Rioting, looting, and urban

violence in the 1990s and 2000s reduced the

city’s industrial capacity still further. Kin-

shasa’s manufacturing sector still produces

many lower-order goods, but in declining vol-

ume. The service sector dominates Kinshasa’s

economy, accounting for three-fourths of all

urban activities. Yet, the extraordinary degree

of urban primacy that Kinshasa still main-

tains means that it continues to dominate

the DRC’s economy, accounting for between

19 percent and 33 percent of all firms or

establishments.

Despite the negativity that surrounds most

descriptions of and scholarship about Kin-

shasa, this megacity is a thriving center of the

arts, particularly for popular music. Kinshasa’s

musicians have produced chart-toppers and

dance-hall favorites across SSA and Europe

for decades, inventing new styles of music and

dance and pushing on through every new twist

in the city’s political and economic malaise.

The 2006 democratic elections in the DRC

marked a turning point toward peace and

stability, and Kinshasa is beginning to benefit

from the DRC’s tremendous base of natu-

ral resources. DRC was once among the top

five producers of industrial diamonds in the

world, and these are still estimated to account

for more than half of the country’s export

earnings, alongside extensive copper, cobalt,

coffee, palm oil, and rubber exports. Such

riches have attracted many foreign investors

to the DRC, some of whom are investing in

real estate and housing ventures in Kinshasa,

as the DRC’s government begins to invest in

long-overdue infrastructure for this megac-

ity. Widespread street protests in 2014 against

efforts to change the constitution to allow

the president a third term in office, though,

were reminders that Kinshasa still faces many

challenges on the road to more equitable and

democratic government (Box 8.4).

Accra: African Neoliberal City?

Ghana’s level of urbanization in 2014 was 53

percent, and it is projected to increase to over

63 percent by 2030. The two most important

cities in the country are Accra, along the coast,

and Kumasi, in the interior. Accra, however,

with an estimated 2015 population of 2.3 mil-

lion, is the undisputed primate city of Ghana.

Accra’s dominance manifests itself in the

political, administrative, economic, and cul-

tural spheres. The country’s open economic

policies and its relative political stability in a

region characterized by instability have also

elevated Accra’s influence internationally.

Accra has experienced a surge in business and

industry, becoming a destination for many

foreign visitors to West Africa. At the same

time, a significant proportion of the city’s resi-

dents have not benefited from the good eco-

nomic fortunes.

Accra began as a coastal fishing settle-

ment of the Ga-Adanbge people in the late

sixteenth century. Although there were other

trade and political centers in the inland of

the country at the time, there is no evidence

that they were connected in any way to Accra.

During the seventeenth century, a number

of forts were established in the area by the

Distinctive Cities 343

Box 8.4 Kinshasa’s imaginative and Generative Side

Kinshasa is often seen as one of the worst examples of what has gone wrong in SSA’s cities. it has grown very rapidly without corresponding industrial manufacturing growth, enduring decades of mismanagement amidst severe governance crises in the dRC. its vast sprawl and poor infrastructure are part of why it is often portrayed as an example of relocalization: where a city becomes a set of villages distinct and cut off from each other. And yet at the same time, Kinshasa has endured as a major engine of creativity in music and the arts, and its people display tremendous ingenuity in manufacturing the means to survive. in recent years, its residents have farmed its cemeteries and reclaimed stretches of the Malebo Pool in the Congo River as arable land. Filip de boeck has estimated that Kinois (the people of Kinshasa) have now empoldered more than 800 hectares of the Malebo Pool. More than 80 farmers’ associations govern this vast urban agricultural garden belt essentially outside of government control. What de boeck calls an “organic approach to the production of the city” certainly does not occur without conflicts, but its freedoms and innovations need to be recognized in any future attempts to come to grips with this megacity. Unfortunately, the creativity of Kinois residents is more frequently subjected to harsh and capricious crack- downs, street-sweeps, or programs of demolition.

the new democratically elected regime of Joseph Kabila has, since the 2006 election, invested heavily in remaking Kinshasa’s downtown, with Chinese, indian, Pakistani, UAE, or Zambian engineers, contractors, or investors. Ubiquitous billboards advertise the global ambitions for Kinshasa among the dRC’s new elites, including a proposed gated condo- minium community, La Cite du Fleuve, to be built on two artificial islands in the Congo River. Kinshasa’s artists, such as bodys isek Kingelez, have reimagined Kinshasa as well. Kingelez’s most striking piece, Projet pour le Kinshasa du troisième millénaire, is a multimedia model imaginarium for the dRC’s megalopolis in the future, the “third Millennium.” in all likeli- hood, the future of Kinshasa belongs to the farmers reclaiming Malebo Pool for their gardens more than it does to the dreamland of billboards or dioramas of its glory. but Kinshasa, far from an “invisible” city, actually makes itself a visible symbol of all that is wrong, but also all that is marvelous, about the dRC.

Source: Filip de boeck. 2010. “Spectral Kinshasa: building the City through an Architecture of Words,” paper presented to the workshop, “beyond dysfunctionality: ProSocial Writing on Africa’s Cities,” nor- dic Africa institute, Uppsala, Sweden.

Europeans. The rise of Accra as an urban

center began in 1877 when it replaced Cape

Coast as the capital of the British Gold Coast

colony. Unlike many SSA capital cities such as

Dakar that were selected because of preexist-

ing economic advantages, the choice of Accra

was influenced by the colonialists’ desire to

find a newer area that would protect Europe-

ans from native-borne diseases. Accra’s new

status as the capital made it an attractive loca-

tion for many merchants and investors, and

by 1899 the city had been transformed into

344 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

the busiest port on the Gold Coast with the

largest number of warehouses. The colonial

administration used legislation to limit the

development of manufacturing in the city, so

at independence in 1957 Accra had developed

a reputation not as a factory city but a ware-

house city. As the first city in Africa to become

the capital of a new nation after World War

II, Accra also became an important political

center for the struggle for independence in

Ghana and in Africa.

Postindependence governments in Ghana

continued to promote the city’s development

by concentrating governmental functions and

economic opportunities in the city and ignor-

ing the other important cities in the country,

such as Kumasi. As a result, Accra expanded

as the administrative functions for the entire

country expanded. In addition, the develop-

ment of Tema port led to the abandonment

of Accra harbor as a commercial port. How-

ever, like many cities in Ghana, Accra’s growth

began to slow down significantly in the 1970s

and 1980s because of the economic crisis that

engulfed the country.

The Ghanaian government accepted a

World Bank-supported economic reform

package in 1983 and agreed to pursue neolib-

eral economic policies, including the privatiza-

tion of state-owned enterprises, deregulation

of currency markets, promotion of the private

sector and foreign direct investment, reduc-

tion in the public sector, and trade liberaliza-

tion. These free-market policies are essential

for understanding the contemporary urban

economy. The policies helped to transform the

state-controlled business environment in the

country and encouraged the development of

the private sector. It became easier to import

many commodities, including building mate-

rials, leading to rapid residential development

in the city and an expansion in the number

of motor vehicles that clutter Accra’s roads

(Figure 8.11). In addition, the infrastructure-

building program created visible signs of

development in the city such as major road

Figure 8.11 A long line of drivers wait for gas at a station in Accra. one of the great ironies in many SSA cities appears in situations where Africans experience shortages of a major export commodity of their own country. here, the irony is that Ghana is an exporter of petroleum, yet has not been able to keep up with demand in its own capital city. Source: Photo by Francis owusu.

Distinctive Cities 345

construction (new thoroughfares and flyo-

vers), upgrading of the international airport

in Accra and the Tema port, and the creation

of export-processing zones to attract foreign

investors. As the hub of Ghana’s economic

activities, Accra has also become the host to

a number of the national, regional, and mul-

tinational financial and business institutions.

These economic activities have exceeded the

ability of the old central business district to

house them, and as a result many of the head-

quarters are located around the outskirts of

the city. The proposed “Hope City” near Accra

is one such effort and is expected to transform

Accra into an important IT hub and increase

its global competiveness.

Yet, not all residents in Accra have benefited

from free-market policies—negative effects of

the policies are also visible on the urban land-

scape. Income levels of most residents have

not kept up with the rising cost of living. Lack

of employment opportunities for the majority

of the residents has widened the gap between

the rising, yet small, middle class and the poor

majority. The unequal distribution of wealth

can be seen from the proliferation of new

housing developments on the outskirts of the

city, including development of gated com-

munities, luxury apartment buildings, expen-

sive urban shopping malls, and the increased

securitization of architecture presumably for

protection against crime. Although the crime

rate in Accra is low (compared to other SSA

cities such as Lagos), the growth of the pri-

vate security industry in the city reflects the

feeling of insecurity among the residents and

emphasizes the need to address this emerg-

ing problem. The poverty in the city can also

be seen from the increasing number of street

traders on busy intersections and other hot

spots. Many of the poor, including young chil-

dren, make a living by hawking anything that

they can find, especially the ubiquitous water

in plastic bags. The effect of the liberalization

policy has also been the flooding of the city

with vehicles which, combined with lack of

comprehensive transportation planning, has

created insurmountable traffic problems in

the city.

Ghana celebrated its 50 years of independ-

ence in 2007, with the country booming with

many activities of varying proportions; and, as

the nation’s capital, Accra played an important

role. In the same year, Ghana also discovered

oil offshore and began pumping in 2010. It

is hoped that the nationalistic overtones of

the 50th independence anniversary and the

country’s oil resources will help address the

challenges facing the majority of the city’s res-

idents who so far have not benefited from the

liberalization of the city but are bearing the

brunt of the government’s policies.

The optimism over the future of Accra and

Ghana is being tampered by the recent per-

formance of the Ghanaian economy. Follow-

ing years of growth, Ghana’s economy slowed

down to 5.5 percent growth in 2013. This was

accompanied by large budget deficiencies,

currency devaluation, high interest rates, and

rising inflation. To compensate, the govern-

ment raised electricity and water tariffs. Lack

of infrastructure has already been cited as one

of the major barriers to growth and this eco-

nomic decline caused further cuts to public

expenditure. Specifically, deficiencies in elec-

trical and transportation systems impact both

commerce and residential areas throughout

Accra.

Lagos: Largest Megacity of SSA

Nigeria’s population is more than 47 percent

urbanized. Lagos, with over 13 million inhab-

itants in 2015 and over 18 million projected

346 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

for 2025, qualifies as SSA’s most populous city

and one of the world’s megacities. The devel-

opment of the petroleum industry in Nige-

ria has given a boost to urban development,

including that of Lagos. It is often said that

Lagos owes its growth and dynamism to Euro-

pean influence. Yet, it is also true that Lagos,

in its development dynamic, owes much to

early African urban development. Lagos was

established in the seventeenth century, when

a group of Awari decided to cross over the

lagoons and settle in a more secure setting

on the island of Iddo. They later crossed over

to Lagos Island in search of more farmland.

In this manner, the three important parts of

the city of Lagos were founded as fishing and

farming villages by the indigenous population

well before the impact of major external influ-

ences in the eighteenth century were felt.

Another important historical factor in

the development of Lagos is its significance

in the slave trade between 1786 and 1851, in

which Africans, especially the Yoruba, played

an important facilitating role. Lagos was not

a slave market until 1760, but it soon became

one of the most important West African ports

in the slave trade. Lagos Island became an

important center where slaves were barri-

caded as they awaited their export along with

primary commodities, particularly foodstuffs

and Yoruba cloth, which reached markets as

distant as Brazil. Although in 1807 the Brit-

ish passed an act to abolish the slave trade,

Lagos, because of its locational advantage,

continued the trade until it was halted by the

British invasion of the city in 1851, which also

caused a temporary decline in the city’s popu-

lation. With the cession of Lagos to Britain as a

colony in 1861, the colonial era for Lagos had

begun.

People continued to move into the “free

colony,” leaving behind slavery, war, and

instability in the interior. Freed slaves also

returned from Brazil as well as Sierra Leone

and made their homes in Lagos. Toward the

end of the nineteenth century, Britain inter-

vened to stop internal hostilities and estab-

lished a protectorate over the whole of Nigeria.

A railway from Lagos, begun in 1895, reached

Kano in 1912. As its effective hinterland now

expanded to the interior of Nigeria, Lagos

became even more important as a trade and

administrative center. By 1901, the city had a

population of more than 40,000, and by this

time the future prominence of the “modern

metropolis” was pretty much established.

Lagos has experienced spectacular popula-

tion growth and spatial expansion in the past

four decades. Many of city’s current prob-

lems are rooted in its rapid growth. It has

been called the “biggest disaster area that ever

passed for a city.” That may be overstating it,

but Lagos has acute, sometimes incompre-

hensible, problems of congested traffic, inad-

equate sanitation, housing and social services,

and urban decay.

Lagos is a primate city. The disparity in

socioeconomic status between the elite and

the mass of urbanites is very wide. That also

means the city reflects two contradictory

modes of living: one that is an extension of

European style brought about by those who

can afford the luxuries of a high level of tech-

nology and another that is an extension of the

traditional mode of living, which has been

distorted to fit an urban milieu. This curi-

ous amalgam, as it reflects itself in an African

urban setting, loses the beauty, charm, and

convenience of both of its parts and becomes

a nuisance, as exemplified by the traffic con-

gestion and slum dwellings of Lagos.

As a megacity, Lagos has the typical prob-

lems of rapid population growth and insuf-

ficient employment opportunities. The net

Distinctive Cities 347

effect of these problems is enormous. It

depresses urban wages to almost marginal

subsistence levels and adds to the pressure

on urban amenities and housing, as well as to

numerous other social problems, especially in

the slums of Lagos and peripheral residential

communities. In fact, an estimated 64 percent

of the residents of Lagos reside in slum areas.

Lagos is a good example of an African primate

city whose growth rates and attendant prob-

lems in distorted consumption patterns have

created a stultifying effect that a weak and

often disorganized city government is incapa-

ble of handling.

There are, however, some positive devel-

opments underway. Abuja, in the vicinity of

the confluence between the Niger and Benue

rivers, was designated as the new capital city

of the country and all government functions

have steadily moved to that more central

location. This has meant a major step toward

decentralization, and it has reduced the con-

centration of functions in Lagos. Another

major development in Lagos that hopes to

reshape Lagos’ relations with the global polit-

ical economy and transform it into a world,

or perhaps even a global, city in time is Eko-

Atlantic. This new development is expected

to include 3,000 new buildings zoned in 10

separate districts on reclaimed land with

waterfront areas, tree-lined streets, efficient

transport systems, and mixed-use plots that

combine residential areas with leisure facili-

ties, offices, and shops. It is projected to house

many businesses, 250,000 residents, serve as

the workplace for 150,000 people, and sup-

port an additional 190,000 commuters. It is

expected to help to reverse coastal erosion

and relieve some of the pressure on land

and resources in Lagos as well as privately

administer and supply the city with electric-

ity, water, mass transit, sewage, and security.

Despite these promises, there is a risk in aban-

doning traditional African cities through the

promotion of detached new cities that are

explicitly geared toward serving elites and

international capital. Further, Eko-Atlantic

does not address the problems of Lagos that

are discussed above and may indeed exac-

erbate them. For instance, it is unclear how

many jobs would be created beyond those

that will be available during the construc-

tion phase, and the exclusivity of the new city

could promote existing inequality.

Lagos, even in the colonial period, had less

than 5,000 expatriates. Hence, compared with

Dakar, Nairobi, and Kinshasa, the character of

the city and its spatial organization were con-

siderably less a function of the impact of the

Europeans. The process that Lagos is under-

going, if there is any recognizable process at

all, may throw light on the problems of indi-

genization of African primate cities that have

been, and in most cases still are, enclaves of

European economic systems and often are as

alien to their people as cities in Europe. Lagos

is a bona fide African city and, as disorgan-

ized as it is, it may offer a lesson on the transi-

tion from a colonial to an indigenous urban

environment.

Nairobi: Urban Legacies of Colonialism

East Africa has commonly been taken to be

SSA’s least urbanized region and, until quite

recently, it was estimated that only 20 percent

of Kenya’s population lived in cities. That per-

centage had risen to 24 percent by 2010, and it

is expected to hit the 40 percent mark by 2040.

Nairobi, the capital and primate city of Kenya,

is currently estimated to have 4 million resi-

dents. It is a transport hub for much of East

Africa, as well as a key site for international

diplomacy, and it serves as the headquarters

348 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

or conference space for many international

organizations. Despite its short history, Nai-

robi has grown into the major industrial

urban center in its region, and the economic

engine of Kenya. Nonetheless, it is a city with

substantial rates of poverty, great disparities

between rich and poor, and faltering urban

services.

Nairobi is something of an accident of

geography. Sparsely inhabited forest and

swampland in the 1890s, Nairobi was by 1906

the site of the new capital of British East Africa

(renamed Kenya Colony in 1920). Nairobi

became the headquarters of the BEA’s Uganda

Railway, conveniently positioned near the

Nairobi River and the mid-point of the rail

line. The site’s drainage and health problems

did not prevent the colonial rulers from see-

ing the new railway headquarters as an ideally

situated forward capital for the colony.

By 1906, the new city contained more

than 13,000 people. By 1931, this popula-

tion had grown to 45,000, nearly 60 percent

of whom were Africans. Nairobi became the

most important colonial capital in the region,

as the seat of Britain’s High Commission for

East Africa (including the colonies of Kenya,

Uganda, Tanganyika, and Zanzibar). By 1948,

the city had more than 100,000 people, and its

growth continued steadily through to inde-

pendence in 1963.

Nairobi’s colonial legacies continue to

haunt it. The first element of this legacy is its

physical location. It might have been conveni-

ent as a site for railway administration and

management, and its geographical centrality

might have assisted the efficiency of colonial

rule; but physically, colonial Nairobi was, as the

early colonial administrator Eric Dutton once

put it, “a slatternly creature, unfit to queen it

over so lovely a country.” Sanitation and urban

services more generally lagged—and continue

to do so—in part because much of the city lies

in or near wetlands.

The second legacy scars Nairobi more

heavily, and that is the legacy of colonial seg-

regation. Nairobi was built to be the capital

of what its small population of European set-

tlers claimed as a “white man’s country”; and,

though Africans were a majority in the city

by 1922, most were not legally given rights

of residency under colonial rule. When the

colonial regime did begin to formally plan

for the African areas in Nairobi in the 1920s,

these were consistently laid out in the low-

est-lying, least-desirable eastern areas of the

urban zone. Whites invariably were situated

in the higher elevation areas west of Nairobi’s

downtown. Since the colonial regime at times

also encouraged the immigration of Indians

and Pakistanis to East Africa, Nairobi quickly

developed a substantial Asian population that

took up residence in the middle, literally and

figuratively.

Under colonial rule, the Europeans con-

trolled the government, the resources, and the

finances of Kenya despite the paltry percent-

age of the population that they represented.

More than half of the urbanized land of Nai-

robi in the 1960s still remained in white hands,

when whites comprised less than 5 percent of

the city population. The Asians of the colonial

era were mostly shopkeepers, merchants or

skilled artisans. Eventually, much of the land

of the eastern, African-dominated areas of the

city came to be Asian owned. From the begin-

ning, in Nairobi, Africans occupied the lowest

ground and the lowest rungs of the economy.

Most Africans lived in rented housing built

by the city or their employers. The African

residential zone of Eastlands, for example,

was characterized by high turnover rates, high

unemployment, and poor environmental

conditions.

Distinctive Cities 349

Although the tripartite racial geography of

the city has faded somewhat in the 48 years

since independence, Nairobi remains a heav-

ily divided city, in class terms now as much

or more so than in racial terms. The western

and northwestern suburbs remain low density

elite—albeit increasingly multiracial—areas.

Some African elites have moved into tradi-

tionally European and Asian neighborhoods,

but this is a minority in the upper echelons

of political society. Upper Nairobi and the

“Nairobi Hill” residential areas continue to

be dominated by European single-unit and

fashionable homes complete with servants’

quarters. Well-to-do Asians inhabit Parklands,

adjacent to the historically European sector.

Poorer Asians live in Eastleigh. Some of the

Asian population has moved to a second Asian

quarter in Nairobi South. The CBD and mid-

dle-class or working-class zones predominate

in Nairobi’s geographical center, and most of

the city east of downtown is dominated by

informal squatter settlements. The unregu-

lated growth of the latter has been the major

story of the postindependence landscape of

Nairobi, and occasionally these interrupt the

general geographical pattern. Extensive efforts

have gone toward their formal upgrading, but

the more significant process of transforma-

tion has been toward their densification, as

private investors replace shacks with mid-rise

tenements.

Although both its growth rate and its eco-

nomic health have declined in the past 25

years, Nairobi has become a major African

metropolis. Its primate city role for Kenya

is augmented by its role as an international

center for East Africa and even SSA more

generally. Nairobi is a prime African exam-

ple of a “splintering urbanism,” where one

portion of the city is highly integrated with

the world economy while another larger

portion is disintegrated, literally and figura-

tively. Compared to many SSA cities, Nairobi

has had a good record in industry and has

an important financial services sector in the

CBD. The average European, African elite, or

Asian in the city lives in a comfortable home

in Upper Nairobi or Parklands and works in

the CBD or some other similar enclave. Many

African residents are not integrated into the

core functions of the city and find themselves

locked out of the Nairobi economy that most

Western visitors see—as in the development

of gated communities for elites in the city.

The informal economy provides the over-

whelming majority of job opportunities and

residences in Nairobi now. Although Nairobi

shows evidence of a growing middle class and

middle-class housing estates, over 40 percent

of the population still resides in informal

settlements.

The CBD of Nairobi represents one of

the busiest spots in the continent. Its most

prominent functions are commerce, retail-

ing, tourism, banking, government, interna-

tional institutions, and education. It gained

unwanted international notoriety with the

1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy and an adja-

cent office building that caused 284 deaths, all

but ten being Kenyans. It returned to the news

again with a wave of postelection violence in

2007–2008 that left thousands of Nairobi resi-

dents displaced for months afterward. In 2013,

al-Shabaab Islamic militants claimed respon-

sibility for a horrific assault on the Westgate

Mall just north of the CBD, resulting in more

than one hundred deaths and the mall’s total

demolition. Despite these tragedies, the Nai-

robi CBD still provides SSA with arguably its

most picturesque and captivating skyline of

multistory buildings, and the CBD is ringed

by several, even larger, elite shopping malls

besides the now-destroyed Westgate.

350 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Box 8.5 Crisis Mapping from Kenya to the Globe

As the postelection violence unfolded in the streets of nairobi in 2007, a group of bloggers, citizen journalists, and software developers created a website to map reports of political vio- lence in Kenya. the original developers, led by Kenyan activist ory okollah, were all current or former residents of Kenya committed to providing real-time, open-source, participatory spatial information and maps of the violence.

the initial website was named Ushahidi—Swahili for “testimony”—and, by most accounts, it outperformed mainstream Kenyan and international media in covering the grounded reali- ties of postelection violence. the Ushahidi site utilized text messages and Google Maps and allowed crowd-sourced information to be visually displayed on an online, interactive map that built-up “hot spots” of activity. due to the highly accessible platform, the original Ushahidi site was able to accurately capture the multifaceted dimensions of political vio- lence—mapping both fatal and nonfatal events —with input from over 45,000 users.

Since its inception in 2008, the Ushahidi idea has evolved and expanded into a company with a platform that extends beyond a single website focused on mapping postelection vio- lence in Kenya into a platform with numerous products, developments, and prominent global deployments. the main Ushahidi platform has undergone significant updates since its first release (1.0 Mogadishu, 2.0 Luanda, 2.3 Juba), with release 3.0 currently under development. in addition to the original site, the Ushahidi Platform also provides a number of other prod- ucts, such as CrowdMap, CrisisnEt, Ping, and SMSsync, all designed to provide tools for crowd- sourced mapping and information sharing. the Platform was used extensively in 2008 to map and track anti-immigrant violence in South Africa. the Ushahidi Platform has been deployed in numerous crisis situations outside of the continent as well, most visibly during the 2010 haitian earthquake. in addition to extensive use of CrisisnEt data and CrowdMap to target humanitarian assistance in post-earthquake haiti, the Platform has also been used to organize global occupy Movement events, track pharmaceutical supplies in Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, and Zambia, monitor elections in Mexico and india, and build a pollution map in post-deepwater horizon oil spill in Louisiana. Ping is a two-way, multichannel alert and group check-in system to ask, “Are you ok?” during an emergency. Like the original Ushahidi site, Ping developed directly from events unfolding in nairobi, specifically the need for real-time group check-in during the 2013 Westgate Mall attacks. Most recently, the Ushahidi Platform was utilized to map, monitor, and track the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

According to the Ushahidi team, the core platform is “built on the premise that gather- ing crisis information from the general public provides new insights into events happening in near real-time.” the team is committed to covering events and geographic regions that typically exist at the margins of mainstream media, with particular attention to sub-Saharan Africa. in addition to these commitments, the Ushahidi Platform is deliberate in showcasing that a cutting-edge software company can arise and thrive from the continent. these com- mitments were recognized with a MacArthur award in 2013.

Source: ory okolloh, “how i became an Activist,” tEdGlobal 2007.

Distinctive Cities 351

Nairobi’s massive congestion, gigantic bill-

boards, neon signs, glitzy hotels and casinos,

and elite residents from all over the world

make it the ultramodern heartbeat of Kenya

and, for many, of SSA. The reconciliation and

constitutional changes that have followed the

cessation of postelection violence in 2008

brought hope to many Nairobi residents that

renewed government attention and reinvigor-

ated foreign investments would reverse their

city’s steady decline. The peaceful and fair 2013

elections conducted under Kenya’s popularly

endorsed 2010 constitution further solidified

this hope. Despite numerous setbacks for the

post-2013 government, including trials for the

president and vice president in the Interna-

tional Criminal Court for their alleged culpa-

bility in the 2007–2008 postelection violence,

Nairobi continues to catapult forward toward

its ambitions to be a world-class city-region

by 2030. While no real reversal of Nairobi’s

declining fortunes is in evidence, the city

remains a lively and creative cultural center

for Kenya and the region around it (Box 8.5).

Dakar: Senegal’s City of Contradictions

Senegal is about 43 percent urbanized. With

3.5 million inhabitants, Dakar is a principal

primate city in West Africa. The city is known

for its beauty, modernity, charm, and style, as

well as its agreeable climate, excellent location,

and urban morphology. But, of course, this

image applies to only part of Dakar. As with

Nairobi, Dakar is a city of phenomenal con-

tradictions (Figure 8.12).

The city was founded in 1444, when Portu-

guese sailors made a small settlement on the

tiny island of Gorée, located just off the Dakar

Peninsula. In 1588, the Dutch also made the

Figure 8.12 Fishing boats at Soumbedione fish market in dakar. Source: Photo by Garth Myers.

352 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

island of Gorée a resting point. Although

the French came to the site in 1675, they did

not move onto the mainland until 1857; they

used Dakar as a refueling and coal bunkering

point. A number of developments expanded

Dakar’s functions, leading it to be, in a short

time, the most important colonial port on

the west coast of Africa. In 1885, Dakar was

linked to St. Louis, the old Portuguese port, by

rail; and this gave it an added importance as

a trading center. Because of its situation and

site advantages, Dakar soon became a focus

for French colonial functions in the region.

In 1898, Dakar became a naval base and in

1904 it became the capital of the Federation

of French West Africa. Dakar’s location on the

westernmost part of the continent made it the

most strategic point for ships moving between

Europe and southern Africa and from Africa

to the New World. As capital of French West

Africa until 1956, it served a hinterland

stretching from Senegal in the west to the

easternmost part of Francophone West Africa,

which included Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger

(Figure 8.13).

After the French moved from the island of

Gorée to the peninsula, there was some uneas-

iness about living in quarters surrounded by

African villages. Although a policy of racial

segregation was not officially pursued, the

French settlers had always wanted to keep the

two communities separate. However, only

because of a natural calamity that befell the

Africans could the French finally accelerate

the establishment of their exclusive holdings.

Progressive displacement of African dwellings

was underway before the outbreak of a yellow

fever epidemic in 1900, but the Europeans,

invoking sanitation requirements, displaced

the Africans at a greater rate afterwards, push-

ing them northward. Between 1900 and 1902,

numerous African homesteads were burned

Figure 8.13 the influence of dakar extends well inland to the landlocked states of Mali, burkina Faso, and niger via the trans- Sahel highway. these residents of Mali’s capital, bamako, share a language with the residents of dakar: French. Source: Photo by Jared boone.

Distinctive Cities 353

down as a “sanitary measure,” and the occu-

pants were relocated after receiving com-

pensation. Another epidemic in 1914 again

brought destruction of African homesteads

in the south and more relocation of Africans

to the north. On the eve of World War II, the

French succeeded in almost completely domi-

nating downtown Dakar, often called Le Pla-

teau or Dakar Ville, concentrating Africans in

what became known as the African Medina, in

the north-central part of the peninsula. The

problem of “cohabitation,” as the French called

it, was at the root of the whole displacement

campaign. Although the colonial authorities

would never admit a policy of official segre-

gation, many recommendations were made

to openly enforce a system based on race. A

commission charged with the study of Dakar

in 1889 put forth a recommendation for sepa-

rate residential quarters for European and

African populations. In 1901, another report

proposed relocating the Africans outside the

confines of the city. A new plan, implemented

in 1950–1951, gave further excuse to the colo-

nial administrators to displace more Africans.

The present internal morphology of Dakar

reflects this historical background. The city is

composed of four main divisions. Although

rigid, exclusive ethnic domains are no longer

in evidence, Le Plateau still contains one of

the most westernized sectors in Africa. It

compares easily with any European city—

with high-rise buildings, expensive shops,

exclusive restaurants, business offices, and

many European residents. Characterized by

its white-painted, tree-lined boulevards, Le

Plateau is the most modern sector of the city,

and contains upper-class residential quar-

ters, commercial and retail functions, and

government offices and institutions. The

African Medina, by contrast, reflects its back-

ground as a concentration of Africans into

high-density housing projects and bidonvilles

(squatter settlements). It is the popular area

of the city, is still densely populated, and

houses many popular markets and clubs. Its

functions are primarily residential, but it also

contains shops, markets, and cultural fea-

tures. It contains the industrial laborers and

those employed in the informal sector, both

outside and inside the Medina. The popula-

tion of the Medina, and the adjacent bidon-

villes of Ouakem and Grand Yof, is uniformly

poor and lives in poorly serviced parts of

the city. Recent expansions of the city have

also resulted in the development of a sector

called Grand Dakar, which contains a variety

of neighborhoods ranging from the well-to-

do through middle-income and poor sectors

and includes a mixture of modern residential

quarters, industries, and bidonvilles. There is

also the Dakar industrial sector, which houses

the bulk of the city’s industrial activities.

Another important part of Dakar that

deserves attention is Gorée Island. This island

served for many centuries as one of the prin-

cipal factories in the triangular trade between

Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The popular

Maison des Esclaves (Slave House) built by the

Dutch in 1776 serves as a poignant reminder

of Gorée’s role as the center of the West African

slave trade. The Slave House with its famous

“Door of No Return” served as a place where

Africans were brought to be loaded onto ships

bound for the New World. The Slave House

has been preserved in its original state and

attracts thousands of tourists each year.

As with many African primate cities, Dakar

faces the problem of rapid population growth.

In 1914, the city had a total population of

18,000; by 1945 it had 132,000; and by 2015 it

had 3.5 million. Clearly most of the growth is

attributable to rural-urban migration, which

is characteristic of all Sub-Saharan primate

354 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

cities. The rate of natural increase of the city’s

population has also been much higher than

the national average on account of better sani-

tation and medical services.

There is no doubt that Dakar is still an

important center whose functions reach far

beyond its national boundaries. Its ideal loca-

tion still makes it a center of maritime as well

as airline traffic. Many international organi-

zations are located in Dakar because of its

geographic situation and agreeable urban

environment. Many international confer-

ences and meetings are held there. Above all,

it is one of the most favored vacation spots in

West Africa for European tourists, especially

those from the Mediterranean, who find a

familiar climatic comfort in exotic surround-

ings. Dakar’s position on the coast, however,

also leaves the area vulnerable to the pro-

jected increase in sea level and coastal erosion

and the threats of more flooding and storms

throughout the urban region. As many of the

tourism locations are situated along the coast,

this degradation could also bring a decrease in

this important revenue source for the region.

The future of Dakar, nevertheless, depends

largely on confronting two challenges. One is

to stem the tide of rural-to-urban migration by

a sound policy of regional and rural develop-

ment, including development of satellite cit-

ies and subsequent decentralization. Senegal

is attempting to stem rural-to-urban migra-

tion through the development of “ecovillages.”

This strategy focuses on equipping existing

communities with the means to utilize solar

energy, sustainable water storage, and waste

management techniques such as compost-

ing. As Dakar continues to grow, developing

strategies to sustain rural livelihoods such as

ecovillage development could curb the intense

urban migration and hold growth at a man-

ageable level for the city. The other challenge,

as in other African primate cities, is to bridge

the gap between the city’s ultramodern sec-

tors and the bidonvilles and make Dakar a true

African city.

Johannesburg: A Multicentered City of Gold

South Africa has long been among the most

urbanized countries in SSA. Some 64 percent

of its population now lives in cities. With more

than 4.4 million inhabitants, Johannesburg is

the largest city in South Africa. Gauging its

population is, however, both easier and more

complicated at the same time. On the one hand,

the relative wealth of the Republic of South

Africa affords it the possibility of keeping

more regular and reliable census figures than

most SSA countries, and the South African

Cities Network is one of the continent’s best

repositories of urban data. On the other hand,

the reorganization of municipal and local gov-

ernment in South Africa and the presence of

Johannesburg in the geographical center of

Africa’s greatest example of a polynodal con-

urbation (many-centered urban area) make

it more complicated to decide where Johan-

nesburg begins and ends. The major cities of

Ekurhuleni (formerly East Rand, 3.2 million),

Tshwane (formerly Pretoria, 2.9 million) and

Vereeniging (1.1 million residents) are within

the metropolitan area of Johannesburg, and

other big towns adjoin it as well. Thus the

metropolitan conurbation is said to contain

more than 11.6 million residents.

South Africa also has the most deeply

developed urban hierarchy in SSA. The com-

mon issues surrounding primacy in African

urban hierarchies are moot here. Johannes-

burg’s population of over 4.4 million is nearly

equaled by Cape Town (3.7 million); eThek-

wini (formerly Durban) has 3 million, and

both Nelson Mandela Bay (formerly Port

Distinctive Cities 355

Elizabeth) and Vereeniging are over 1 million,

giving South Africa seven municipalities with

more than 1 million residents. Five more cit-

ies have more than a half a million. This sig-

nificantly dilutes any primacy Johannesburg

might claim, although, when one considers

the immediate proximity of Tshwane and

Ekurhuleni, it is still possible to recognize the

greater Johannesburg area and Gauteng Prov-

ince as the core of the South African economy.

Johannesburg is frequently the only SSA

city to be considered a world city (though the

global connectivity of Cape Town, eThekwini,

and Tshwane is increasingly significant, along

with a few other SSA cities). It holds the larg-

est mining and industrial center on the Afri-

can continent. It is home to Africa’s largest

stock exchange, busiest airport, most diverse

manufacturing sector, and the ugliest urban

racial history in Africa.

Johannesburg owes its establishment and

phenomenal growth to the discovery of gold

in 1886. The rush of settlers from the south

to share in the riches of the land caused

the town’s population to increase to 10,000

within a year of its birth. By 1895, hardly

ten years after its establishment, the city had

about 100,000 people, half of whom were

European. Johannesburg was the creation of

the mining companies, which until recently

probably had more to do in determining the

spatial organization of the city than did the

civil authorities.

The City of Gold has the unfortunate

distinction of having been at the heart of a

notorious experiment in social engineering.

This experiment was built around the notion

of separate development for settlers and the

indigenous African population. Johannes-

burg’s separate development started with the

assertion in 1886 that no native tribes could

live within 70 miles (112 km) of the site of

the new town. When the “native” problem

first arose in 1903 and when it surfaced again

in 1932, with the creation of the Native Eco-

nomic Commission, the European settlers

argued that Johannesburg had been built

by the Europeans, for the Europeans, and

belonged to them alone. They maintained that

the “natives” were needed for unskilled labor

and came to the city to work but not to live in

it, mainly because of their inability to handle

European civilization. Africans were barred

from living in the city and denied permanence

of dwelling while they worked in the city; they

were restricted to guarded compounds or

distinct townships during the tenure of their

urban employment. The “pass law” (requiring

all Africans to carry passes, or internal pass-

ports) begun in 1890 and the “compound-

ing system” (restricting Africans to certain

residential areas) contributed to severe urban

structural problems with which Johannesburg

still has to cope.

Johannesburg became Africa’s largest

manufacturing center and a principal center

of culture and education. The prosperity of

the city was derived from the labors of all the

races, but was appropriated by the European

minority who enjoyed perhaps one of the

highest living standards in the world. Today,

the city is clean, with well-planned streets,

skyscrapers, and plush residential quarters.

The downtown area is similar to that of any

industrial city in Europe and North Amer-

ica, with high-rise development to house the

offices of the numerous companies, trading

firms, and government institutions. In the

suburbs of Johannesburg, such as Sandton

(which is increasingly an alternative white-

oriented CBD), are residential homes for the

well-to-do Europeans, whose architecture and

amenities match those of their European and

North American counterparts.

356 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Separate development became a formal

national policy under the name apartheid, after

the 1948 election of the white racist National

Party in whites-only polls. The Nationalists’

apartheid built on decades of gradual evolu-

tion and enforced unequal separation in an

extremely geographical manner. Apartheid

was a socially engineered, hegemonic tool to

maintain a privileged status for the European

settler population so that its small number

could appropriate the vast amount of wealth

that was being generated in the country. The

impact of this policy was perhaps felt more

in places like Johannesburg than anywhere

else in the country. Apartheid’s application

was severely tested in the dynamic environ-

ment of Johannesburg, which was attracting

a great number of Africans to supply the labor

requirements of a rapidly growing industrial

conurbation. The authors of apartheid fol-

lowed a myopic vision by engineering an

unsustainable institution of separate develop-

ment for Africans in their native homelands.

They were later forced to tolerate settlements

such as Soweto, growing by leaps and bounds

in the shadows of Johannesburg. Apartheid

was doomed to succumb to the social dis-

order that its authors never anticipated. The

1976 race riot in Soweto was a watershed in

the development of non-racist South Africa.

The impatience of the world community with

the brutal regime brought moral outrage from

outside and increased violence from within.

Under the weight of these two dynamics, and

aided by a visionary leader Nelson Mandela,

South Africa emerged from its nightmare by

the early 1990s when apartheid came to a for-

mal end, symbolized by Mandela’s election as

president in 1994.

The future of Johannesburg lies in how

the root causes of urban instability created by

apartheid are dismantled while maintaining

the city’s ability to continue as South Afri-

ca’s most important industrial and business

center. The challenges that Johannesburg faces

are evident from what has been happening in

attempts to resolve the severe socioeconomic

disparities. With the enforcement mechanisms

of the apartheid influx control laws gone, an

orderly transition from a divided city into an

integrated city has been a daunting task for

policy makers and city planners. Johannes-

burg residents long suffered from high rates

of violent crime and continuing insecurity.

Johannesburg is becoming a megalopolis, as

a series of mining towns and industrial areas

merge together. The previously marginalized

townships such as Soweto and Alexandra are

now firmly integrated into metropolitan life.

Though still high, income inequality within

Johannesburg has declined, as has the violent

crime rate. Johannesburg (home to two of the

stadiums used to host the final games) led the

rest of South Africa in celebrating the success

of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in soccer—the

first time the world’s biggest sporting event

had ever been held in Africa. While contro-

versies persisted over the massive investment

in stadiums and infrastructure that hosting

the World Cup necessitated, Johannesburg’s

new Gautrain rapid transit railway, remodeled

international airport, fully upgraded highway

system, and many other manifestations of

FIFA 2010 remain on the landscape, alongside

a deep pride among urban residents across the

country in South Africa’s ability to produce

a first-rate World Cup without the mishaps

and fiascos many outsiders (almost gleefully)

seemed to expect.

With a nonracial central government at

the helm and with ample human and physical

resources for economic progress, all signs con-

tinue to point to a more progressive trajectory

for cities like Johannesburg. Success depends

Urban Challenges 357

on whether people of all ethnic groups living

in the city can deal responsibly with the his-

tory of their relations and choose to build a

diverse society in which everyone has a stake

in the new South Africa’s development.

URbAN CHALLENGES

Urban Environmental Issues

Given the diversity of environments across

the continent, the impacts of global climate

change in SSA cities are extremely varied.

Places in northern and southern Africa are

projected to become much hotter and drier in

the summers, with increased risks for drought,

while drier subtropical regions will become

warmer than the wetter tropics. Many of SSA’s

largest cities are located along the continent’s

coast and are particularly vulnerable to the

threat of rising sea levels (Figure 8.14). Because

most SSA cities have experienced more lim-

ited industrialization processes than similarly

sized cities of Europe, Asia, or the Americas,

specifically urban environmental problems are

often assumed to be of a smaller magnitude.

Yet problems of solid-waste management, air

and water pollution, toxic-waste disposal, and

environmental health are profound issues in

much of urban SSA. In part, due to the gen-

erally smaller formal industrial sector and

smaller manufacturing value-added base in

urban Africa, revenues that accrue to urban

local government are typically not significant

enough to support the broad array of urban

services expected of city governments. This

array includes environmental management

services such as solid-waste management,

water and sanitation supply, as well as any

form of environmental monitoring or over-

sight. As a consequence, formal and regulated

supply of these services in SSA cities is often

Figure 8.14 African cities located in low-elevation coastal zones, such as Monrovia, Liberia, are vulnerable to severe flooding from sea-level rise. Source: Photo by Robert Zeigler.

358 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

in very short supply. Even in cities with some

service provision, access to basic services is

typically skewed toward high-income groups

and neighborhoods.

Solid-waste services illustrate one crucial

example of the interlocking environmental

problems facing SSA cities. Many SSA cities

with more than 1 million inhabitants report

that the proportion of the residential solid

waste produced that actually makes it to a

landfill ranges from 3 percent to 45 percent,

meaning that the majority of solid waste

remains in urban neighborhoods. In an earlier

era of smaller settlements, the burial or burn-

ing of such waste was not a significant prob-

lem because its content was overwhelmingly

organic and biodegradable. The increasing

use of plastics and other inorganic materials,

along with ordinary source items for toxic

waste (such as batteries and household insec-

ticides in aerosol canisters), and the stagger-

ing growth of settlements mean that the lack

of proper solid-waste management is a severe

crisis for SSA’s urban environments. Buried

in congested neighborhoods, solid wastes can

and do pollute the water supplies of untold

millions of urban Africans. Pollutants sourced

to uncontrolled landfills have been shown

to enter into the fruits and vegetables urban

farmers pluck from downstream gardens in

Dar es Salaam, Lusaka, and elsewhere. For

example, just along the Roma-Ng’ombe bor-

der (see Figure 8.8), urban women garden-

ers utilize a “rich” section of sewage-infested

wetland for growing tomatoes, vegetables, and

sugar cane for sale in downtown Lusaka, as

well as in the surrounding compounds such

as Ng’ombe. Burned on the surface, the waste

causes serious damage to the air quality of such

neighborhoods. Left in ditches, the waste can

inhibit proper drainage, leading to flooding or

the increased presence of standing water that

becomes a breeding space for malarial mos-

quitoes. Mounds of waste left for months on

the surfaces of African urban neighborhoods

provide habitat for vermin that carry serious

public health risks.

The interconnected water, sanitation,

waste, air quality, and environmental health

problems of African cities may in fact be as

bad or worse, proportionally, as the infamous

environmental crises of Southeast Asian or

Latin American megacities. This is because

the problems have great potential to magnify

one another in the absence of regulation or

amelioration. Even where significant indus-

trial development is associated with African

urbanization, such as in Nigeria’s oil-rich

Niger Delta, Zambia’s Copperbelt, or South

Africa’s Gauteng Province (i.e., greater Johan-

nesburg), colonialism, transnational capi-

talism, or repressive governments (or, in the

latter case under apartheid, all three at once)

make for a heady combination of roadblocks

to environmental control. The levels of heavy

metals pollution downstream from the Cop-

perbelt’s largest copper smelter, for example,

are mind-boggling, and yet even as the tech-

nology exists to prevent or significantly reduce

the smelter’s air and water pollution, succes-

sive colonial and postcolonial governments

for many decades now have shown reluc-

tance to force environmental controls onto an

industry that provides more than 90 percent

of all of Zambia’s export earnings.

Despite such limited or politically circum-

scribed capacity for urban environmental

management, many African cities are witness-

ing substantial efforts to bring environmental

crisis points under control. In line with the

prevailing development models of the day,

many cities are experimenting with private-

sector urban-service provision, including in

environment-related sectors. Dar es Salaam,

Urban Challenges 359

as the pilot city for the United Nations Sus-

tainable Cities Program, privatized solid-

waste management services and produced

an increased rate of deposition from under

10 percent of residential waste to more than

40 percent in less than a decade. Other cities

have privatized water supply or even sanita-

tion services. Still more have attempted pub-

lic-private partnerships where private-sector

companies have joined forces with govern-

ments to provide services.

Not all of the new innovations have been

driven by the private sector, nor have they

been automatically friendly to the environ-

ment. For instance, South Africa’s post-

apartheid regime has carried out a policy of

free basic water provision that did increase

the supply of clean water for the poor; but

many critics point to the limitations in that

system that are causing poor urbanites to

seek unclean water alternatives, exacerbating

a cholera epidemic. In other cities, the driv-

ing forces for change in urban environmental

management belong with grassroots commu-

nity groups, such as Nairobi’s Mathare Sports

Club, whose local environmental planning

and consciousness raising earned them

global attention at the World Summit on the

Environment in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 that,

in turn, improved the club’s soccer match

gate revenues. Regardless of the paths taken,

though, it is clear that much more needs to

change for African cities to gain control over

the daunting array of environmental prob-

lems confronting them.

Primate Cities

Urban primacy continues to dominate the

African scene (Figure 8.15). Indeed, one of the

more significant factors in urban transforma-

tion in Africa in the post–World War II and

postindependence period has been the dra-

matic growth of the primate cities. Primate

cities contain more than 25 percent of the

total urban population in SSA. In places such

as Lesotho, the Seychelles, and Djibouti, pri-

mate cities contain 100 percent of the urban

population. Primate cities in SSA are also not

limited to small countries such as Burkina

Faso or Guinea-Bissau; they can also be found

in such large countries as Angola or Mozam-

bique. Generally, in those countries where

urbanization has had a relatively long history,

the ratios are lower. But the degree of primacy

will continue to be a significant pattern in

Africa’s urban development for quite a long

time (see Table 8.2).

In the 1960s, most primate cities in Africa

accounted for about 10 percent of the urban

population. By the year 2000, many cities,

such as Kinshasa, Lusaka, Accra, Nairobi,

Addis Ababa, Luanda, Dakar, and Harare,

increased their share of their respective

nation’s urban population to over 20 percent.

Currently, many primate cities account for

over 30 percent of the urban populations in

their respective countries. It is also important

to note that, since the second half of the 1980s,

some encouraging signs of deconcentration

around primate cities have been observed and

the ratios of urban populations that reside

in primate cities seem to be stabilizing. For

instance, between 1990 and 2005, the share of

the urban population in the primate city in

several countries has declined. The decreases

in the percent of urban population in the larg-

est city were highest in Angola, Burkina Faso,

and Guinea.

While the dominance of primate cities in

SSA has historical roots traceable to colonial

administration policies, postcolonial govern-

ments have perpetuated this pattern by mak-

ing them the centers of modern development

360 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

and governance. SSA’s primate cities dominate

the political processes, often reinforcing the

status quo but sometimes creating avenues

for change (Figure 8.16). For example, urban

political processes in some SSA cities have cre-

ated new spaces of engagement, particularly

for professional women. For example, women

comprise over 30 percent of parliament in

Burundi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania,

Angola, Uganda, and South Africa (in com-

parison, the female representation in the U.S.

Congress is less than 20 percent) and over

Figure 8.15 Principal Urban Centers of Sub-Saharan Africa, many of which are primate capital cities. Source: United nations, department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population division (2014), World Urbanization Prospects: 2014 Revision, http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/.

Urban Challenges 361

25 percent of ministerial positions in Niger,

Burundi, Mozambique, Gambia, Uganda,

Lesotho, South Africa, and Botswana. Formal

and informal solidarity organizations and

movements of women, operating in SSA’s pri-

mate cities, have also emerged as significant

agents of change. The Liberian peace move-

ment, for example, was heavily influenced by

such coalitions of women and ultimately ush-

ered in SSA’s first female head-of-state, Ellen

Johnson Sirleaf.

Primate cities in SSA not only tend to be

the capital city of the country; they often also

have more disproportionate influence than is

warranted by the magnitude of the popula-

tions living in them. They dominate the polit-

ical, economic, infrastructural, and cultural

scene of their countries. The strong influ-

ence that they exercise also enables them to

preempt a good portion of the national social

and industrial investments. Concentration of

power in these cities has produced large dis-

parities in standards of living between those

who live in them and the population in the

rest of the country. Primate cities also have

some of the most serious urban problems in

the region. These include mounting unem-

ployment and the resultant increased crime

and youth unemployment; severe housing

problems, reflected in overcrowding and the

spread of slums and squatter settlements (over

80 percent of the urban populations reside in

slums in Mozambique, Niger, Angola, Chad,

Central African Republic, and Sierra Leone);

and immense pressures on urban infrastruc-

ture and services such as water, sewage, and

transportation.

Rural-to-Urban Migration

Between 50 and 60 percent of the urban

growth in SSA comes from rural-to-urban

Figure 8.16 by using billboards to help change human behavior, Lusaka, Zambia, tries to create a greener capital city as a role model for the nation. Source: Photo by Angela Gray Subulwa.

362 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

migration of young adults seeking jobs and

other livelihood opportunities in urban

areas. This migration is one of the most cru-

cial problems facing African governments at

present. A massive flow of people into the

few urban centers that became the locus of

power and investment, particularly in the

period following decolonization of the con-

tinent, has strained the carrying capacity

of most urban centers. Concern about the

rate of SSA urbanization would hardly seem

justifiable, considering the very high mag-

nitude of its rural population. However, the

urban growth pattern, often dominated by

the primate city and the high rate of growth

of such centers, is far beyond the capabili-

ties of the urban socioeconomic system to

generate the needed employment oppor-

tunities, housing, and social services. As a

consequence, the primate city has become,

in most instances, a liability to the overall

development process.

The paradoxical fact that rural-urban

migration continues to grow in spite of rising

unemployment in urban centers of the Global

South has given rise to a migration theory

based on rural-urban income differentials.

This theory assumes that migration is “pri-

marily an economic phenomenon” and that

the potential migrant makes a calculated move

in order to realize much higher “expected”

earnings with varying probabilities. According

to this theory, the wide differences between

urban and rural wages, coupled with the fact

that the long-run probability that a migrant

could secure wage employment in the urban

area, explains the motives behind the increases

in rural-urban migration. The structural

adjustment programs implemented across

the region were meant to bridge this gap by

increasing the prices of agricultural exports

and instituting payment for previously free

or subsidized services consumed mostly by

urban dwellers.

Rural-to-urban migration in SSA is also

explained with reference to “push factors” that

operate in rural areas and “pull factors” that

attract migrants to urban areas. The push fac-

tors include the deteriorating socioeconomic

conditions in rural areas, including lack of

access to agricultural land, which literally

forces people to leave rural areas. The pull fac-

tors emphasize the attractions and socioeco-

nomic opportunities available in urban areas.

The economic opportunities in urban areas, as

well as social, cultural, and psychological fac-

tors including escaping social controls in rural

areas, also attract people to urban areas.

Whether rural-to-urban migration in SSA is

caused primarily by the difference in expected

wage from migration (urban wage) versus an

agricultural wage or the balance between pull

and push factors might be open to debate. It is

important to note that more recent evidence

seems to suggest that rural out-migration has

not only abated in SSA, but that its counter-

stream (i.e., urban out-migration) has pro-

gressed and even, in some cases, surpassed the

rural-to-urban flow of people. For instance, a

number of major towns and cities in Ghana

and Zambia experienced a negative migratory

balance between the 1970s and 1980s. Zam-

bian census data also indicated that the popu-

lation of some urban areas decreased between

1990 and 2000, due in large part to growth in

some secondary cities, but also due to opening

up large farm blocks and resettlement schemes

designed to attract some urban dwellers and

retirees. Similar patterns have been observed

in the Francophone West African countries

of Burkina Faso, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali,

Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal, where many

secondary towns registered a negative net loss

of migrants between 1988 and 1992. In some

A Hopeful Vignette 363

of these countries, the net migration rates of

rural areas suggest that rural-to-urban migra-

tion may not be as important as expected or

that the reverse movement has increased.

While the apparent slowdown of rural-

urban migration is important, the fact

remains that the SSA primate city is a major

factor in the contradictions between urban

and rural life. Because of its monopoly of eco-

nomic opportunities and political power, the

city has created a perception on the part of

rural-urban migrants of certain and immedi-

ate opportunities for socioeconomic improve-

ment, a perception that is rarely realized. The

phenomenal growth of shantytowns and

squatter settlements and the proliferation of

informal employment in the cities of SSA are

the result of this miscalculation (Figure 8.17).

A HOPEFUL VIGNETTE

Namushi comes from a family of seven—four

boys and two girls living with their mother—

and was born in Mabumbu village in western

Zambia. Throughout her childhood, Namushi

and her family survived on what they man-

aged to grow from their fields, together with

any small temporary jobs, to access limited

cash. Often times, Namushi’s family struggled

to provide more than one meal a day. At the

age of 20, Namushi, along with four boys from

Figure 8.17 Getting hair cut and styled is one of the basic services provided by every culture. Around Kaunda Square in Lusaka, entrepreneurs earn a bit more by adding telephone services to their business model. Source: Photo by Angela Gray Subulwa.

364 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

her village, made the (mis)calculation to set

out for the capital city of Lusaka in search of a

better life. According to Namushi, she set out

with an unquestioned belief in the socioeco-

nomic possibilities that life in Lusaka would

offer.

Upon arrival, Namushi quickly realized

that her beliefs and perceptions about life

in Lusaka were indeed miscalculations. Her

childhood in rural, western Zambia did not

equip her with the tools (linguistic or oth-

erwise) to easily navigate and negotiate the

complexities of life in Lusaka. Although she

struggled to learn Nyanja and English, she

remained committed to the idea that succeed-

ing here would translate to success for her

entire family back home in Mabumbu. For the

first few days (before they could locate anyone

who lived in the city from Mabumbu’s nearby

villages), Namushi and her four travel com-

panions slept at the bus station and set out

each morning in search of employment. Luck-

ily, Namushi was able to secure employment

as a housemaid in the suburbs of Lusaka by

her third week in the city.

For the next year, Namushi worked as a

housemaid, while sending a significant por-

tion of her earnings back home to her village.

It was during this time that Namushi was able

to improve her English, which later helped

secure better employment at a newly opened

gas station. While working at the gas station,

Namushi realized that she would continue

to struggle and fail to realize her goals if she

continued to send all of her earnings directly

home to Mabumbu. She decided to reduce

her remittances to the village and direct some

of her income into savings, with the goal of

opening a small business in the nearby com-

pound, Kaunda Square. Over the course of a

year, Namushi saved enough cash to construct

a small, mobile store (katemba) from which

she sold vegetables, candy, candles, salt, and

the daily essentials of life in the compound.

As her business stabilized, Namushi contin-

ued to save cash, hoping one day to open a

larger, permanent-structure grocery in the

compound market area. Within three years of

saving and navigating the intricacies of gro-

cery marketing in the compounds, Namushi

finally succeeded as she opened her grocery in

Kaunda Square in 2005.

When asked, Namushi characterizes her

successful navigation of life in Lusaka as a

story of constant negotiations and calcula-

tions of risk, coupled with the determina-

tion to survive that she learned from her

grandmothers back in Mabumbu. Namushi

reflected on the overlapping challenges that

she faced—coming from a rural area, navi-

gating the informal urban economy, lacking

any support system or network, and most

critically doing all of this as a woman. As a

woman, Namushi felt compelled to carry her-

self a “bit rough” in order to guard against

those who saw an opportunity to take advan-

tage of a young, single, rural woman in the

city. Another problem she faced as a woman

entrepreneur in the informal economy was

the issue of transportation (from the whole-

salers to the compound). Namushi found

it difficult to secure transport without the

fear of being taken advantage of by the over-

whelmingly male drivers—fears ranging from

simply being overcharged to fears of thieves

and even fears of being raped along the way.

Another obstacle Namushi faced came from

the wholesalers themselves (in Lusaka, the

wholesale market is dominated by men of

Indian descent). Namushi often found herself

served last even if she arrived first. And while

her male counterparts were able to negotiate

for small credits and loans on their wholesale

purchases, Namushi was unable to negotiate

SUGGESTED READINGS

Bekker, S., and L. Fourchard, eds. 2013. Governing

Cities in Africa: Politics and Policies. Cape Town:

HSRC Press.

Charton-Bigot, H., and D. Rodrigues-Torres, eds.

2010. Nairobi Today: The Paradox of a Frag-

mented City. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota

Publishers.

Locatelli, F., and P. Nugent, eds. 2009. African

Cities: Competing Claims on Urban Spaces. Lei-

den: Brill.

Figure 8.18 namushi and her grocery shop on Kaunda Square in Kinshasa. Source: Photo by Angela Gray Subulwa.

366 CITIES OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Murray, M. 2011. City of Extremes: the Spatial

Politics of Johannesburg. Durham, NC: Duke

University Press.

Myers, G. 2011. African Cities: Alternative Visions of

Urban Theory and Practice. London: Zed Books.

Obrist, B., V. Arlt, and E. Macamo, eds. 2013. Liv-

ing the City in Africa: Processes of Invention and

Intervention. Berlin: Lit Verlag.

Parnell, S., and E. Pieterse, eds. 2014. Africa’s Urban

Revolution. London: Zed Books.

Pieterse, E., and A. Simone, eds. 2013. Rogue Urban-

ism: Emergent African Cities. Cape Town: Jacana

Media & African Centre for Cities.

Quayson, A. 2014. Oxford Street, Accra: City Life and

the Itineraries of Transnationalism. Durham, NC

and London: Duke University Press.

United Nations Habitat. 2014. State of African Cit-

ies 2014: Re-imagining Sustainable Urban Tran-

sitions. Nairobi: UN Habitat.

Figure 9.1 Major Urban Agglomerations of South Asia. Source: United nations, department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population division (2014), World Urbanization Prospects: 2014 Revision, http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/.

Cities of South Asia ASHOK DUTT, GEORGE POMEROY,

ISHRAT ISLAM, AND IPSITA CHATTERJEE

KEy URbAN FACTS

Total Population 1.7 billion

Percent Urban Population 33%

Total Urban Population 552 million

Most Urbanized Countries Maldives (45%)

Pakistan (38%)

Least Urbanized Countries Nepal (18%)

Sri Lanka (18%)

Number of Megacities 6

Number of Cities of More Than 1 Million 72

Three Largest Cities (Metacities) Delhi (25 m), Mumbai (21 m), Dhaka (17 m)

Number of World Cities (Highest Ranking) 5 (Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai,

Karachi)

KEy CHAPTER THEMES

1. The duality of prosperity alongside poverty in the midst of a vibrant mosaic of language,

ethnicity, and faiths make cities in South Asia unique.

2. There are three basic types of South Asian cities: bazaar based, colonial, and planned.

3. There have been five major influences on the development of South Asian cities: the Indus

Valley civilization, the Aryan Hindus, the Dravidians, the Muslims, and the Europeans.

4. The current urban system most distinctly reflects the dominance of Presidency towns dur-

ing the colonial era.

5. The urban form of South Asian cities is reflected in two basic models: the colonial-based

city model and the bazaar-based city model, with permutations of both.

6. India has a relatively well-balanced urban hierarchy; Pakistan has a dominant southern city

and dominant northern one; all other South Asian countries are characterized by urban

primacy.

370 CITIES OF SOUTH ASIA

In the cities of South Asia, a vibrant opti-

mism and a newfound confidence abounds

(Figure 9.1). Led by the 300 million-strong

Indian middle class, a rampant consumerism

illustrates a giddy self-assurance and sense of

hope. One merely needs to step into the bright,

flashy, and glamorous automobile showrooms,

where eager upper-middle-income buyers

may be seen purchasing not just a car, but

in some cases a fifth family car and at prices

over $23,000—more than 46 times the aver-

age per capita-income in India. Glossy malls,

housing dominant retail giants like Gucci

and Prada, boutiques selling designer clothes,

discotheques packed with hip youngsters,

McDonalds and Pizza Huts filled to the brim

with kids wanting the “American experience,”

amusement parks and movie theaters run

by the latest digital technologies, and beauty

parlors and spas define the landscape of fast-

globalizing South Asian cities. Globalization

is here to stay, and the growing South Asian

middle class wants more of it. Computer lit-

eracy, software proficiency, and business man-

agement skills define the youth component of

the middle class, who are increasingly acquir-

ing lucrative jobs in the local branch offices of

global corporate giants. The grim determina-

tion of the postindependence era (post-1947),

to produce scientists, engineers, and doctors

who could build the nation, is slowly being

replaced by a global dream to produce CEOs,

accountants, software professionals, who

could afford the consumptive lifestyle of the

American middle class. Mumbai, the domi-

nant financial, commercial, and movie hot-

spot in India, is considered a world city of the

first order because it sends and receives mas-

sive financial, commercial, and cultural flows.

Delhi, Bengalūru (Bangalore), Hyderabad, and Kolkata (Calcutta) in India, Dhaka in

Bangladesh, Colombo in Sri Lanka, and Kara-

chi and Lahore in Pakistan are also world

cities because they are economically and cul-

turally integrated with global flows of goods,

investments, images, and people. Beginning

in the late 1980s, the countries in South Asia

dissolved protectionist economic systems that

shielded their domestic markets through tariff

walls, licensing, and quotas. The “License Raj”

(as it was known in India) was abolished, and

through rounds of structural adjustments, a

New Economic Policy of liberalization or free-

market globalization was adopted. The adop-

tion of this policy opened up South Asian

markets and also its people to global corpo-

rations and their investments. The economic

reforms have produced tremendous urban

impacts, many of which have been contradic-

tory and controversial (Box 9.1). While the

7. Massive rural-to-urban migration has led to exploding urban populations, the growth of

squatter settlements, and emerging inabilities to supply urban residents with clean water

and other urban services.

8. Civil wars and political instability have been major contributing factors to the destabiliza-

tion of urban areas over the decades, most recently in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

9. Planned cities and new towns have played an important but subsidiary role in the region for

a long time, with Islamabad (Pakistan) and Chandigarh (India) as notable recent examples.

10. Globalization, which began with the adoption of economic reforms, has resulted in grow-

ing affluence among a rising middle class; but it has also increased urban poverty, spatial

exclusion of the poor, urban violence, and perhaps worsening environmental quality.

Key Chapter Themes 371

Box 9.1 Call Centers, SeZs, and Sweatshops

have you done any of the following of late? Called to reserve a rental car? telephoned tech- nical support for help with your new computer? Spoken to someone via phone to straighten out a credit card issue?

if you have, then chances are good that the person on the other end of the line was in india. if, indeed, this was the case, then it was your personal encounter with “outsourc- ing,” a phenomenon that is transforming the way business is done across the globe. With the adoption of global free-market policies, corporations now have the freedom to take their production activities outside their home country and situate it anywhere they find more advantageous. the result is a dismantling of factory-based manufacturing and the beginning of a more flexible-style of production— different parts of the production process can be geo- graphically dispersed or outsourced. outsourcing first gained attention as U.S. automakers began to subcontract the manufacturing of certain auto components to other firms in the United States. For example, Ford would contract with a smaller, independent firm for wheel assemblies.

Offshore outsourcing is when a firm takes activities and moves these overseas. Giant corporations in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan prefer outsourcing, because it allows them access to cheap labor, tax rebates, and relaxed environmental norms, hence higher profits. the rise of business process outsourcing firms (BPOs) shows that even ser- vice-sector employment can be outsourced. business process outsourcing involves taking accounting functions, customer services, computer programming, and other activities out- side and usually offshore.

india has several advantages, which make it an attractive destination for bPo oppor- tunities. First, it has a well-developed system of universities and technical colleges that produce a large supply of technically qualified and well-educated personnel. Second, English proficiency, a legacy of british colonial rule, has provided postsecondary graduates with the language skills needed to work in “call centers.” third, the cost differential between hiring U.S. workers and hiring those in india may be as high as 10 to 1. this represents a potential savings—hard for any firm to ignore. Finally, with the rise of modern information technolo- gies (telephone, internet), distance has “collapsed” and the cost of doing business over great distances has in many ways vanished. bengal ru, Mumbai, Pune, hyderabad, and Chen- nai represent important bPo destinations; Accenture, Citibank, dell, ibM, infosys, Microsoft, office tiger, Verizon, and Wipro are some of the corporations setting up shop there. the call center workers function as customer service representatives answering 1–800 calls; they undergo accent training, are briefed about American sports and weather so that they can politely chat with a customer. they are often given more “relatable” names like dave or nancy so that customers are comfortable.

outsourcing has become the site for heated debates because of its controversial impacts on labor and the environment. A large portion of the outsourced jobs include flexible-style manufacturing jobs—a shirt can be stitched in China, the label sown in Guatemala, and the

372 CITIES OF SOUTH ASIA

middle class has become a global labor source,

manning call centers, foreign banks, and cor-

porate offices, the majority of urban poor have

been relegated to sweatshop-like conditions in

Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Many others

have lost formal sector jobs as manufactur-

ing units closed down, unable to keep up with

global competition in this free-market regime.

Still others have suffered evictions under city

greening, beautification, and slum demolition

policies.

While annual rates of urban growth have

slowed in the region, massive migrations

of the rural poor to the cities have put tre-

mendous pressure on urban infrastructure.

Increasing urban poverty has been coupled

with an increase in low-paid informal jobs

resulting in visible landscapes of poverty.

Mumbai, the city which best demonstrates the

affluence and consumption noted above, also

presents urban poverty at its most daunting.

Within the city proper, 9 million slum dwell-

ers comprise about 62 percent of the popula-

tion. Across the Mumbai urban agglomeration

these numbers swell further. Dharavi, with

over 800,000 people (and perhaps as many

as 1 million!) crowded into an area of just

under a full square mile (2.6 sq km), is Mum-

bai’s largest slum and perhaps the best known

(though, contrary to rumor, not the world’s

or even South Asia’s largest). Estimates of the

number of “pavement dwellers,” those who

have no shelter at all and sleep on sidewalks,

doorsteps, and the like, range wildly from as

low as 250,000 to over 1 million. Across each

of the region’s megacities, the story is the

same—tremendous numbers of people liv-

ing in conditions of poverty with inadequate

buttons stitched on in Mexico, before it comes back to the American consumer. on the one hand, this represents a job loss from the outsourcing nation and has therefore become the site of political debates in outsourcing nations. on the other hand, corporations outsourcing jobs to cheaper locations are accused of exploiting labor and environment in the outsourced locations. the result is a world of sweat shops and Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Since india’s economic integration, SEZs have expanded at a rapid rate. these SEZs require huge land areas, often a minimum of 1,000 hectares and usually include appropriation of agricul- tural land adjoining major cities to be used for processing export goods. the SEZs are known to employ labor at exploitative rates—wages are 34 percent lower than non-SEZ jobs and the workers are forced to work longer. Women and children bear the brunt of this exploita- tion, because SEZs prefer women and children as they are seen as “nimble” and “compliant.”

City municipalities often encourage corporations like nike, Reebok, and Adidas by pro- viding them land, giving them tax rebates, and relaxing environmental laws, because they look upon outsourced ventures as contributing to the export earnings. Manufacturing hand- stitched soccer balls in South Asia has become a controversial case—5–14 year olds in Pakistani cities are employed by global corporations like nike to work for 12 hours a day in near-slavery conditions. United Students Against Sweatshops (USASS) is an international grassroot organization of students trying to pressure their respective universities to ensure that university clothing is not produced in sweatshop conditions.

Urban Patterns at the Regional Scale 373

shelter, lack of clean water, and filthy living

conditions. Already racked with unemploy-

ment and underemployment, each swells with

new migrants each and every day (Figure 9.2).

This duality of prosperity alongside pov-

erty in the midst of the vibrant mosaic of

language, ethnicity, and faiths of South Asia

is what makes cities in this region unique.

Throughout South Asia, cities remain recepta-

cles of hope and serve as powerful engines of

social and economic change.

URbAN PATTERNS AT THE REGIONAL SCALE

South Asia has 552 million urban dwellers, and

this number will nearly double to over 1.13

billion by 2050. This means that South Asian

cities will expand by more than the popula-

tions of the United States, Canada, and Mexico

combined! Most of the urban population is in

India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, which cur-

rently rank as the world’s second, sixth, and

eighth most populous countries (Table 9.1).

Together, the three comprise 97 percent of

Figure 9.2 As cities fill up with people, streets become more congested with not only cars, but bicycles and camels as well. Source: Photo by George Pomeroy.

Table 9.1 South Asia’s Twelve Largest Urban Agglomerations

City—Country Population (Est. 2014)

Delhi—India 25.70

Mumbai—India 21.04

Dhaka—Bangladesh 17.60

Karachi—Pakistan 16.62

Kolkata—India 14.87

Bangalore—India 10.09

Chennai—India 9.89

Hyderabad—India 8.94

Lahore—Pakistan 8.74

Ahmadabad—India 7.34

Pune—India 5.73

Surat—India 5.65

Source: United Nations. World Urbanization Prospects: 2014 Rev.

374 CITIES OF SOUTH ASIA

South Asia’s total population; three out of four

live in India alone.

With its immense population, India, at 33

percent urban, largely determines the overall

regional average, which is also about 33 per-

cent. Pakistan and Bangladesh have just over

one in three living in urban areas. The smaller

countries of Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka

have less of their populations in cities. Bhutan,

although also small, has demonstrated a bur-

geoning urban expansion in the recent dec-

ades; its cities are growing at an annual rate of

3.7 percent. While most of South Asia has seen

steady urbanization, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka,

Nepal have suffered civil conflict, revolt, or

insurgency, making city growth and develop-

ment more difficult and erratic.

While cities of all sizes in South Asia have

been growing, the six megacities have grown

the most. Delhi in the last two decades has

asserted itself as India’s leading city, eclips-

ing Mumbai by growing at twice the pace of

its rival. Indeed, the growth has been remark-

able to peg Delhi as the second-largest city in

the world with a 2015 population of nearly 26

million. Although just second in the region,

Mumbai ranks fifth in size globally, followed

by Dhaka (11th), Karachi (12th), and, despite

decades of slower growth, Kolkata (14th).

Astonishingly, South Asia now has five of the

fourteen largest cities in the world! Even more

incredible: by 2030, five of the world’s ten

largest cities will be South Asian.

Including cities further down the urban

hierarchy, there are an additional six cities with

between 5 and 10 million people. Altogether,

73 urban centers in South Asia top a million

residents. 58 of those “millionaire cities”—a

term made obsolete by the astounding mag-

nitude of urban populations—are located in

India, ten in Pakistan, three in Bangladesh,

and one each in Nepal and Sri Lanka. If one

takes into consideration all cities of 300,000 or

SUGGESTED READINGS

Ahmed, Waquar, Amitabh Kundu, and Rich-

ard Peet. 2010. India’s New Economic Policy: A

Critical Analysis. New York and London: Rout-

ledge. A critique of the economic forces that are

reshaping India’s cities.

Boo, Katherine. 2014. Behind the Beautiful Forevers:

Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity.

New York: Random House. Embedded journal-

istic account of life and survival in a Mumbai

slum based on the author’s three years among

the residents.

Chapman, Graham P., Ashok K. Dutt, and

Robert W. Bradnock. 1999. Urban Growth and

Development in Asia: Making the Cities. 2 vols.

Aldershot, England: Ashgate. Includes chapters

devoted to cities, urbanization, development,

and planning.

Gayer, Laurent. 2014. Karachi: Ordered Disorder

and the Struggle for the City. Oxford and New

York: Oxford University Press. Chronicles the

criminality and violence of Karachi.

Hossain, Shahadat. 2010. Urban Poverty in Bangla-

desh: Slum Communities, Migration, and Social

Integration. London and New York: I.B. Tauris.

Provides an examination of the understudied

slums of Dhaka.

King, Anthony D. 1976. Colonial Urban Develop-

ment: Culture, Social Power, and Environment.

London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. A compre-

hensive analysis of colonial urban forms of New

Delhi, the hill station of Simla, and cantonment

towns.

Nair, Janaki. 2005. The Promise of the Metropo-

lis: Bangalore’s Twentieth Century. New York:

Oxford University Press. A timely, well-written,

informed, and empirically rich case study of the

South Asian city most closely associated with

globalization.

410 CITIES OF SOUTH ASIA

Press, 1989. Straight-forward and comprehen-

sive treatment of urban India.

Turner, Roy, ed. 1962. India’s Urban Future.

Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of

California Press. Of particular interest in this

classic collection of articles is the contribution

by John E. Brush, “The Morphology of Indian

Cities.”

Noble, Allen G., and Ashok K. Dutt, eds. 1977.

Indian Urbanization and Planning: Vehicles of

Modernization. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill.

A classic work containing more than 20 chap-

ters contributed by leading geographers and

planners.

Ramachandran, R. 1989. Urbanization and Urban

Systems in India. New Delhi: Oxford University

Figure 10.1 Major Urban Agglomerations of Southeast Asia. Source: United nations, department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population division (2014), World Urbanization Prospects: 2014 Revision, http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/

Cities of Southeast Asia JAMES TYNER AND ARNISSON ANDRE ORTEGA

KEy URbAN FACTS

Total Population 626 million

Percent Urban Population 47%

Total Urban Population 294 million

Most Urbanized Countries Singapore (100%)

Brunei (77%)

Malaysia (74%)

Least Urbanized Countries Cambodia (21%)

Timor-Leste (32%)

Myanmar (34%)

Number of Megacities 2

Number of Cities of More Than 1 Million 25 cities

Three Largest Cities Manila (13 m), Jakarta (10 m),

Bangkok (9 m)

Number of World Cities (Highest Ranking) 6 (Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok,

Manila, Ho Chi Minh City)

KEy CHAPTER THEMES

1. Urban landscapes of Southeast Asia have been shaped by Chinese, Indian, Malay, and inter-

national influences, especially colonialism and more recently globalization.

2. All of the world’s major religions are represented in the landscapes of Southeast Asia’s cities.

3. All of the major cities of the region have experienced rapid population growth and ris-

ing environmental challenges, including problems of water quality and quantity, since

independence.

4. Primate cities (notably Manila, Jakarta, and Bangkok) dominate the region, but the key

urban center of Southeast Asia is the city-state of Singapore.

5. Foreign influences, especially through foreign direct investment, play a critical role in

Southeast Asian cities today.

414 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

Towering glass-encased skyscrapers, flashing

Coca-Cola signs, McDonald’s restaurants—

the increasingly universal symbols of central

cities around the world—are very evident

in the cities of Southeast Asia, especially the

larger ones, giving the cities a deceiving sense

of familiarity. Closer examination, however,

reveals many subtle, and sometimes not-so-

subtle, differences. Southeast Asia as a whole

is a cornucopia of cultures, with hundreds of

different languages and many distinct reli-

gions. Nestled between two dominant cultural

hearths, China and India, and exhibiting a

storied colonial past, Southeast Asia is a blend

of indigenous and foreign elements. This

diversity, not surprisingly, has been and con-

tinues to be inscribed on the region’s urban

landscape, from the lotus-blossom-shaped

stupas of Buddhist temples in Bangkok, to the

brightly colored Hindu temples in Singapore;

and from the golden-domed Muslim mosques

of Kuala Lumpur to the Roman Catholic

cathedrals of Manila and Ho Chi Minh City.

Yet for many travelers, the extent of South-

east Asia’s urban regions comes as a surprise.

The typical image of the region is agrarian:

thatched huts perched atop stilts and brilliant

green rice paddies with water buffalo. The

reality is very different. Flying over Manila,

Bangkok, or Ho Chi Minh City is like flying

over Los Angeles, New York, or Tokyo. The

landscape reveals not a dense green three-

tiered canopied jungle but instead a dense

concrete jungle of apartment complexes,

shopping malls, financial districts, and amuse-

ment parks.

Southeast Asia’s major cities are focal points

of political and cultural activity and centers

of commercial circulation and exchange

(Figure 10.1). Some, such as the “post-socialist”

cities of Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Phnom

Penh are undergoing phenomenal political

and economic changes; others, such as Ran-

goon (Yangon) remain aloof from broader

global trends. The cities of Southeast Asia are

also sites of vast inequalities between the rich

and the poor as well as the healthy and the mal-

nourished. In Bangkok, Manila, and Jakarta,

Toyota Land Cruisers and Louis Vuitton

designer stores are as much a part of the urban

landscape as are shantytowns and raw sewage.

Beyond the limits of Southeast Asia’s pri-

mate cities are a host of medium, or inter-

mediate, cities. Many, such as the Philippines’

Cebu and Thailand’s Chiang Mai and Chiang

Rai, are fast becoming important regional

urban centers in their own right. And still

other, predominantly rural areas, such as the

Central Highlands of Vietnam, are sites of

contestation and conflict resulting from indig-

enous land-use practices and national urban

policies.

The urban and urbanizing areas of South-

east Asia are more than just containers of

people and commodities. They are agents in

their own right and, in the coming years, will

6. Land reclamation is increasingly used in port areas to provide space for urban expansion.

7. Land-use patterns in the cities are very similar throughout the region.

8. Many cities are restructuring their economies to become IT (“information technology”)

cities.

9. Some of the world’s largest cargo ports—notably Singapore—are located in this region.

10. Transnational cities, which reach across international boundaries in their influence, are

becoming more important.

Urban Patterns at the Regional Scale 415

continue to influence, and be influenced by,

local, national, and global affairs.

URbAN PATTERNS AT THE REGIONAL SCALE

Downtown Phnom Penh, the capital of

Cambodia, is dominated by the mustard-

colored Central Market (Figure 10.2). Built in

the Art Deco style of the 1930s, the market is

cruciform in design, with four halls radiating

out from a central, cavernous dome. Inside,

hundreds of venders ply their wares. Care to

buy handwoven silks or a traditional Khmer

scarf (known as krama)? Perhaps you’re in the

mood for some fresh vegetables or pork? No

matter your taste, whatever you seek can prob-

ably be found at Phnom Penh’s Central Market.

And if not, it is but a short journey by motor-

bike to visit the city’s Russian Market. On the

surface, the two markets are very much alike,

with many of the same fruits, vegetables, and

souvenirs found in each. However, the sweep-

ing arches and vaulted ceilings of the Central

Market give way to the Russian Market’s dimly

lit and claustrophobic feel. The Russian Mar-

ket is a rabbits-den of activity, as shoppers

jostle elbow-to-elbow with merchants and

tourists. Inside, the air is stifling, a sweltering

mix of too many people and too many cook-

ing pots bubbling stews of fish and vegetables.

Figure 10.2 the Central Market in downtown Phnom Penh was built in 1937 in art deco style. it is the soul of the city, a place where you can purchase just about anything. Source: Photo by James tyner.

416 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

Stepping inside any of Southeast Asia’s

historic (and even new) markets is like Alice

stepping into Wonderland. Whether you find

yourself wandering the stuffy aisles of Binh Tay

Market in Ho Chi Minh City, window shop-

ping in Bangkok’s upscale River City shop-

ping complex, or sipping an iced coffee while

shopping along Orchard Road in Singapore,

you are guaranteed to be dazzled with new

sights, sounds, and smells. The intoxicating

aroma of sandalwood incense combines with

the smells of fresh fruits, vegetables, and spices

to provide an aromatic bouquet that is found

nowhere else. And unlike the sedate, antiseptic

shopping malls of North America (which are

increasingly popping up in Southeast Asia), the

labyrinthine markets of Cambodia, Thailand,

Vietnam, and elsewhere seem to embody

much of the region’s urban geography.

As a whole, Southeast Asia remains one

of the least urbanized regions of the world.

Only four countries—Singapore, Brunei,

Malaysia, and the Philippines—are more than

50 percent urban. Other states are consider-

ably more rural in character: Cambodia, Laos,

Burma, and Vietnam, for example, are all less

than 30 percent urbanized. However, recent

years have seen many countries registering

startling urban population growth rates in

excess of 3 percent per year; and Cambodia

and Laos stand at more than 6 percent.

Such urban growth is not new to Southeast

Asia (Figure 10.3). Before the Portuguese ever

arrived in Malacca, or the Spanish landed in

Figure 10.3 “Plan of the Angkor Complex, ca. A.d. 1200.” Source: t. G. McGee, The Southeast Asian City (new york: Praeger, 1967), 38.

Urban Patterns at the Regional Scale 417

the Philippines, Southeast Asia was home to

some of the world’s most impressive cities:

Angkor in Cambodia, Ayutthaya in Siam

(now Thailand), and Luang Prabang in Laos.

Their names continue to evoke rich histories

of commerce and conquest. For it was through

Southeast Asia that the fabled spice trade

coursed. And it was through Southeast Asia

that ships laden with goods from China, India,

and beyond sailed. Then and now, the cities of

Southeast Asia were centers of economic, reli-

gious, and cultural exchange.

Historically, one or two urban areas would

dominate the region. The Kingdom of Ang-

kor, for example, exerted its influence between

the ninth and fourteenth centuries over much

of present-day Cambodia, Laos, and Thai-

land (Figure 10.4). Centered on the city-

state of Malacca, the Srivijayan empire ruled

much of insular Southeast Asia from the late

fourteenth century to the early sixteenth cen-

tury. And today, most countries in Southeast

Asia continue to exhibit phenomenally high

levels of urban primacy. In Thailand, the capi-

tal city of Bangkok stands as second to none.

Not to be outdone, both Jakarta and Manila

exert their dominance over Indonesia and the

Philippines, respectively.

But Southeast Asia’s urban patterns of the

twenty-first century reveal many remark-

able differences from previous eras. Whereas

many earlier cities were densely populated and

compact, the cities of Southeast Asia today

are densely populated and sprawling. Rapid

urban growth is occurring on the peripher-

ies of Manila, Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Jakarta,

and Ho Chi Minh City. This growth, some

planned, some not, has led to conflicts over

land use; it has threatened once-prime agri-

cultural lands; and it has spurred attendant

Figure 10.4 Angkor Wat, built between 1113 and 1150 by Suryavarman ii, is one of but hundreds of wats spread throughout Cambodia. because it symbolizes Cambodia’s golden age, its image can also be found on the nation’s flag. Source: Photo by James tyner.

418 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

economic problems of land speculation and

landlessness (Figure 10.5).

In the light of persistent problems of

over-urbanization—traffic congestion, pol-

lution, unemployment—local government

officials throughout Southeast Asia have ini-

tiated regional economic development pro-

jects. Often these projects are multipurpose

in scope: promoting economic growth and

development in more peripheral regions (i.e.,

northeast Thailand) and lessening the burdens

of primate cities. Still other governments have

relocated entire cities for unknown reasons.

The always-secretive leaders of Burma, for

example, relocated in 2005 its capital from

Rangoon (Yangon) to the interior, semi-rural

district of Pyinmana. The few western jour-

nalists who have been fortunate enough to

visit the new Burmese capital—named Nay-

pyidaw (“Seat of Kings”)—write of expansive

residential areas, reminiscent of any suburban

development found in North America, and

Figure 10.5 new residential, leisure, and commercial developments rise on the outskirts of Manila, taking the place of former sugar cane plantations. Source: Photo by Arnisson Andre ortega.

Figure 10.6 in Pleiku, Vietnam, a woman makes a living by selling fresh fruits and vegetables—proudly displayed as in an American supermarket—to shoppers in the early morning hours. Source: Photo by James tyner.

Historical Geography of Urban Development 419

impressive office buildings. But hardly any one

lives there! Indeed, most Burmese are denied

access to the new city, thus lending credence

to the new capital’s unofficial designation as a

“ghost city.”

Similar to Phnom Penh, the cities of South-

east Asia reflect the past and the future. They

are centers of intense commercial activity and

cultural exchange (Figure 10.6), and, while

sharing many commonalities, they—like

Phnom Penh’s Central and Russian Markets—

exhibit remarkable differences.

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHy OF URbAN DEVELOPMENT

Precolonial Patterns of Urbanization

Southeast Asia is characterized by more coast-

line than perhaps any other major world

region, and much of this coast is accessible

to sea traffic. It is understandable, therefore,

that maritime influences have contributed sig-

nificantly to the Southeast Asian urbanization

process.

The region, but most especially mainland

Southeast Asia, also contains many fertile river

valleys, which gave rise to densely populated

settlements. These include the Chao Praya,

Irrawaddy, Mekong, and Red Rivers, along

with their tributaries. Bangkok, Phnom Penh,

Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh City all continue to

reflect the importance of these highways of

water.

Southeast Asia’s physical geography, its

complex environment of river systems and

coastlines, contributed to the region’s impor-

tance as a crucial crossroads of commerce

between China, India, and beyond. And it was

this factor that precipitated the urbanization

process of Southeast Asia. Although it is com-

monplace to speak of the global economy as

beginning in the sixteenth century, it is impor-

tant to recognize that international trade

existed long before European states like Eng-

land and Spain began colonizing the Americas,

Africa, and Asia. Indeed, long-distance trade

existed between China and India, and linked

these areas with places as far afield as Africa, as

far back as the early centuries of the first mil-

lennium ce. The importance of long-distance

trade in the eastern Indian Ocean and South

China Sea regions, in fact, led to the appear-

ance of a series of cities and towns along

the coast of the Malay Peninsula and on the

islands of Sumatra and Java. In time, South-

east Asia would be home to some of the larg-

est urban centers in the world. Indeed, prior

to the era of European colonialism (from the

early sixteenth to the mid-twentieth century),

Southeast Asia was one of the world’s most

urbanized regions. As late as the fifteenth cen-

tury, for example, the population of Angkor

(in present-day Cambodia) had a population

in excess of 180,000; Paris, in contrast, had a

population of only 125,000.

Southeast Asia’s geographical location

made it a natural crossroads and meeting

point for world trade, migration, and cultural

exchange. A century before the Christian era

began, seafarers, merchants, and priests tra-

versed the region, contributing to the urbani-

zation process. In turn, the nascent towns

and cities of Southeast Asia became cent-

ers of learning through the diffusion of new

religious, cultural, political, and economic

ideas. Most Southeast Asian societies (with

the exception of Vietnam and the Philippines)

were influenced primarily by India, and this is

most pronounced in the religious and admin-

istrative systems of the region. The process of

“Indianization,” however, was not marked by a

mass influx of population like the movement

of Europeans into North America. Neither

420 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

was this a process of replacing indigenous

Southeast Asian culture with Indian elements.

Rather, the influence of India on Southeast

Asia represented a more gradual and uneven

process of exposure and adaptation. China

provided the other major cultural impetus,

although this impact was greatest in Vietnam

and through tributary arrangements with

various maritime Southeast Asian kingdoms

bordering the South China Sea.

Two principal urban forms emerged in

precolonial Southeast Asia: the sacred city and

the market city. Although both types of cit-

ies performed religious as well as economic

functions, the two exhibited many differences.

First, sacred cities were often more populous;

wealth was gained from appropriating agri-

cultural surpluses and labor from the rural

hinterlands. Market cities, in contrast, were

supported through the conduct of long-dis-

tance maritime trade. Through the market cit-

ies passed the riches of Asia, including pearls,

silks, tin, porcelain, and spices. Second, sacred

cities were sprawling administrative, military,

and cultural centers, whereas market cities

were mostly centers of economic activity. In

physical layout, sacred cities were planned and

developed to mirror symbolic links between

human societies on earth and the forces of

heaven. Monumental stone or brick temples

commonly occupied the city center. Market

cities, in contrast, tended to occupy more

restricted coastal locations, and thus had more

limited hinterlands. These cities were more

compact in their spatial layout, with much

activity associated with the port areas. Lastly,

compared to sacred cities, market cities were

ethnically more diverse, populated by traders,

merchants, and other travelers from all parts

of the earth.

The earliest city to emerge in Southeast

Asia was apparently Oc Eo, located along the

lower reaches of the Mekong Delta, in present-

day Vietnam. Flourishing between the first

and fifth centuries ad, Oc Eo was an important

center for the exchange of cargo, ideas, and

innovations. It served as an important city for

both Chinese and Indian traders, as well as

other seafarers from as far away as Africa, the

Mediterranean, and the Middle East.

After the decline of Oc Eo, Srivijaya emerged

as an important maritime empire, flourishing

between the seventh and fourteenth centu-

ries. It depended on international maritime

trade and China’s sponsorship through a

tributary system, which meant paying tribute

(goods and money) to the Chinese emperor

in exchange for independence. Located on the

straits of Malacca on the island of Sumatra,

Srivijaya controlled many important sea lanes,

including the Sunda Strait. Evidence suggests

that the Srivijayan Kingdom had numerous

capitals, one of which was Palembang, located

on the southern end of Sumatra. Palembang

provided an excellent, sheltered harbor and

served as an important Buddhist pilgrimage

site. To this day, Palembang remains an impor-

tant port city and marketplace in Indonesia.

Another example of a market city is

Malacca (Figure 10.7). Founded around 1400

on the western side of the Malay Peninsula,

Malacca was a counterpart to Palembang and

emerged as an important entrepôt and a key

node in the spice trade. Although Malacca

never had a permanent population of more

than a few thousand, it was an extremely

vibrant city, inhabited by many foreigners as

well as indigenous Malays. In recognition of

its multicultural heritage and its role in blend-

ing cultures from east and west, Malacca was

recently named a UNESCO World Heritage

Site. Other important market cities located

throughout Southeast Asia included Ternate,

Makasar, Bantam, and Aceh.

Historical Geography of Urban Development 421

Sacred cities often occupied more inland

locations. One of the earliest was Borobudur,

situated on the island of Java. It is at Borobu-

dur that the world’s largest Buddhist temple

is located. Built between 778 and 856 ce, the

ten-level Borobudur temple corresponds to

the divisions within the Mahayana Buddhist

universe and is one of the great cultural treas-

ures of Southeast Asia. A UN-sponsored pro-

gram rebuilt the complex several decades ago

to preserve the site for future generations.

Arguably, the best known and most famous

of all inland sacred cities is Angkor. Centered

at the northern end of the Tonle Sap basin, the

Angkorian Empire, at its peak, included pre-

sent-day Cambodia and parts of Laos, Thai-

land, and Vietnam. The Angkor Kingdom was

founded in 802 ce and by the twelfth century

contained a population of several hundred

thousand. According to some historians, it may

even have exceeded 1 million. The temples at

Angkor—there are more than 70 recognized

sites—were designed to mirror the complex

Hindu and, later, Buddhist cosmologies.

By the sixteenth century, many of the

once-prosperous inland sacred cities were in

decline. In part, internal factions, economic

collapse, and foreign intervention hastened

the collapse of Angkor and other empires.

Coastal market cities, however, continued to

thrive on maritime trade. For the region as a

whole, the coming years of European colonial

dominance would irrevocably alter the course

of urbanization in Southeast Asia.

Urbanization in Colonial Southeast Asia

Nutmeg and cloves, cinnamon and sandal-

wood—these were the prized commodities

that drove the world’s economy for hundreds

of years. And these were the goods that spurred

European colonial activity in Southeast Asia.

Figure 10.7 For 130 years, Malacca was a Portuguese colony. today, a miniature version of the fort has been rebuilt, primarily to enhance Malacca’s status as a World heritage City. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

422 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

Five hundred years of colonial and postco-

lonial influence dramatically affected cities

in Southeast Asia. Compared to other world

regions, Southeast Asia was relatively urban-

ized by the time of European colonialism. By

the sixteenth century, there were at least six

trade-dependent cities that had populations

of more than 100,000: Malacca, Thang-long

(Vietnam), Ayutthaya (Siam, present-day

Thailand), Aceh (Sumatra), and Bantam and

Mataram (both on Java). Another half-dozen

cities had at least 50,000 inhabitants. Only the

Philippines, because of its more peripheral

location vis-à-vis the major sea lanes, lacked

an urban tradition. But even there, by the

early sixteenth century, the seeds of urbaniza-

tion had been planted. The sultanate of Brunei

had extended his authority into the Philippine

archipelago and with this came the spread of

Islam.

In 1511, however, a Portuguese fleet cap-

tured the port city of Malacca, thus ushering

in nearly 500 years of European colonial-

ism. The Portuguese came primarily to gain

access to and control of the lucrative spice

trade. They were soon followed by the Spanish

(1521), the British (1579), the Dutch (1595),

and the French (mid-seventeenth century).

Other colonial activities, such as religious con-

version, were present but less important at this

time.

The early years of European colonialism

in Southeast Asia were similar to the colo-

nial practices found in Africa and the Ameri-

cas. Europeans captured or built garrisons in

coastal cities, established treaties with local

rulers, and thus brought about a transforma-

tion of the urbanization process in Southeast

Asia. Many former empires and kingdoms

and their cities suffered tremendous popula-

tion declines. Malacca, for example, once the

premier entrepôt on the strait that shares its

name, declined in size and importance after

its capture by the Portuguese. From a peak of

over 100,000 inhabitants, its size dwindled to

30,000 inhabitants in a very short time.

During the first three centuries of colo-

nialism, European influence was most pro-

nounced in two regions: in Manila (the

Philippines) under the Spanish and in Jakarta

(Indonesia) under the Dutch. The first perma-

nent Spanish settlement, Santisimo Nombre

de Jesus (Holy Name of Jesus), was established

in 1565 on the Philippine island of Cebu.

Five years later, the Spanish occupied a site

on the northern island of Luzon, situated on

the Pasig River and proximate to Manila Bay

(Figure 10.8). Two existing fishing villages

known as Maynilad (from which the present

city takes its name) and Tondo were occu-

pied and expanded. Apart from accessibility,

defense was often an important considera-

tion in early city planning. In the Philippines,

for example, the Spanish had to contend with

European rivals, namely the Dutch and Por-

tuguese, as well as Chinese pirates. Conse-

quently, after 1576, construction began on a

fortified structure known as the Intramuros

(walled city). In time, Manila would become

the commercial hub of the Philippines and

a key node in the Spanish galleon trade that

stretched from India to Mexico.

The early European presence was also pro-

nounced on the island of Java in Indonesia.

The Dutch East India Company during the

seventeenth century established a few per-

manent settlements, one of which, Batavia,

would become the largest city in the region.

It is now known as Jakarta. From its incep-

tion, Batavia exhibited numerous situational

advantages. Geographically, it was located

near both the Sunda Strait and the Strait of

Malacca, thus allowing easy access to maritime

trade. The first Dutch building, a combination

Historical Geography of Urban Development 423

warehouse and residence, was built in 1611,

and by 1619 a plan was laid out for the city.

Much of early Batavia was modeled after the

cities of Holland; canals were dug; and the

narrow, multistoried Dutch residences were

also copied. However, the architecture found

in Europe was not functional in hot, humid

locations such as Java, so building styles were

altered to better fit the tropical environment.

Batavia would emerge as the preeminent city

of Java and serve as the key node of the Neth-

erland’s Southeast Asian empire.

Many of the great cities of Southeast Asia

today trace their roots to European colonial-

ism (Figure 10.9). Singapore (from the Malay

words singa, lion, and pura, city), for exam-

ple, began as a small trading post located on

an island south of the Malay Peninsula at the

southern entrance to the Strait of Malacca.

The town was known as Temasek (Sea Town)

before 1819, when Sir Stamford Raffles of the

British East India Company signed an agree-

ment with the Sultan of Johor allowing the

British to establish a trading post at the site.

Benefiting from its strategic location and deep

natural harbor, the incipient Singapore began

to attract a large number of immigrants,

merchants, and traders. As a British colony,

Singapore emerged as one of the paramount

trading cities of the world—a role it has main-

tained to this day.

Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), which

became the capital of French Indochina, like-

wise began as a small settlement, one that

included a citadel and fortress, surrounded by

a Vietnamese village (Figure 10.10). Saigon’s

location in the Mekong delta region—one of

the world’s great rice granaries—provided the

city with an important function as an agricul-

tural collection, processing, and distribution

Figure 10.8 A statue in Manila honors Raja Solayman, the city’s Muslim prince, who defended the town against the Spaniards in the 1500s. Source: Photo by Arnisson Andre ortega.

424 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

center. The French, also, were intent on refash-

ioning their colonial capital as a microcosm

of French civilization. In 1880, the French

erected Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart

of Saigon. Stones were imported. Ten years

later saw the completion of Saigon’s French-

built Central Post Office. This latter structure,

complete with an iron and glass ceiling, was

Bangkok, the current capital of Thailand, was

never colonized by the European powers, yet

it still reflects considerable Western influence.

Bangkok proper is a relatively new city; it was

not founded until 1782. Prior to this date the

capital of Siam, as Thailand was then known,

was located at Thon Buri along the Chao

Phraya River. Beginning in the 1780s, however,

construction began on an easily defensible but

Figure 10.9 Urban Growth in Southeast Asia, 1900–2005. Source: Compiled by authors from various sources.

Historical Geography of Urban Development 425

swampy site located opposite Thon Buri, on

the east bank of the Chao Phraya. Later, major

public works were initiated, often with West-

ern advice and assistance. This is particularly

evident in the expansion of rail and road net-

works, port facilities, and telegraph services.

The most significant impact of colonialism

was the establishment of urban nodes, such as

Bangkok, Manila, Batavia, Saigon, and Ran-

goon (Yangon), that would grow into primate

cities. Geographically, these cities were located

at sites that provided access to seas or rivers.

They afforded the European colonizers easy

access, so that their ships could export primary

products from the region and import secondary

products from Europe and elsewhere. Depend-

ence on maritime trade, and the subsequent

concentration of political and economic func-

tions in these selected cities, contributed to the

decline of other, inland cities. In this manner,

the urban system of Southeast Asia was turned

inside out, as development was encouraged on

the coast and suppressed inland.

The primate cities also served multiple

functions. Thus, political, commercial, finan-

cial, and even religious activities were con-

centrated in these urban areas. Saigon, for

example, was an administrative and manu-

facturing center, as well as the dominant

trading port of Indochina. Primate cities also

became exceptionally large. Stemming from

the increased concentration of economic

and political functions, these cities served as

magnets for both internal and international

Figure 10.10 Fast food—or “good food fast”—is widely available on the streets of Southeast Asian cities. here, early morning breakfast is served in ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Source: Photo by James tyner.

426 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

migration. Moreover, their populations were

characteristically diverse. In many colonies,

the colonizers encouraged contract labor.

The British, for example, actively encouraged

the importation of labor from China and the

Indian subcontinent (Figure 10.11). By the

nineteenth century, immigration facilitated

the establishment of Chinese communities in

cities such as Singapore, Manila, and Bang-

kok, and an Indian community in Singapore.

As a result, segregated foreign quarters and

Chinatowns emerged, for example, Cholon

in Saigon and Binondo in Manila. It was not

uncommon for these segregated areas to arise

as a result of European force and prejudice.

In Manila, for example, the Spanish govern-

ment issued a series of decrees that required,

with few exceptions, all Chinese, Japanese, and

even Filipinos to leave the Intramuros section

of Manila before the closing of the city gates

at nightfall. Additionally, Spanish authorities

enacted regulations enforcing ethnic segrega-

tion and commercial activity.

Apart from the establishment of primate

cities, a second impact that European colo-

nialism had on Southeast Asian cities was the

establishment or transformation of smaller

cities. This included the establishment of min-

ing towns, such as Ipoh in Malaysia, or regional

administrative centers such as Medan on the

island of Sumatra and Georgetown on the

Malay Peninsula. Also notable was the emer-

gence of upland resort centers or hill stations.

To escape the oppressive heat and humid-

ity of the lowlands, colonial powers would

erect cities high in the mountainous regions.

Bandung, for example, a small city located in

a deep mountain valley on the island of Java,

was established by the Dutch. The cool cli-

mate of Bandung served as a welcome relief

Figure 10.11 bricktown is one of the historic, and now gentrified, neighborhoods of Kuala Lumpur. it was settled by indians, mostly tamils, brought in by the british to make bricks. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Recent Urbanization Trends 427

from the tropical climate and also facilitated

the cultivation of coffee (still known as “Java”

worldwide), cinchona (for quinine), and tea.

Other examples of hill stations include Dalat,

a French-built city located 4,800 feet (1,463

m) above sea level in the Central Highlands of

Vietnam; Baguio City, a mountain resort atop

a 4,900-foot (1,493 m) plateau in the Philip-

pines, developed by the Americans in the early

twentieth century; and the Cameron High-

lands of peninsular Malaysia.

Lastly, European colonialism significantly

affected the development of regional trans-

portation and urban systems within Southeast

Asia. Along the Malay Peninsula, for example,

the British-built railways ran from the Perak

tin-mining areas to the coast and were later

expanded along a north-south axis to provide

access to the ports and tin-smelting facilities

in Penang and Singapore. Consequently, the

major urban areas along the western coast of

the Malay Peninsula—Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh,

Seremban, and Singapore—formed an inter-

connected urban system that remains evident

today. Similar patterns are also visible in Indo-

nesia, where road and rail networks reflect access

between sites of resource extraction (planta-

tions and mines) and ports. To a lesser extent, a

similar colonial-derived infrastructure remains

in the Philippines and the former French Indo-

china. Colonial powers also exploited river

systems (such as the Irrawaddy in Burma, now

Myanmar) for internal transportation systems,

to exert political and economic control, to link

administration functions, and to provide access

to sites of resource extraction.

RECENT URbANIzATION TRENDS

In 1940, no city in Southeast Asia registered a

population of more than a million; by 1950,

just two cities had surpassed this mark. By

the twenty-first century, however, 13 cities

exceeded the 1 million threshold. Three meg-

acities—Jakarta, Manila, and Bangkok—have

also emerged. These massive urban agglomer-

ations contain a disproportionate share of the

region’s urban population and stand as exem-

plary primate cities. Bangkok, for example,

contains more than 54 percent of Thailand’s

urban population, while Manila accounts for

nearly a third of the Philippines’ urban popu-

lation. Such growth is indicative of the pattern

of urbanization that has characterized South-

east Asia throughout the past century.

Recent urban growth in Southeast Asia is

the result of three basic demographic pro-

cesses. First, urban areas in Southeast Asia have

increased in population size resulting from

the excess of births over deaths. In general,

this natural increase accounts for about one-

half of urban population growth in Southeast

Asian countries. It is important to remember,

however, that while overall natural increase

may contribute to urban growth, it may not

contribute significantly to urbanization, that

is, the increasing proportion of people living

in urban areas relative to rural areas. Such

urban growth has dramatically altered count-

less lives throughout the region (Box 10.1)

Second, cities in Southeast Asia have

increased through a net redistribution of

people from rural-to-urban areas through

migration. Studies reflect that, overall, rural-

to-urban migration has resulted from larger

regional and global economic transformation,

and subsequently has played a major role in

both the rapid urbanization and urban growth

in Southeast Asia over the past two decades.

Internal migration is extremely important to

urban growth in Thailand, for example. In

1990, the Thai census recorded more than

1.5 million rural-to-urban migrants, although

428 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

Box 10.1 a Geography of everyday life

Mong bora is a 12-year-old boy. he lives in a stilt-house with his mother, father, and four sisters. the village in which he lives is approximately one hour north of Phnom Penh, Cambo- dia. during the rainy season much of the area is inundated with water, hence the necessity to live in houses perched on stilts. in the surrounding vicinity of bora’s village are acres of rich fields and fish ponds. his diet is typical of many Khmers: a staple of rice and fish, coupled with fresh fruits and vegetables. bora is particularly fond of ripe mangoes, watermelon, and papayas.

increasingly, bora’s village is being encroached upon by urban sprawl from Phnom Penh. this is considered both a blessing and a curse. on the one hand, villagers are concerned about maintaining their way of life. on the other hand, they recognize that urban growth may translate into better economic opportunities. Many residents of Phnom Penh, for exam- ple, visit the area for Sunday picnics, seeking a respite from the chaotic hustle-and-bustle of the capital. And many villagers are able to supplement their incomes from these weekly picnickers. Villagers, like bora’s mother, sell lotus-blossom seeds as snacks, or bottled water. others rent “cabanas” or tent awnings, under which the visitors can escape the intense heat.

bora’s house sits near the base of two hills, the larger of which is called Phnom Reach throp, or “hill of the royal treasury.” in part, it is because of this hill that people, both locals and international travelers, come to the area. between 1618 and 1866, Cambodia’s capital was located at this site. Known as Udong (meaning “victorious”), the former capital once dominated the landscape. today, however, little remains of Udong’s former glory. the passage of time, but mostly the effects of armed conflict, has devastated much of Udong’s former architectural greatness. Several stupas remain at the site, as does a colossal buddha figure. Many of these are currently in the process of being restored, as the site is widely acknowledged as a key piece of Cambodia’s cultural heritage.

on any given morning bora walks 2 km (1.2 miles) to the other side of Phnom Reach throp to attend school. Among his favorite classes is English. he also enjoys learning about Cambodia’s ancient history and geography. it is bora’s dream that these subjects will help him in his chosen career. you see, when bora is not attending school, or playing soccer with his friends, he is informally working as a tour guide for the many visitors who travel to Udong. Walking step-by-step with tourists, bora happily details the specifics of the former capital: how many stairs from one stupa to the next, the height of the buddha, the dates of former kings. in this way bora gets to practice English and earn some extra money to help his family.

Perhaps, if your future travels include the ancient site of Udong, you may be approached by a young man by the name of bora who will offer to guide your tour. be sure to accept, for Udong is bora’s home.

Recent Urbanization Trends 429

there were more than twice as many rural-

to-rural migrants. Currently, approximately

one out of every seven urban residents in

Thailand is classified as a recent migrant. In

Malaysia, with economic growth concentrated

in Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru, the city

closest to Singapore, these cities have attracted

sizable numbers of migrants in recent years.

The Central Highlands of Vietnam have also

experienced rapid urban growth through

both government-sponsored and sponta-

neous migration. At the beginning of the

twentieth century, for example, the four prov-

inces that comprise the Central Highlands

(Kontum, Gia Lai, Dak Lak, and Lam Dong)

had a population of approximately 240,000;

today, the region’s population exceeds 4 mil-

lion residents. The majority of these inhabit-

ants, approximately 75 percent of the total, are

lowland migrants, their children, or refugees.

Unfortunately, such remarkable urban growth

has resulted in an escalation of land conflicts

and political violence.

Third, immigration has contributed to the

growth of urban areas in Southeast Asia. This

occurs because, in general, overseas migrants

tend to move to urban areas as opposed to

rural areas. Singapore and, to a lesser extent,

Kuala Lumpur, are two of the major immi-

grant receivers in Southeast Asia. That said,

many governments (including Singapore’s)

often try to prevent immigrants from settling

permanently. Overall, however, urban growth

in Southeast Asia through international

migration remains a relatively insignificant

component. Emigration also is inscribed on

the urban landscape.

A final component of urban change that

must be introduced is “reclassification.” As a

result of bureaucratic decisions, urban popu-

lations may change simply through admin-

istrative acts. In Malaysia, for example, the

number of people needed for an area to be

classified as urban changed from 1,000 to

10,000 in 1970. Such statistical changes reflect

the changing perception of urbanization by

people and their governments.

Within Southeast Asia, over the past two

decades, the combined components of migra-

tion and reclassification account for the larg-

est portion of urban growth (Table 10.1).

There was also considerable variation among

countries. Urban growth in Burma, the Philip-

pines, and Vietnam, for example, has occurred

primarily through natural increase; whereas,

natural increase has assumed a lesser role in

Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indo-

nesia. The importance of internal migration

to the urbanization process of Cambodia, of

course, is a consequence of the forced dis-

placement of urban-based people during

the murderous Khmer Rouge regime. At 100

percent urban already, the Republic of Singa-

pore’s population growth consists mostly of

natural increase.

Aggregate numbers such as these mask sig-

nificant social and economic changes that are

occurring. Internal migration in Southeast

Asia, for example, is increasingly dominated

by female migrants, a process that mirrors

that occurring elsewhere in the world, such

as China. In Thailand, for example, the share

of female migrants increased to more than 62

percent of all Bangkok-bound migrants in the

1980s. The increased feminization of internal

migration in Thailand is related to structural

changes occurring in both rural and urban

areas. The majority of these women—most of

whom are in their early twenties—originate

in northeastern Thailand, one of the most

impoverished regions in the country. Faced

with minimal prospects in the rural areas, these

women are increasingly moving to Bangkok

to obtain employment in factories, the service

430 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

sector, or the informal sector. Also, a certain

number of these migrants find employment

in the sex trade and end up working in broth-

els, massage parlors, or strip clubs. Likewise,

internal migration to Jakarta, Manila, and

Phnom Penh has also become more feminized

in response to the structural transformations

occurring in these cities.

Not all internal migration is permanent.

Indeed, many cities in Southeast Asia, but

especially Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City,

are impacted by daily or seasonal circular

migration. Three factors are readily identifi-

able. First, circulation is highly compatible

with work participation in the urban infor-

mal sector. Migrant laborers are able to cir-

culate between rural villages and urban sites

depending on the season. Circulation thus

offers a flexible solution to the seasonality of

labor demands; laborers are able to work on

the nearby farms during the peak agricultural

period, while during downtimes these same

workers are able to participate in the infor-

mal economy in the city. Second, circular

migration diversifies families’ income-gen-

erating activities. Depending on the relative

economic strength of urban and rural areas,

workers may alternate their activities accord-

ingly. Third, circular migration has, with

advances in transportation systems, become

a more viable option. Improvements in mass

transportation systems, such as paved roads

and mass-transit bus lines, have permitted

people to move with greater ease, thus con-

tributing to the growth of suburban residen-

tial areas. The spectacular urban growth to the

south and west of Ho Chi Minh City is indica-

tive of this process.

Globalization, Urbanization,

and the Middle Class

The most significant development in the

world economy during the past few decades

has been the increased globalization of eco-

nomic activities. The transnational operations

of multinational firms have given rise to a new

international division of labor, one that has

Table 10.1 Components of Urban Growth in Southeast Asia (percentage of urban growth)

1980–1985 1990–1995 2000–2005

Natural Increase

Migration and Reclassification

Natural Increase

Migration and Reclassification

Natural Increase

Migration and Reclassification

Southeast Asia 49.1 80.9 44.9 55.1 41.7 58.3

Cambodia 70.9 29.1 49.5 50.5 30.6 69.4

Indonesia 35.2 64.8 37..0 63.0 36.7 63.3

Laos 43.8 56.2 44.7 55.3 43.8 56.2

Malaysia 22.0 78.0 38.0 62.0 40.0 60.0

Myanmar 110.0 -10.0 63.2 36.8 44.5 55.5 Philippines 66.0 34.0 62.4 37.6 57.0 43.0

Singapore 100.1 -0.1 100.1 -0.1 98.9 1.1 Thailand 39.6 60.4 31.4 68.6 31.2 68.8

Vietnam 71.7 28.3 50.5 49.5 38.1 61.9

Source: Graeme Hugo, “Demographic and Social Patterns,” in Southeast Asia: Diversity and Development, edited by Thomas R.

Leinbach and Richard Ulack, 74–109 (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000), table 4.17.

Recent Urbanization Trends 431

witnessed a shifting of manufacturing sec-

tor enterprises from developed to developing

economies, and the emergence of new corpo-

rate headquarter activities, producer services,

and research/development sites. Final assem-

bly and testing of audio-video equipment

are located in Singapore and Penang, Malay-

sia; the assembly and packaging, low-skilled

and labor-intensive, in Bangkok, Jakarta, and

Manila; and marketing and sales functions,

mid- to high-end manufacturing, in Singa-

pore. In Southeast Asia, these far-reaching

changes are evidenced by the spectacular

growth of assembly plants in Phnom Penh as

well as the emergence of Cyberjaya, Malaysia’s

high-technology city (the “Silicon Valley of

the East”) that forms the hub of that country’s

Multimedia Super Corridor.

Shifts in the structure of Southeast Asia’s

economies have led to remarkable societal and

occupational changes. Declines in agricul-

tural workers are matched by increases in the

number of workers employed in the service

and manufacturing centers. Consequently,

the increasing portion of clerical, sales, and

service workers, in particular, has translated

into redefined social categories. One change

that is especially salient is the emergence of

a new middle class. And given that many of

the economic transformations have occurred

disproportionately within the urban areas of

Southeast Asia, it should come as no surprise

that the emergent middle class in Southeast

Asia is likewise urban based.

The rise of Southeast Asia’s new urban

middle class has drastically altered the urban

landscape. Demographically, Southeast Asia’s

middle class tends to have smaller families;

economically, it tends to have high and rising

levels of consumption and to spend money

on nonessential items, such as luxury cars.

Many members of this emergent class express

“Western” middle-class fantasies to materi-

ally project their newfound social status. In

terms of housing, Southeast Asia’s middle

class demands more space and more privacy

(hence leading to demand for Western-style

housing in the form of detached and semi-

detached single-family dwellings). Having the

ability to purchase an automobile, the middle

class is able and willing to commute longer

distances to work, thus fueling the sprawl of

cities into traditional agricultural hinterlands.

Others prefer to live closer to the traditional

downtown districts, fueling the proliferation

of condominiums and apartment complexes.

The emergence of the middle class, and its

growing spending power, is likewise reflected

in the mushrooming of shopping malls and

country clubs and in the proliferation of lei-

sure activities and nightclubs. It is seen in the

growth of gourmet restaurants, coffee bars

(Starbucks are becoming all too pervasive),

theaters, galleries, and boutiques.

Cities in Southeast Asia have historically

been segregated. During the colonial years,

British, French, Spanish, and America author-

ities often restricted residential and commer-

cial activities by ethnic classification in their

respective colonies. The Spanish, for example,

disallowed Filipinos from living in Intramuros

Manila; the French restricted Vietnamese set-

tlements in Saigon. Today, segregated areas

remain, but these often reflect class differences

as much as anything. This segregation is epito-

mized by the rise of gated communities.

The desire among the new middle class for

gated communities results from demands for

privacy, security, and prestige. Many of these

new housing developments are equipped with

strictly controlled gates that are fully secured

by armed private guards and monitored by

CCTV. In exclusive villages, entrance is per-

mitted only to residents with proper photo

432 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

ID or to their friends and acquaintances.

Also, many of these villages carry Western-

themed names and architecture and are fully

equipped with top-notch amenities such as

tennis courts, club houses, golf courses, swim-

ming pools, and spacious houses; some even

provide heliports for their residents. Everyday

life in these communities is heavily controlled

by home-owner association rules from the

kinds of designs permitted for houses to cur-

few hours.

The growth of Southeast Asia’s middle class

is a major contributor to the sprawl of its cit-

ies. A key prerequisite for the construction of

gated communities, for example, is land. In

Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, and Manila, local

governments have allowed the spread of new

middle-class enclaves on their peripheries and

the conversion of old land uses for middle-class

condominiums in the cities. Many lower-cost

housing units in Phnom Penh, for example,

have been razed in order to erect higher cost

apartments and condominiums for the middle

class. In Manila, informal settlement commu-

nities have been demolished or were dubi-

ously destroyed by fire to make way for new

mixed-use commercial business districts. Such

changes have resulted in conflict.

Often, these new middle-class enclaves

sit side by side with ever-rising numbers of

the urban poor, who continue to migrate

toward cities in search of jobs. Displaced by

land scarcity and the mechanization of agri-

culture, these rural-to-urban migrants must

compete with the wealthy, and now with the

middle class, for limited resources in the cities.

The poor provide their own housing, usually

makeshift structures of corrugated tin, card-

board, or plywood. Often, these structures sit

in sharp contract next to the golf courses and

gated, elitist communities of the better-off.

The urban landscape of Southeast Asia thus

reflects the social and economic transforma-

tions of a region enmeshed in much broader

changes; the growing disparity between the

“haves” and the “have-nots” is all too apparent.

MODELS OF URbAN STRUCTURE

For more than three decades, thinking about

Southeast Asian urbanization has developed

out of T. G. McGee’s model of city structure

(Figure 10.12). Building on a long tradition of

urban modeling in North America, McGee’s

model presumed, first, that no clear zoning

characterizes land use of the large cities of

Southeast Asia. Instead, he proposed that only

two zones of land use remained relatively con-

stant, these being the port district and, on the

periphery of the city, a zone of intensive mar-

ket gardening. In between were areas of mixed

economic activity and land use with other

areas of dominant land use, such as spines

of high-class residential areas and clusters of

squatter settlements.

As cities in Southeast Asia have experi-

enced rapid urban growth, in part associated

with more intense integration into the global

economy, our understanding of these places

has changed considerably. While remnants

of McGee’s initial model are still visible, for

example, a central port zone and mixed land-

use patterns, other aspects of Southeast Asian

cities have been radically transformed. Urban

scholars now speak of extended metropolitan

regions (EMRs). This distinctive form of Asian

urbanization has its origins in the way in which

Asian cities (not limited to Southeast Asia)

have been incorporated into the global econ-

omy. The colonial-influenced primate cities

are increasingly penetrating their surrounding

hinterlands, urbanizing the countryside, and

drawing rural populations deeper and deeper

Models of Urban Structure 433

into the urban economy. In certain respects,

EMRs are similar to metropolitan regions in

the United States. However, EMRs in South-

east Asia differ from their North American

counterparts in that the former exhibit a

greater population density in both the urban

cores and surrounding rural periphery.

EMRs may be differentiated into three basic

forms. The first is the expanding city-state. Sin-

gapore provides the only example. In recent

decades, Singapore has extended its political

and economic influence into the territory of

its neighbors, Indonesia and Malaysia. A sec-

ond type is the low-density EMR, exemplified

by Kuala Lumpur. These EMRs have been able

to maintain relatively low population densities

through the successful development of satel-

lite cities that form a fringe around the domi-

nant urban area. In other words, low-density

EMRs reflect controlled and managed growth,

as opposed to the more rapid and unplanned

growth of other cities. Ho Chi Minh City like-

wise reflects aspects of a low-density EMR.

The third and most prevalent type is the high-

density EMR. This form, epitomized by the

massive cities of Jakarta, Manila, and Bangkok,

exhibits a chaotic spillover of urban economic

functions into the rural hinterland, with an

accompanying conversion of agricultural land

to residential and industrial development.

Related to extended metropolitan regions

is a new urban form, identified by McGee as

a desakota. The term itself is derived from the

Indonesian words for village (desa) and town

(kota) and is meant to capture the process

whereby urbanization overtakes its surround-

ing hinterland. A number of elements have

been associated with desakotas. First, these

cities exhibit considerable diversity in their

land use. Characteristically, a desakota region

encompasses cities with mixed residential

and industrial land uses, as well as a densely

Figure 10.12 A Generalized Model of Major Land Use in the Large Southeast Asian City. Source: t. G. McGee, The Southeast Asian City (new york: Praeger, 1967), 128.

434 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

Box 10.2 From Hacienda to Mixed-use Suburbia

“you don’t have the right!” (“Wala kayong karapatan!”), shouted the lead architect of a development firm to a large group of farmers on the picket line. on May 21, 2010, violence erupted between a group of pro-development supporters (including the architect, surveyors, and members of both the military and the local police) and resisting farmers in buntog, an upland community in Canlubang, Laguna, Philippines. during the incident, around a hundred farmers and activists were hurt. Eleven people, including a pregnant woman and a 70-year- old grandmother, were illegally jailed, two other people were badly beaten by the police, and an elderly man suffered a heart attack. this is just one of the many cases of violence faced by farmers resisting urban development in the past decade.

buntog is part of the former Canlubang Sugar Estate, or hacienda yulo. the 7,200-hectare (17,800-acre) estate is owned by one of the Philippines’ most powerful elite families, but the farmers of buntog have been living in the area since the early 1900s when the region was still an unoccupied forest. the farmers cleared the forest and planted coconut trees and other crops. in the ensuing years, the vast tract of land near buntog was purchased by an American conglomerate, Ehrman-Switzer, who established the Calamba Sugar Estate. nationalist calls for independence and World War ii provided an effective context that transferred the estate to the hands of Filipino elite families. thus it was that Jose yulo purchased the estate using a war reparation loan and renamed the hacienda “Canlubang Sugar Estate.” Local farmers, deprived of access to lands that they historically farmed, were forced to find employment as sugarcane plantation workers. Later, many of these farmers filed a formal petition to acquire the title of their land; but, surprisingly, found out that yulo’s sugar estate had extended into their community.

in 1988, the Philippine government enacted the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program that sought to redistribute large landholdings to tenant farmers. but the yulos of Canlubang had different plans. in fact, they had been converting parcels of the whole estate into indus- trial sites and golf courses a decade prior to land reform. they successfully reclassified the area as industrial and therefore received an exemption to redistribute their lands to farmers in the area. in 1996, the sugar estate closed and farming was prohibited in large sections of the estate. through their many corporations, the yulo family entered into joint-venture agreements with top real estate firms to develop mixed-use urban projects that combined gated communities, golf courses, and commercial districts. the most ambitious of these development projects is nuvali, a 1,700-hectare (4,200-acre) joint-venture master-planned township project with Ayala Land Corporation. this “city of the future” is promoted as the Philippines’ first “eco-community” and boasts of blend of “environmentally sustainable” resi- dential, commercial, and recreational developments.

not all is what is seems, however. numerous cases of military intimidation and illegal cutting of coconut trees have been reported. the entire estate has been littered with secu- rity posts that serve to control the movement of residents in the area. Famers have been prohibited from taking their produce to nearby markets and from bringing in much-needed

Distinctive Cities 435

populated wet-rice agricultural area. Within a

desakota, moreover, there is significant inter-

action between village and town. This is made

possible by an integrated transportation sys-

tem that permits high levels of population

mobility. Indeed, the increased daily commut-

ing patterns seen in Bangkok testify to this

increased circulation within that desakota. Sec-

ond, these regions also are strongly integrated

into the global economy. Foreign investment

is generally important in these areas, as mul-

tinational corporations tap into large and

readily available labor surpluses. Lastly, it is

the process of formation of the desakota that

is perhaps more important than the result-

ing pattern itself, because surrounding rural

areas become urbanized without the transfer

of population that occurs in, say, rural-to-

urban migration. On many occasions, urban

transformation of rural areas involves dispos-

session and displacement of farmers and other

rural residents. For example, there has been a

large-scale conversion of agricultural lands

in provinces adjacent to Metro Manila into

industrial parks, ecotourism developments,

and gated communities. These developments

have effectively displaced many farming com-

munities and often involve violence between

resisting farmers, the military, and landlords’

security forces (Box 10.2).

DISTINCTIVE CITIES

Singapore: World City of Southeast Asia

There is truly no other city in the world quite

like Singapore (Figure 10.13). Its striking

modernity, orderliness, and Disneyland-like

cleanliness seem unreal, especially if one has

just arrived from the sprawling, chaotic, and

noisome cities of Bangkok, Jakarta, or Manila.

To some, Singapore is a model of efficiency,

a mosaic of well-manicured lawns, efficient

transportation, and planned development.

To others, Singapore represents a draconian

police state masquerading as utopia. The real-

ity, of course, lies somewhere in between, and

depends on one’s personal tastes and values.

Singapore is unique within Southeast Asia,

and in the world, in that it is both a city as

well as a sovereign state. And it is small. At just

246 sq miles (640 sq km), it is one-fifth the

area of Rhode Island. But despite its size, Sin-

gapore is also very prosperous. In per-capita

income, the city-state is second only to Japan

in all of Asia. In part, Singapore’s economic

success has been tied to its geography. Both

historically and now, the city benefits from

its strategic location and superb natural har-

bor. Furthermore, effective government poli-

cies and dynamic leadership have propelled

Singapore into its role as Southeast Asia’s

materials for house repair. in addition, a water tank facility project in the community was halted by the landlords, who argued that the whole area is their “private” property.

the contestation over land in buntog is not isolated. For many former haciendas in the Philippines, land-use conversion and urbanization have become effective means by landlords to circumvent land reform and to squeeze land for profit. Around Manila and its hinterlands, many new mixed-used urban developments are built on lands with painful histories of dis- possession and violence.

436 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

leading port and industrial nexus, as well as

a leading banking and commercial center.

Indeed, Singapore ranks along with Tokyo and

Hong Kong as one of Asia’s three key urban

centers in today’s global economic system.

Singapore’s economy is based on a strong

manufacturing sector (initially processing raw

materials such as rubber, but more recently

electronics and electrical products), oil refin-

ing, financial and business services, and tour-

ism. The economic success of Singapore has

translated into a very favorable quality of life.

Singapore registers the region’s lowest infant

mortality rate and the lowest rate of popula-

tion increase, in addition to the highest per-

capita income. This quality of life is facilitated

through subsidized medical care and compul-

sory retirement programs.

Singapore is a truly cosmopolitan world

city. The affluence of Singapore is vividly seen

along the city-state’s major shopping and

tourist corridor, Orchard Road. In the 1830s,

this area was home to fruit orchards, nutmeg

plantations, and pepper farms. Now, the man-

goes, nutmeg, and peppers are gone, replaced

by jeweled necklaces, designer clothes, and

perfumes. Orchard Road currently extends 1.5

miles (2.4 km) and is lined with major shop-

ping centers, upscale boutiques, luxury hotels,

and entertainment centers such as the Raffles

Village (built around the carefully restored

classic Raffles Hotel, one of the great hotels of

the past).

True to its place at the center of South-

east Asia, the urban landscape of Singapore

reflects its rich ethnic heritage. Approximately

75 percent of Singapore’s population is eth-

nic Chinese; Malays and Indians constitute

15 percent and 7 percent of the population,

respectively. Consequently, Singapore has four

official languages: English, Mandarin Chinese,

Malay, and Tamil, a language of southern

Figure 10.13 the Singapore River was at the very heart of commercial life in Singapore. A hundred years ago, it would have been packed with junks, with wharves and warehouses along both sides. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Distinctive Cities 437

financial district now eclipse Chinatown’s

oceanfront view.

Given the large number of historical tem-

ples and monuments, urban preservation is

important in Singapore, although this has not

always been the case. During the 1960s and

1970s, for example, many older buildings were

demolished to make room for a more mod-

ern infrastructure. However, a movement to

preserve Singapore’s urban history was initi-

ated, both for reasons of national prestige and

tourism. Today, many areas, such as the water-

fronts along Collyer Quay and Boat Quay,

have been renovated.

Singapore is also instructive for its public-

housing programs. Beginning in the 1960s, the

Singaporean government, primarily through

the efforts of the Housing Development Board

(HDB), moved to ensure adequate housing for

its population. The result was the establish-

ment of numerous new towns and housing

estates. The Queenstown housing estate, for

example, located in the central region of Singa-

pore, was one of the earliest estates developed

by the HDB. Tao Payoh New Town and Ang

Mo Kio New Town, both located within the

Northeastern Region, were initiated in 1965

and 1973, respectively. A more recent develop-

ment is Woodlands New Town, located on the

northern coast of Singapore. These new towns

are designed to be self-sufficient communities

of many thousands of residents. Moreover, in

recognition of Singapore’s ethnic diversity, the

government has mandated ethnic-based occu-

pancy rates to offset the emergence of hyper-

segregated enclaves. By 2000, nearly 90 percent

of Singaporeans lived in one of the high-den-

sity housing estates built by the HDB.

Despite these successes, urbanization in Sin-

gapore remains, and will continue to remain,

hindered by two physical obstacles. First, Sin-

gapore cannot readily—or cheaply—expand

Figure 10.14 this colorful and finely detailed indian temple in Singapore is one of the best- known cultural landmarks of the city. Source: Photo by James tyner.

India and Sri Lanka. The immigrant history of

Singapore, moreover, is well preserved in the

city-state’s architecture (Figure 10.14). The

Chinatown area of Singapore, for example,

located at the mouth of the Singapore River,

began in 1821, when the first junk load of

Chinese immigrants arrived from Xiamen, in

Fujian province. In 1842, these Chinese immi-

grants completed the Thian Hock Keng Tem-

ple and dedicated it to Ma-Chu-Po (Matsu),

the goddess of the sea. Nearby is the Nagore

Durgha Shrine, built by Muslim immigrants

from south India, and further down the road

is the Al-Abrar Mosque, also known as Indian

Mosque, which was built between 1850 and

1855. Because of land reclamation projects,

the ultramodern skyscrapers of Singapore’s

438 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

Box 10.3 a thirsty Singapore

Water is arguably the single most critical site-need for a city to survive and prosper. Singa- pore provides a surprising illustration of this need. Given that Singapore occupies an island located in the tropics and receives an average of 240 cm (95 in) of rainfall per year, it is ironic that water constitutes one of the greatest obstacles to the city-state’s future. Resi- dential and industrial water consumption amounts to approximately 1.3 million cubic meters per day.

Water is a serious problem for Singapore because the island contains no significant riv- ers or lakes to collect freshwater and so must rely on reservoirs and storm-water collection ponds to provide freshwater for its 5.4 million inhabitants. Approximately 40 percent of Singapore’s water, however, is supplied by Malaysia. historically, the provision of water by Malaysia to Singapore was guaranteed by two bilateral agreements, although one of these expired in 2011 and was not renewed. the second is set to expire in 2061, providing a sense of urgency for Singapore to become self-sufficient in its water needs.

Singapore has initiated a series of conservation measures. these include public education and publicity programs advocating the rational use of water. Significantly, many of these water-oriented initiatives are coupled with broader environmental campaigns. thus, public awareness campaigns are directed not simply at the conservation of water, but also toward issues of pollution, hygiene, infectious diseases, and sanitation.

the installation of water-saving devices, such as flow regulators and low capacity flush- ing systems, is also mandatory. this latter measure is especially significant since household water-use—and particularly the flushing of toilets—accounts for more than 50 percent of water consumption. Within the industrial sector, the recycling of water and the substitution of non-potable water (e.g., sea water, rain water) for potable water has also been encour- aged. other measures, including water consumption taxes, have been implemented.

Aside from the conservation of water, Singapore has pursued other strategies to provide more water, such as the construction of desalinization plants. in total, these plants may pro- vide 40 percent of Singapore’s water needs. however, energy requirements are enormous for these plants, making desalinated water exceptionally expensive. Additional reservoirs may also help ease Singapore’s thirst, although the development of these projects is hindered by land shortages. Lastly, Singapore has looked beyond its immediate geographic surroundings to obtain sources of water. in 1991, for example, Singapore signed a memorandum of under- standing with indonesia to draw water from bintan island in the Riau Archipelago and from the Kampar River in Sumatra. this solution, though, simply replaces Singapore’s dependency on Malaysia with one on indonesia.

one thing is certain: a glass of drinkable water in Singapore will cost more in the future than it does today.

Distinctive Cities 439

preeminent commercial centers on the pen-

insula. In 1972, however, Kuala Lumpur

gained city status and was declared a Federal

Territory (similar to Washington’s District of

Columbia).

Kuala Lumpur experienced tremendous

population growth throughout the late

twentieth century. Currently, the population

is approximately 2 million. However, unlike

Bangkok and Manila, Kuala Lumpur has

made a more concerted effort to manage

urban growth. Planned satellite cities, for

example, were designed to the urban conges-

tion of the capital. In the 1950s, the satellite

city of Petaling Jaya was established; it is now

home to more than 500,000 residents and a

major industrial center. Nearby, the satellite

town of Shah Alam, initially planned to be

half residential and half industrial, was built

in the 1970s. Although shantytowns are visible

in parts of Kuala Lumpur, as a whole the city

exhibits a sedate orderliness more reminiscent

of Singapore than of other Southeast Asian

cities.

The economy of Kuala Lumpur is an excep-

tionally diverse mix of manufacturing and

service activities. Many of these industries are

clustered within the Klang Valley conurba-

tion, an urbanized corridor stretching from

Kuala Lumpur westward through Petaling

Jaya and Shah Alam to the port city of Klang.

Also, indicative of the information economies

emerging in Southeast Asia, Kuala Lumpur is

a key anchor in Malaysia’s “Multimedia Super

Corridor” (MSC). Planned to be a setting

for multimedia and information-technology

companies, the MSC is seen as the catalyst in

propelling Malaysia’s economy into the global

information age. In related developments, two

new cities have been constructed to the south

of Kuala Lumpur: Putrajaya, the “new” admin-

istrative capital of Malaysia, and Cyberjaya,

its area because it occupies only a small island.

In response, the Singaporean government has

utilized land reclamation schemes and has

also been working to expand its economic

growth beyond its own political boundaries

into neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia. In

this manner, the government hopes to exploit

the comparative advantages of Singapore and

neighboring countries. A second, and perhaps

more immediate, obstacle confronting Singa-

pore is that of water (Box 10.3).

Kuala Lumpur: Twin Towers and Cyberspace

The skyline of Kuala Lumpur is one of the most

recognizable sights in all of Southeast Asia.

While Paris has its Eiffel Tower and Shanghai

its futuristic TV tower, Kuala Lumpur has the

88-story Petronas Twin Towers. Standing like

a giant double-barreled beehive, the Petronas

Towers dominate the capital city of Malaysia

(Figure 10.15). They are Kuala Lumpur’s sig-

nature landscape and are symbolic of the lofty

goals set by the Malaysian government.

Kuala Lumpur is a relatively young city,

having been founded only in 1857 by Chi-

nese tin miners at the swampy confluence of

the Klang and Gombak rivers (Figure 10.16).

In fact, the name “Kuala Lumpur” translates

as “muddy confluence.” The settlement grew

rapidly, however, and by 1880 had become the

capital of the state of Selangor on the Malay

Peninsula.

Despite its growing political importance,

Kuala Lumpur throughout much of the early

twentieth century was still overshadowed in

population by other cities along the Malay

Peninsula, including Georgetown to the

north and Singapore to the south. Although

it was designated capital of the Federated

States of Malaysia in 1963, Kuala Lumpur

trailed both Singapore and Georgetown as

440 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

billed as an “intelligent city,” complete with a

state-of-the-art, integrated infrastructure that

attracts multimedia and information-technol-

ogy companies.

Putrajaya is especially notable as a planned

city. Ambitious in scope, Putrajaya has become

a national symbol, reflecting the country’s

determination to become a regional if not

global power. Consisting of scores of monu-

mental office buildings, modern shopping

malls, convention centers, and private colleges,

Putrajaya has become the face of twenty-first-

century Malaysia.

Jakarta: Megacity of Indonesia

Most visitors to Indonesia arrive first in

Jakarta, a sprawling metropolis situated on

the north coast of Java. At two-and-a-half

times the size of Singapore, Jakarta is the larg-

est city in population and land area in South-

east Asia. From its origins as a small port

Figure 10.15 When Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas towers opened in 1999, they became the world’s tallest, a title they held until 2004. Source: Photo by Jared boone.

Distinctive Cities 441

town called Sunda Kelapa, the Special Capital

Region of Jakarta (Daerah Khusus Ibukota,

or DKI Jakarta) has experienced phenomenal

growth over the past five decades. From fewer

than 2 million in 1950, Jakarta’s population

had swollen to more than 13 million by 2000.

As with many primate cities in Southeast

Asia, urban growth has sprawled into the hin-

terland. In recognition of this sprawl, in the

mid-1970s officials began to refer to the entire

region as Jabotabek, an acronym derived from

the combination of Jakarta and the adjacent

districts of Bogor, Tangerang, and Bekasi.

When the entire Jabotebek region is consid-

ered, the population of the Jakarta metropoli-

tan area includes a mind-boggling 20 million

people. Similar to other major cities in the

region, Jakarta’s population is also impacted

by seasonal and daily commuting. Hundreds

of thousands of workers, the majority of

whom live in new residential communities

in the Jabotabek region, commute daily to

Jakarta.

Jakarta is Indonesia’s largest and most

important metropolitan area. It is the national

capital and the principal administrative and

commercial center of the archipelago. The

city also plays a vital role in Indonesia’s inter-

national and domestic trade and receives a

disproportionate share of foreign direct invest-

ment. This investment, focused primarily on

manufacturing but also on the construction

and service sectors, operates as a multiplier

effect for Jakarta’s economy. It also accounts

for a rapid rise in the middle class, with a cor-

responding impact on the urban landscape. In

some respects, though, Jakarta has undergone

a period of deindustrialization similar to that

of other cities in the world, such as London.

Thus, although the city remains an impor-

tant manufacturing center, economic growth

has been accounted for largely by increases in

Figure 10.16 A mosque, Jamek bandaraya, backed by the downtown skyline, now occupies the original site of Kuala Lumpur, a “muddy confluence” of two streams seen in this picture. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

442 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

both tertiary and quaternary sectors (espe-

cially financial services, communications, and

transportation).

Economic and social changes have also con-

tributed to changing land-use patterns. The

central core of Jakarta has experienced signifi-

cant changes over the past decade, such as a

conversion from residential to higher-inten-

sity commercial and office land use, as well

as the emergence of luxury high-rise apart-

ments. In the Jabotabek region, the develop-

ment of new towns (e.g., Lippo City, Cikarang

New Town, and Pondok Gede New Town) and

corresponding large-scale residential subdivi-

sions has also transformed previously agricul-

tural land into urban spaces. Indeed, upwards

of eighty thousand new housing units are

added each year to the Jabotabek region.

Other changes include the emergence of larger

industrial estates as well as leisure-related land

uses (e.g., golf courses).

Jakarta also reflects the urban woes char-

acteristic of primate cities, including a lack of

adequate public housing, traffic congestion,

air and water pollution, sewage disposal, and

the provision of health services, education, and

utilities. Because of the megacity’s sheer size,

not to mention the heightened political, social,

and economic instability of Indonesia, Jakarta’s

problems are magnified to dangerous levels.

Manila: Primate City of the Philippines

Unlike walking the regimented, disciplined

streets of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, trave-

ling within Manila is an experience unto

itself. Indeed, with the possible exception of

Bangkok, no other city in Southeast Asia is as

famous—or infamous—as Manila for its traf-

fic. Throughout the day, and frequently well

into the night, traffic grinds slowly through

the rabbit-den of highways and alleyways that

constitute Manila’s overburdened road net-

work. Diesel-spewing jeepneys, rickety buses,

and luxury sports utility vehicles all compete

in bumper-car-like fashion. Turn lanes and

stoplights are largely ignored. Yet beyond the

chaos and congestion that puts the freeways of

Los Angeles to shame, Manila exhibits its own

charm and appeal. Indeed, much of Manila’s

charm stems precisely from its outwardly con-

fusing appearance.

Politically, socially, economically, and in

terms of total population, Manila far sur-

passes all other cities in the Philippines

(Figure 10.17). Indeed, with the exception

of Thailand, no other major country in the

region has a higher primacy rate than the

Philippines. Currently, Manila is approxi-

mately nine times as large as the Philippines’

second-largest metropolitan area, Cebu. And

similar to Jakarta’s Jabotabek, Metro Manila

is composed of many different political units.

In 1975, Metro Manila was formed through

the integration of the four preexisting, politi-

cally separate cities of Manila, Quezon City,

Kaloocan, and Pasay, plus 13 municipalities.

The nature of governance and administration

of the metropolitan region has changed over

the years since its original inception, from a

more centralized Metro Manila Commission

(MMC) headed by Imelda Marcos as gover-

nor to its current monitoring and coordinat-

ing form as the Metro Manila Development

Authority (MMDA).

The Metro Manila region, reminiscent of

Harris and Ullman’s multiple nuclei model, is

a polynucleated area with many distinct per-

sonalities. Binondo, for example, located next

to the Pasig River, was originally a Christian

Chinese commercial district during the Span-

ish colonial period and to this day remains

the heart of Manila’s Chinatown. Nearby

is Tondo, today an impoverished, densely

Distinctive Cities 443

populated district of rental blocks; prior to

the arrival of the Spanish, it was a collection

of Muslim villages. To the south, abutting

Manila Bay, is Ermita. Once a small fish-

ing village, the area developed into a prime

tourist destination, packed with bars, night-

clubs, strip shows, and massage parlors. In

recent years, however, these establishments

were closed down in Ermita and many have

since relocated to other areas of Manila. As a

final example, Makati, originally a small mar-

ket village, is now Manila’s major financial

center, occupied by banks and multinational

and national corporations. Makati also con-

tains some of Manila’s most expensive hous-

ing subdivisions, sprawling box-like shopping

centers, and five-star hotels.

Within the greater Manila Metropolitan

region is Quezon City. Named after Manuel

Quezon (president of the Commonwealth of

the Philippines from 1934 to 1946), Quezon

City was the Philippines’ national capital

from 1948 to 1976. Now it is home to many

important government buildings, medical

centers, and universities, including the main

campuses of the University of the Philippines

and Ateneo de Manila University. Quezon City

also consists of upscale, gated residential com-

munities patrolled by armed guards. These

estates, home to middle- and upper-class resi-

dents, are equipped with luxurious air-con-

ditioned homes, tennis and basketball courts,

golf courses, and swimming pools. However,

reflective of Manila’s complex land usage, as

well as the highly polarized nature of Philip-

pine society, just outside of these gated com-

munities are numerous squatter settlements.

Characteristic of large cities in Southeast

Asia, Manila exhibits an increasing number of

consumer spaces. In recent years, large shop-

ping malls have been built, catering to a ris-

ing middle class. For many visitors, these malls

are remarkably similar to those found in the

United States and Europe. Major department

stores anchor the malls, while in between are

dozens of specialty stores, food courts, and

Figure 10.17 Motorbikes are one way of breaking through traffic jams on bangkok’s overcrowded streets. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

444 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

entertainment. The SM Megamall, for exam-

ple, in addition to its numerous stores and res-

taurants, contains an ice skating rink, bowling

lanes, a 12-screen cinema, and an arcade room.

Meanwhile, multiple high-end condominium

projects have been built in many parts of

Metro Manila that cater to returning Overseas

Filipinos and urban professionals. In many

cases, these condominium projects were devel-

oped beside malls and shopping complexes.

For example, the proposed Entertainment City

in Manila, a mixed-use leisure complex of casi-

nos, condominium units, and shopping malls,

is planned for development on a previously

reclaimed area near Manila Bay.

Similar to both Jakarta and Bangkok, the

increased concentration of foreign direct

investment into the Philippines has translated

into rapid changes in the economy of Manila,

as well as in land use. During the 1990s, the

greater Metro Manila region and the sur-

rounding provinces experienced remarkable

industrial and manufacturing growth. This

expansion, however, occurred at the expense

of Manila’s rural and agrarian hinterland.

Metro Manila is, in fact, located toward the

center of the Philippines’ major rice-produc-

ing region, and continued urban sprawl is rap-

idly encroaching on these agricultural areas.

Urban poverty and landlessness continue

to be major problems in Manila. The extent

of these problems, however, remains a con-

tested issue. Estimates of the number of poor

vary widely, ranging from 1.6 million to more

than 4.5 million. What is certain, however,

is that landownership in Manila is decidedly

uneven, with the majority of its population

being landless. High urban land values mean

that the majority of residents are unable to

obtain legal housing, a situation exacerbated

by continued high rates of in-migration. Their

recourse is to resort to illegal housing and to

settle in urban fringe areas, such as along rail-

road tracks and in vacant lots. Residents of

squatter settlements are subject to deplorable

health conditions and pollution problems,

stemming from inadequate access to sanitary

and plumbing facilities. They often must pur-

chase fresh water from itinerant water ven-

dors. Historically, squatter settlements have

been demolished and their residents evicted.

More recently, the Philippine government has

attempted to provide low-cost housing for its

urban poor through joint-venture agreements

with private developers. But with relocation

sites that are far away from the city and insuf-

ficient facilities in many of the housing pro-

jects, many settlers end up returning to the

metropolis.

Aside from poverty, Manila faces other seri-

ous problems. Accessibility to water, for exam-

ple, looms large. Manila is also confronted

with serious air and water pollution problems,

as well as an inadequate sewerage system.

Indeed, during the rainy season many streets

throughout Manila, such as those in the port

district and Tondo, become impassable due to

flooding.

Bangkok: The Los Angeles of the Tropics

Bangkok, at 34 times the size of Thailand’s

second-largest city, is the textbook example

of urban primacy. While only one-fifth of the

country is urbanized, fully two-thirds of this

urban population is concentrated in the Bang-

kok Metropolitan Region (BMR). Currently,

the core of Bangkok has a population of about

6 million; when the entire BMR is considered,

the region’s population is more than 10 mil-

lion. Furthermore, like the ocean’s tides, Bang-

kok’s population ebbs and flows, both daily

and seasonally. An estimated 1 million people

commute daily into Bangkok, while hundreds

Distinctive Cities 445

of thousands of other workers seasonally cir-

culate throughout the city in search of tempo-

rary jobs in the informal sector. This seasonal

migration is particularly acute in the hot, dry

months of February and March, a slack agri-

cultural period.

The official name of Bangkok is Krung

Thep, which translates as “The City of Angels”

(the same meaning as Los Angeles). And in

many respects, notably traffic, pollution, and

urban sprawl, Bangkok might be considered

the Los Angeles of Southeast Asia. For that

matter, Los Angeles may be considered the

Bangkok of the United States of America.

Currently, Bangkok remains poised to

become an international communications

and financial center, as well as a major trans-

portation hub in Asia. Initially, much of Bang-

kok’s growth was tied to massive amounts

of investment brought about by the United

States’ involvement in the Vietnam War. Dur-

ing the 1960s, in particular, Bangkok served as

a major military supply base. In subsequent

decades, it continued to attract large sums of

foreign investment. Between 1979 and 1990,

nearly 70 percent of all foreign investment

projects in Thailand were concentrated in

the BMR. Economically, Bangkok has capital-

ized on its reserves of cheap labor, favorable

tax incentives, and (until recently) political

stability.

Similar to Jakarta and Manila, Bangkok is

a multinucleated city. And while the “old city”

remains the principal administrative and reli-

gious core of Bangkok, considerable expan-

sion has occurred into surrounding districts.

Bangkok has also experienced a rapid conver-

sion of land use, with many residential areas

in the city being converted to commercial use

and former small shop houses being trans-

formed into high-rise office buildings and

large shopping complexes.

The over-urbanization of Bangkok has

resulted in serious environmental problems.

Air and water quality have deteriorated in

recent years, while the disposal of solid waste

is an ongoing problem. Also, Bangkok is sink-

ing. Due to the overdrawing of well water, the

city suffers from land subsidence, as its eleva-

tion drops at a rate of about 10 cm (3.9 in)

per year. Indeed, some areas have subsided

by more than 3 feet (0.91 m) since the 1950s.

Global warming should be firmly on the

minds of Bangkok’s urban planners!

Bangkok is also plagued by severe transpor-

tation problems (Figure 10.18). The number

of motor vehicles (excluding the ubiquitous

motorbikes) increased from 243,000 in 1972

to more than a million in 1990; concurrently,

only about 50 miles of primary roads were

added. As a result, the average speed on most

roads in Bangkok is less than six miles per

hour. Numerous proposals and strategies have

been advanced to rectify traffic congestion,

including increased road capacity measures,

improvements in public mass-transit systems,

improvements in the traffic control system,

and strategies to control the volume of traffic

(e.g., staggered employment hours to reduce

peak commuting traffic). The government is

also encouraging the growth of satellite cities

as a means of promoting regional economic

growth and to the congestion of Bangkok.

Phnom Penh, Ho Chi Minh City,

Hanoi: Socialist Cities in Transition

In the early morning, the dusty streets of

Phnom Penh are alive with swarms of noisy

motorbikes that surge like schools of fish. Lux-

ury cars and sports utility vehicles compete

for limited space with the motorbikes. Plod-

ding along the roadsides, in a vain attempt

to escape the mechanized frenzy of Phnom

446 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

Penh’s traffic, are converted tractors with

wooden trailers that ferry scores of young

women—all dressed in identical green-and-

white uniforms—to the foreign-owned assem-

bly plants that ring the periphery of the city.

Such is Phnom Penh in the twenty-first cen-

tury: a frantic, disorderly city that is rebuild-

ing after decades of tumultuous revolutions

and genocide. The experience (and landscape)

of Phnom Penh, combined with those of Ho

Chi Minh City and Hanoi, provide vivid proof

that urbanization is intimately associated with

broader social movements.

On April 17, 1975 the Khmer Rouge

marched through the hot and dusty streets

of Phnom Penh, bringing to an end years of

armed conflict tied to the broader Indochina

Wars. Their arrival marked also the begin-

ning of a four-year period known today as

the ‘Cambodian genocide’. During the Khmer

Rouge-era, upwards of one-quarter of Cam-

bodia’s population—approximately 2 million

men, women, and children—died from tor-

ture, execution, famine, and lack of medical

care. Today, Phnom Penh still bears the scars

of its genocidal past, although these are slow-

ing being repaired. The streets of Phnom

Penh, unpaved and pockmarked with potholes

in 2001, now shimmer darkly with fresh albeit

cracked asphalt. Where once stood hollowed-

out buildings, destroyed by war and neglect,

now stand freshly painted apartment buildings

Figure 10.18 traditional Manila contrast with modern Manila as the city attempts to accommodate the rapidly expanding population by going up and spilling out onto the city’s streets. Source: Photo by Arnisson Andre ortega.

Distinctive Cities 447

and shopping complexes. Phnom Penh is

indeed rebuilding, though not without diffi-

culties; and this urban growth reflects a new

orientation toward the global economy. For

example, along the major road linking Phnom

Penh and Cambodia’s Pochentong Interna-

tional Airport, multinational corporations

have established a visible presence, in the form

of assembly plants and factories. Also notable

are the myriad satellite cities developed or in

the process of development (Box 10.4).

In Vietnam, similar changes are under-

way. The population of Saigon (now Ho Chi

Minh City), like that of Phnom Penh, had also

increased dramatically through in-migration

and refugee flows. By 1975, Saigon had an esti-

mated 4.5 million people. Following the com-

munist victory, the new government of the

Democratic Republic of Vietnam relocated

about 1 million people.

The process of deurbanization in these

socialist countries was often accompanied

by a refashioning of the cities. Initially, West-

ern-style establishments and customs were

replaced with a Spartan milieu. Cities, most

notably Hanoi, were drab and monotonous,

composed of row upon row of uniform, box-

like buildings. Conforming to socialist ide-

ology, the new governments attempted to

eliminate the private sector; and shops, restau-

rants, hotels, and services were generally run

by government enterprises or cooperatives.

Consequently, cities were typically devoid of

the mass advertising and consumer spectacles

that are commonplace in capitalist cities. The

new governments fostered symbolic changes as

well. The renaming of Saigon to honor Ho Chi

Minh, who led the fight against the French and

established communism in Vietnam, provides

the clearest illustration. Another visible differ-

ence between socialist and capitalist cities was

the traffic. In Hanoi, the streets were practically

empty of motor vehicles, save for an occasional

Soviet-era limousine and a few battered and

decrepit buses. Instead, bicycles thronged the

streets, especially during peak hours, when

residents cycled to and from work and school.

Following this initial stage, socialist gov-

ernments entered into a second, bureaucratic

stage wherein longer-term strategies of social-

ist urbanization were implemented. Especially

in Vietnam, the socialist government devel-

oped spatial strategies to ameliorate the prob-

lems of large cities, including the provision

of adequate food, employment, and housing.

Policies were enacted to restrict population

mobility, thereby affording relief to the infra-

structure of large urban areas, such as Ho Chi

Minh City and Da Nang.

Although economic reforms were first

introduced in Vietnam in 1979, it was not

until 1986, with the initiation of doi moi

(renovation), the slogan for the government’s

new development strategy, that substantial

economic improvement occurred and with it,

rapid changes to the urban landscape. Doi moi

entails the gradual introduction of capitalist

elements, including private ownership, foreign

investment, and market competition. Vietnam

remains politically committed to socialism,

but economically the country is exhibiting a

shift toward capitalism and a greater level of

integration into the global economy.

Geographically, economic reforms initially

focused on the southern region of Vietnam,

and especially Ho Chi Minh City, because of

that city’s much longer tradition with free-

market economics and linkages with the

outside world. Approximately 80 percent of

all foreign investment flowing into Vietnam

was directed toward the south. Investments in

tourism, assembly, and manufacturing were

concentrated in the larger urban areas. Ho

Chi Minh City (still called Saigon by many

448 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

Box 10.4 Satellite Cities in Southeast asia

Located on the peri-urban fringe of ho Chi Minh City, Phu My hung (“Saigon South”) is a newly developed satellite city covering over 3,300 hectares of prime real estate. it is also a highly circumscribed and contradictory space. When fully built, it will include exclusive resi- dential areas, university centers, high-tech zones, and innumerable parks, golf courses, and sports centers. however, surveillance is pervasive, with watchful closed-circuit television monitors, patrolling armed guards, and countless security gates. Visitors are even restricted, if not prohibited, in their ability to take photographs of the new city.

Phu My hung is one of many new satellite cities being planned or developed throughout Southeast Asia. Ranging in size from a few hundred to several thousand hectares, these mod- ern monuments to the power of money are a both a legacy of past practice and a harbinger of things to come. on the one hand, the development of satellite cities is a continuation of the growth of “new towns” that sprouted up throughout the region in the aftermath of World War ii. in Singapore and Malaysia, for example, many new towns were constructed in response to increased population pressures resulting from rapid industrialization and high- levels of rural-to-urban migration. on the other hand, these satellite cities reflect a very different process, symptomatic of deeper neoliberal changes underway throughout Southeast Asia. notably, the satellite cities of the twenty-first century are being developed mainly by private companies, many of which are located throughout East and Southeast Asia, on a for-profit basis. Phu My hung, for example, is financed by taiwanese developers; Camko City, proximate to Phnom Penh, is being constructed by a South Korean firm; and Grand Phnom Penh international City is being developed by an indonesia Company.

Satellite cities are by their very nature exclusive developments. Marketed to a growing upper-middle-class as well as wealthy expatriates, these cities boast all the amenities of urban living with (supposedly) none of the associated problems. Camko City, for example, is being constructed at an estimated cost of US$2 billion. Set to be completed in 2018, Camko City will host private villas, townhouses, and several high-rise condominiums, all serviced by high-speed information and telecommunication lines, electronic security systems, and sustainable environmental systems. its commercial area will include a convention center, exhibition center, financing center, and trade center, all served by top-of-the-line hotels.

the governments of Vietnam, Cambodia, and other recipient countries have been hugely supportive of these private initiatives. on the one hand, it is thought (or hoped!) that satel- lite cities will relieve the congestion of primate cities and, on the other hand, the peri-urban fringe is increasingly viewed as a key site for revenue generation. in this respect, the growth of satellite cities constitutes a twenty-first century landgrab that will irrevocably alter the urban and rural landscape of Southeast Asia.

the rapid and pervasive growth of satellite cities throughout Southeast Asia is not unique, in that it mirrors the growth of similar mega-cities throughout the Middle East and other parts of the world. termed “dubaisation,” after the monumental growth projects of dubai on the Persian Gulf, the establishment of satellite cities threatens the urban and cultural heritage

Urban Challenges 449

residents) soon returned to its prewar capi-

talist character, with luxury hotels—Hyatt,

Ramada, and Hilton—competing side by side

with government-run hotels.

Hanoi, once the sedate, regimented, and

subdued political capital of Vietnam, has itself

undergone significant economic transforma-

tions. By the twenty-first century, Hanoi was

increasingly showing the effects of globaliza-

tion and now exhibits much of the color and

dynamism of its rival to the south. Hanoi con-

tinues to showcase the symbols of Vietnamese

nationalism, such as the Ho Chi Minh Mau-

soleum and the Ho Chi Minh Museum. But

it also has become a bustling metropolis, an

urban forest of hotels, restaurants, bars, night-

clubs, and discotheques. Tourism, with thou-

sands of global visitors interested in seeing the

heart of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam,

is leading the change.

URbAN CHALLENGES

Cities in Southeast Asia are not immune to

serious problems. Challenges run the gamut

from health issues to environmental concerns.

Arguably, though, the inability of urban resi-

dents to obtain adequate employment and

housing looms among the most serious issues

faced by Southeast Asia’s cities. For example,

in the early 2000s in Manila, approximately

40 percent of the urban population was esti-

mated to be living in squatter settlements, with

another 45 percent of the population living in

slum conditions. In Bangkok, 23 percent of the

population was estimated to be living in slum

and squatter settlements; and in both Kuala

Lumpur and Jakarta, squatters constituted

approximately 25 percent of the population. It

should be noted, however, that most estimates

on slum residents are measured at the national

level and that there are, not surprisingly, con-

flicting numbers of squatter/slum residents.

The rise of squatter settlements is explained

by factors other than population increase.

Escalating land prices, compounded by real

estate speculation, for example, exacerbate the

problem of housing. So, too, does the creation

of artificial land scarcity. In Metro Manila, for

example, large tracts of land, even within the

central business district of Makati, remain

of Southeast Asia. Simply put, these satellite cities are in many respects “non-places”. they are distinguished primarily by their non-distinction. often modeled on plans evocative of American suburbs, there is a remarkable un-remarkability to these developments. Western- based chains, including Mcdonald’s, Starbucks, Pizza hut, and Kentucky Fried Chicken inter- mingle with imposing, glass-enclosed shopping centers and massive, cookie-cutter homes and condominiums.

the establishment of satellite cities has also come with a significant human and environ- mental cost. Countless hundreds of thousands of families throughout Southeast Asia have been dispossessed, often forcibly, of their lands and livelihoods. Within existent urban areas, less profitable apartment buildings are being demolished to make way for upscale condomini- ums and exclusive villas. in the peri-urban areas, prime agricultural lands likewise are being lost, paved over to make way for high-rise apartment and concrete highways—some of which are not even open to the general public!

450 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

vacant. And lastly, the demolition of low-cost

housing units, replaced by more affluent con-

dominiums and gated communities, results in

the rise of squatter settlements.

Sadly, many governments continue to view

eviction and demolition as the most effective

means of confronting squatter settlements.

In the Philippines, for example, more than

100,000 people were evicted from Manila each

year between 1986 and 1992. Not surprisingly,

a policy of relocating squatters to sites 20–50

miles (32–80 km) outside the city and plac-

ing them in high-density residential apart-

ments proved ineffective. Only Singapore has

achieved substantial results in the provision of

public housing. Other cities, especially Manila,

Bangkok, and Phnom Penh, trail woefully

behind. While many of these governments

have agencies charged with developing pub-

lic housing, most lack the required economic

resources and political resolve to be effective.

Many Southeast Asian governments also

are unable to provide adequate services, such

as clean water, sewerage, and other utilities.

Only about 7 percent of Burma’s urban popu-

lation, for example, has access to piped water.

In Jakarta, only a quarter of the population

has solid-waste collection; in the remainder of

the city, it is collected by scavengers. One effec-

tive strategy has been Indonesia’s Kampung

Improvement Program (KIP). This program is

a far-reaching initiative that concentrates pri-

marily on the improvement of infrastructure

and public facilities. Specific projects include

footpaths, secondary roads, drainage ditches,

schools, communal bathing and shower facili-

ties, and health clinics. Since its inception,

the KIP has been expanded to more than two

hundred cities throughout Indonesia and has

benefited more than 3.5 million people.

Both air and water pollution pose serious

health hazards to residents and visitors alike

in Southeast Asian cities. Jakarta, for example,

exceeds the health standards for ambient levels

of airborne particulate matter on more than

170 days of the year. Moreover, topographic

features may augment pollution problems.

The surrounding hills of the Klang Valley

around Kuala Lumpur, and the mountains

ringing Manila, for example, confine pollut-

ants and thus exacerbate air quality problems.

Water pollution, likewise, remains a major

obstacle to the quality of life in Southeast

Asian cities (Box 10.5). Many rivers, includ-

ing the Pasig in Manila, the Chao Phraya in

Bangkok, and the Ciliwung in Jakarta, are

considered biological hazards. The canals and

waterways in Bangkok, especially, are highly

polluted from a combination of industrial

and household discharge. Only 2 percent of

the city’s population is connected to Bang-

kok’s limited sewerage system. Consequently,

most solid waste is discharged into waterways.

Compounding the problem is the fact that

more than 15 percent of the garbage disposed

of daily is left uncollected.

An additional problem is traffic conges-

tion. The traffic problems of Bangkok and

Manila were discussed previously. In Jakarta,

likewise, private car ownership has outpaced

road construction. Similar problems of con-

gestion and pollution are being felt in Ho Chi

Minh City, which is currently home to more

than 2.5 million motorbikes, and, increasingly,

in Phnom Penh as well. Some governments,

including those of Malaysia and Indone-

sia, have utilized toll roads to reduce traffic

congestion. Other efforts concentrate on the

development of mass-transit systems, such as

the construction of light-rail transit systems

in both Manila and Kuala Lumpur. These pro-

jects, however, are extremely expensive and

many have been temporarily halted. To this

day, half-completed overpasses and bridges

Urban Challenges 451

Box 10.5 Water Security and urban Wastewater

Water security is emerging as a key risk factor throughout Southeast Asia. on the one hand, water security is intimately connected to broader economic and geopolitical relations. ongoing development projects, including the construction of mega-dams along the Mekong River and its tributaries, threaten the livelihood of millions of farmers who depend on the rivers for fish- ing and irrigation needs. on the other hand, water security is tied to a host of public health issues, namely access to clean, nonpolluted water for drinking, cooking, and cleaning. here, water security overlaps with myriad other issues related to urban infrastructure, including the collection of solid waste, inadequate flood-control systems, and the treatment of wastewater. in Phnom Penh, for example, studies indicate that upwards of 20 percent of all locally grown vegetables are irrigated with untreated wastewater. Consequently, many of the city’s 1.3 mil- lion residents are susceptible to untold diseases, such as cholera, typhoid, and shigellosis.

throughout Southeast Asia, upwards of 40 million men, women, and children are at risk of serious health issues resultant from drinking untreated water, as well as cooking and clean- ing in untreated water. People are also at risk of disease through the consumption of fish caught in polluted waterways and of fruits and vegetables grown in wastewater-fed farm- lands. indeed, the threat of urban wastewater is part-and-parcel of a “water-food-energy” nexus, whereby water availability is a serious constraint both on the growing of food—via agriculture and aquaculture—and the preparation of food. For many farmers, such as those living around Phnom Penh’s boeung Cheung Ek Lake, untreated wastewater is a preferred source of irrigation, in that the water is laden with nutrients that serve as a natural fertilizer. however, this same source of energy poses significant health problems. this is but one of the many challenges confronting Southeast Asia’s urban and peri-urban areas.

Governments and other stakeholders throughout the region recognize the complexity of solving urban wastewater problems. however, the scale and scope of the bureaucratic response varies greatly, ranging from those governments that exhibit effective and compres- sive monitoring of the quality and quantity of water resources to other governments that are woefully deficient. Singapore provides the most wide-ranging water-management plan, whereas in indonesia there is no consolidated water policy for urban areas.

the provision of clean, safe water is an expensive prospect. Water treatment plants are expensive to build and to maintain. So are necessary infrastructural improvements, for example, those designed to control urban flooding and thus minimize contamination of water supplies. there are, however, success stories. in the mid-1990s Metro Manila’s water-management was in disarray. decades of underinvestment had led to poor water and wastewater services that contributed, not surprisingly, to numerous health problems throughout the city. in recognition of this problem, in 1995 the national Water Crisis Act was passed, ushering a new era of govern- ment-private partnership that enabled revenues to flow to needed infrastructural development. in turn, this led to improvements both in access to water for millions of residents and—equally important—greater efficiencies in wastewater treatment. Although not a panacea, the efforts of numerous stakeholders throughout Metro Manila provide hope that solutions are possible.

452 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

Potential violence in cities of Southeast

Asia comes in other forms. According to some

scholars and regional experts, the main “ter-

rorist” threat to urban life in many Southeast

Asian cities is linked to radical Islamist groups,

such as Jemaah Islamiah (JI), a group that

has links to Al-Qaeda and Abu-Sayyaf. Over

the past decade, JI has been linked to bomb

attacks in many major Southeast Asian cities.

In Manila, the Abu-Sayyaf has also been linked

to several bombing incidents. In response to

such terrorist threats, many cities in Southeast

Asia have established security programs and

policies. In Singapore, a large-scale prepared-

ness exercise, named Exercise Northstar V, was

conducted. The exercise involved simulated

terrorist bomb attacks in multiple locations

and included the participation of thousands

of government personnel and civilians. In

Manila, malls, MRT, and other establishments

are guarded by armed security personnel who

control the entrance of people.

AN EyE TO THE FUTURE

Like Gregor Samsa in Franz Kafka’s novella

The Metamorphosis, the cities of Southeast

Asia have awoken from unsettled dreams

to find themselves changed into something

potentially monstrous: agglomerations of

skyscrapers and street vendors, palatial resi-

dential neighborhoods and impoverished

squatter settlements, overburdened utilities,

and underdeveloped transit systems.

What does the future hold for the cities of

Southeast Asia? Three themes come to mind.

First, continued population pressures and

environmental degradation will most likely

accelerate rural-to-urban migration, thereby

exacerbating over-urbanization problems.

Consequently, the cities of Southeast Asia will

in Bangkok, and incomplete rail systems in

Manila, stand as silent reminders of continued

underdevelopment.

Amid all these problems, there are efforts

by governments, along with local businesses,

to promote sustainable urban development.

For instance, several environmental laws

have been passed in different countries seek-

ing the reduction of pollution or to respond

to issues of climate change. In some cities,

city planning programs pertaining to urban

renewal and the promotion of sustainable

urban life have recently been put in place.

In Singapore, for example, the Ministry of

National Development has actively directed

the planning and implementation of policies

and infrastructure projects that aim to create

a sustainable city of knowledge, culture, and

excellence. In other cities, new development

projects are advertised as being constructed

to satisfy global environmental standards. The

real challenge, however, lies in the enforce-

ment of these programs and policies so that

they may truly contribute to a sustainable

urban life. In fact, many residents are actu-

ally displaced in the name of urban renewal

projects. Despite the emergence of new urban

developments that are intended to promote

“urban sustainability,” many inhabitants of

these cities remain mired in poverty.

Rampant poverty contributes to other seri-

ous problems, including political unrest, vio-

lence, and terrorist activity. In recent years,

Southeast Asian cities have witnessed class-

based political tensions and demonstrations.

In Bangkok, “red shirt” protesters loyal to

the government clashed with “yellow shirt”

demonstrators composed of people from the

urban middle class. Meanwhile, in Manila,

ongoing unrest, reflecting the country’s socio-

economic inequalities and class-based politi-

cal tensions, continues to pose serious threats.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Berner, E. 1997. Defending a Place in the City: Local-

ities and the Struggle for Urban Land in Metro

Manila. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de

Manila University Press. An examination of the

complex issues of land rights and squatters in

overburdened Manila.

Bishop, R., J. Phillips, and W. W. Yeo. 2003.

Postcolonial Urbanism: Southeast Asian Cities

and Global Processes. New York: Routledge. A

collection of essays that explores topics such as

sexuality, architecture, cinema, and terrorism

within the context of global urbanism.

Dale, O. J. 1999. Urban Planning in Singapore:

The Transformation of a City. Oxford: Oxford

University Press. A study of the process of urban

planning in Singapore from its early growth on

the banks of the Singapore River to the present.

Figure 10.19 if Ronald Mcdonald wants to sell fast food in bangkok, he must adapt to thai culture. Globalization is not a one-way street. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

454 CITIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

DeKoninck, R., J. Drolet, and M. Girard. 2008.

Singapore: An Atlas of Perpetual Territorial

Transformation. Singapore: National University.

A historical geography of Singapore laid out on

a series of maps.

Ginsburg, N., B. Koppel, and T. G. McGee, eds. 1991.

The Extended Metropolis: Settlement Transition

in Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

A variety of authors look at various aspects of

some of the key cities in Asia.

Logan, W. S. 2000. Hanoi: Biography of a City. Seat-

tle: University of Washington Press. An explo-

ration of Hanoi’s built environment and how

the shape of the city reflects changing political,

cultural, and economic conditions.

McGee, T. G. 1967. The Southeast Asian City:

A Social Geography of the Primate Cities of

Southeast Asia. New York: Praeger. An urban

geography classic.

Ostojic, D. R., et al. 2013. Energizing Green Cities

in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: The World

Bank. Covers urbanization and sustainable

energy use, with case studies of Cebu City,

Philippines, Surabaya, Indonesia, and Da Nang,

Vietnam.

Sahakian, M. 2014. Keeping Cool in Southeast

Asia: Energy Consumption and Urban Air-

Conditioning. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. An

investigation of energy used for air-conditioning

against the backdrop of climate change.

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Cities of East Asia KAM WING CHAN AND ALANA BOLAND

KEy URbAN FACTS

Total Population 1.6 billion

Percent Urban Population 59%

Total Urban Population 960 million

Most Urbanized Country Japan (93%)

Least Urbanized Countries China (54%)

Number of Megacities 8

Number of Cities of More Than 1 Million 123 (China has 103)

Three Largest Cities (Metacities) Tokyo (38 m), Shanghai (23 m),

Osaka (20 m)

Number of World Cities (Highest Ranking) 6 (Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul,

Taipei)

Global City Tokyo

KEy CHAPTER THEMES

1. China is one of the original centers of urban development in history and has some of the

oldest continuously occupied cities in the world.

2. Colonialism had a less important role in urban development in East Asia compared with

world regions, even though many large Chinese cities were treaty ports under colonialism.

Hong Kong and Macau were entirely creations of colonialism, which formally ended on the

eve of the twenty-first century.

3. Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong/Macau, and Taiwan are already highly urbanized and deeply

involved in the global economy, a status reflected in cities that are already in a “postindus-

trial” phase, with predominantly service-based economies and major high-tech sectors.

4. Since the late 1970s, China has been rapidly industrializing and urbanizing and is now the

“world’s factory” and a major player in the global economy.

458 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

East Asia exudes power and success. Emerg-

ing in the past half century to rival the old

power centers of the world in North America

and Europe, East Asia’s cities have been the

command centers for the prodigious eco-

nomic advances across the region. The region

houses two of the world’s largest economies,

China and Japan, and is also the world’s major

exporter. Nowhere is this more evident than in

East Asia’s great cities, such as Tokyo, Beijing,

Shanghai, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Taipei

(Figure 11.1). They are among the largest cit-

ies in the world; indeed, Tokyo has been rec-

ognized as the world’s largest metropolis for

the last three decades, and Shanghai is now

the world’s largest cargo port. Compared with

often-struggling urban agglomerations found

in other world regions, especially in develop-

ing countries, East Asia’s cities have been rela-

tively more successful in coping with rapid

growth and large size. Wealth does make a

difference.

The region remains fairly sharply split

between mainland China and North Korea,

both of which are under a one-party system,

and the rest, which is not. This dichotomy is

reflected in many ways, including the char-

acter of the cities and their policies and pro-

cesses, both past and present, which have

shaped them. In the recent two decades, the

region has witnessed a rapid rise in China’s

economic power and in South Korea’s tech-

nological prowess, while Japan has suffered

a series of fiscal and financial problems and

was devastated in many ways by the 2011

earthquake-tsunami.

THE EVOLUTION OF CITIES

The Traditional or Preindustrial City

East Asia, especially China, is one of the origi-

nal centers of urbanism in world history.

Many cities here trace their origins back two

5. China is unique in size, being the country with the largest total population, the largest urban

population, and the greatest number of million-plus cities in the world. The population is

divided into rural and urban citizens with different types of social welfare and opportunities.

6. Some of the world’s most important world cities are in East Asia, especially Tokyo and

Hong Kong. Cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, and Taipei are in the second tier. The

larger cities especially reflect the wealth of the region.

7. North Korea is the lone holdout in East Asia in clinging to a rigid, isolationist, orthodox

socialist system, somewhat different from China and Mongolia, which have many market-

oriented policies in the last three decades.

8. Urban development was heavily influenced by the Cold War, which lingers in the Korean

Peninsula and in the ongoing tensions between Taiwan and mainland China. International

trade has become another major driver of development of large cities in the last two decades.

9. Most major cities of the region show evidence of the concentric zone and multi-nucleic

models of urban land use.

10. Most cities of East Asia have experienced the usual urban problems: environmental pollu-

tion, income polarization, and migration. Recent attention to environmental concerns in

the region has reduced pollution, especially of air and waterways.

The Evolution of Cities 459

millennia or more. One can see interesting

parallels with the earliest cities in other cul-

tural realms, with their focus on ceremonial

and administrative centers planned in highly

formal style to symbolize the beliefs and tradi-

tions of the cultures involved.

In its idealized form, the traditional city

reflected the ancient Chinese conception of

the universe and the role of the emperor as

intermediary between heaven and earth. This

idealized conception was most apparent in

national capitals, but many elements (grid lay-

out, highly formalized design, a surrounding

wall with strategically placed gates, etc.) could

be seen in lesser cities at lower administrative

levels. The Tang Dynasty (618–906 ce) capi-

tal of Chang’an (present-day Xi’an) was one

of the best expressions of the classic Chinese

capital city. Inevitably, the demands of mod-

ern urban development have necessitated, in

the eyes of planners, at least, the destruction

of most city walls, thereby removing a color-

ful legacy of the past. The sites of old walls

commonly become the routes of new, broad

boulevards. One of the few cities whose origi-

nal wall has been retained almost entirely is

Xi’an, because of its historic role.

Of all the historic, traditional cities, none is

more famous than Beijing, the present national

capital of China. Although a city had existed

on the site for centuries, Beijing became sig-

nificant when it was rebuilt in 1260 by Kublai

Khan as his winter capital. It was this Beijing

that Marco Polo saw. The city was destroyed

with the fall of the Mongols and reestablished

by the Ming dynasty in 1368. The Ming capi-

tal was composed of four parts: the Imperial

Palace (or Forbidden City), the imperial city,

the inner city, and the outer city, like a set of

nested boxes. The former Forbidden City can

still be partially seen within the walls of what

is today called the Palace Museum.

The Chinese City as Model: Japan and Korea

Chang’an was the Chinese national capital at

a time when Japan was a newly emerging civi-

lization adopting and adapting many features

of China, including city planning. As a result,

the Japanese capital cities of the period were

modeled after Chang’an. Indeed, the city as

a distinct form first appeared in Japan at this

time, beginning with the completion of Keijo-

kyo (now called Nara) in 710. Although Nara

today is a small prefectural capital, it once

represented the grandeur of the Nara period

(710–784). Keiankyo (modern-day Kyoto) has

survived as the best example of early Japanese

city planning. Serving as national capital from

794 to 1868, when the capital was formally

shifted to Edo (now Tokyo), Kyoto still exhib-

its the original rectangular form, grid pattern,

and other features copied from Chang’an.

However, modern urban/industrial growth has

greatly increased the city’s size and obscured

much of the original form. Moreover, Chinese

city morphology, with its rigid symmetry and

formalized symbolism, was alien to the Japa-

nese culture. Even the shortage of level land in

Japan tended to work against the full expres-

sion of the Chinese city model.

Korea also experienced imported Chinese

city planning concepts. The Chinese city

model was most evident in the national capi-

tal of Seoul, which became the premier city of

Korea in 1394. The city has never really lost its

dominance since. Early maps of Seoul reveal

the imprint of Chinese city forms. Those forms

were not completely achieved, however, in

part because of the rugged landscape around

Seoul, which is located in a basin north of

the lower Han River. Succeeding centuries of

development and rebuilding, especially in the

twentieth century during the Japanese occu-

pation (1910–1945) and after the Korean War

460 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

(1950–1953), obliterated most of the original

form and architecture of the historic city. A

modern commercial and industrial city has

arisen on the ashes of the old city, reinforc-

ing the popular name for Seoul, the “Phoenix

City,” after the mythological bird that symbol-

izes immortality.

Colonial Cities

The colonial impact on East Asia was nota-

ble though relatively less intrusive than what

occurred in Southeast and South Asia.

First Footholds: The Portuguese

and the Dutch

The Portuguese and the Dutch were the first

European colonists to arrive in East Asia; the

Portuguese were much more important in

their impact in this region, the Dutch largely

confining themselves to Southeast Asia. Seek-

ing trade and the opportunity to spread

Christianity, the Portuguese penetrated part

of southern Japan via the port of Nagasaki

in the sixteenth century. Their greatest influ-

ence was indirect, with the introduction of

firearms and military technology into Japan.

This led to the development of stronger pri-

vate armies among the daimyo (feudal rulers)

of Japan, which in turn led to the building

of large castles in the center of each daimyo’s

domain. These castles, modeled after for-

tresses in medieval Europe, were commonly

located on strategic high points, surrounded

by the daimyo’s retainers and the commercial

town. These centers eventually served as the

nuclei for many of the cities of modern Japan

(see Figure 11.4).

The Portuguese also tried to penetrate

China. Reaching Guangzhou (Canton) in

1517, they attempted to establish themselves

there for trade purposes, but were forced by

the Chinese authorities to accept the small

peninsula of Macau, near the mouth of the

Pearl River, south of Guangzhou. Chinese

authorities walled off the peninsula and rent

was paid for the territory until the Portuguese

declared it independent from China in 1849.

With only 12 square miles (30 km2) of land,

Macau remained the only Portuguese toe-

hold in East Asia, especially after the eclipse

of their operations in southern Japan in the

seventeenth century. Macau was important as

a trading center and haven for refugees. Estab-

lishment of Hong Kong in the nineteenth cen-

tury on the opposite side of the Pearl River

estuary signaled the beginning of Macau’s

slow decline, from which it has never fully

recovered (Figure 11.3).

In the post-1950 era, Macau survived

largely on tourism and gambling (a down-

scale Asian version of Las Vegas, gangsters

and all). In the 1990s, Macau attempted some

modest industrialization, as it integrated eco-

nomically with the Zhuhai Special Economic

Zone across the border. Since reversion to the

People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1999,

emphasis has been on gambling and tourism,

with additional investments made by Nevada

gambling interests and by the construction of

a number of new, gaudy casinos around the

reconstructed harbor front that pull in large

numbers of gamblers, especially nouveau

riche from mainland China. Right next to the

emerging casino quarter lies the historic heart

of old Macau whose colonial-era architecture

is now restored and is a pedestrian-only tour-

ist destination.

The Treaty Ports of China

It was the other Western colonial powers,

arriving in the eighteenth and nineteenth

The Evolution of Cities 461

centuries, which had the greatest impact on

urban growth in modern China. The most

important were the British and Americans;

but the French, Germans, Belgians, Russians,

and others were also involved, as were the Jap-

anese, who joined the action toward the close

of the nineteenth century.

It all began officially with the Treaty of

Nanjing in 1842, which ceded to Britain the

island of Hong Kong and the right to reside

in five ports—Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou,

Ningbo, and Shanghai. Further refinements of

this treaty in succeeding years gave to the other

powers the same rights as the British. A second

set of wars and treaties (1856–1860) led to the

opening of additional ports. By 1911, approxi-

mately 90 cities of China—along the entire

coast, up the Changjiang (Yangtze) River val-

ley, in North China, and in Manchuria—with

a third of a million foreign residents, were

opened as treaty or open ports (Figure 11.2).

The treaty ports introduced a new order

into traditional Chinese society. The West-

erners were there to make money, but they

also had the right of extraterritoriality, which

meant that they were not subject to Chinese

laws. Gradually taxation, police forces, and

other features of the municipal government,

including infrastructure, were developed by

the colonial countries controlling the treaty

ports. China’s sovereignty thus was supplanted

in the concession areas of treaty ports, as for-

eigners for modest rents paid to the Chinese

government leased these areas in perpetuity.

The most important treaty port was Shang-

hai (“On the Sea”), which had existed as a

small settlement for two millennia. By the

eighteenth century, the city was a medium-

sized county seat with a population of about

200,000 and built in traditional city style, with

a wall. The deposition of silt by the Changji-

ang River over the centuries, however, made

Shanghai no longer a port directly fronting

the sea. The town was now located about 15

miles (24 km) up the Huangpu River, a minor

tributary of the Changjiang.

Shanghai profited from its natural loca-

tional advantage near the mouth of the

Changjiang delta for handling the trade of

the largest and most populous river basin in

China. During the twentieth century, Shang-

hai’s manufacturing competed successfully

with other manufacturing centers emerging in

China, despite the absence of local supplies of

raw materials, because of the ease and cheap-

ness of water transport. This was achieved in

spite of a relatively poor site—an area of deep

silt deposits, a high water table, poor natural

drainage, an insufficient water supply, poor

foundations for modern buildings of any great

height, and a harbor on a narrow river that

required dredging to accommodate oceango-

ing ships. Shanghai became one of the best

examples worldwide of how a superb relative

location can trump a poor physical site to cre-

ate a great city.

The Japanese Impact

The Japanese also greatly influenced the urban

landscape in their two other colonies in East

Asia. During their rule of Taiwan (1895–1945)

and Korea (1910–1945), the Japanese intro-

duced Western-style urban planning prac-

tices, filtered through Japanese eyes, that they

later brought to Manchuria’s cities. Taipei was

made the colonial capital of Taiwan and trans-

formed from an obscure Chinese provincial

capital into a modern city. The city wall was

razed, roads and infrastructure were improved,

and many colonial government buildings were

constructed. The most prominent was the for-

mer governor’s palace, with its tall, red-brick

tower, which still stands in the heart of old

462 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

Taipei, and is now used as the Presidential

Office and executive branch headquarters for

Taiwan’s government. Like Taipei, Seoul was

also transformed to serve the needs of the Jap-

anese colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. In

Seoul’s case, however, this meant deliberately

tearing down traditional palaces and other

structures to be replaced by Japanese colonial

buildings as part of a brutal effort to stamp

out Korean resistance to Japanese rule.

Figure 11.2 Foreign Penetration of China in the nineteenth and Early twentieth Centuries. Source: Adapted from J. Fairbank et al., East Asian Tradition and Transformation (boston: houghton Mifflin, 1973), 577.

The Evolution of Cities 463

Hong Kong

Hong Kong (“Fragrant Harbor”) differed from

other treaty ports in that there was little pre-

tense of Chinese sovereignty there (though the

Chinese government insisted after 1949 that

Hong Kong was part of China). Hong Kong

was ceded to Britain at the same time Shang-

hai was opened up in the early 1840s. Hong

Kong became second only to Shanghai as the

most important entrepôt on the China coast

during the following century of colonialism.

The importance of Hong Kong was not

difficult to discover. In 1842, the city began

with the acquisition of Hong Kong Island

(Figure 11.3), a sparsely populated rocky

island some 70 miles (113 km) downstream

from Guangzhou. The Kowloon peninsula

across the harbor was obtained in a separate

treaty in 1858. Then, in 1898, the New Ter-

ritories—an expanse of islands and land on

the large peninsula north of Kowloon—were

leased from China for 99 years (hence, rever-

sion to China took place in 1997), creating a

total area of about 400 square miles (1040 sq

km) for the entire colony. The site factor that

so strongly favored its growth was one of the

world’s great natural harbors (Victoria Har-

bor), between Hong Kong Island and Kow-

loon. Indeed, the advantages of the harbor

Figure 11.3 Map showing urbanized areas in Pearl River delta and hong Kong. Pink represents urban areas. Source: based on 2015 Landsat data.

464 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

outweighed the disadvantages—limited level

land for urban expansion, inadequate water

supply, and insufficient adjacent farmland

to feed the population. The city’s location at

the mouth of southern China’s major drain-

age basin gave Hong Kong a large hinterland,

which greatly expanded when the north-south

railway from Beijing was pushed to Guang-

zhou in the 1920s. Thus, for about a century,

Shanghai and Hong Kong, two great colonial

creations, largely dominated China’s foreign

trade and links with the outside world.

Japan: The Asian Exception

Following the classic capitals of Nara and

Kyoto around the eighth century, other cities

followed in Japan, principally the centers of

feudal clans. Most of these were transitory, but

a sizable number have survived today.

Japan is referred to as the “Asian excep-

tion” because it had only a minor colonial

experience internally. Indeed, Japan was itself

a major colonial power in Asia. Hence, the

urban history of Japan involved an evolu-

tion almost directly from the premodern, or

traditional, city to the modern commercial/

industrial city. Japan did have treaty ports and

extraterritoriality imposed on it by the Treaty

of 1858 with the United States, which led to

foreigners residing in Japan as they did in

China. However, this colonial phase was short-

lived. Japan was able to change its system and

reestablish its territorial integrity by emulat-

ing the West. Extraterritoriality came formally

to an end in 1899, as Japan emerged an equal

partner among the Western imperial powers.

Gradual political unification during the Toku-

gawa period (1603–1868) led to the establish-

ment of a permanent urban network in Japan.

The castle town served as the chief catalyst

for urban growth. One of the most important

of these new castle towns to emerge at this

time was Osaka. In 1583, a grand castle was

built that served as the nucleus for the city to

come. Various policies stimulated the growth

of Osaka and other cities, including prohibi-

tions on foreign trade after the mid-1630s,

the destruction of minor feudal castles, and

prohibitions on building more than one castle

in each province. These policies had the effect

of consolidating settlements and encouraging

civilians to migrate to more important castle

communities.

The new castle towns, such as Osaka,

were ideally located (Figure 11.4). Because

of their economic and administrative func-

tions, they generally were located on level land

near important landscape features that were

advantageous for future urban growth. Thus,

Osaka emerged as the principal business,

financial, and manufacturing center in Toku-

gawa Japan. The Japanese cities of that period

were connected by a highway network that

stimulated trade and city growth. The most

famous of these early roads was the Tokaido

Highway, running from Osaka to Nagoya,

which emerged as another major commercial

and textile manufacturing center to the most

important city of this period and after—Edo

(Tokyo).

Among the major cities of Asia, Tokyo was

a relative latecomer. It was founded in the fif-

teenth century, when a minor feudal lord built

a rudimentary castle on a bluff near the sea,

about where the Imperial Palace stands today.

The site was good for a major city—it had a

natural harbor, hills that could easily be forti-

fied, and room on the Kanto Plain for expan-

sion. Tokyo really began a century later, when

Ieyasu, the Tokugawa ruler at that time, made

Edo his capital. Part of Tokyo still bears the

imprint of the grand design that Ieyasu and

his descendants laid out. They planned the

Internal Structure of East Asian Cities 465

Imperial enclosure, a vast area of palaces,

parks, and moats in the heart of the city. Much

of central Tokyo’s land was reclaimed from the

bay, a method of urban expansion that was to

typify Japanese city-building from then on,

reflecting the shortage of level land and the

need for good port facilities. By the early sev-

enteenth century, Edo had a population of

150,000 surrounding the most magnificent

castle in Japan. By the eighteenth century, the

population was well over 1 million, making

Edo one of the world’s largest cities.

Edo’s growth was based initially on its

role as a political center, tied to the other cit-

ies by an expansive road network. An early

dichotomy was established between Osaka,

as the business center, and Tokyo. With the

restoration of Emperor Meiji in 1868, Japan’s

modern era began. The emperor’s court

was moved from Kyoto to Edo, which was

renamed Tokyo (“Eastern Capital”) to signify

its role as national political capital. This trans-

fer of political functions, plus the great indus-

trialization and modernization program that

was undertaken from the 1870s, gave Tokyo

the boost that began its growth that continues

into the twenty-first century.

INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF EAST ASIAN CITIES

It is not easy to generalize about the internal

structure of cities in East Asia. This is partly

because of the basic division between social-

ist and non-socialist urban systems that has

characterized the region. It also is because of

the lack of fit of Western urban models even

for non-socialist cities of the region. In most of

East Asia, and increasingly also in China after

1979, the forces that produced and continue

to shape cities are similar to those in the West,

but with a major difference: China and North

Korea remain under a one-party authoritar-

ian system and a highly state-controlled econ-

omy. These forces include: (1) rapid urban

industrialization combined with increasing

urban-rural inequalities, leading to high rates

Figure 11.4 the osaka castle in the center of osaka city played a major role in the unification of Japan during the sixteenth century. Source: Photo by Kam Wing Chan.

466 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

of rural-to-urban migration, rates which have

now decreased in more developed economies

(Japan, South Korea, Taiwan), but that are

still high in China and Mongolia; (2) private

ownership of property and dominance of pri-

vate investment decisions affecting land use;

(3) high-density development and heavy reli-

ance on public transport systems despite rising

car ownership rates; and (4) significant strati-

fication of socioeconomic classes, especially

between locals and migrants. These and other

factors impact urban growth, how space is used

in cities, and the types and severity of problems.

DISTINCTIVE CITIES

With the exception of British Hong Kong and

Portuguese Macau, the colonial era in East

Asia ended with the defeat of Japan in 1945.

The emergence of communist governments

in the late 1940s in China and North Korea,

joining the already communist government

of Mongolia (established in the 1920s), split

the region into two distinctly different camps:

the socialist cities of China, North Korea, and

Mongolia, versus the market-economy cities

of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong,

and Macau. This affected Cold-War era align-

ments. In the late 1970s, China entered the

post-Mao or Reform Era, in which market

forces began to play a more significant role

in the economy and urban development.

Only North Korea remained wedded to rigid,

orthodox “socialism.”

One can also classify the major cities of

the region on the basis of function and size.

From this perspective, several cities are dis-

tinctive: megalopolises or super-conurbations

(Tokyo); recently decolonized cities (Hong

Kong); primate cities (Seoul); and socialist cit-

ies (Beijing and Shanghai) and regional cent-

ers (Taipei) undergoing rapid transformation

(Figure 11.5).

Figure 11.5 With taipei 101, taiwan’s capital reaches for new skylines, in stark contrast to twentieth-century socialist-era development. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Distinctive Cities 467

Tokyo and the Tokaido Megalopolis:

Unipolar Concentration

Japan illustrates especially well the phenom-

enon of super-conurbations or megalopolises.

A distinctive feature of Japan’s urban pattern is

the concentration of its major cities into a rel-

atively small portion of an already small coun-

try. Despite over a century of industrialization,

Japan was not more than 50 percent urbanized

until after World War II. By 2010, Japan’s rate

of urbanization had reached over 90 percent,

making it the most urbanized country in the

region. As the urban population grew dramat-

ically, so did the number and size of Japan’s

cities. Small towns and villages (those with

fewer than 10,000 people) declined sharply in

numbers and population, while medium and

large cities grew rapidly, all due to Japan’s phe-

nomenal economic postwar growth.

Almost all major cities are found in the

core region, which consists of a narrow band

beginning with the urban node of the tri-cit-

ies of Fukuoka, Kitakyushu, and Shimonoseki

at the western end of the Great Inland Sea.

Within this core is an inner core, containing

more than 50 percent of Japan’s total popu-

lation of 128 million, known as the Tokaido

Megalopolis, a 300-mile long regional urban

belt connecting the Tokyo and Osaka met-

ropolitan areas. Rapid growth from the late

1950s to the early 1970s occurred through

the migration of millions of youth from rural

areas. Since then, migration and growth have

increased toward Tokyo at the expense of the

rest of the country, including Tokyo’s long-

standing rival, Osaka, a phenomenon dubbed

unipolar concentration (i.e., urban primacy).

Tokyo continues to expand, draining people

and capital investment from other regions,

many of which are stagnating. The Osaka

region has not seen much industrial growth

to replace the smokestack industries, such as

steel and shipbuilding, and Osaka businesses

continue to relocate to Tokyo. This encour-

ages out-migration and depresses personal

consumption. Nagoya has fared better than

Osaka by maintaining employment and cen-

tral city vitality. However, for young people

especially, the economic and cultural pull of

Tokyo shows little sign of dissipating.

With over 36 million people, Tokyo’s nearly

30 percent share of Japan’s total population

is concentrated on 4 percent of the nation’s

land area. Tokyo has a disproportionate share

of workers, factories, headquarters of major

corporations, financial services, institutions

of higher education, industrial production,

exports, and college students. Tokyo is the

center for major governmental functions and

all 47 prefectural governments have branch

offices in Tokyo to liaise with the national

government, further bolstering its national

dominance.

During the late twentieth century, Tokyo’s

city core hollowed out due to suburbanization

and deindustrialization (Figure 11.6). There

was an increase in office and commercial

buildings for business, government, and retail,

while residential areas lost numbers, with

many elders living alone while children started

their families in the suburbs (Box 11.1). A

reversal of this migration pattern began in

the early 2000s after land prices bottomed out

during Japan’s recession. People were again

able to afford living in Tokyo’s central city dis-

tricts, which were being reshaped by a surge

in condominium developments targeting sin-

gles, working couples, and wealthier retirees.

Government policies promoted conversion of

former industrial lands and waterfront devel-

opment to accommodate housing, research

institutions, business and commercial use, and

light industry. These changes in Tokyo’s urban

468 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

Figure 11.6 tokyo Metropolitan Area and change in population density, 1970–2005. Source: Adapted from h. bagan and y. yamagata, “Landsat Analysis of Urban Growth: how tokyo became the World’s Largest Megacity during the Last 40 years,” Remote Sensing of Environment 127 (2012): 218.

Distinctive Cities 469

Box 11.1 Japan’s aging Cities

Japan’s aging cities are facing a looming crisis. the most serious challenges ahead are not, however, associated with aging buildings and infrastructure, but rather the country’s aging population. Japan faces an unprecedented drop in population related to gains in longevity and declining fertility, both occurring without large-scale in-migration to help counteract these trends, like what is happening in other countries facing a similar demographic shift. Projections suggest that close to 30 percent of Japan’s population will be 65 and over by 2030. in a country where 90 percent of the population is urbanized, this has profound impli- cations for cities.

the migration out of the central districts of cities like tokyo that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s was driven primarily by younger couples, many who left their parents to live in the old family home. this made good sense. older urban neighborhoods offered small-scale streets, local shopping, access to public transit, stronger social ties, and familiarity of place. but this also caused the urban cores to be populated disproportionately with older residents, many living alone in small houses or low-rise apartments. Such a concentration creates problems for governments in terms of social services and health-care provision, but also cre- ates challenges for older inner-city redevelopment. Conflicts often emerge around planning of high-rise condominium construction. neighbors come together to protest the diminished sunlight for houses surrounding the proposed high-rises. they worry also about changes to the social mix of neighborhoods and loss of intimacy that has developed between people who have lived together for decades. in some cases, these protests against high-rise projects lead also to calls on governments to improve livability in the older areas of the city. Sadly, however, these efforts are sometimes hindered by the very composition of the participants; in what can be quite protracted struggles against large property developers, some elderly activists are unable to sustain their fight to protect the community. And in a sad irony, while local governments have begun to pay greater attention to quality of life issues, in so far that this shift is linked to a global city agenda, the people that tokyo and other cities are trying retain and attract are not necessarily the elderly.

if one considers metropolitan areas as a whole, including the extended suburbs, the problems of Japan’s rapidly aging population become more complex. While inner suburbs have seen some increase in density, especially along commuter rail lines, the outer suburbs have experienced an exodus of younger people wishing to live closer to the city center for economic and social reasons. this is creating a high concentration of elderly living alone in certain suburban areas, mirroring the aging process in the inner-city neighborhoods. how- ever, unlike in the more dynamic and densely populated city center, local governments in the suburbs generally have fewer financial resources—and anticipate fewer resources as their populations decline. it will be difficult to meet the needs the elderly, who are also at greater risk of social isolation given their more dispersed residential patterns. these conditions have many now wondering about the social and economic sustainability of the “graying” suburbs outside of tokyo and other large cities of Japan.

470 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

landscapes mirror recent trends elsewhere: the

city is following the path of a global city mod-

eled on vertical, compact, and multifunctional

urban features.

Tokyo’s expansive transport system has

played a decisive role in development of the

metropolitan area. Commuter rail lines serv-

ing the suburbs were initially privately run

and the rail companies owned and developed

much of the surrounding land for housing

and commercial use. The lines did not run

through the city core. Terminal stations were

located along a 20-mile loop line that encir-

cled the city’s historical central districts and

remain the connection points between sub-

urban commuter trains and the subway, bus

and other rail cutting through the city center.

Many of these stations have developed into

major commercial districts with shopping,

entertainment, and restaurants, surrounded

by large building complexes for office and resi-

dential use. Shinjuku is the busiest of these sta-

tions, with over 3 million passengers per day.

The upscale shopping district Ginza is another

famous commercial district that developed

near the Yamanote Loop. Such nodes of high-

density development give Tokyo elements of

a multi-nucleic model intermixed with the

radial and concentric ring patterns of com-

muter rail and freeways. In 2007, 65 percent of

trips in the Tokyo metropolitan area were by

mass transit, making transit access an impor-

tant factor in many residents’ decision about

desirable and affordable places to live.

While residents of Tokyo enjoy access to

one of the world’s most extensive public tran-

sit systems, they struggle with high-density

problems, congestion, pollution, and sprawl.

Away from busy transit and shopping areas,

Tokyo’s neighborhoods can feel surprisingly

small-scale as low-rise buildings still domi-

nate the landscape (Figure 11.7). Lining major

roads are mid-rise office and residential build-

ings about 10–12 stories tall. Away from the

main streets, 2–5 story buildings and grids of

narrow streets and alleys cut through densely

built-up neighborhoods of small houses, low

multiunit residential buildings, stores, and

small factories. Pedestrians and bicycles are

more common than cars. This helps reduce

noise, which is important given that houses

are right next to the narrow streets. Railways

stations along commuter lines often serve as

neighborhood hubs with supermarkets and

shopping streets around them. The compact

nature of these neighborhoods gives them

social vitality and their form is one commonly

found throughout Japan.

Beijing: The New “Forbidden City”?

Beijing, the great “Northern Capital” for cen-

turies, was a horizontal, compact city of mag-

nificent architecture and artistic treasures of

China’s past grandeur when the “New China”

began in 1949, although the magnificence of

the old city had suffered greatly from general

neglect during the century of foreign intru-

sion and civil wars since the 1840s, and from

the “revolutionary reconstruction” and “mod-

ernization” in the last 60 years. Centered on

the former Forbidden City (Imperial Palace,

of course, off limits to the commoner), Bei-

jing was renowned for its sophisticated culture

and refined society, a status linked to the city’s

function as the political center of a vast nation.

Illustrating the city’s influence, the Beijing

dialect (Mandarin) became the national spo-

ken language (putonghua) after the collapse of

the last dynasty in 1911. However, despite its

political and cultural influence, there was little

industry and a relatively small population.

In 1949, the city was chosen as the national

capital of the new Communist government

Distinctive Cities 471

about 17 million. Natural population growth,

net migration to metro Beijing, and suburban-

ization in the last four decades have pushed

the metro boundary outward (Figure 11.8).

Prior to that, however, migration control to

Beijing was among the strictest in the country.

Only the well educated and those needed by

the central government could move to Beijing;

for the rest, it remained a “forbidden city.”

In the 1950s, Beijing was transformed into

a major industrial center. In the pre-1980

command-economy era, other urban func-

tions such as commerce and services were

greatly curtailed. Beijing became even more

like Moscow than Moscow was in the former

Soviet Union.

The changes to Beijing’s traditional urban

landscape were enormous in the Maoist era

(Nanjing was the national capital during the

Republican era, from the late 1920s to 1949).

Since communist takeover, the city has under-

gone several waves of demolition, construc-

tion, and expansion. Today, the administrative

area of Beijing covers a large territory, 6,500

square miles (16,800 sq km), encompassing an

urbanized core (high-density built-up area),

surrounded by numerous scattered towns and

large stretches of rural area and with a total

population of 20 million. But this shi (munici-

pality or city) is a large administrative region

and not a “metropolitan area” as it is often mis-

takenly conceived. Delineation of the approxi-

mate commuting zones (the suburbs) and

urbanized area would suggest a “metropolitan

Beijing” of about 3,700 sq km (~22 percent of

the administrative area), and a population of

Figure 11.7 one of tokyo’s busy narrow side streets, with commercial and residential land use in close proximity. Streets of this size and mix are quite common still even in the busy core of tokyo and other large Japanese cities. Source: Photo by Andre Sorensen.

472 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

(1949–1976), but continued to be signifi-

cant in the last two decades. In the pursuit

of “destroying the old and building the new”

during the Maoist revolutionary era, many

parts of the old city and the city walls were

knocked down to make way for a new social-

ist capital city. These changes shattered the

original form of Beijing and forever altered

its architectural character. While many parts

of the old city contained overcrowded court-

yard houses left from the prerevolution era

(Figure 11.9), the newly built section of the

city under Mao was one with arrow-straight,

wide boulevards and huge Stalinesque state

buildings, punctuated by seemingly endless

rows of unadorned low-rise monotonous

apartment blocks for the masses, with empha-

sis on uniformity, minimal frills, and lowest

possible construction costs. The city center

lacked a human scale and was deliberately

designed to emphasize the power of the party-

state. A huge area in front of the Tiananmen

(Gate of Heavenly Peace) was cleared to cre-

ate the largest open square of any city in the

world. Tiananmen Square became the staging

ground for vast spectacles, parades, and rallies

organized by the government. Mao and other

party leaders would orchestrate the scene

from on top of the gate like a latter-day impe-

rial court. After Mao died in 1976, his body

Figure 11.8 beijing metropolitan area has been expanding outward, fueled by in-migration and local residents moving from the city center to the suburbs. the map shows population growth rates by subdistrict unit in the urbanized part of beijing based on census data for 1982 and 2010. Source: Prepared by Kam Wing Chan, Richard L. Forstall and Guilan Weng.

Distinctive Cities 473

was embalmed and displayed inside a mauso-

leum on the south end of Tiananmen Square

along the north-south axis running through

the Palace Museum. The parallel with the dis-

play of Lenin’s body in Red Square in Moscow

was intentional, as was the attempt to link

Mao with the imperial tradition and the role

of Beijing as the center of China. Though the

square was designed and used mostly by those

in power, it also became the staging ground

for watershed mass protests organized by

students, intellectuals, and workers, from the

May Fourth Movement in 1919 to the failed

Pro-Democracy Movement in 1989. Else-

where, the charm of many traditional middle-

class courtyard houses in hutongs, or narrow

alleys, in the old city was almost lost in the

need to subdivide housing space for multiple

families, but often without necessary updates

and maintenance.

China’s large cities in the Maoist era were

manufacturing centers and administrative

nodes of an economic planning system that

focused on national, regional, and local self-

reliance (Figure 11.10). Most cities tried to

build relatively comprehensive industrial

structures, resulting in less division of labor

and exchanges than in a market economy. The

huge surrounding rural areas (often confus-

ingly called “suburban counties”) grew food,

mainly vegetables, for the cities. Some satel-

lite towns accommodated industrial spillover.

Without a land market, many self-contained

neighborhoods, based on large enterprises,

dominated the landscape of large cities, which

expanded in concentric zones. Beijing was no

exception.

New policies after Mao were meant to

address economic weaknesses and transform

Chinese cities via market reforms. Those

Figure 11.9 Pockets of traditional courtyard houses remain in hutongs, or alleys, in the inner city of beijing. Many of them have been torn down to make room for high-rise apartments and offices. Some “saved” are converted into shops in main hutongs. Source: Photo by Kam Wing Chan.

474 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

reforms have improved living standards, espe-

cially in coastal cities, and brought an urban

consumption boom. In Beijing, this resulted in

the proliferation of new stores and restaurants,

including mammoth malls. Beijing now also

has major commercial/financial districts, such

as Xidan, a busy shopping area with ultra-

modern architecture and expensive shops,

and Wangfujing, an old retail strip that is fully

pedestrianized. In the northwestern part of the

city is China’s “Silicon Valley,”—Zhongguan-

cun. Tech firms have set up main offices there

to gain proximity to top universities nearby.

Beijing has pushed outward and has a siz-

able daily commuting zone consisting of high-

rise apartments, luxury detached houses, and

often dilapidated “migrant villages” as far as 40

km from the city center (Figure 11.10). Urban

expansion parallels a noticeable increase in

income disparities and social differentiation.

Figure 11.10 Model of the City in the PRC. Source: Adapted from ya Ping Wang, Urban Poverty, Housing and Social Change in China (new york: Routledge, 2004).

Distinctive Cities 475

In the northern outskirts of Beijing, expensive,

detached, Western-style bungalow houses have

appeared, catering to expatriates and the new

rich. At the same time, with relaxed migration

controls since the mid-1980s, Beijing now has

a large migrant population of over 7 million.

These mostly rural migrants fill low-level

jobs shunned by the locals. However, these

migrants are not given legal residency status

(hukou) and are often denied access to many

urban services (Box 11.2). In addition, young

college graduates from other cities that do not

have Beijing hukou make their homes here.

Several migrant communities have sprung up

in Beijing’s suburbs, such as “Zhejiang Village”

and “Xinjiang Village.” These communities are

named after the provinces from which most

of their residents come, creating regionally

based urban enclaves. Living conditions in

these migrant villages provide a stark contrast

with those of wealthier neighborhoods

(Figure 11.11).

In the last two decades, the government has

implemented many programs to “beautify”

and modernize the city. They range from relo-

cating steel plants from the city and imple-

menting strict measures to limit the use of

automobiles to bring down air pollution lev-

els, demolishing old hutong houses, and dis-

placing hundreds of thousands of the city’s

poor for what critics call “image projects” of

building numerous very expensive ultramod-

ern architectural works. The 2008 Olympic

Games provided the greatest stimulus for

much beautification effort and for improve-

ments in urban infrastructure—newer

expressways and subway lines, a new airport

terminal—and construction of world-class

sports stadiums.

Under China’s national urbanization blue-

print promulgated in 2014, the government

plans to channel most migrants to small and

medium cities. Stringent measures are in place

to deter migration to major metropolises. The

measures include harder terms for school

enrollment for migrant children (Box 11.3).

As a result, many of them have lost their

school places in big cities. The situation was

Figure 11.11 Millions of migrants eke out their living on the urban fringes of beijing; some live in run-down village houses like this one. the photo was taken after a major rainstorm in summer 2012 in Chengzhongcun. Source: Photo by Wilfred Chan.

476 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

so grave in Beijing that hundreds of migrant

children and parents staged a three-month-

long protest against expulsion in front of the

local education commission office in summer

2014.

Shanghai: “New York” of China?

Shanghai is considered by many to be China’s

most vibrant city. This is because of its unique

colonial heritage and because it is the center

of change and new frontiers in social and eco-

nomic behavior. Shanghai is the largest and

Box 11.2 “Cities with invisible Walls:” the Hukou System in China

After the Communist Revolution in 1949, China opted for the Stalinist growth strategy of rapid industrialization-based extraction of agriculture. this industrialization strategy led China to create, in effect, a dual structure: on the one hand, the urban class, whose members worked in the priority and protected industrial sector and who had access to basic social welfare and full citizenship; and on the other hand, the peasants, who were tied to the land to produce an agricultural surplus for industrialization and who had to fend for themselves. this, in turn, required strong mechanisms to prevent peasants from leaving the countryside. in 1958, a comprehensive hukou (household registration) system was formalized to control population mobility and exclude peasants from social welfare. Each person has a hukou (registration status), classified as “rural” or “urban,” and tied to the locale he or she stayed. the decree required that all internal migration be subject to approval by the relevant local government, but approval was rarely granted. While old city walls in China had largely been demolished by the late 1950s, the power of this newly erected migration barrier functioned as invisible but effective city walls.

Since the late 1970s, development of markets and the demand for cheap labor for sweat- shop productions for the global market have led to easing of some migratory controls. Rural- hukou holders are now allowed to work in cities in low-end jobs shunned by urban residents, but they are still not eligible for basic urban social services and education programs. by the mid-1990s, rural-hukou migrant labor had become the backbone of China’s export industry and the service sector. in 2014, the size of “rural migrant labor” rose to about 170 million. this two-tier system of citizenship and the unequal treatment of the migrant population have seriously divided China and created many problems. Since 2014, the government has launched another round of hukou reform; whether it is real this time remains to be seen.

perhaps the most cosmopolitan city in China

and has one of the highest standards of liv-

ing. Shanghai city itself is part of the Shanghai

administrative region, comprising an urban-

ized core, suburbs, and outlying rural areas.

It covers a total area of 2,400 square miles

(6,300 sq km) with a population of 23 million,

including about 10 million illegal migrants.

With the rapid development of a national

and regional intercity high-speed rail system,

Shanghai is now the hub of a larger economic

region comprising several metropolises such

as Hangzhou and Nanjing (Figure 11.12).

Distinctive Cities 477

Box 11.3 “orphans” of China’s urbanization?

on the night of June 9, 2015, four children of the same family were found dead in their home in Guizhou. they were left in the poor village, without any proper care. they committed suicide together by drinking pesticide. the oldest boy was 13 years old, while his youngest sister was only 5.

in China, a new generation of children is growing up in the countryside with only one or no parents around during most of the year. hence, they are called “left-behind children.” there are more than 63 million of them in the country; half are age 6–14. they are left behind because their parents have gone to work in the city, often hundreds of miles away, as part of China’s gargantuan army of rural migrant workers, estimated at about 170 million in 2014. While they work in the city, their children often cannot go with them because of vari- ous reasons. A 2014 survey estimates that among those children, 10 million did not see their parents for one year or more, and 2.6 million never got even a phone call from their parents within a 12-month period. Many of these children develop psychological problems and some fall victim to bullying, physical or sexual abuse, or even serious accidents.

Under China’s current hukou policy, migrant workers and their accompanying children are considered only temporary residents in the city. And with very low incomes, they face many obstacles in obtaining education in the cities. though the central government since 2001 requires local governments to provide education for migrant children in grades 1–9 in places where their parents work, local governments only implement this measure half-heartedly. in many cities, claiming that they lack funding, local governments have erected direct and indirect barriers to deter migrant children from getting a public education.

Under China’s 2014 new urbanization blueprint, big cities are asked to limit their popula- tion size. As a result, admission to schools has been much harder for migrant children in big cities, forcing thousands to lose their school places. they either go back home or drop out altogether. the situation was so grave in beijing that hundreds of migrant children and parents staged a three-month-long protest in front of the local education commission office in 2014. the difficulties in getting an education for their kids in the city have forced many migrant parents to leave their kids in the countryside, despite the undesirability and unknown risks of prolonged family separation. Furthermore, public high schools (grades 10–12) are totally off limit to migrant children under China’s current policy. With a curricu- lum for the high school admission exam at home different from the one in the city, migrant school children wanting to continue high school often have to return to home villages years before grade 10 to prepare for the exam. in many instances, that means they are parted from their parents long term in their critical formative teenage years.

the deaths of the four kids in Guizhou have shocked many and drew public attention to their plight. While parents have direct responsibility for protecting their kids, arguably there is a more potent force—the hukou system that treats rural migrants differently and the related public school enrollment policy that discriminate against migrant children—that has directly and indi- rectly contributed to the plight of left-behind children. Some critics have said that these children are orphans of China’s rapid urbanization under its peculiar system and discriminatory policy.

478 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

Shanghai came the closest to a true

“producer” city in Mao’s era. In that era,

government revenues relied heavily on

remitted revenues from state-owned enter-

prises (SOEs). Shanghai, being the prime

center of SOEs, was a major cash cow for the

Figure 11.12 Shanghai’s economic influence extends to a network of cities and smaller towns beyond its boundaries. in this satellite image, pink highlights areas of concentrated commercial and residential use. Source: based on 2015 Landsat data.

Distinctive Cities 479

central government and was heavily protected

by the central government. China’s Stalinist-

type economic growth strategy prioritized

industry over agriculture, and that strategy

greatly benefited Shanghai, which maintained

its lead economic position throughout Mao’s

years. As with many cities in that time, invest-

ment poured into industry but little in “non-

productive” facilities such as housing and

infrastructure. The downtown area, particu-

larly around the Bund, or riverfront district,

where the major Western colonial settlers built

trading houses, banks, consulates, and hotels,

had the look of a 1930s Hollywood movie set.

In 1934, in the center of the city, the 22-story

Park Hotel was built. It was then the tallest

building in Asia and remained the city’s tall-

est for almost another half century until 1983,

when high-rises were again constructed. It was

the relative neglect of many cities, including

Shanghai, which contributed to the impres-

sion that the Maoist policy was “antiurban,”

although the reality was quite the opposite.

With the reopening of China in the late

1970s, under the open policy, foreign investors

returned to China, this time at the invitation

of the Chinese government. Shanghai received

a major impetus for development in 1990 in

the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen crack-

down, as the government struggled to regain

foreign investors’ confidence. China decided

in 1990 to open up Pudong (“East of the Pu,”

i.e., the Huangpu River, which bisects Shang-

hai), an essentially farming region on the east

side of the old city core (Figure 11.13). The

aggressively promoted World Expo 2010 was

held largely in Pudong with a record number

of 73 million visitors.

Figure 11.13 Since the early 1990s, Shanghai’s new Cbd has arisen across the river in Pudong, centered on the futuristic tV tower around surrounded by ultramodern skyscrapers. Pudong Cbd is China’s financial district. Source: Photo by Kam Wing Chan.

480 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

The Pudong development project was one

of China’s most ambitious undertakings. It

included massive investment in infrastructure

(including a new airport and a 30-km (18.6

mi) Maglev rail line) and a package of pref-

erential policies, similar to those in China’s

special economic zones (SEZs), to woo foreign

capital. These measures included lower taxes,

lease rights on land, and retention of revenues.

In Pudong, emphasis was given to high-tech

industries and financial services rather than

simply export processing. Among the foreign

investors, Taiwanese businessmen have several

thousand companies in the greater Shanghai

region (including nearby cities like Kunshan

and Suzhou), with an estimated one-quar-

ter million Taiwanese residing and working

nearby. A “Little Taipei” has emerged in the

Zhangjiang High-Tech Park in Pudong.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange, opened

in 1990, is China’s largest stock market. The

skyline of Pudong is intentionally futuristic,

with flickering neon-lit glass and steel sky-

scrapers, including a TV observation tower

that has become an icon for Pudong and the

New China (Figure 11.16). Shanghai’s stock

exchange is China’s largest by market capi-

talization and ranks the third in the world

by market capitalization. It is quite a contrast

to the neoclassical Bund on the other side of

the river. Shops and architecture in some sec-

tions have a very cosmopolitan feel and again

there is a sizable expatriate community. How-

ever, behind the glistening architecture, there

also lives a very large population of migrant

poor, often struggling to make a living in this

metropolis.

Many problems plague the city and the

region: serious interjurisdictional rival-

ries among local governments, the faraway

location of the new international airport in

Pudong, overheated real estate development,

serious traffic congestion, and severe air and

water pollution. Perhaps most important,

Shanghai still lacks a well-established legal

system that can truly protect citizens’ rights

and rein in officials from abuses of their pow-

ers. These are criticisms that could be directed

at all of China today.

Hong Kong: Business Not as Usual

At the stroke of midnight on June 30, 1997,

Hong Kong was officially handed over to

China and became the Hong Kong Special

Administrative Region (SAR). This event

marked the end of the colonial era in Asia and

the rise of China’s power. Hong Kong was one

of the last two colonial enclaves left in all of

Asia by the late twentieth century. The other

colony, Macau, was returned to China by Por-

tugal in 1999, and became the Macau SAR.

Hence, as China entered the new century, its

humiliating experience with foreign colonial-

ism ended after almost 160 years.

The 1997 handover committed China to

guarantee Hong Kong 50 years of complete

autonomy in its internal affairs and capitalist

system, under a model known as “one country,

two systems.” The latter refers to the “socialist”

system in the PRC and the “laissez faire” capi-

talist system in Hong Kong. With the excep-

tion of defense and foreign relations, the city

was to be “ruled by Hong Kong people.” In

the Basic Law (the SAR’s constitution) prom-

ulgated in 1990, China even consented that

the SAR would choose its own chief execu-

tive based on universal suffrage. Nevertheless,

worries over what would really happen after

1997 under China’s rule triggered an exodus

of about half a million Hong Kongers, mostly

the wealthy and the professionals, to Canada

(especially Vancouver and Toronto), Australia,

and the United States.

Distinctive Cities 481

Earlier, while still under the British, many

fled to Hong Kong from China after the com-

munist takeover in 1949. Hong Kong’s popu-

lation soared from half a million in 1946 to

more than 2 million by 1950. The flows, both

legal and illegal, continue. Squatter settle-

ments appeared in the 1950s and the economy

was in a shambles. The British, in collabora-

tion with Chinese entrepreneurs, including

many industrialists who had fled Shanghai

and other parts of China, turned Hong Kong’s

economy around by developing products,

“Made in Hong Kong,” for export. It was a

spectacularly successful transformation, with

investment pouring in from Japan, the United

States, Europe, and the overseas Chinese.

Cheap, hardworking labor was available. Site

limitations were overcome by massive landfill

projects, and fresh water and food were pur-

chased from adjacent Guangdong Province.

During the Cold War period of the 1950s

and 1960s, Hong Kong commanded a unique

geopolitical position. One paradox of Hong

Kong was that China continued to permit this

arch symbol of unrepentant Western capital-

ism and colonialism to exist and thrive on

Chinese territory. The Chinese did this partly

because Hong Kong made lots of money for

them, too—several billion dollars annually

in foreign exchange earned from the PRC’s

exports to Hong Kong and banking and com-

merce investments. Moreover, a struggling,

isolationist, socialist China saw a practical

advantage in keeping the door open a crack

to the outside world, and also in not being

responsible for solving Hong Kong’s stagger-

ing problems. Banker’s Row in Central District

came to symbolize the financial powerhouse

that Hong Kong had become, with the Bank

of China, the Hongkong Shanghai Bank-

ing Corporation (HSBC), and the Chartered

Bank of Great Britain lined up side by side.

The first two are regarded today as among the

most important architectural structures of

the twentieth century and symbols of Hong

Kong’s emergence as a world city.

As one of the top tourist meccas in the

world, Hong Kong is a stunning sight. The

skyline is spectacular, especially at night, with

its glittering, ultramodern high-rise buildings

packed side by side along the shoreline and

up the hillsides (Figure 11.14). Hong Kong’s

economy is heavily dependent on the property

market. Rents are among the highest in the

world, which burdens the middle and work-

ing classes. The built environment is crafted

to fit every possible urban activity. Some of

the urban designs are quite ingenious. After

the international airport moved to Chek Lap

Kok on Lantau Island in 1997, building height

limitations in Kowloon ended. The Kowloon

side is now taking on a Manhattan-like pro-

file. There seems no limit to the construction

boom and demand for new buildings and

other structures in this dynamic city.

Less eye-catching to the average visitor,

but themselves impressive social accomplish-

ments, are Hong Kong’s social housing and

new town programs. They were begun in the

1950s to cope with the large influx of Chinese

refugees. The programs gradually expanded

into some of the world’s largest. Today, about

half of Hong Kong’s population of 7 million

lives in social housing. Indeed, because of

much lower rents and prices, social housing

has been a major mechanism for decentraliz-

ing the population outside of the main urban

area. Reclamation has been a main strategy for

creating new land for the city. Many large new

towns, such as Shatin and Tuen Mun, were

built almost totally on land reclaimed from

the sea.

Hong Kong’s export industry gradually

declined with China’s opening in the late

482 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

1970s. Hong Kong took advantage of the

cheap land and labor in the Pearl River Delta

and has steadily outsourced its manufactur-

ing to the delta (while company headquarters

remain in Hong Kong). Over 100,000 Hong

Kong-invested enterprises operate in the delta

region and employ several million workers.

In economic terms, the delta and Hong Kong

are now a highly integrated region, one of

the world’s major exports centers, with Hong

Kong serving as the “shop front” and the delta

as the “factory” (Figure 11.3). Tens of thou-

sands of people cross the land border between

Hong Kong and Shenzhen daily for work,

school, or shopping.

Hong Kong has been the banking and

investment center for the China trade, as well

as regional headquarters for many interna-

tional corporations since the late 1970s. It

has played a crucial role as the intermediary

between China and the world, including serv-

ing as middleman for Taiwan’s huge economic

dealings with the PRC in the 1990s. Tourism

remains vital, with many coming from the

mainland and skyrocketing from about 4 mil-

lion in 2001 to more than 41 million in 2013!

While tourists shopping in Hong Kong gener-

ate sizable revenues for the city, they also bring

significant transportation congestion.

The post-handover period has witnessed

the city’s rapid transition to Asia’s premier

financial and service center. Simultaneously,

a series of mishaps and policy blunders (such

as the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory

Syndrome, SARS, in 2003) have undermined

confidence in the new government. Rising

economic competition, including from other

Chinese cities (especially Shanghai, Shenzhen,

Figure 11.14 this view of hong Kong island, taken from Kowloon across the harbor, dramatically conveys the modernity and wealth of today’s hong Kong. the Central Plaza building towers over the wave-like profile of the Convention Center, where the ceremony of the handover to China took place in 1997. Source: Photo by Kam Wing Chan.

Distinctive Cities 483

and Guangzhou) also put pressure on the city

as it struggles to find its role as China rises.

More alarmingly, income gaps between rich

and poor have risen to a very high level—the

highest in the developed world, according to

several recent studies. Observers have linked

mass protests—some quite disruptive—in the

last few years to this widening wealth gap and

to the government’s pro-business stance with

little attention to the welfare of the people.

In addition, there is a more, and prob-

ably the most, critical issue for Hong Kong:

maintaining relations with mainland China,

and protecting its autonomy. Many people

in Hong Kong have long expressed concerns

over this issue and many have actually voted

with their feet and left, damaging the ability to

protect the city’s cherished political and press

freedoms. These rights are not enjoyed by

mainland compatriots and are often frowned

on by PRC leaders. The difficulties of keep-

ing that rather tenuous balance have surfaced

in almost perennial mass protests on July 1

(“The SAR day”), and civil disobediences, cul-

minating in the Occupy Central mass protest

in 2014. At the height of the protest, hundreds

of thousands of people took part; it lasted for

more than two months and paralyzed the cen-

tral city (Figure 11.15). The popular protest

was against PRC’s imposition of a screening

mechanism of candidates in the proposed

election system of the SAR’s chief execu-

tive based on universal suffrage in 2017. The

proposed system did not get enough votes to

pass in the SAR legislature in 2015, and Hong

Kong’s future political system remains uncer-

tain. Whatever may happen, it is clear that the

SAR’s future is irrevocably and closely tied to

that of China. Business in Hong Kong cannot

go on as usual, as some had once thought.

Figure 11.15 Also called the “Umbrella Movement,” the occupy Central protest in 2014 was the largest civil disobedience movement since 1967. the protest was against the proposed “universal suffrage” system, which critics consider as not genuine. Source: Photo by Wilfred Chan.

484 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

Taipei: In Search of an Identity?

Although regional centers are found through-

out East Asia, a particularly good example is

Taipei, which has been emerging from its pro-

vincial cocoon and acquiring some of the aura

of a world-class city, following in the footsteps

of Hong Kong. There is ambiguity about how

to classify Taipei: after 1950, it became the

“temporary” capital of the Republic of China

(ROC) government-in-exile and as such expe-

rienced phenomenal and unexpected growth.

If the communists had succeeded in captur-

ing Taiwan in 1950, as they had hoped, Tai-

pei would be a vastly different place today,

probably something akin to present-day Xia-

men across the Taiwan Strait. Instead, Taipei

skyrocketed from a modest Japanese colonial

capital city of a quarter million in 1945 to the

present metropolis of more than 6 million

that completely fills the Taipei basin and spills

northeast to the port of Keelung, northwest

to the coastal town of Tanshui (now a high-

rise suburban satellite), and southwest toward

Taoyuan and the international airport. Func-

tionally, the city changed from being a colo-

nial administrative and commercial center

to becoming the control center for one of

the most dynamic economies in the postwar

world.

When the ROC’s government retreated

from mainland China to Taiwan in 1950, the

provincial capital moved to a new town built

expressly for this purpose in central Taiwan,

not far from Taichung (Figure 11.16). Taipei

was theoretically concerned with “national”

affairs and hence had all national government

offices recreated there (transplanted with

administrators and legislators from Nanjing).

The provincial capital dealt with agriculture

and similar island (local) affairs. This artificial

dichotomy, designed to preserve the fiction

that the ROC government was the legal gov-

ernment of all of China, held until the early

1990s, when the government finally publicly

admitted that it had no jurisdiction over the

mainland. Over the decades, Taipei became a

large bureaucratic center due to construction

of national capital-level buildings in the city.

Huge tracts of land formerly occupied by the

Japanese were taken over by the government

after 1945 and the single-party authoritar-

ian political system under the Kuomintang

(KMT) allowed the government to develop

the city largely free of open public debate.

After President Chiang Kai-shek died in 1975,

a huge tract of military land in central Taipei

was transformed into a gigantic memorial to

Chiang, one of the largest public structures

in Taiwan. As Taiwan’s political system was

democratized over the last two decades, this

type of memorial and other commemorative

fixtures of the KMT rule under Chiang have

been attacked, especially 2000–2008 when the

island was governed by a pro-Taiwan inde-

pendence party, the Democratic Progressive

Party (DPP), which remains a strong opposi-

tion party.

Taipei’s metropolitan area, with an esti-

mated population of about 7 million is thrice

the size of Kaohsiung metropolitan area, the

second largest in the island and the island’s

main heavy industrial center. Taipei today

remains the center of international trade

and investment and includes a large expatri-

ate community. Culture, entertainment, and

tourism are all focused on Taipei. Because of

its colonial heritage, the city’s culture is dis-

tinctly Japanese. Manufacturing in Taipei is

now concentrated in a number of satellite

cities, to the west and south. The old port of

Keelung, once the link with Japan, serves as

the port outlet for the north. As with Seoul,

most of the city’s population increase over five

Distinctive Cities 485

Figure 11.16 Map of taiwan. Source: based on Jack Williams and Ch’ang-yi david, Change, Tawian’s Environmental Struggle: Toward a Green Silicon Island (new york: Routledge, 2008).

486 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

decades resulted from in-migration from the

densely populated countryside, a migration

that has been primarily toward the suburban

satellite cities recently. What used to be Taipei

County surrounding Taipei City (in admin-

istrative terms) was incorporated as a new

city, “New Taipei,” in 2010. New Taipei City is

Taipei’s suburbs, the population of which is

larger (more than 4 million) than Taipei City’s

(about 2.7 million).

Taipei in 2004 also became the site (tempo-

rarily) of the world’s tallest building, with the

opening of the 101-story Taipei 101. Large-

scale suburbanization has also taken place, as

young professionals have moved to the north-

ern suburbs, or southward. Taipei reflects ele-

ments of the concentric zone model and the

multi-nucleic model. In some respects, Taipei

looks like Seoul on a smaller scale, with mod-

ern buildings, broad, tree-lined boulevards,

and a high standard of living. Substantial

clean-up and improvements came with the

1990s. As the political system was democra-

tized, the environment became an important

concern and urban development became an

open topic for public input. An excellent rapid

mass-transit system eases the transportation

crush, composed of hordes of motorbikes and

private automobiles.

Like Hong Kong, a significant portion of

manufacturing in Taiwan has been outsourced

to mainland China. Closer economic integra-

tion with PRC has brought the uncomfortable

and contentious issue of cross-Strait rela-

tions. More so than in Hong Kong, views are

far more polarized among the population in

Taiwan regarding how closely it should engage

with the PRC economically and politically.

This was shown in the Sunflower protest (last-

ing for three weeks) in 2014, the same year

Hong Kong had its largest civil unrest since

1967.

Seoul: The “Phoenix” of Primate Cities

Seoul exhibits urban primacy in an especially

acute form. The metropolitan area of Seoul

houses over 25 million people, slightly half of

South Korea’s total population of 50 million,

putting it in the top ranks of the world’s meg-

acities. Seoul metropolitan region includes the

smaller neighboring city of Incheon and the

surrounding province of Gyonggi, which has a

network of high-rise residential and commer-

cial centers. In 1950, Seoul had barely more

than 1 million people, just slightly more than

second-ranked Pusan (Busan), the main port

on the southeast coast. In 2015, Pusan had

only 3.4 million people.

Seoul is the political, cultural, educational,

and economic heart of modern South Korea,

the nerve center for the powerful state that

South Korea has become. As South Korea’s cap-

ital, Seoul has a large tertiary sector devoted to

government and military forces. Manufactur-

ing is another major employer, especially elec-

tronics, machinery, and automobiles. In the

past decade, some labor-intensive manufac-

turing has shifted to other Korean cities and

to other countries. Seoul remains an impor-

tant location for headquarters of many global

corporations such as Samsung, LG Group,

and Hyundai Motors. Though not yet on par

with Tokyo or New York, Seoul is considered

a world city. Over the past two decades, it has

become increasingly cosmopolitan and glob-

ally connected via flows of capital and people,

changes that are closely related to broader

processes of democratization and globaliza-

tion in South Korea.

The rise of Seoul to become one of the

largest cities in the world is surprising from a

locational viewpoint. The city’s site, midway

along the highly populated western coastal

plain of the Korean Peninsula was a logical

Distinctive Cities 487

place for the national capital of a unified

Korea. However, since the division of the pen-

insula in the late 1940s and the bitter stalemate

between North and South Korea since 1953,

Seoul’s location just 20 miles (32 km) from

the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that divides

North and South, makes the city highly vul-

nerable. The city was nearly leveled during

the Korean War, when the North occupied the

city twice. In the 1970s, a greenbelt was estab-

lished that encircled the city approximately

9 miles (15 km) from the core and limited its

spatial expansion. This was done to contain

urban sprawl as well as to protect Seoul from

North Korean artillery attacks. Urban plan-

ning policies of the 1980s directed develop-

ments southward, across the Han River, which

was a strategy similarly informed by national

defense concerns. Despite concerns about

safety, Seoul has experienced an increasing

and seemingly unstoppable influx of peo-

ple and economic activity over the past five

decades.

Post-1960s, growth is primarily the result

of massive rural-to-urban migration, encour-

aged by Korea’s transformation into an urban-

industrial society as South Korea embarked on

an export-oriented industrialization strategy

concentrated around Seoul. The urban land-

scape includes a dizzying mix of high-rise

apartment blocks, mid-level residential and

commercial buildings, with pockets of older

1–2 story buildings; especially southward, the

urban landscape now seems “centerless,” as

dense developments and high-rise buildings

create a multi-nucleic pattern throughout the

metropolitan area.

Expansion away from the old city (north of

the Han River) was driven by a series of pol-

icy interventions intended to decentralize the

economic functions by establishing new resi-

dential and industrial development areas. The

first wave of policy-led expansion occurred in

the 1970s and produced suburbanization with

massive new subdivisions dominated by high-

rise apartment complexes, dense retail, new

corporate headquarters, and the relocation of

many public facilities belonging to national

and city governments. A second wave of devel-

opment in the 1990s responded to demands

for more affordable housing. Five large-scale

new towns were established 12–15 miles from

the city center. Their locations were dictated

by the strict greenbelt policy that created a

barrier to continued expansion of Seoul’s

existing suburban areas. Approximately 20

percent of the population, or about 2 million

people, moved out from Seoul’s central areas

between 1992 and 1999. With little industry of

their own, these new towns functioned at first

much like bedroom communities, linked by

highways, and later by transit lines, to the cen-

tral areas of Seoul. The combination of these

two waves of expansion led to a “hollowing

out” of the older parts of Seoul, north of the

Han River, laying the foundation for an urban

renewal program that began in the late 1990s.

Older parts of the city have since transformed

through a series of large-scale redevelopment

projects intended to improve housing qual-

ity with construction of new high-rise apart-

ments that allow for more open space within

the city center.

Changes in the built form and social land-

scape of Seoul have occurred in parallel with

economic changes. While its early “take-off”

occurred through heavy industrialization

based on the availability of cheap labor, Seoul

today is better described as a postindustrial

metropolis whose economic development is

centered on financial and corporate services,

real estate, and in recent years, high-tech and

creative industries. With this shift, city leaders

have sought to rebrand Seoul as a leading-edge

488 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

on new guises and, except for North Korea,

look somewhat similar across the region.

The Chinese Way

Before 1979, China pursued a Stalinist-type

industrialization program, suppressing per-

sonal consumption (the “nonproductive” side

of cities) and squeezing agriculture to help

finance rapid industrial growth. To main-

tain the huge imbalance between city and the

countryside, strict controls over migration to

the city through the hukou (household regis-

tration) system was maintained. Urban resi-

dents had some basic welfare and guaranteed

jobs, but their lives were closely monitored.

Such an approach kept Chinese people, even

in the city, at the bottom rank of the living

standards among East Asia’s countries and has

resulted in mass poverty in the countryside.

When Mao died in 1976, the system began to

change.

In the late 1970s, China’s leaders began to

make significant policy changes to key eco-

nomic policies of the Maoist era yet did not

abandon the one-party system and authori-

tarian rule. China became open to foreign-

ers for investment, trade, tourism, technical

assistance, and other economic contacts as the

policy of self-reliance was set aside. Rapid inte-

gration with the global economy profoundly

impacted cities and urban development in the

coastal region. China first established export-

processing zones, such as Shenzhen, with

concessionary tax policies to attract foreign

investment. By the mid-1990s, practically the

entire coastal region contained thousands of

“open zones” vying for foreign investments.

Another major change is de-collectiviza-

tion of agriculture and the return to private

smallholdings (under the Household Respon-

sibility System) in the early 1980s. This shift

high-tech and sustainable city. The green belt,

which was criticized in the past for failing to

curb urban growth and leading to suburban

sprawl, is now seen as an important green

space winding through a dense metropolitan

area. The satellite towns, once largely depend-

ent on Seoul, have become more independent

commercial centers, relieving commuter traf-

fic congestion. With improved mass-transit,

auto-dependent commuting from suburban

areas has decreased. Initially built to meet

the needs of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the

impressive transit system is now more exten-

sive, combining subways, trains, and buses

throughout the metropolitan area. Mirroring

these improvements in transportation net-

works, Seoul has transformed itself into one

of most wired cities in the world. With Seoul’s

promotion of innovation and creative indus-

tries, its economic and cultural dynamism

will likely be linked closely to future digital

development.

URbAN PRObLEMS AND THEIR SOLUTIONS

The relatively clear-cut dichotomy between

the socialist path of China, North Korea, and

Mongolia, and the non-socialist path of the

rest of East Asia that characterized the region

through the 1970s is no longer valid. China

has abandoned orthodox socialism though

one-party rule remains. North Korea occa-

sionally hints that it might also do so, but

then slips back into Stalinist suspicion of the

outside world (Box 11.4). Mongolia, like Rus-

sia, abandoned not only a socialist system

but also single-party rule, and now struggles

to join the capitalist world. The colonial era

is now over in the region. As a result of these

changes, urban problems and solutions take

Urban Problems and their Solutions 489

Box 11.4 isolation: Peripheral Cities

isolation can be a huge handicap for cities, but isolation is a relative concept, in that it can be caused by both natural and man-made factors. Four cities in East Asia—Pyongyang, Ulan bator, Urumqi, Lhasa—play important roles in their respective regions, yet are really isolated, that is, they are peripheral geographically and in terms of their linkages with the rest of the world.

Pyongyang (“Flat Land”) is perhaps the biggest anomaly of the four. the government of north Korea rules this austere, reclusive nation of about 25 million from the capital city of Pyongyang. At an estimated 3.5 million in the metro region, Pyongyang is 3–4 times larger, in classic primacy fashion, than the next two largest cities, Chongjin and hamhung. this is hardly a surprise, given the centrally planned, Stalinist system that hangs on, long after the Soviet Union, Maoist China, and communist Mongolia saw the light. Leveled to the ground during the Korean War (1950–1953), Pyongyang was totally rebuilt in the true socialist city model, with broad boulevards and massive government buildings, a superficially modern showcase of socialist dogma, but a city that gets terrible reviews from the a limited number of foreigners who have managed to visit. Pyongyang is little more than a grandiose monu- ment to the whims of north Korea’s autocratic rulers. the city may be geographically sited in the heart of East Asia, but it might as well be in the middle of Siberia.

by contrast, Mongolia’s capital city of Ulan bator (Ulaanbataar, “Red hero”) with its 1.3 million people is the center of a country now doing everything possible to integrate with the outside world. the main problems are Mongolia’s tiny population (2.9 million), sprawling land area, and geographical isolation. Ulan bator is also a primate city. As Mongolia sheds its socialist past and democratizes, the country is rapidly urbanizing and trying to find alter- natives to the processing of animal products for its small economy. tourism is growing, but industry is never likely to be significant here. it will be difficult to overcome the country’s geographical limitations, and hence Ulan bator will likely remain largely a minor regional center.

Urumqi (“beautiful Pasture”) is also a regional capital, for the xinjiang Autonomous Region in China. An ancient city, Urumqi has become a booming metropolis of about 3 million, with a largely han Chinese population, as the center of China’s administration and development of xinjiang. As such, Urumqi in recent decades has increasingly taken on the character and physical appearance of a Chinese city, very similar to those found throughout the eastern, more populous part of the country. Although geographically the most isolated of our four peripheral cities, Urumqi is actually very much in touch with the outside world, largely because of China’s prodigious economic growth in recent decades. the city is the focal point of large-scale tourism, industrialization, and development of the region’s oil and other resources. Urumqi is also the center of efforts by the Chinese government to con- tain separatist tendencies among xinjiang’s largely Muslim population (especially among the Uigur). hence, the city’s geopolitical importance may well exceed its economic role.

490 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

Lhasa (“Place of the Gods,”) is the capital city of tibet and similar in many ways to Urumqi, although much smaller with under 300,000 in the urban area (Figure 11.17). if not for Chinese rule, Lhasa would be even more geographically isolated as one of the world’s high- est cities (nearly 12,000 feet elevation). Also an ancient city and center of tibet’s unique buddhist culture under the dalai Lama (in exile in india), Lhasa was thrust into the modern world with China’s takeover in the 1950s and became the focal point of China’s efforts to con- tain tibetan separatism, drawing much international attention in the process. Like Urumqi, Lhasa is rapidly become essentially a Chinese city, with the han Chinese population stead- ily increasing, and Chinese urban forms displacing much that was traditional and tibetan. tibet remains one of China’s poorest regions, and Lhasa’s economy is largely dependent on tourism and services, subsidized by the beijing government in its determination to ensure that peripheral regions (and their key cities) like xinjiang and tibet remain firmly within the PRC. one powerful demonstration of this effort was the opening in 2006 of the first railway linking tibet with the rest of China (via Qinghai province to the north). tibetan nationalists view the railway as one more tentacle of beijing’s grip. beijing, in turn, sees the railway as an essential tool to further bring tibet into the modern world and irrevocably into the PRC.

in sum, these four cities, in their historical as well as recent development, illustrate that isolation can be imposed by nature or by government, but overcoming isolation is no easy task.

Figure 11.17 the Potala Palace dominates Lhasa, the capital of tibet. this city used to be the home of tibet’s traditional ruler, the dalai Lama. Source: Photo by ond ej Žvá ek.

Urban Problems and their Solutions 491

everyone (Figure 11.18). Surplus labor in the

countryside, especially in older age groups,

remains serious. Moreover, impacting virtu-

ally everyone, rich or poor, is the critical state

of the environment. In the last decade, cities

of China have gained a reputation for serious

environmental problems, commonly cited as

the world’s most polluted cities. This has not

gone unnoticed, as governments at all levels

have invested in improving urban environ-

mental conditions.

Other Paths in East Asia

As with big cities around the world, the indus-

trial cities of East Asia are experiencing pro-

found problems of overcrowding, pollution,

traffic congestion, crime, and shortages of

affordable housing and other amenities. This

has been a region of impressive economic

growth and advancement in recent decades

and many urban residents now have stand-

ards of living among the highest in the world

(except for housing). Retail stores of all types

provide consumer goods for affluent residents.

At night, cities glitter with eye-popping dis-

plays of neon lights, nowhere more dazzling

than in Japan. Behind all this, there has been

increasing concern about widening wealth

inequality. The poor are the elderly, the immi-

grants, or rural migrants. This is especially

serious in China, where internal migrants

constitute about 230 million in 2014. Denied

access to basic social services, many of them

barely eke out a living on urban fringes.

Expensive land is a major constraint to

urban development. Thus, the major cities

are increasingly following in the footsteps

of most other large cities with high-rise syn-

drome. Growing competition among regional

cities exists to build the tallest skyscraper, as

if having the tallest building conveys status

helped raise labor productivity and brought a

better quality of life to hundreds of millions

of peasants. As many laborers were no longer

needed on the farm, the government was

forced to relax internal migration restrictions.

The migrant workers, estimated at 170 million

in 2014, provide plentiful low-cost labor to

make China the “world’s factory.” Migrants

fill many industrial and service jobs shunned

by urban workers, but under the hukou policy

these migrants do not have the same citizens’

rights and social benefits as ordinary urban

residents. This two-tier urban citizenship sys-

tem and unequal treatment of the migrant

population has become a major urban con-

cern. For example, Shenzhen had been a small

village at the China-Hong Kong border and

within three decades became a major export-

processing center with more than 10 million

inhabitants, many of who are young migrants

without the local hukou status.

The negative side of China’s new policy, a

combination of market approach and one-

party rule, has generated new imbalances

between rural and urban areas, provinces and

different regions, and socioeconomic classes.

To some urbanites, life has unquestionably

improved and appears increasingly similar to

that of the rest of East Asia. Many big cities

now offer a great variety and quality of goods

and services, including many luxury ones, a

huge contrast from the Maoist years. In fact,

some sections of large cities today look like

Hong Kong or Taipei. To many others, urban

life has also become a hectic struggle to make

ends meet, especially with escalating hous-

ing prices. Economic and social polarization

is definitely rising. An expanding class of

urban poor consists of migrants and laid-off

older SOE workers. Unemployment exists in

a rapidly aging population: China simply has

too many people to provide employment for

492 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

cities make maximum use of underground

space, with enormous, complex underground

malls interconnected by subway systems.

Suburban movement outward from the

central city is the only other alternative. New

communities have sprung up, including bed-

room towns where people can obtain better

housing with cleaner air and less noise for less

money, even though doing so often means

and superiority. Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei,

Seoul, and others compete. Even Japan’s cit-

ies, long characterized by relatively low sky-

lines because of earthquake hazards, have

succumbed to high-rise construction, such as

in the cluster of the 50-plus-story buildings

centered on the city government complex in

Tokyo’s Shinjuku District, or the new high-

rise profile in the port of Yokohama. These

Figure 11.18 Migrant workers shine shoes on a street in Wuhan, the largest city in central China. “Rural migrant workers,” numbered about 170 million in 2014, are everywhere in China’s major cities, doing all kinds of work. the huge army of cheap migrant labor is crucial to China’s success in being the “world’s factory.” Source: Photo by Kam Wing Chan.

Urban Problems and their Solutions 493

disperse growth into less developed areas in

the suburbs. While promotion of this multi-

nodal structure for the metropolitan region

may address issues such as traffic congestion

in the urban core, the new high-growth areas

also expand and reinforce Tokyo’s centrality.

Tokyo’s dominance also reflects strategic

choices over time. Despite successive National

Development Plans calling for more bal-

anced regional development, momentum

for this stalled as Japan struggled during the

long economic recession. Governments and

businesses return to ideas of agglomeration

economies that continue to benefit Tokyo.

The Tokyo Municipal Government has con-

sistently opposed repeated calls to relocate the

capital to another region of Japan; in the past

two decades, Tokyo city leaders pursued urban

policies to attract inward investment, increase

economic competitiveness, and enhance its

status as a global city. Tokyo’s waterfront rede-

velopment and new zoning laws that permit

intensification through high-rise construction

are two examples of how global aspirations

have influenced governments and business

leaders and reconfigured city spaces. These

factors have enhanced Tokyo’s profile as the

strongest magnet for people and investment

in Japan’s urban system.

Seoul: The Problems of Primacy

Somewhat like its larger cousin, Tokyo, Seoul

has suffered from problems of urban primacy

such as traffic congestion and housing short-

ages. Dispersed development over the past

few decades was meant to address these and

related problems by channeling expansion

into master-planned new towns outside of

central Seoul in the 1990s, though the areas

surrounding these new towns also saw haphaz-

ard and unplanned development due to land

longer commutes to work. Fortunately, most

cities have developed relatively good public

transport systems. Nonetheless, automobile

culture is spreading rapidly, with the private

automobile purchased as much for status as

for convenience. Automobile culture first took

hold in Japan in the 1960s, but other countries

have followed and China has now replaced the

United States as the world’s largest market for

automobiles since 2010.

Closing the Gap: Decentralization in Japan

In Japan, Tokyo’s dominance as the primate

city is indisputable. The concentration of

population and power has concerned planners

and politicians for decades. Efforts to decen-

tralize Japan’s urban system have approached

the problem at different levels. One approach

to reducing the dominance of Tokyo is to

direct industrial investment to other regions.

This national strategy was aggressively pur-

sued in the 1970s, stimulating industrial

and urban growth outside of the Tokyo area.

Labor-intensive work moved to the regions,

while research and high-skilled parts of pro-

duction remained near Tokyo. Unfortunately,

it is lower-skilled work that was most vulner-

able to wage pressures in the global economy.

Tokyo was relatively better positioned to

withstand, if not flourish in, these conditions,

reinforcing the capital region’s economic cen-

trality. Other efforts to discourage over-con-

centration of economic, political, and cultural

functions within Tokyo include policies to dis-

perse these functions within the metropolitan

region itself, supported by expansion of infra-

structure to connect new high-growth areas.

The Bay Aqua Line, an expressway across the

middle of Tokyo Bay, was designed to enhance

development along the eastern and southern

shore. Research and educational institutions

494 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

centralizing tendency of Seoul’s develop-

ment since the early 2000s, the city govern-

ment has also been trying to avoid decline in

the urban core. However, efforts to revitalize

older urban areas through densification (by

replacing two- to five-story buildings with

high-rise apartments) and providing more

outdoor open spaces have displaced many

lower-income residents from their old neigh-

borhoods. Some areas have seen massive dis-

placement of lower-income tenants and small

family-run businesses, unable to purchase or

rent newly constructed units. Disputes about

the gentrification process are centered on how

compensations packages are awarded. A 2009

protest against forced evictions in the Yongsan

area of Seoul turned violent, leaving six people

dead. As with other cities undergoing rapid

and dramatic redevelopment, it is not clear

whether Seoul will retain the social mix that

had traditionally defined life in its smaller,

more traditional neighborhoods as these areas

are replaced by the high-rise apartments and

broad boulevards that have become the trade-

mark of the new East Asian city.

Taipei: Toward Balanced

Regional Development

Taipei has made dramatic progress toward

solving some of its urban problems. Com-

pletion of the Mass Rapid Transit system and

stepped-up enforcement of traffic rules have

brought order to one of Asia’s worst traffic

nightmares. Air pollution has been drastically

cut through various programs. Housing is still

expensive, but the city is cleaner and decid-

edly a better place. Although many people

have moved to the suburbs, a large residential

population still lives within the central city.

The doughnut model does not fit Taipei, but

the multiple nuclei model is applicable.

speculation. Gradually, these new towns have

developed their own commercial, business,

and educational facilities, meaning that resi-

dents are making fewer trips into the central

areas. This, in combination with the ongoing

expansion of mass-transit networks outside of

the city’s core and the establishment of dedi-

cated bus lanes, has seen improvements in the

traffic conditions throughout the Seoul metro-

politan region. Interestingly, while the planned

new towns are dense enough to support mass

transit, this is not the case with the smaller,

more sporadic suburban developments that

have sprung up around the new towns. It is

these elements of Seoul’s suburban landscapes

that are a source of many of the development-

SUGGESTED READINGS

Bruno, M., S. Carena, and M. Kim. 2013. Borrowed

City: Private Use of Public Space in Seoul. Seoul,

wealthier residents, providing limited oppor-

tunity for the poor to enjoy the benefits of East

Asia’s sustainable urban futures.

PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE

Urban residents in many poorer cities around

the world must look with some envy at the

more prosperous cities of East Asia. To citi-

zens of the region, however, and especially to

urban planners, the overall problem of most

cities of East Asia is how far short the cities

still fall from expectations. For example, lead-

ing Japanese observers note that Japan’s fore-

most urban centers lack anything resembling

the character and depth of their European

counterparts. Instead, they seem to be forever

under construction. They also see that there is

huge potential demand for urban redevelop-

ment, yet Japanese city planning shows little

vision regarding a living environment. These

may be excessively harsh criticisms from ideal-

istic planners. Much the same could be said of

the rest of the region. Continuous demolition

and construction that leaves little history and

character are the prices of rapid growth and

economic success. But it is fair to say that cit-

ies of East Asia also respect ingenious designs

to create hospitable urban habitats in the rela-

tively unfavorable environments of high pop-

ulation pressure and scarce land.

So where do these countries and cities go

from here? East Asia will likely continue to

be a region of continuing relatively high eco-

nomic growth with most countries pursuing

a pro-business strategy. Urbanization will

continue in China, but it will require some

new thinking to integrate the migrant popu-

lation. There are vast amounts of capital for

urban development and for expanding infor-

mation technology, but marshaling capital

500 CITIES OF EAST ASIA

Sorensen, A. 2002. The Making of Urban Japan:

Cities and Planning from Edo to the Twenty-

First Century. London, New York: Routledge.

An examination of Japan’s urban development

from earliest times to the present.

Wang, Y. P. 2004. Urban Poverty, Housing and Social

Change in China. New York: Routledge. A com-

prehensive treatment of urban social issues in

China in the reform era, with focus on urban

poverty and housing.

Wu, W., and P. Gaubatz. 2013. The Chinese City.

New York: Routledge. A systematic overview

of urban development in China, including two

chapters on the traditional period.

Yusuf, S., and K. Nabeshime. 2006. Post-Industrial

East Asia Cities. Stanford: Stanford University

Press and World Bank. A book on technologies

and innovations in several major cities in East

Asia as they move away from manufacturing.

Zhang, L. 2010. In Search of Paradise: Middle-Class

Living in a Chinese Metropolis. Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press. An ethnography of

the different ways in which China’s new mid-

dle class is affected by the experience of home

ownership.

Korea: Damdi Publishers. Fascinating visual cata-

log and discussion of everyday street life in Seoul,

documenting the small ways that people appro-

priate public space and challenge urban order.

Hein, C., and P. P. Schulz. 2006. Cities, Autonomy

and Decentralization in Japan. New York: Rout-

ledge. Overview and case studies focusing on

decentralization of Japan’s urban system and

governance within cities.

Miller, T. 2012. China’s Urban Billion. London: Zed

Books. An up-to-date, well-written account of

China’s urbanization and its various complica-

tions, with many interesting snippets from the

field.

Naughton, B. 2007. The Chinese Economy: Transi-

tions and Growth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

A comprehensive introduction to the Chinese

economy and its various mechanism and gov-

ernment policies.

Solinger, D. 1999. Contesting Citizenship in Urban

China. Berkeley: University of California Press.

An insightful study of problems faced by mil-

lions of migrant workers in Chinese cities at the

turn of the century. Many points are still rel-

evant today.

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Cities of Australia and the Pacific Islands ROBYN DOWLING AND PAULINE MCGUIRK

KEy URbAN FACTS

Total Population 39 million

Percent Urban Population 71%

Total Urban Population 28 million

Most Urbanized Countries Australia (89%)

Northern Mariana Islands (89%)

New Zealand (86%)

Least Urbanized Countries Papua New Guinea (13%)

Solomon Islands (21%)

Samoa (19%)

Number of Megacities None

Number of Cities of More Than 1 Million 6 cities

Three Largest Cities Sydney (5 m), Melbourne (4 m), Brisbane (2 m)

World Cities 4 (Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Brisbane)

KEy CHAPTER THEMES

1. Cities in this region may be divided into two regional groups—those of Australia and

Aotearoa/New Zealand and those of the Pacific Islands—each with distinct characteristics.

2. Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand exhibit many of the urban characteristics of other

developed countries, such as the United States and Canada.

3. The urban character of Pacific Island cities is similar to that of less developed countries

though they are smaller and have considerably lower rates of population growth.

4. All countries in this region are dominated by primate cities, but in the case of Australia,

primate cities are the capitals of states in the federal union.

5. Many of the cities in the region were established as colonial or national capitals, and urban

patterns and character are tied to this political influence.

504 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

of the Pacific Ocean known as Melanesia,

Micronesia, and Polynesia. Socially, politi-

cally, economically, and biophysically, this is a

diverse region with diverse cities.

In this part of the world, it is easiest to

understand cities as forming two main

groups: those of Australia and Aotearoa/New

The Pacific region is a constellation of islands

of varying sizes (Figure 12.1). Australia (the

island continent) and Aotearoa/New Zealand

(now carrying both Maori and Pakeha, or

settler, names) dominate the region geo-

graphically and economically. However, many

smaller islands are found in those vast realms

6. Sydney is by far the most globally linked city and the key economic center in this vast realm,

though the global economic, cultural, and social connections of all cities have increased

dramatically.

7. In Australia, a popularly documented “sea change” phenomenon is drawing people away

from the big cities toward small but growing coastal towns.

8. Suburbanization and gentrification remain key residential forces in Australia and Aotearoa/

New Zealand, and globalization is a central driver of urban economies.

9. A multicultural population is increasingly the norm in most cities in the region, especially

in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand.

10. Awareness of the environmental impacts of urbanization is rising, and environmental vul-

nerability, especially to the direct and indirect consequences of climate change, is a key issue

confronting the future of cities in the Pacific Islands.

Table 12.1 Australia and Aotearoa/New zealand: Changes in Distribution of National Population

Nation/Cities % National Population 1981 % National Population 2013

Australia

Sydney 21.8 20.9

Melbourne 18.6 19.1

Brisbane 7.2 9.8

Perth 6.2 8.7

Adelaide 6.3 5.7

Hobart 1.1 1.0

Darwin 0.4 0.6

Canberra 1.6 1.7

Aotearoa/New Zealand

Auckland 26.1 33.4

Christchurch 10.1 8.0

Wellington 10.8 4.5

Dunedin 3.6 2.8

Sources: New Zealand, Census of Population and Housing 2013; Australian, Bureau of Statistics

Estimated Resident Population 2013.

Key Chapter Themes 505

been, nations of urban primacy: their urban

pattern is dominated by a small number of

large cities. Approximately one-fourth of

all Aotearoa/New Zealanders live in just one

city—Auckland—and Australia’s two largest

cities—Melbourne and Sydney—are home to

more than 40 percent of the nation’s popula-

tion (Table 12.1).

The islands within Micronesia, Polynesia,

and Melanesia have starkly different urban

characteristics. They have highly nonurban

Zealand, and those of the Pacific Islands. The

former includes cities with characteristics of

more developed countries: industrialized,

with a generally high level of affluence, and

connected to global flows of people, money,

information, and services. There are two key

urban characteristics shared by both these

nations. First, they are urban. Currently, over

89 percent of Australia’s and 86 percent of

Aotearoa/New Zealand’s population live in

urban areas. Second, they are, and long have

Table 12.2 Population of Pacific Island Cities

ISLAND NATION/City Population (2015) % of Country’s Population

FIJI 909,389

Suva 77,366 8.5

Nadi 42,284 4.6

Lambasa 24,187 2.6

KIRIBATI 105,711

Tawara 40,311 38.1

Betio Village 12,509 11.8

Bikenibeu Village 6,170 5.8

MARSHALL ISLANDS 72,191

Majuro 25,400 35.2

VANUATU 236,486

Vila 35,901 15.2

Luganville 13,397 5.7

Norsup 2,998 1.3

TONGA 106,501

Nukualofa 22,100 20.7

Neiafu 4,320 4.1

Havelu 3,417 3.2

SOLOMON ISLANDS 622,469

Honiara 56,298 9.0

Gizo 6,154 1.0

Auki 4,336 0.7

SAMOA 197,773

Apia 40,407 20.4

Vaitele 5,631 2.8

Faleasiu 2,592 1.3

PAPUA NEW GUINEA 6,672,429

Port Moresby 283,733 4.3

Lae 76,255 1.1

Arawa 40,266 0.6

Source: Country Watch 2015 Country Profiles, http:// www.countrywatch.com/

506 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF URbANISM

Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, and the

Pacific Islands have indigenous peoples with

long histories of settlement, up to 40,000

years in the case of Australian Aboriginals.

Cities in this part of the world are, however,

very young. Urban settlement began with the

advent of numerous colonizers in the eight-

eenth and nineteenth centuries. Australia

became a penal colony of the British in 1788,

with the arrival of convicts to Sydney and

Port Arthur (near Hobart, Tasmania) and

later to Brisbane (Figure 12.2). The continued

arrival of convicts to these coastal towns and

the establishment of additional settlements

like Melbourne and Adelaide, for purposes

of colonial administration, commerce, and

populations. Although reliable statistics

are difficult to obtain, it is estimated that

35 percent of the population lives in urban

areas, with a projected increase to over 50

percent by 2025. There are 35 towns and cities

with a population greater than five thousand.

Two-thirds of the southwest Pacific realm’s

urban dwellers are to be found in Papua New

Guinea (PNG) and Fiji, the most populous

nations in the region (Table 12.2). The region’s

largest cities—Port Moresby (PNG), Nouméa

(New Caledonia, still a French possession),

and Suva (Fiji)—are tiny by world standards.

Negligible population growth is occurring

in these cities, where economic opportuni-

ties remain limited. In Pacific Island nations,

prestige and status are still very much tied to

the land and the rural, rather than to cities

and the urban.

Figure 12.2 one of the travelers on Melbourne’s Sandridge bridge represents the convict era in Australian history. the former railroad bridge is now a pedestrian crossing and sculpture garden. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Historical Foundations of Urbanism 507

capitals, facilitating more efficient connec-

tions between the cities and their hinterlands.

Industrialization similarly occurred within

(rather than beyond) these coastal centers of

colonial administration, though there were

to be later exceptions like Wollongong and

Newcastle in New South Wales, and Whyalla

in South Australia. By 1900, Australia had a

total population of a little less than 4 million;

Sydney and Melbourne each had populations

of approximately half a million; Adelaide,

Brisbane, and Perth more than 100,000 each;

and Hobart remained small at 35,000 people.

Colonialism had hence been responsible for

this uniquely Australian urban primacy and

settlement pattern in at least two ways. First, the

sites of European settlements (either convict

or free), with their coastal locations and trad-

ing functions, formed the foundations of the

colony and its growth (Figure 12.3). Second,

the functions of colonial administration, and

trade cemented metropolitan primacy. The

political independence of each of the Brit-

ish colonies (later to become Australia’s six

states) also meant that the capital cities oper-

ated independently of each other throughout

the nineteenth century, providing services to

their rural hinterlands, acting as ports for the

import and export of commodities to and

from Europe, and functioning as centers of

colonial administration. Indeed, competition

between the capitals further worked to bolster

primacy. With each capital focused on ensur-

ing continued economic growth, backed by

political force within their respective territo-

ries, the establishment of alternative, prosper-

ous, and comparable urban centers was made

more difficult.

Two major events of the mid- to late-

nineteenth century further enhanced the size,

functions, and importance of Australia’s six

colonial capitals. Railroads focused on the

Figure 12.3 Adelaide is the state capital and primate city of South Australia. it was founded as a planned capital city for a new british colony in the 1830s. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

508 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

cities took on characteristics of the sector

model related to transport links and features

of the natural landscape.

The turn of the twentieth century did see

one challenge to the existing state capitals:

the planning of the new city of Canberra. The

federation of Australia’s colonial territories in

1901 was designed to both create and unite

a nation. The six colonial capitals became

capitals of states in the newly formed Com-

monwealth of Australia, and a new national

capital—Canberra—was established between

the two cities that dominated the national

urban hierarchy—Melbourne and Sydney. The

decision to locate the national government in

the newly formed Australian Capital Territory

(ACT) between the country’s two largest cities

was a compromise. The Australian Parliament

competition among the capitals fueled the

growth of existing rather than new urban

centers.

The first half of the twentieth century saw

urban Australia grow in the spatial pattern

established by British colonialism. A manu-

facturing boom that began in the 1920s rein-

forced the primacy of each state capital. This

era also saw the beginning of the systemic sub-

urbanization of Australian cities. The estab-

lishment of middle-class suburbs in attractive

surroundings away from the central city was

facilitated by the development of public-

transport lines radiating out from the city

center, as well as the activities of land devel-

opers and house builders. With the absence

of inner-city slums on the scale of those in

Britain, the social differentiation of Australian

Figure 12.4 Canberra’s distinctive but controversial Parliament house is difficult to appreciate from the outside because much of the structure is underground. the inside is breathtaking, filled with beautiful art and materials native to Australia. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Historical Foundations of Urbanism 509

with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi

between the British and the native Maoris.

Unlike the convict bases of Australia’s settle-

ments, free setters in Aotearoa/New Zealand

were encouraged to migrate and invest, with

the resultant economy largely dependent on

pastoral activities like grazing sheep and cat-

tle. Unlike Australia, urban primacy was not

a nineteenth-century phenomenon here,

due to the originally more dispersed settle-

ment pattern and more diverse reasons for

urban settlement. For example, early towns

like Wellington and Christchurch were estab-

lished by trading and/or religious interests;

Auckland’s natural harbor made it an ideal

port (Figure 12.5); and gold rushes under-

pinned the growth of Dunedin. Thus, by

1911, Auckland had a population of 100,000,

Christchurch 80,000, Wellington 70,000, and

Dunedin 65,000. Over half of the non-Maori

population lived in urban areas. In contrast,

did not formally relocate from Melbourne to

Canberra until 1927, and even today, the ACT

remains comparatively small, with fewer than

400,000 inhabitants (Figure 12.4). Its dominat-

ing characteristic is the prominent role played

by formal urban planning. A master plan devel-

oped by an American, Walter Burley Griffin,

guided its development as a “garden city” built

around a large lake, with a central focus on a

“parliamentary triangle,” and satellite suburbs

with town centers of their own. Canberra’s

expansion was slow—only 16,000 people lived

there in 1947—and its early economy was reli-

ant on public service and diplomatic func-

tions. Today, its economy is supplemented by

a large student population that attends the

relatively large number of public and private

institutions of higher learning, including the

Australian National University.

In Aotearoa/New Zealand, European settle-

ment and modern urbanization began in 1840

Figure 12.5 built on an isthmus and connected to a rich hinterland, Auckland now hosts many activities found in major world cities, including the famous Sky tower that dominates the skyline. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

510 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

are based upon the patterns established in pre-

vious decades. Economic, social, and political

influences across the region have consolidated

urban primacy. Urbanization processes, the

overall urban pattern of the region, and the

characteristics of cities within it, are far from

uniform. For cities of the Pacific Islands,

tourism, political independence, instabilities,

migration, and environmental hazards play

significant roles. In Australia and Aotearoa/

New Zealand, in contrast, industrialization

followed by deindustrialization, globalization,

international immigration, urban governance,

and rural/urban population dynamics are the

primary influences.

The Pacific Islands

The historical pattern of urban primacy in a

largely nonurban region remains a hallmark

of the Pacific’s urban geography (Table 12.2).

By 1960, only Suva (Fiji) and Noumea (French

Caledonia) had populations greater than

25,000, and even today the size of the cities

remains small. Political independence from

colonial powers began in the 1970s. Only a

few territories, such as New Caledonia, remain

in colonial hands. Independence had a num-

ber of significant impacts on the region’s

urban system. Colonial administration was

no longer the primary purpose of the largest

cities in the region, but processes associated

with independence cemented the primacy

of these towns. In some, like Port Moresby,

PNG, independence fostered urban growth

because of new investment in urban housing

and services (Figure 12.6). Across the region,

accelerated urban growth followed independ-

ence because of, for example, the removal of

negative perceptions of urban living, or the

establishment of some countries as tax havens

(e.g., Port Vila, Vanuatu). Independence also

throughout the nineteenth century and the

first half of the twentieth century, Maori set-

tlement was predominantly rural.

Like Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand,

Oceania has had a long-established indige-

nous population. Similarly, it was the colonial

context that underpinned the urban system of

the region. Oceania was one of the last regions

of the world to be colonized, with British,

French, American, and Dutch powers estab-

lishing presences in countries like Fiji, Samoa,

Tonga, and Vanuatu at various times across the

nineteenth century. Towns first developed as

trading ports, usually close to existing villages,

good harbors, and viable anchorages. These

towns grew slowly, and some, like Levuka in

Fiji, declined over time because of relative

inaccessibility. They were never large: in 1911,

Suva had a population of only 6,000 people,

about 5 percent of Fiji’s population.

The first half of the twentieth century saw

a diversification of urban functions and spo-

radic urban growth. Although widespread

industrialization did not occur, the process-

ing of agricultural commodities like sugar,

and the extraction of resources through min-

ing, diversified the economic base and saw the

growth of cities in Fiji and New Guinea, where

the mining towns were nearly as large as the

colonial capital of Port Moresby. In Micro-

nesia, intense Japanese colonialism saw cities

like Koror, on the island of Palau, grow sub-

stantially; other administrative capitals grew

slowly. By the middle of the twentieth century,

urbanization remained limited.

CONTEMPORARy URbAN PATTERNS AND PROCESSES

The contemporary urban systems of Australia,

Aotearoa/New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands

Contemporary Urban Patterns and Processes 511

A number of possible solutions to the limi-

tations that customary land tenure places on

capitalist urban growth have been proposed.

These include proposals to lease customary

allotments, or the ability to use land to gen-

erate income through means other than com-

pensation. Such proposals have been severely

hindered by the limited capacity of urban gov-

ernance across the islands.

Connected to issues of land tenure are the

general housing characteristics of the urban

Pacific. Palatial houses exist, but they are often

built by expatriates and in gated communities.

Formal housing of the type commonly found

in Australian and Aotearoa/New Zealand cities

exists as well. Far more common, however, are

informal settlements. The great demand for

required bureaucracies in national capitals,

and encouraged education and urban living

in general.

Land and land tenure systems are a defin-

ing characteristic of Pacific cities. In Mela-

nesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia, customary

land tenures pose significant challenges for

urban growth, housing, and infrastructure

provision as well as the quality of urban life.

In Port Moresby, for example, traditional

owners hold one-third of the city’s total area,

and land is seen as a communal resource.

However, customary land tenure places limits

on the land available to house urban residents

and is associated with higher housing costs.

It also provides a disincentive to invest in

land development and urban infrastructure.

Figure 12.6 the Papua new Guinea high Commission, with its distinctive Pacific aesthetic, is located in Australia’s national capital, Canberra. Members of the Commonwealth of nations exchange high Commissioners instead of Ambassadors. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

512 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

Funafuti, is less than 14 feet (4.3 m) above sea

level.

The global economic context is crucial to

urban economies in the Pacific. Many nations,

like Fiji, have turned to tourism for economic

survival, with urban consequences. Global

commodities and mining, as well as the pres-

ence of wealthy expatriates, underpin the

urban hierarchy of PNG. And finally, inter-

national migration, in particular emigration,

can relieve some of the social, economic, and

environmental pressures in cities. In Tonga

especially, migration to Aotearoa/New Zea-

land, Australia, and the United States operates

as an urban “safety valve,” allowing Tongans

to realize economic opportunities overseas

rather than in overcrowded and economically

limited urban areas. This safety valve has also

become part of new, informal, urban eco-

nomic activities.

In sum, cities of the island Pacific are places

of vulnerability and opportunity. In a largely

nonurban context, in which effective urban

planning and coordination are nonexistent at

worst and problematic at best, urban living is

still sought as a chance for a better quality of

life. Though officially derided, life in informal

settlements remains attractive.

Australia

The dominance of state capital cities remains

the defining characteristic of Australia’s

urban system. The primary drivers of urban

development in the twentieth century—

industrialization, migration and, latterly,

globalization—have only reinforced the

importance of state capitals and fueled their

population growth. Between 1947 and 1971,

the population of Australia’s five largest cities

doubled, and growth has continued since then.

Historically, Sydney (capital of New South

housing, in the context of substantial urban

poverty and limited employment opportuni-

ties, means that informal housing is common.

Public housing is available, though waiting

lists are extremely lengthy.

Finally, the present and future of the cit-

ies of the island Pacific cannot be understood

without reference to environmental contexts

and threats. Urban settlement has involved

degradation of islands’ fragile coastal environ-

ments. The waste and water requirements of

growing urban populations threaten to over-

whelm already stressed ecosystems. Urban

water is typically sourced from freshwater

lenses, and if these are over pumped, salt-

water contamination can occur and render

the water unsuitable for human use. Because

of the geology of the islands, waste disposal

also affects the environment. Other forms of

water supply contamination can occur (e.g.,

by chemicals, sewerage), which in turn affects

human health. The most important environ-

mental issue for these cities in the twenty-first

century is climate change, especially global

warming. The low-lying islands, and their

cities, are at risk of inundation because of

sea-level rise. Climate change is also believed

to involve increased storm activity, acceler-

ated coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion into

reserves of fresh water, and increased landward

reach of storm waves. Each of these events has

the potential to dismantle city infrastructure

and threaten urban livelihoods. Environmen-

tal hazards are further exacerbated by social

vulnerabilities, especially limited institutional

capacities for urban planning. In 2010 at

the UN Framework Convention on Climate

Change meeting in Cancun, the Deputy Prime

Minister of Tuvalu classed climate change as a

“life or death survival issue,” threatening the

very existence of this Pacific Island nation.

The highest point on Tuvalu’s capital island,

Contemporary Urban Patterns and Processes 513

people have long dwelled on the fringes of cit-

ies, often in substandard housing. Places of

residence within the city are related to the

provision of public housing and also localities

with strong identification for indigenous Aus-

tralians. One of these places is “The Block,” in

Sydney’s inner-city Redfern, where housing

and other cultural services are concentrated.

The past 25 years have seen some shifts in

the distribution of economic and population

growth across Australia’s large cities. Two fac-

tors underpinned these slight alterations in

the urban system. The first was the influx of

people into Australian cities through interna-

tional migration. For the past 20 years, more

than 100,000 people annually have migrated

to Australia from around the world, most of

these to the capital cities, particularly Syd-

ney, Brisbane, and Perth. Cities that have not

received substantial numbers of migrants, like

Adelaide and Hobart, have declined in relative

Wales) and Melbourne (capital of Victoria)

have been the island continent’s largest and

most economically dominant cities. Australia’s

manufacturing growth after World War II was

centered in Melbourne, which, until recently,

housed the majority of Australian corpo-

rate headquarters (Figure 12.7). Other state

capitals served their rural and resource-based

hinterlands, with smaller and less diversified

economic bases. In the immediate postwar

period, Adelaide was somewhat of an excep-

tion, as the center of Australia’s car industry.

Aboriginal Australians are much less likely

to be urbanized than the broader Australian

population. They are also more likely to live in

small towns rather than large cities. Indeed, a

little over 1 percent of Sydney’s total popula-

tion, and 1.7 percent of Perth’s population are

indigenous. Indigenous movement to capital

cities is often temporary, and linked to kinship

and friendship ties with rural areas. Aboriginal

Figure 12.7 Melbourne’s traditional image is being shattered today by skyscrapers like Eureka tower (world’s tallest residential building when built) and deborah halpern’s Angel, a sculpture with roots in the aboriginal aesthetic of Australia. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

514 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

commercial developments on old industrial

land are increasing, and in some years the

construction of new apartments outstrips

that of detached houses. Equally important

is a cultural and economic reevaluation of

living in Australia’s inner cities. Australian

inner cities are vibrant, cosmopolitan spaces,

with a wealth of retail, social, and recreational

opportunities; and they are highly accessible

by public transport (Figure 12.10).

The internal structure of Australian cities

has changed over the past three decades. Based

on an analysis of social and economic charac-

teristics, metropolitan localities may be divided

into seven types of places (Figure 12.11): three

advantaged and four disadvantaged. In new

economy localities are found people employed

in new global industries and many educated

professionals. Gentrifying localities are found

across Australia’s inner cities, and are home to

those with ties to the global economy but with

a sizable proportion of low-income residents

as well. Middle-class suburbia houses many

educated professionals, though with a low

density of connections to the global economy.

Working-class battler communities have trades

people, often homeowners, while battling

family communities have above average levels

of single-parent and nonfamily households.

In old-economy localities, primarily suburban

and especially in Adelaide, the decline of man-

ufacturing has seen concentrations of unem-

ployment. Finally, peri-urban localities on

the fringe of the capitals attract low-income

people seeking cheaper housing or homes for

retirement.

While state capitals have, on average, been

growing, small towns in rural and regional

Australia have exhibited divergent patterns.

Many rural towns, traditionally operating as

service centers for surrounding farms, have

experienced population declines. Decreasing

terms. The second factor was globalization, or

more specifically changing urban functions

as the Australian economy became increas-

ingly tied to, and driven by, global flows of

commodities and money, and increasingly

reliant on globally networked business ser-

vices. Globalization has seen Sydney rise in

prosperity and prominence to become Aus-

tralia’s only world city. The headquarters of

Australian-based businesses, and the regional

offices of multinationals, are now more likely

to be in Sydney than in Melbourne. The rela-

tive growth of Brisbane and its surrounding

region during the same period can be attrib-

uted to internal migration (principally from

Sydney), the rise of a tourist-based economy,

growing economic ties between Brisbane and

the Asia-Pacific region, and Queensland gov-

ernment incentives for business to relocate to

Australia’s sunbelt. Connections to Antarctic

tourism and scientific activities are empha-

sized in the southern-most capital of Hobart

(Box 12.1).

Australia’s state capitals are highly sub-

urbanized and geographically expansive by

international standards (Box 12.2). Histori-

cally, the predominant housing preference is

for a detached house, producing sprawling

suburban conurbations (Figure 12.8) like

that between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, 37

miles (60 km) away. The continued prolifera-

tion of suburban housing is currently under

some threat. The high energy demands of

suburban life—use of the private car, heating,

cooling, and the water-use demands of large

houses—are increasingly questioned. Limited

availability of land and the high costs of ser-

vicing the social and physical infrastructure

needs of new suburbs have led to policies of

urban consolidation across the nation, with

an emphasis on sustainable building prac-

tices (Box 12.3). Mixed-use residential and

Contemporary Urban Patterns and Processes 515

Box 12.1 Hobart as a Gateway to antarctica

hobart is Australia’s southernmost capital city, located at approximately 43 degrees south of the equator on the island of tasmania. While the majority of Australian and new Zealand capital cities have strong connections to the Pacific and its islands, hobart’s location and history provide foundations for strong links to the Antarctic frontier, and the designation “gateway to Antarctica.” historical ties, research connections, and tourism underpin this designation.

building upon a long history as a sealing and whaling port in the first half of the nine- teenth century, hobart became a key staging point for Antarctic explorations. French and british expeditions of the 1830s were pioneering, though there was a lull until a flourishing of scientific and exploratory visits in the 1890s. hobart was involved in most of the storied Antarctic explorations of the early twentieth century, including those of Roald Amundsen (1910–1912) and the first Australian expedition by Sir douglas Mawson (1911–1914). hobart was used to gather supplies before ships departed, and also as a site from which to announce the success (or otherwise) of voyages upon their return.

hobart remains a hub for Antarctic scientific exploration today. A number of key research bodies concerned with Antarctica and its surrounding oceans are either based in or net- worked through hobart, such as the international Antarctic institute and the Australian Antarctic division. the latter is responsible for overseeing Australia’s engagement with the Antarctic territories, both scientific and more broadly.

tourism is an increasingly critical element of hobart’s economic fortunes. While the majority of visitors to Antarctica leave from South America, a small number depart via ship or plane from hobart, typically destined for East Antarctica. these journeys take between 7 and 14 days by ship and 4.5 hours by plane. For those unable to afford the time or expense of such journeys, hobart also offers visitors recreations of the Antarctic expeditions of the twentieth century. hobart’s Constitution dock houses the Mawson’s huts Replica museum, a series of buildings that recreate the physical sensations of the huts lived in by douglas Mawson and his team during their expedition of 1911–1914. built from the same materials, and with the use of digital audio to recreate a windy Antarctic landscape, the huts enable visitors to experience what life was like for Mawson and his team of 18 men. this theme of replicating Antarctic experiences is found at a number of other sites in hobart, such as a sub-Antarctic plant house at the botanical gardens, and a walking tour of the significant sites and moments in Antarctic exploration.

farm incomes, the closure of many public

and commercial services such as banks, and

limited employment and education oppor-

tunities for young people have encouraged

migration out of these towns and into larger

regional centers or, more commonly, capital

cities. A counter trend of growth in Australia’s

coastal towns is also evident. The twenty-first

516 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

Aotearoa/New Zealand

After World War II, the growth trajectories

of the cities in Aotearoa/New Zealand largely

paralleled those of Australia. The four largest

cities of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch,

and Dunedin continued to grow, as did the

primacy of Auckland (Table 12.1). A number

of processes underpinned this pattern. Mar-

ket reforms since the 1980s have strengthened

global economic, cultural, and social ties,

which in turn have transformed large cities.

Second, immigrants, initially from the Pacific

Islands but also more recently from China and

India, have flowed into the large cities, espe-

cially Auckland and Christchurch. The third

factor is the internal shift in economic activ-

ity. While a general process of deindustrializa-

tion in Aotearoa/New Zealand occurred in the

late twentieth century, employment losses in

manufacturing were more severe in Welling-

ton, Christchurch, and Dunedin; and some

manufacturing relocated to Auckland. Finally,

entrepreneurial urban governance processes

were deployed to make cities more attractive

century boom in resource prices has meant

that towns in coastal Australia have grown

rapidly, instigating severe housing shortages

and consequent escalations in-house prices.

The “sea change” phenomenon, in which city

dwellers swap a hectic city lifestyle, trans-

port congestion, and high housing costs for

a slower pace of life and cheaper housing in

coastal towns is also important. Initially con-

fined to older people, principally retirees and

those nearing retirement, sea changes are

now undertaken by young professionals able

to run businesses outside the major cities, as

well as less affluent families seeking cheaper

home ownership. Towns like Byron Bay, Coffs

Harbour, and Port Macquarie in New South

Wales, Barwon Heads in Victoria, and Den-

mark in West Australia are commonly iden-

tified sea-change locations. “Tree change” is

a more recent but similar phenomenon in

which urban dwellers move to greener loca-

tions like rural Tasmania, inland New South

Wales (e.g., Orange, Mudgee) or Victoria

(e.g., Daylesford).

Figure 12.8 Sydney is known as a city of suburbs and single- family homes such as this one. Source: Photo by Robyn dowling.

Contemporary Urban Patterns and Processes 517

Box 12.2 the Geography of everyday life in Suburban Sydney

Figure 12.9 new roles for women, and new problems, have emerged in Australian cities over the past three decades. Source: Courtesy of Robyn dowling.

Australia is a suburban nation. despite increasing urban consolidation and gentrification, more than 72 percent of Sydney’s population live in detached housing, and 33 percent in areas more than 9 miles (15 km) from the city center. Suburban Sydney, unlike its north American counterparts, is heterogeneous. Sydney’s greatest concentration of migrants is found in its suburbs, and hence we see pockets of affluence and poverty neighboring each other. What is everyday life like in this differentiated world city?

Suburban Sydney residents live in houses of varying age and design. new houses are more likely to be large—27 percent of houses have four or more bedrooms, a double garage, formal and informal living areas, separate rooms for each child, perhaps a games/media room and a backyard that may just be able to accommodate a cricket pitch. Family members—both adults and children—typically know their immediate neighborhood and participate in local

518 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

sporting and recreational activities. the family shops locally, sometimes at a small corner shop or on a main street, but more likely at a supermarket in a large shopping mall. here, not only can they pick up their weekly provisions, but they can also eat a meal and see a movie.

daily travel patterns are increasingly complex spatially and socially. one adult (more likely male) will commute to the Cbd for his job in the finance or business sector or to another suburb for manufacturing employment. the woman is likely to work in this or a nearby suburb, most likely in retailing or a similar service-sector job in banking, hospitality, or education. the limited availability of public transport in certain parts of suburban Sydney, and the generally poor servicing of cross-suburban travel, mean that these journeys to work are most likely to be undertaken by car. For mothers of young children, the importance of the car is even more pronounced, as she drops children at school/childcare on her way to work, and takes them to social and sporting activities on the way home (Figure 12.9). For these suburbanites, the time and cost of car travel is becoming an increasing burden, though with no relief in sight.

Box 12.3 Green Buildings

the challenges of reducing consumption of finite resources—especially water and fossil fuels—in cities of Australia and Aotearoa/new Zealand are great. national scale policies that encourage the reduction of demands for energy and water and/or promote the use of renewable sources of energy are sparse. At the building scale, the picture is more positive. Encouraged by local government policies and building regulation, new housing developments in the inner cities are innovatively embracing low-energy infrastructures. the Central Park development in inner Sydney is a salient example. occupying the 5.8-hectare site of a former brewery, Central Park consists of 8 residential, commercial, and heritage precincts with an eventual expected occupation of 4,000 residents. building a neighborhood that was sustain- able across multiple dimensions was a goal of the development. the use of nonrenewable sources of energy is achieved with an onsite tri-generation facility that provides cooling, heat, and power to site. Water supply is harvested from rainwater collected in tanks at vari- ous parts of the site, while wastewater from commercial, residential, and garden uses is col- lected and recycled for use in cooling systems, toilets, and landscape irrigation. Finally, the buildings have both green walls and green roofs, planted with native vegetation and watered with recycled water, with the aim of providing not only more visually appealing facades but also natural means of cooling. importantly, this neighborhood was reliant on financial and regulatory support from various state agencies. this includes subsidies and grants from the new South Wales Government, as well as the sustainability measures implemented by the City of Sydney.

Source: Central Park Sydney. 2015. Central Park Sydney. [onLinE] Available at: http://www.centralpark- sydney.com

http://www.centralparksydney.com/

Contemporary Urban Patterns and Processes 519

Figure 12.10 the advantage of high population density and compact urban form is that you can walk or bike to old Victoria Market in Melbourne for the freshest of fruits, and vegetables. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Figure 12.11 Changes over the past three decades have produced new types of urban localities in Australia. Source: Compiled by authors from statistics in Scott baum, Kevin o’Connor and Robert Stimson, Faultlines Exposed (Melbourne: Monash University ePress, 2005).

520 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

of home ownership and education. Increas-

ing ethnic diversity is also an important urban

characteristic.

DISTINCTIVE CITIES

Sydney: Australia’s World City

With a population currently of about 4.5 mil-

lion, and projected to reach 5.7 million by

2031, Sydney is the most populous and most

prosperous city in Australia. The city is

home to some of Australia’s most widely

recognized iconic landmarks: the Harbour

Bridge (Figure 12.12), the Opera House

(Figure 12.13), and Bondi Beach. It is an inter-

national finance market; it attracts a growing

concentration of corporate headquarters; and

and to stem population decline. In Welling-

ton, New Zealand’s capital, the waterfront was

redeveloped using both public and private

sector investment. The aim was for the city

to become an international conference venue,

and the government also located the new Te

Papa National Museum there.

Aotearoa/New Zealand cities are low den-

sity, though suburban living is no longer the

only residential option as high- and medium-

rise apartments are becoming more common.

The proportion of Maoris living in urban

Aotearoa/New Zealand is now almost on

par with that of the non-Maori population,

because of the loss of Maori land and conse-

quent rural-to-urban migration. Maoris face

significant disadvantages in the cities, with

high rates of unemployment and lower levels

Figure 12.12 Completed in 1932, the Sydney harbour bridge opened up the city’s north Shore. tourists, tethered by lifelines, have been climbing the arch since 1998. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Distinctive Cities 521

by 65 percent to reach 2.8 million; it grew to

almost 5 million by 2015. The vast majority of

growth has been accommodated in expansive

suburban developments, including large-scale

public-housing estates built mainly across

the city’s western suburbs. Despite planned

expansions of public-transport networks,

the rate of urban expansion and rising levels

of car ownership meant that the city quickly

assumed the car-oriented form of autosubur-

bia, connected by networks of freeways rather

than public-transport corridors. Speculative

developers’ and housing consumers’ prefer-

ences for low-density, detached dwellings

meant that the city assumed a sprawled met-

ropolitan form, poorly served by the existing

rail network radiating from the Central Busi-

ness District (CBD). Twenty years of urban

it is Oceania’s highest value-generating econ-

omy and dominant world city. Equally, it dem-

onstrates some of the defining characteristics

of contemporary Australian urban life: subur-

bia, urban-based prosperity arising from an

advanced service economy, multiculturalism,

and environmental threat (Box 12.4).

Sydney entered the twentieth century as

the primate city and highest order service

center in the state of New South Wales. By

1911, just 123 years after first European set-

tlement, it had a population of 652,000 and

was already a city of suburbs. Sydney’s post–

World War II “long boom” brought unprece-

dented economic and population growth and

set in motion the formative settlement pat-

terns that have shaped the contemporary city.

Between 1947 and 1971, population expanded

Figure 12.13 now a UnESCo World heritage site, the Sydney opera house has become a symbol of the island continent. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

522 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

Box 12.4 Multiculturalism and local Government in australia

Cities in Australia have long been immigrant cities. After World War ii, labor migration to Australia was dominated by people from the United Kingdom, ireland, and southern Europe. the 1980s and 1990s saw a shift to the countries of southeast Asia, and more recently toward refugees from Africa and the Middle East. hence, cities like Sydney are characterized by considerable cultural diversity. it is largely within urban neighborhoods that “everyday multiculturalism,” the ordinary living of cultural diversity, occurs. Sometimes, this engenders conflict, as seen in the following excerpt from an article by a religious affairs reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald.

A Muslim centre built in the heart of Sydney’s Bible Belt is facing fresh opposition—over its plans to host midnight prayers. But plans to extend the Annangrove prayer centre’s hours and permit it to open late at night on three holy days have attracted four objections—well short of the thousands of complaints that almost blocked its construction four years ago. . . . The trustees [of the Imam Hasan Centre] want permission to open the doors until midnight three times a year, an increase in capacity from 120 to 150 people and a 45-minute extension in operating hours to permit cleaning and the occasional committee hearing. “Can you tell me any church that has any time restriction or limit on numbers?” said Abbas Aly, one of the centre’s trustees. . . . If you ring up our neighbours they’ll tell you they hardly notice us here. It’s hardly used midweek and most of our programs are on a Saturday.”

The [Baulkham Hills] council originally refused to approve the centre when more than 900 local residents claimed its existence threatened the ambience and character of the semi-rural suburb, in Sydney’s north-west. Mr Aly appealed to the Land and Environment Court, which reversed the decision on the grounds that the local objections were not based on facts.

Once construction started, the site was vandalised, sprayed with racist graffiti and smeared with animal offal. Pigs’ heads were impaled on wooden stakes. Mr Aly said tensions between local people and the centre had long since dissipated, except for the occasional persistent critic, especially as it had become clear that the centre looked more like a community centre than a mosque. “We’ve had quite a positive response to our latest development application from neighbours, compared to the 8500 complaints to our construction. We get quite a number of people who have come in to apologise. I asked them did they see the plans, they said, ‘No, we just believed what we were told’, and I take my hat off to them for coming in and making their peace.” The Mayor of Baulkham Hills, Tony Hay, said four complaints had been lodged against the variation in consent orders, mainly expressing concern that creeping changes were undermining the intent of the original Land and Environment Court proceedings. No decision had been taken yet. . . .

Source: Linda Morris, “Midnight prayers raise objections,” Sydney Morning Herald, September 10, 2007.

Distinctive Cities 523

international property investment—in com-

mercial office and hotel developments—have

transformed the CBD’s built environment, as

has the transformation of Sydney’s economic

base to one dominated by increasingly glob-

ally connected financial and other advanced

services. Sydney has become one of the most

significant financial centers in the Asia-Pacific

realm, making up 40 percent of Australia’s tel-

ecommunications market. Employment in the

global city sectors of finance, insurance, prop-

erty, and business services is concentrated in

and around the city center where many of the

estimated 600 multinational companies who

run their Asia-Pacific operations from Sydney

are clustered, along with the headquarters of

approximately 200 of Australasia’s top compa-

nies. The economy of the city center now gen-

erates 30 percent of the value of metropolitan

consolidation policy has contained the extent

of sprawl, but strong population growth

(50,000 per year since the late 1990s) has

meant that fringe expansion has continued.

Sydney’s employment, retailing, and services

have been decentralizing since at least the

1970s. The development of regional centers

of commercial activity, such as Ryde, North

Sydney, Parramatta, Penrith, and Liverpool

has given the city an increasingly polycentric

form. Indeed, the current metropolitan plan-

ning strategy labels Sydney as a “city of cities.”

Despite Sydney’s predominantly low-rise

suburban form, the city center is characterized

by high-rise office towers, global tourist land-

scapes and, lately, residential towers tightly

grouped on the edges of one of the world’s most

spectacular natural harbors (Figure 12.14).

Since the late 1960s significant waves of

Figure 12.14 Sydney’s skyline, typical of a world city, dominates the capacious harbor. Can you identify Sydney tower? Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

524 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

Sydney were either born overseas or are the

children of immigrants. The United King-

dom, China, and Aotearoa/New Zealand are

the dominant source countries, though there

are also substantial numbers of residents born

in Vietnam, Lebanon, India, Philippines, Italy,

Korea, and Greece. Historically, particular

migrant groups—especially those of non-

English-speaking backgrounds—have tended

to settle initially in particular Sydney suburbs:

Greeks in Marrickville and Italians in Leich-

ardt in the 1950s and 1960s, Vietnamese in

Cabramatta in the 1970s and 1980s, and Leba-

nese in Auburn in the 1990s. However, recent

research has shown that Sydney’s settlement is

characterized more by multiethnic suburbs,

such as Auburn, rather than ethnic minority

concentrations, and by intermixing of differ-

ent ethnic minority groups both with each

other and with the host society rather than

by ethnic segregation. Over time, spatial and

social assimilation of migrants into a predom-

inantly multicultural city has been the domi-

nant pathway.

Whether growing evidence of social

polarization in Sydney will produce more

entrenched socio-spatial segregation along

lines of class and ethnicity is a concern both

to Sydney’s planners and citizens. In a trend

common to many global cities, Sydney’s

median dwelling price doubled between 2004

and 2014, with the consequence that housing

stress (i.e., paying more than 30 percent of

household income on housing costs) affects

approximately 200,000 households across

the city. As the median house price has crept

up, lower-income groups, including recent

migrants, have been increasingly confined

either to rental housing or to less accessible

suburbs removed from employment oppor-

tunities and services. It remains to be seen

whether Sydney’s social divides, traditionally

Sydney’s economic output and contains 28

percent of all metropolitan employment, with

high concentrations in the highly paid profes-

sional and managerial occupations.

Concentrated in Sydney’s city center are

high-paid, advanced-services workers, as

increasingly globalized connections have

driven long-standing processes of gentrifica-

tion, the recent resurgence of high-rise luxury

residential dwellings, and the multiplication

of globalized consumer spaces. Inner sub-

urbs of nineteenth-century housing have

been revitalized. New upmarket residential

locales have been built in high-density, pre-

viously used land on the edges of the CBD,

and in a host of high-rise high-density tow-

ers throughout the CBD. These developments

have meant that the resident population of

Sydney’s inner city has increased by 40 per-

cent since 1996. The development of a range

of globalized consumer spaces, catering both

to global tourists and to inner-city residents,

has also transformed the city center. In the

1980s the New South Wales government rede-

veloped Darling Harbour container terminal

as an international conference center, festival

shopping, and entertainment precinct. In the

1990s, special legislation was passed to enable

redevelopment of heritage wharves at Walsh

Bay as an exclusive residential, commercial

office, and restaurant precinct. Currently, the

redevelopment of the Green Square precinct,

located halfway between the airport and the

CBD, is transforming the residential and

commercial space of this former industrial

precinct.

Sydney’s world-city status is also reflected

in the fact that about 40 percent of all

migrants to Australia settle there, thus deep-

ening and diversifying the long-established

multicultural nature of the urban area’s pop-

ulation. Eight out of every ten residents of

Distinctive Cities 525

resources located in Western Australia—gold

and bauxite, for example. It is mining and

other global connections that have shaped the

city over the past 50 years. The mining boom

of the 1960s and 1970s, coupled with immi-

gration (primarily from the United Kingdom

but also from parts of southeast Asia), insti-

gated an acceleration of the city’s economic

and population growth. The location of

offices of mining companies and associated

services saw tall buildings emerge on the city

skyline (Figure 12.15). In Australia, the 1980s

were a decade characterized by an entrepre-

neurial spirit embraced by both government

and business. A consumption and leisure-

based economy emerged, aided by the city’s

hosting of the 1987 America’s Cup Challenge.

For the past three decades, the Perth economy

has continued to thrive on its economic base

of mining and tourism, boosted by substantial

immigration.

Now capital of the state of Western Aus-

tralia, Perth today is far removed from its

colonial beginnings. It has a modern sky-

scraper-dominated skyline; and the entre-

preneurial governance of the late twentieth

century involved substantial redevelopment

of older parts of the city as tourist and leisure

spaces. The redevelopment of the Old Swan

Brewery site in inner Perth is one example of

these processes. The Government of Western

Australia’s development corporation chose to

redevelop the site that was once home to the

factory making Perth’s famous beer. The Old

Swan Brewery complex now hosts a myriad

of leisure activities including theaters, dining,

and office space, as well as car parking. Across

Australian cities such redevelopment plans are

invariably contested. Conflict over the Swan

Brewery redevelopment project is representa-

tive of indigenous struggles to claim space

within urban Australia. In this particular case,

nowhere near as pronounced as in U.S. cities,

are set to become increasingly stark.

Nonetheless, Sydney remains renowned for

its quality of life. It habitually enjoys a top-

ranking position in international benchmark-

ing exercises assessing physical and cultural

lifestyle assets. However, the city’s beauti-

ful natural environment, open spaces, and

national parks belie the environmental chal-

lenges generated by Sydney’s car-dependent

nature and population pressure, especially

regarding air quality and water supply. Car

ownership is ubiquitous and 71 percent of

work trips are taken by private motor vehicle.

Consequently, air quality suffers due to pho-

tochemical smog-producing ozone at levels

that, while improving, still regularly exceed

the 4-hour standard for ozone concentration

on 21 days a year. In addition, despite falling

rates of water use per capita, Sydney’s popu-

lation growth is challenging the adequacy of

the city’s water supply. As of the early twenty-

first century, Sydney’s water consumption was

at 106 percent of the amount that can be sus-

tainably drawn from the drainage basin. Con-

tinuing urban development poses a significant

threat to Sydney’s water quality.

Perth: Isolated Millionaire

With a population of 1.7 million, Perth may

be the world’s most isolated large city. Located

on Australia’s west coast, Perth was established

in 1829 along the banks of the Swan River

and laid out according to a grid pattern com-

monly associated with colonial planning. As

the colonial capital of Western Australia until

1901 (when the states were united as a Com-

monwealth), Perth grew slowly for its first

one hundred years. Throughout its history,

Perth served both a rural and mining hin-

terland, with much of Australia’s key mineral

526 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

more recently southward toward the munici-

pality of Mandurah. Population growth also

instigated increased demand for water in an

environment of minimal rainfall. In 2006, a

desalination plant for the city was opened to

bolster the city’s water supply. For much of the

twentieth century, it was presumed that the

private car would adequately cater to the trans-

portation needs of this growing population.

More recently, however, the need for better

public transportation has been recognized. A

new, profitable and well-patronized suburban

railway line to East Perth was opened. Perth is

also home to a wide variety of other sustain-

able transport initiatives. Foremost here are

“TravelSmart” programs, run by employers,

Aboriginal protesters drew attention to the

symbolic significance that the site held for

them; and they wanted the brewery buildings

demolished and the land returned to park-

land. Their point was made in a variety of

ways, including an 11-month period in which

they camped on the site. The protests were

unsuccessful, with the government author-

ity going ahead with the redevelopment and

incorporating elements of Aboriginal culture

into the design. At another level, the protest

was successful for the ways in which it brought

an Aboriginal presence into the urban world.

Perth, like other Australian cities, is a

sprawling city. Population growth has spawned

metropolitan growth, initially to the east and

Figure 12.15 Kings Park in Perth offers a view of the skyline that serves the commercial interests of Western Australia and the indian ocean rim. Source: Photo by Stanley brunn.

Distinctive Cities 527

By the 1980s, the area—especially Surf-

ers Paradise at the heart of the Gold Coast—

had gained a dubious reputation as a place of

relaxed social norms, brashly opulent neon-lit

landscapes, and get-rich-quick real estate deals.

Nonetheless, the region matured as a tourist des-

tination. Large-scale foreign direct investment

in real estate, especially from Japanese interests

in the 1980s and more recently from the Middle

Eastern, brought significant diversification to

the array of tourist products and consumption

landscapes in Surfers Paradise and its hinter-

land. The area developed a series of integrated

tourist resorts such as the Marina Mirage and

the golf-themed Sanctuary Cove; large-scale

retail malls such as Pacific Fair, Conrad Jupiters

casino; multiple golf courses; and multiple

theme parks, including Movieworld, Sea World,

Dream World, and Wet‘n’Wild Waterworld.

The Gold Coast (incorporated as a city

since 1959) has had a rapidly expanding resi-

dent population, which now stands at about

half a million. Its more than 13,000 accom-

modation rooms in hotels and serviced apart-

ments accommodate an additional 3.5 million

domestic visitors and 800,000 international

visitors annually, primarily from Asian coun-

tries and Aotearoa/New Zealand. But more

than a consumption-driven tourist economy

today underlies the Gold Coast. It is also

one of the most rapidly developing cities in

Australia, characterized by sustained rapid

population growth rates of around 2 percent

annually. Its growth is largely migrant driven

as lifestyle attractions have drawn in-migrants

from across Australia, many of whom have

found housing in low-density canal-estates

built behind the high-rise coastal strip. More

recently, as the Gold Coast has expanded, more

conventional forms of suburbia have devel-

oped including a major new-town develop-

ment in Robina to the southwest. As this has

schools, universities, or workplaces. These

programs encourage individuals to consider

non-car travel, and sometimes provide incen-

tives to do so. Like Auckland’s “walking school

buses,” they have been successful in reducing

private automobile travel in Perth, and in rais-

ing awareness of the city’s precarious environ-

mental future.

Gold Coast: Tourism Urbanization

Australian sociologist Patrick Mullin has used

the term “tourism urbanization” to describe a

scenario of tourism-sustained urban growth,

where (1) urban development is based pri-

marily on tourist consumption of goods and

services for pleasure, and (2) urban form is

shaped by the city’s function as a leisure space.

The Gold Coast on Australia’s Queensland

coast can be understood in these terms.

In Australia’s Gold Coast—25 miles

(40 km) south of Queensland’s capital city,

Brisbane—white settlement began in the

1840s with timber getting and agricultural

development. By the 1870s, wealthy Brisbane

residents were already discovering the area as a

leisure destination, known simply as the South

Coast. The development of a rail connection

from Brisbane in the 1930s saw the area’s

appeal broaden and some minor beach resorts

emerge. But it was not until the boom of the

1950s that the area took on the name “Gold

Coast” and began its development as Aus-

tralia’s highest intensity, high-rise tourist des-

tination. Through many cycles of boom and

bust, intense real estate investment in tourist

accommodation, retail, restaurants, and enter-

tainment ventures along this 35-mile (56 km)

strip of spectacular surfing beaches, trans-

formed the Gold Coast into the most intensely

developed coastal tourist strip in Australia and

a key international tourist destination.

528 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

Auckland: Economic Hub of

Aotearoa/New Zealand

While not the nation’s capital, Auckland

has dominated Aotearoa/New Zealand’s

urban system since overtaking Dunedin and

Christchurch as the country’s largest city in the

late-nineteenth century. Like Sydney, it devel-

oped on an aesthetically and economically

advantageous harbor, and is similarly renowned

for its natural beauty. Historically, it too served

a rich agricultural and forested hinterland. The

deregulation of the national economy in the

1980s paved the way for the transformation of

Auckland. It is Aotearoa/New Zealand’s larg-

est, most prosperous and economically active

city. By the late twentieth century, it hosted

more than a third of the nation’s employment

in manufacturing, transport, communication,

and business services. It increasingly occupies

a strategic position in the national economy,

through its operation as a place in which and

through which the global economy operates. It

is the location of multinationals, international

financial transactions, global property invest-

ments, and a hub for international tourists.

Global rather than local connections are also

important in explaining a number of other fac-

ets of urban life in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The 1980s saw the transformation of the

Auckland residential and commercial land-

scapes. High-rise residential towers (like the

famous Sky Tower, tallest building in the

Southern Hemisphere) were built around the

city’s CBD, often financed in foreign curren-

cies, designed by architects outside Aotearoa/

New Zealand, and managed by global prop-

erty conglomerates. High-rise residential

living has become increasingly popular.

The building of medium-density housing

has added to the city’s density. Sometimes

modeled on “new urbanist” ideas imported

occurred, the initial dominance of retirees

among in-migrants—prompting one author

to label the city “God’s waiting room”—has

subsided such that the largest in-migrant

group now ranges between 20 and 29 years

old. The city’s population is expected to reach

nearly 789,000 by 2031; but the Gold Coast is

also blending into the extended urban region

of southeast Queensland (SEQ), a conurbation

that stretches 150 miles (240 km) from Noosa

southward through Brisbane and the Gold

Coast to Tweed in northern New South Wales.

SEQ’s population is approaching 3 million,

representing more than two-thirds of Queens-

land’s population. The population of SEQ is

projected to reach 4.4 million by 2031.

As the Gold Coast blends into this urban

region, its economy is diversifying. Tourism-

related industries have tended to support

lower-skilled occupations and low-paid and/

or casual employment, prone to seasonal

fluctuation. Now, the state-supported Pacific

Innovation Corridor initiative aims to pro-

mote the region’s hi-tech, biotech, computing,

and multimedia industries that will integrate

the region into a globalized knowledge econ-

omy and improve rail and road connections to

Brisbane’s larger economy. Nonetheless, Gold

Coast is still one of the lowest income cities

in Australia and has higher levels of socio-

economic disadvantage than other Australian

cities, in part a product of its occupational

structure. The tourism-dominated economy

is reflected in lower-skilled occupations, low

rates of higher education, high rates of low-

paid casual employment, and high rates of

unemployment. As the conurbation expands,

challenges emerge: managing disadvantage,

enabling economic diversification, building

roads and transit systems, developing sustain-

able communities, and balancing environ-

mental protection against development.

Distinctive Cities 529

Box 12.5 Gentrification and Ponsonby road, auckland

Figure 12.16 Ponsonby Road is now a focal point of chic eateries and boutique shopping in Auckland. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Whether the claim that gentrification is now a global phenomenon is valid or not, this urban- ization process has certainly reshaped the inner suburbs of many of Australia’s and new Zea- land/Aotearoa’s cities. the process has witnessed middle-class renovation and resettlement of formerly working-class housing in inner-city neighborhoods in all the major metropolitan centers, as well as in regional cities such as newcastle and Wollongong in new South Wales. Gentrification is not merely a residential phenomenon but one involving refashioning local shopping streets, leisure and recreation facilities, and neighborhood services as residents’ aesthetics, ethos, and consumption patterns combine to mold local streetscapes. these impacts are evident on King Street in Sydney’s newtown, brunswick Street in Melbourne’s Fitzroy’s, boundary Road in brisbane’s West End, darby Street in newcastle’s Cooks hill, and Ponsonby Road in Auckland’s Ponsonby.

the suburb of Ponsonby is located less than a mile west of Auckland’s Cbd (Figure 12.16). After World War ii, many of Ponsonby’s more prosperous residents relocated to the expanding outer suburbs and were replaced by lower-income Pacific island and Maori migrants. however, waves of gentrification commenced in the 1970s, as diverse groups of young, well-educated, Pakeha (white new Zealanders of European descent) were attracted to the area by its cheap property, low rents, and social and ethnic diversity. ironically, that diversity can be threat- ened by the very process of gentrification. in Ponsonby’s case, gentrification overlapped with an Auckland-wide housing boom and property price inflation in the 1990s; the result has been significant displacement of lower-income, less-educated inhabitants, driven out by rising rents and spiraling house prices. Ponsonby’s population has, proportionately, become

530 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

do aspire to and do fulfill these suburban

ideals, like residence in a detached house.

Migration has also transformed suburban

landscapes. Suburbs like Sandringham, with

new places of worship and retail landscapes,

have been the destination of many migrants

from Asia.

The sustainability of a large, dynamic city

like Auckland is attracting ever more schol-

arly and policy attention. Contradictions

between reliance on the private motor vehi-

cle and a strong environmental consciousness

have seen the widespread adoption of “walk-

ing school buses.” Rather than children being

driven individually to school, they congregate

at locations along a designated route and walk

to school with other children, all under paren-

tal supervision. The average walk takes about

30 minutes. About 200 active walking school

buses now operate throughout Auckland and

directly from the United States, these new

suburbs modify the conventional suburban

way of life with smaller houses, a gridded

street pattern, and sometimes a communal

open space. Though not gated communities

in the strictest sense, the role of these new

suburbs in fostering social exclusion is an

ongoing issue. In fact, the same issue often

arises as inner-city neighborhoods undergo

gentrification (Box 12.5).

Lifestyle television programs and home-

focused magazines are hugely popular and

foster expenditure on household items and

renovation projects in Auckland and its sub-

urbs. Suburban backyards may be getting

smaller, but they still serve the important

purposes of providing a place for children

to play, domestic vegetable cultivation, and

the fulfillment of aesthetic and economic

aspirations. Some new groups of migrants

distinctly “whiter” and higher income. nonetheless, despite price inflation, the area has maintained a relatively young population and a significant proportion of rental housing.

Certainly, diversity is characteristic of the dramatic transformation of the consumption spaces and public culture of Ponsonby Road. Gentrification has combined with changes to licensing laws to see the birth of a thriving agglomeration of over 90 cafes, restaurants, and bars, interspersed with specialty stores, greengrocers, butchers, and newsagents. Mark Latham’s (2003) research has shown how the plethora of cafes and bars—often flamboyantly and expensively styled and open to the street—depart from the more traditional, enclosed spaces of pubs and the culture of hard-drinking masculinity that they accommodate more readily than other forms of sociality. As a result, gentrification has seen Ponsonby Road develop a range of more ambiguous spaces for consumption and sociability that are wel- coming to women, gay-friendly, and less confined to traditional norms of gendered iden- tity. in this particular site of gentrification, working-class displacement and middle-class colonization have been accompanied by the development of a diverse public culture that, while definitely accessible (most easily to those with disposable income), is open to diverse expressions of identity and diverse ways of inhabiting the city.

Source: A. Latham, Urbanity, lifestyle and making sense of the new urban cultural economy, Urban Studies 40 (2003): 1699–1724.

Distinctive Cities 531

poorly serviced housing, in which urban pov-

erty is concentrated; Suva has just a little less.

Basic urban infrastructure—water, sewerage,

electricity, and garbage collection—is either

completely lacking or minimally provided in

such settlements. Problems are exacerbated by

a lack of formal employment opportunities.

Urban poverty is rising, exemplified by the

increasing number of street children. Infor-

mal employment, particularly prostitution,

has arisen to counter the lack of formal-sector

employment opportunities.

Policy responses to urban poverty and

marginalization in Suva and Port Moresby

have been small and problematic. The under

funding of basic infrastructure has contrib-

uted to the problem. There is widespread

opposition to the urban poor and street pros-

titution. The government’s response to pros-

titution, the prevalence of street children, and

informal settlement has been largely nega-

tive. In PNG, problem settlements have been

bulldozed rather than adequately resourced.

More generally, these cities have been sites

of social and political unrest, which has had

its suburbs, but they are more likely to serve

middle-class neighborhoods. They have been

credited with removing cars from the road,

reducing air pollution, reducing obesity, and

enhancing community. Official urban poli-

cies of sustainability have already influenced

the building of medium-density housing and

housing with a small ecological footprint. A

more widespread implementation of urban

sustainability in Auckland has also recently

been discussed.

Port Moresby and Suva: Island Capitals

Port Moresby and Suva are the largest cit-

ies, and political capitals, of their respective

nations of Papua New Guinea and Fiji. They

have parallel histories, urban patterns, and

contemporary influences. While their cur-

rent political instabilities may be unique, their

other characteristics are broadly representa-

tive of cities in the island Pacific.

Neither PNG nor Fiji has a prosperous

economy. They have weak manufacturing sec-

tors, are reliant on an agricultural enterprises

beset with inefficiencies and at the mercy of

low globalization, and are plagued by politi-

cal instability. Hence, both Suva and Port

Moresby have fragile economic bases. While

population has been steadily growing in both

cities, employment opportunities have not.

Consequently, unemployment is high, with

one estimate putting unemployment in Port

Moresby at around 60 percent. These fragile

economic circumstances underpin the most

salient characteristics of Pacific Island cities: a

large informal sector, including informal set-

tlements, plus political problems and unrest

(Figure 12.17).

Informal, squatter-like settlements are

common in these cities. Port Moresby has

at least 84 agglomerations of substandard,

Figure 12.17 Located on Auckland’s north Shore, devonport’s landscape has been almost completely transformed by suburbanization. nevertheless, a few visual reminders of the original inhabitants remain, including this Maori warrior. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

532 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

Desalination may be one solution to water

supply, but its voluminous energy demands

impose other impacts on the environment. In

addition, the geographic expansion of urban-

ized areas involves the loss of productive land,

loss of biodiversity, and increased energy use.

The imperatives in all cities have thus become

reduced energy consumption and emissions

reduction alongside increased use of renew-

able energy.

Urban governance provides many chal-

lenges across the region. The challenge is

the establishment of effective urban govern-

ments able to meet environmental and secu-

rity challenges and fashion positive outcomes

(Figure 12.19). Governance processes that

contribute to social cohesion are also key. In

Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand, urban

governance is now characterized by a variant

of neoliberalism in which market processes

and solutions underpin policy. Waterfront

redevelopments in many cities are classic

implications for the internal structures of

these cities. In Port Moresby, for example,

security concerns have seen European and

other expatriates withdraw further into bar-

ricaded residential estates on the hillsides of

the city.

TRENDS AND CHALLENGES

Many of the cities in Australia and the Pacific

are cradled by fragile ecosystems and are

extremely vulnerable to the multifaceted

impacts of climate change (Figure 12.18).

Australia’s largest cities are further challenged

by the fact that they are all located in areas

where climate change is inducing significant

declines in rainfall levels. All of the capital cit-

ies (except Hobart) have desalination plants

in operation or nearing completion, to con-

vert seawater to drinking water, though most

are currently finding it difficult to cover costs.

Figure 12.18 in newcastle, nSW, this ClimateCam billboard broadcasts figures on the city’s electricity consumption. these are updated hourly as a way of raising awareness about the city’s contribution to resource use, GhG emissions and climate change. Source: Photo by Kathy Mee.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Connell, J., and J. P. Lea. 2002. Urbanisation in the

Island Pacific. 3rd ed. London: Routledge. An

overview of urbanization in 11 independent

island states.

Connell, J., and P. McManus. 2011. Rural Revival?

Place Marketing, Tree Change and Regional

Migration in Australia. Surrey: Ashgate. Exam-

ines urban-rural migration using numerous

case studies across Australia, to understand how

urban-to-rural migration can be achieved and

offer approaches for wider applications.

Forster, C. 2004. Australian Cities: Continuity and

Change. South Melbourne: Oxford University

Press. Explores the urban experience across

the Pacific Islands, including the role of cit-

ies in national development and as centers of

globalization.

Jacobs, J. M. 1996. Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism

and the City. London and New York: Routledge.

An analysis of how the connections built by

outcomes of neoliberal policies. The extent to

which such governance is equitable remains

questionable, and ways to produce more

“just” cities within such a framework are still

being sought. Equitable outcomes for indig-

enous peoples of these cities are especially

important.

Finally, the provision of adequate, appro-

priate, and affordable housing is a pressing

issue for all cities in the region. In Sydney

and Melbourne particularly, where house-

price escalation has been intense, affordabil-

ity has now reached historic lows. Mortgage

stress—where households are paying more

than 30 percent of gross household income on

housing—has risen, most particularly in the

suburbs. The impacts of the affordability crisis

include displacing younger people and lower-

paid workers from high-cost urban areas,

labor shortages, and growing debt burdens on

households with mortgages.

Figure 12.19 one of the challenges of urban governance in Australia is maintaining safe streets. Signs like this one in Sydney have been increasing rapidly as people everywhere become more security conscious. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

534 CITIES OF AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

McManus, P. 2005. Vortex Cities to Sustainable Cit-

ies: Australia’s Urban Challenge. Sydney: Uni-

versity of New South Wales Press. Examines

the histories and planning decisions that have

contributed to the unsustainability of Austral-

ian cities.

Newton, P., ed. 2008. Transitions: Pathways toward

Sustainable Urban Development in Australia.

Canberra: CSIRO Publishing. Examines demo-

graphic and development trends and their

implications for resource demands and sustain-

able urban development.

Weller, R., and J. Bolleter. 2012. Made in Australia:

The Future of Australian Cities. Perth: Univer-

sity of Western Australia Publishing. Uses the

concept of visionary cities within urban mega-

regions to project the social and sustainable

future of Australia’s urban population.

globalization and the postcolonial world shape

and reshape the composition of cities.

Le Heron, R., and E. Pawson. 1996. Changing

Places: New Zealand in the Nineties. Auck-

land: Longman Paul. Provides an overview of

the transforming geography of New Zealand

including its cities and regions in the context of

globalization.

Major Cities Unit. 2013. State of Australian Cit-

ies 2013. Infrastructure Australia. Canberra:

Australian Government. Provides a detailed

empirical snapshot of demographic, economic,

social, environmental, and governance dynam-

ics of Australia’s major cities.

McGillick, P. 2005. Sydney, Australia: The Making

of a Global City. Singapore: Periplus. A photo-

graphically illustrated history of Sydney’s built

environment.

Figure 13.1 Urban Populations: 1950, 2000, and 2050. Source: data from United nations, World Urbanization Prospects, 2001 Revision (new york: United nations Population division, 2002), www.unpopulation.org. Projections for 2050 by authors.

Cities of the Future BRIAN EDWARD JOHNSON AND BENJAMIN SHULTZ

KEy URbAN FACTS

Largest in Population (in millions: Tokyo (37.1), Delhi (28.6),

2010–2025 projections) Mumbai (25.8), São Paulo (21.6), Dhaka (20.9),

Mexico City (20.7)

Urban Areas Adding Most Residents Delhi (6.4), Dhaka (6.3),

(in millions: 2010–2025 projections) Kinshasa (6.3), Mumbai (5.8), Karachi (5.6),

Lagos (5.2)

Fastest Annual Growth Rates (%) Ouagadougou (8.5), Lilongwe (7.1),

(2010–2025 projections) Blantyre-Limbe (7.1), Yamoussoukro (6.9),

Niamey (6.7), Kampala (6.6)

Slowest Annual Growth Rates (%) Dnipropetrovsk (−0.25),

(2010–2025 projections) Saratov (−0.20), Donetsk (−0.17),

Zaporizhzhya (−0.15), Havana (−0.11),

Volgograd (−0.09)

Sharpest Declines Dnipropetrovsk (37), Havana (35),

(in thousands: 2010–2025 projections) Saratov (24), Donetsk (24), St. Petersburg (18),

Zaporizhzhya (17)

KEy CHAPTER THEMES

1. General growth in overall world urban populations will continue, with rapid growth in the

less developed countries and slow growth in more developed countries.

2. Urban growth in developing countries will present many challenges, including provision of

basic infrastructure and human services.

3. Young people and seniors will fuel the growth of city centers in developed countries, while

larger numbers of minorities and immigrants will move to the suburbs.

4. The world’s fastest growing cities are in countries with weak environmental standards, put-

ting the health of the world’s poorest urban residents at risk and putting greater strain on

the global environment.

538 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

Populous and diverse cities now exist

throughout the world. In fact, since 2007,

for the first time in history, the majority

of the human population is living in cities

(Figure 13.1). This chapter describes cities

of the future with predicted trends in world-

wide urban growth, distributions, com-

positions, economies, and landscapes. In

addition, challenges posed by urban growth

and change are explained, including provid-

ing for the residents of booming cities in

the developing world, or global south, and

managing urban revitalization and subur-

ban diversification in the developed world,

or global north. How cities will attempt to

be more sustainable and adapt to climate

change is also discussed, along with dein-

dustrialization, urban spaces as both com-

munications and transportation crossroads,

and resource-based cities of the near future.

Then, the chapter addresses changing urban

governance, which includes interurban

collaboration and geographic technologies.

The chapter concludes with a look at cities

that are predicted to have the highest quality

of life (Box 13.1).

URbAN GROWTH IN THE GLObAL SOUTH

Going forward, the percentage of humans

living in cities worldwide is predicted to

continue increasing. By “cities” or “urban

areas,” researchers commonly mean cities

as well as their suburban and exurban areas.

Since becoming 50 percent urban in 2007,

the human population has increased to 54

percent urban in 2015. This proportion puts

the worldwide urban population at almost 4

billion people. By 2050, the United Nations

predicts that the global urban population will

have risen to 66.4 percent or over 6.3 billion

people (Figure 13.2).

5. Cities in coastal areas are likely to face rising sea levels and more frequent and strong storms

due to climate change, forcing many cities to upgrade infrastructure and update land-use

plans.

6. As new industrial cities continue to develop, they will likely go through a period of dein-

dustrialization as they transition to a cleaner service economy, just as the revitalized former

industrial centers of the developed world have done.

7. Contrary to predictions that the world will become “flatter,” cities that are communica-

tion and transportation hubs will thrive, as will cities with concentrations of highly skilled

workers.

8. Some cities located near newly discovered natural resources will thrive, as will cities in Sub-

Saharan Africa and other regions, as they are able to attract manufacturing jobs due to East

Asia’s transition to a service economy.

9. Innovative approaches to urban governance, including extensive use of geographical infor-

mation systems (GIS), will continue to be important as urban governments plan for future

change.

10. Security provision and location-based mass surveillance will increase in urban areas, espe-

cially in the wake of terrorist attacks in major cities.

Urban Growth in the Global South 539

Box 13.1 engineering earth Futures

Stanley d. brunn, University of Kentucky

the planet is replete with mega-engineering projects of varying sizes, financial costs, and environmental impacts. While we generally would associate these projects with extensive transportation schemes, dams, airports, river diversion, and irrigation projects, they also can include theme parks and leisure spaces (golf courses and sports arenas), new capital cities, and towering skyscrapers. but engineering the earth can and does include projects of a social nature as well. Are not genetically modified foods, Google Earth, GiS, the internet, and Face- book also ways in which we choose to engineer the earth? And what about social engineer- ing projects such as gated communities, international “cookie cutter” suburbs, resettlement projects for “alien” newcomers and socially divisive projects designed by governments that separate groups based on skin color, religion, and ethnicity? Examples of these projects exist on all continents and in their social, environmental, and political impacts will only increase in importance in the coming decades.

three issues are paramount in looking at the future of megaprojects. First, is “bigger” necessarily “better”? Contemporary society, whether in the developed or developing world, seems almost addicted to projects that are huge. China’s three Gorges dam, dubai’s burj Khalifa, the trans Amazon highway, plus gigantic nuclear power plants, offshore oil rigs, postmodern skyscraper skylines, and outlandishly designed new capital cities, all come to mind. there is no shortage of mega-dreams and mega-schemes to try and resolve an immedi- ate energy or transportation problem or to appease the superego of government leaders. We seem to think the size “fix” will solve the problem or appease potential users.

Second, what are the impacts of mega-projects? For each project, there are social as well as environmental externalities. What are the short- and long-term consequences of relying on nuclear power or altering the course of a river or planning residential areas in environ- mentally sensitive wetland zones or on erosion-prone slopes? or, what about a society whose youth and wealthy are addicted to the disembodied worlds of Facebook, iPods, cell phones, and the internet? or, a world where everything and everyone is a coded into GiS databases? do we really want a world where everything can be mapped and where everyone is mapped 24/7? With our fixation on “technology coming to the rescue,” we often forget the envi- ronmental and human impacts of financial and engineering solutions to problems. Social, environmental, and civil engineering often seem to operate in parallel universes. hazards to future generations may originate in the social and physical engineering projects of today.

third, what about our future? Futures, like pasts and presents, will be engineered. the questions are who will be masterminding the planning and what do we expect from it? Post- modernists like to remind us that we have the freedom and flexibility to design the futures we want. Perhaps that is true; but, perhaps this view is also elitist, self-serving, material- istic, and unresourceful. Present and future worlds will be comprised of many living in sur- vival conditions in rich and poor worlds whose daily lives are and will be full of uncertainty,

540 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

Not all urban areas are predicted to grow

at the same pace, however. Urban areas in the

less developed world, also known as the global

south, are predicted to grow more rapidly

than those in more highly developed coun-

tries, or global north (Tables 13.1 and 13.2).

For example, Tokyo is currently the world’s

most populous urban area, with 38.0 million

people. It is predicted that Tokyo will still top

the list in 2030, having shrunk slightly to 37.2

million people. In contrast, Delhi, the second

most populous urban area at present, is pre-

dicted to grow by 40.3 percent, from 25.7 mil-

lion in 2015 to 36.1 million in 2030.

Populous cities in the more highly devel-

oped countries are predicted to grow slowly or

plateau in terms of the number of inhabitants,

while cities in less developed countries are

predicted to grow substantially. Cities in very

highly developed countries, such as Osaka,

New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and London, will

thus drop down the ranking list of the world’s

frustration, desperation, and without a moral compass. Where these conditions exist, how can one “engineer hope”? Perhaps the human condition will be improved by placing greater focus on economic and social micro-engineered projects that are local, sustainable, and com- munity based rather than highly visible and heavily financed projects by the international banking community. What is certain is that global warming, biological species decline, finan- cial meltdowns, social underachieving, geopolitical impotence, surface conformities, and social restlessness are futures with us now. it remains for the youth and elders, leaders and followers to decide what kind of engagement, empowerment, or engineering of the planet’s resources and population we wish to pass on the coming generations.

More than one hundred mega-projects are discussed in the multivolume Engineering Earth: The Impacts of Megaengineering Projects, which was edited by S. d. brunn and published in 2011 by Springer (dordrecht, netherlands).

Figure 13.2 Global Urban Population: 2010–2050. Source: Population division of the department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United nations Secretariat, 2010.

Urban Growth in the Global South 541

Table 13.1 World’s Most Populous Cities in 2015

World’s Most Populous Cities in 2015

Rank City Population Development Level (2012)

1 Tokyo 38.0 million Very high human development

2 Delhi 25.7 million Medium human development

3 Shanghai 23.7 million Medium human development

4 São Paulo 21.1 million High human development

5 Mumbai 21.0 million Medium human development

6 Mexico City 21.0 million High human development

7 Beijing 20.4 million Medium human development

8 Osaka 20.2 million Very high human development

9 Cairo 18.8 million Medium human development

10 New York 18.6 million Very high human development

Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of

the United Nations Secretariat, 2015; United Nations Development Program, 2014.

Table 13.2 World’s Most Populous Cities in 2030

World’s Most Populous Cities in 2030

Rank City Population Development Level (2012) % change from 2015

1 Tokyo 37.2 million Very high human development -2.1 2 Delhi 36.1 million Medium human development 40.3

3 Shanghai 30.8 million Medium development 29.5

4 Mumbai 27.8 million Medium human development 32.1

5 Beijing 27.7 million Medium human development 35.9

6 Dhaka 27.4 million Low human development 55.5

7 Karachi 24.8 million Low human development 49.5

8 Cairo 24.5 million Medium human development 30.5

9 Lagos 24.2 million Low human development 84.7

10 Mexico City 23.9 million High human development 13.6

Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secre-

tariat, 2015; United Nations Development Program, 2014.

most populous, as will other cities in Europe

and North America; while cities in East Asia,

South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa are pre-

dicted to climb the ranks. The very populous

cities of the world are predicted to be increas-

ingly located in East Asia and South Asia.

Causes of Urban Growth in the Global South

Why are urban areas burgeoning in the global

south? In these countries, rural-to-urban

migration is currently occurring and is pre-

dicted to persist into the next several decades.

People are moving from the countryside to

542 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

cities, swelling the populations of urban areas.

These moves are caused, in large part, by

broader trends in population and economic

geography.

The demographic transition model and

the related migration-transition model help

to explain how population trends are linked

to urbanization. They suggest that families in

less developed rural areas desire large families,

in part, because children provide additional

help working the land, potentially increasing

a family’s earnings. As farmers in developing

countries become able to purchase labor-sav-

ing tractors and other farm machinery, some

of their children become redundant with

respect to labor needs, and commonly move

to cities to seek work. As industrialization cre-

ates a demand for labor in the cities, unem-

ployed or underemployed in-migrants from

rural areas fill that demand.

Agricultural mechanization and urban

industrialization are driving the growth of

cities in many developing countries. The

changing geographies of labor markets are

causing a surge in city populations today,

and they are predicted to persist into the

near future (Figure 13.3). In developed

countries, this agricultural mechanization/

urban industrialization trend played out in

previous eras when cities in today’s devel-

oped countries grew rapidly from rural-to-

urban migration. Today, however, the cities

of developed countries do not receive many

rural newcomers because farmers in these

countries have utilized labor-saving machin-

ery for decades and have adjusted their fer-

tility downward. For example, the United

States became a majority-urban population

in 1920 at a time when the trend of agricul-

tural mechanization was sweeping across

the country’s farms and ranches, and when

industrialization was transforming urban

economies by creating jobs in the secondary

sector of the economy.

Figure 13.3 At close of business on Fridays in Portland, oregon, placards are out to remind commuters to enjoy their weekend. it’s good for their health. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Urban Growth in the Global South 543

In addition, public health and medicine

has improved in many developing countries

in recent decades. Families who, for genera-

tions, had many children to offset predicted

high infant and child mortality rates are now

finding that through improvements in sanita-

tion, maternal health care, vaccinations, and

overall medical care, more children are sur-

viving to adulthood. Higher survival rates

commonly result in more grown children

living in a rural area than can be supported

there, so those people commonly move to cit-

ies. Again, this trend occurred in developed

countries long ago, and their fertility rates in

both rural and urban areas have been low for

generations.

Changing cultural attitudes also contribute

to urbanization in the developing world. As

culture globalizes and many traditional cul-

tures begin to adopt Western values, achiev-

ing social status becomes more a matter of

individual accomplishment rather than being

linked to having a large family. Differences in

income, education, and professional titles, for

example, establish social hierarchy. Access to

higher education and better paying positions

in the tertiary sector are overwhelmingly con-

centrated in cities, attracting thousands of

aspiring young professionals each year.

Challenges Posed by Urban

Growth in the Global South

The high growth rates of cities in developing

countries present challenges. With millions

moving to rapidly growing urban areas of

the developing world each year, city services,

infrastructure, and housing provision have

not kept up with the population increase,

resulting in large informal settlements charac-

terized by poor housing conditions in many

areas of the developing world. Many factors

contribute to urban poverty, including tenu-

ous employment in the informal sector, lack

of effective urban networking to find jobs,

low wages of multiple-member households,

low rates of literacy, and lack of job skills. The

urban poor are also those who have to carry

water to their residences (equivalent to eight

suitcases a day); they experience irregular and

unexpected losses of water and electricity (if

such services are available at all), lack readily

available and safe fuel sources to heat food or

homes, and use various outdoor facilities for

toilets. They live in constant fear of eviction,

loss of income and employment, injuries from

work, and random violence brought on by

criminal gangs or police.

For example, a rapidly growing city like

Dhaka in Bangladesh must find a way to pro-

vide infrastructure and services for the half

million new residents arriving, on an average,

each year. This includes adding more water

mains, sewers, schools, hospitals, train lines,

buses, roads, energy supplies, dwellings, and

jobs. Newcomers having a difficulty finding

housing sometimes end up living in infor-

mal settlements, which go by different names

in different parts of the world: shanty towns,

bustees, barrios, bidonvilles, favelas, and villas

miserias. If residents have no legal right to the

land, which is almost always the case, they are

called squatter settlements, and if the built

environment is deteriorated and unhealthy,

they may also be referred to by the now-pejo-

rative word, slums. In such settlements, utility

service is typically not provided, land tenure

is uncertain, and housing is self-help. Gov-

ernments have financial and administrative

difficulties in formalizing such settlements

and providing city services. Accommodating

over 500,000 new residents every year would

be a tremendous challenge even for cities in

wealthy countries, let alone many of the cities

544 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

in less wealthy regions that will need to address

these issues in the coming decades.

URbAN CHANGE IN THE GLObAL NORTH

Metropolitan areas in the developed countries

are predicted to grow slowly: there are fewer

people to draw from rural areas and popula-

tions are at or below replacement level fertility.

What growth does occur will be due largely to

international immigration. Within metropoli-

tan areas, however, population rearrangement

is occurring, with the growth in city-center

populations and diversification of the suburbs

being evident in present and future trends.

Central cities have been attracting popu-

lation recently, which is a notable change

because such cities lost population, largely

to their suburbs, for several generations.

Depopulation of core cities and moves to the

suburbs and exurbs was especially evident

in North America, but occurred in West-

ern Europe as well. It is notable that Greater

London’s population has been rebounding

since the 1990s and is now, at 8.5 million,

larger than at any previous point in its his-

tory including its former high point, which

was hit right before World War II. London

has clearly bucked the decentralization trend.

So have other large European cities, but much

less vigorously.

Inner-city revitalization in the United States

and Canada has occurred in part because the

largest age cohorts in many developed coun-

tries are Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964) and

Millennials (born 1982–2002). These genera-

tions have larger proportions of those seeking

residences in or near city centers compared to

other more suburban-inclined generations.

Boomers are seeking smaller residences to

better fit empty-nest households and mini-

mize home upkeep obligations and expenses

as they age. In the United States, Boomers no

longer have children at home, so there is lit-

tle impetus to remain in or move to what they

perceive to be higher-quality suburban school

districts. Many Boomers have come to desire

the shorter commutes provided by living close

to workplaces in the core cities and shorter

travel time to city-center cultural attractions

and dining (Figure 13.4).

Near the other end of the age spectrum,

North American Millennials are showing a

preference for core cities or urban neighbor-

hoods, rather than the overwhelmingly pre-

ferred suburban areas of earlier generations.

Having come of age during the Great Reces-

sion (beginning in 2008), Millennials want to

live close to large downtown labor markets

in order to increase job search success and to

facilitate the frequent job switching that they

predict will mark their careers. Childlessness

has increased, particularly among younger

generations, and those who do have chil-

dren have fewer and at later ages. Millennials

are living in diverse households made up of

roommates, cohabitating couples, or singles.

Thanks to Millennials, divorcees, widows,

and widowers, the fastest growing house-

hold type in many developing countries is

single people living alone. At the same time,

young generations such as Millennials strug-

gle to save to purchase houses amid economic

and job market difficulties. They are buying

homes later and in fewer numbers compared

to previous generations. Population and eco-

nomic trends are funneling this generation to

core cities with their large supply of smaller

dwellings and rental residences. Also, it has

become more common, especially in Western

Europe, for Millennials to reside with their

parents well into adulthood, further slowing

Urban Change in the Global North 545

the demand for new housing in suburban and

exurban areas.

Suburbs in Europe, North America, and

Australia continue to grow, just more slowly

than in the second half of the twentieth cen-

tury. Many suburbs in North America and

Europe were overbuilt leading up to the

Great Recession, and the glut of homes has

caused suburban housing prices to stagnate

or decline. In Florida, Nevada, and Arizona,

approximately 15 percent of all residences

were vacant during the Great Recession, casu-

alties of overbuilding and the housing crash.

In Ireland, 300,000 new homes, mostly located

in suburban and exurban locations, stand

unoccupied and often unfinished, contribut-

ing to a 50 percent decline in overall property

prices since the peak in 2007. These houses,

like those in North America, were built when

mortgages were easily had, buyers (incor-

rectly) predicted that prices would continue

to rise, and growth in wages did not keep up

with increases in housing prices.

In the developed countries of North

America, Europe, and Oceania, international

immigrants increasingly are moving to sub-

urbs. European suburbs have long been home

to immigrant neighborhoods, including

North Africans in the suburbs of Paris and

Turks in the suburbs of Berlin. Increasingly,

newcomers to the United States and Canada

are moving to enclaves in the suburbs rather

than to ethnic neighborhoods in core cities.

The U.S. Census Bureau has also reported on

the sustained movement of African Americans

to the suburbs. The large cities of New York,

Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit, among

others, have all seen a decline in the black pop-

ulation. Both push and pull factors seem to be

at work in their moves: Some are respond-

ing to gentrification of inner-city neighbor-

hoods, and others are responding to their own

Figure 13.4 Repurposing old buildings to serve as apartments and condominiums in the heart of downtown is bringing life back to central cities. Every Cbd has signs like this, but this one happens to be in Cincinnati, ohio. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

546 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

suburban dreams (Figure 13.5). Suburbs are

clearly becoming more diverse, ethnically and

economically.

URbAN SUSTAINAbILITy AT CENTER STAGE

The rapid growth of cities has many costs

and benefits in terms of sustainability

(Figure 13.6). On the one hand, urbanization

is often taken as a sign of economic develop-

ment, as the world’s economic engine is pow-

ered by cities. Concentrating a larger number

of people into a smaller area also makes the

delivery of important services (e.g., health

care) more efficient. On the other hand, the

United Nations estimates that cities account

for more than three-fourths of global

energy consumption and greenhouse gas

emissions. The fact that 67 percent of the

world’s population is expected to live in cit-

ies by 2050 means that understanding how

to make urbanization sustainable will be one

of the greatest challenges in the twenty-first

century.

The concentration of industrial activity in

and around cities is one of the primary reasons

why cities account for such a high percentage

of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. In

the developed world, there has been a con-

certed push toward “green” technologies and

cleaner forms of energy to decrease pollution

and reduce emissions. While these are neces-

sary and important measures intended to cre-

ate a more sustainable future, new industry is

increasingly attracted to metropolitan areas

that offer lax environmental standards, espe-

cially in China and India.

Pollution Problems and Urban Futures

minerals supplying factories in its metropoli-

tan areas, China experienced an average eco-

nomic growth rate of over 10 percent each

year from the 1980s into the first decade of the

2000s, lifting hundreds of millions of people

out of poverty. The environmental cost of this

growth, however, has been severe. The World

Bank estimates that only one percent of the

country’s over 600 million urban residents

breathe air that is considered safe by Euro-

pean Union standards. Research by the World

Health Organization indicates that dirty air

and water already account for hundreds of

thousands of premature and preventable

deaths each year.

Figure 13.5 2015 commemorated the 50th anniversary of the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” led by Martin Luther King, Jr. here at his memorial on the national Mall, a new generation looks up to dr. King. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Urban Sustainability at Center Stage 547

India, with over a billion people of its own,

has also experienced severe environmental

degradation as it continues to urbanize and

industrialize at a startling pace. Delhi has the

highest level of urban air pollution of any of

the world’s megacities. Nine other Indian cit-

ies are among the top 20 in the world with the

highest levels of airborne particulate matter.

Like China, dirty energy sources and heavy

industry fuel India’s rapid ascent. Unlike

China, however, India’s relatively high fertility

rate means that the population will continue

to grow, thereby placing even more pressure

on the already overcrowded cities in the future.

The United Nations warns that the per-

sistence of current urbanization trends

depends upon a city’s ability to provide ade-

quate services as well as viable employment

opportunities. In South and East Asia, where

urbanization has been accompanied by eco-

nomic growth, cities will be increasingly able

to meet those basic needs in the near future,

becoming wealthier and more environmen-

tally sustainable. Urbanization in Sub-Saha-

ran Africa, by contrast, has been mostly in

the form of slums growing around cities that

already lack sufficient resources. Currently,

Sub-Saharan Africa is the least urbanized

region in the world. With many cities growing

between 5 and 10 percent per year, the region

is expected to be more than 50 percent urban

by 2030.

According to research by the World Bank,

more than half of Africa’s urban residents do

not have access to proper sanitation, and that

figure exceeds 80 percent in a few countries

like Sierra Leone and Niger. The same study

found that 20 percent of urban Africans do

not have access to clean drinking water, and

more than three out of four residents in west-

ern African cities live in substandard hous-

ing. All of these factors combine to severely

Figure 13.6 in Seoul, Korea, open space is green space. Although it’s one of the world’s megacities, Seoul has made living with nature a priority of life and governance. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

548 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

challenge the sustainability of Sub-Saharan

Africa’s urbanization. Inadequate disposal of

urban waste and trash in LDC cities around

the world affects the spread of diseases as well

as the overall quality of urban life. Hardly a

year goes by without the reported outbreak

of disease or the contamination of an urban

water supply. While European, North Ameri-

can, Australian, and Japanese cities implement

programs designed to protect the quality of the

living, working, and leisure environments, for

cities in less developed countries, health issues

are often considered of secondary importance

vis-à-vis economic development goals. Pol-

luted air from automobiles or from industries

is a fact of daily life just as much as polluted

drinking water and piles of garbage. Ecologi-

cal problems abound including the outbreak

of diseases, insufficient health vaccinations,

and sporadic public safety warnings.

The UN’s Sustainable Cities Programme

operates in scores of cities, mostly capitals. It

aims at developing local capacities for envi-

ronmental planning and management as

poorly managed urbanization creates serious

environmental and social problems. At the

municipal level, development issues gener-

ally include water resources and water supply

management, environmental health risks, and

solid and liquid waste management/on-site

sanitation, air pollution and urban trans-

port, drainage and flooding, industrial risks,

informal-sector activities, and land-use man-

agement in the context of open-space/urban

agriculture, tourism and coastal area resource

management, and mining.

Climate Change and Urban Futures

While rapid urbanization brings challenges of

its own, cities of the future will be faced with

yet another unprecedented event: the effects

of climate change. Many of the world’s largest

and fastest growing cities are in coastal areas.

This fact makes them particularly vulner-

able to climate change for two reasons. First,

weather events like strong hurricanes and

typhoons (once considered extraordinary)

are expected to become more frequent and

more intense in the near future. Major storms

like Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and

post-tropical cyclone Sandy in the North-

eastern United States are likely to become the

norm rather than the exception. Second, sea

levels are expected to rise anywhere from one

to six feet by the end of the century (Box 13.2).

When one considers that a rise in sea level of

just eight inches has the potential to displace

millions of people currently living in low-

lying coastal areas, it becomes apparent that

cities must take a proactive stance to protect

residents and infrastructure. A report by the

Worldwatch Institute noted that the grow-

ing numbers of environmental disasters are

resulting in more loss of life each decade. In

the past 25 years, 98 percent of the people

injured by natural disasters lived in the 112

countries classified as low or middle income

by the World Bank. These countries accounted

for 90 percent of lives lost to natural disasters.

The same is true for the melting of sea ice,

which results from global warming. Com-

pounding the problem, less than 3 percent of

LDC residents have insurance compared to

about 30 percent in the rich world.

The problems that climate change presents

to cities are compounded when they expand

geographically to meet the demand for new

housing, services, transportation, and indus-

tries. New construction gets pushed into

low-lying areas and other places that are not

suitable for building because they are more

vulnerable to sea-level rise and flooding caused

by storms. This is especially problematic in the

Urban Sustainability at Center Stage 549

Box 13.2 living With Water

Michael Allen, old dominion University

As a historic, coastal community, norfolk, Virginia, has a long-standing relationship with water. Situated at the mouth of the Chesapeake bay near the Atlantic ocean, the city is bisected by the Elizabeth River and penetrated by various “creeks.” European merchants set- tled in the region 400 years ago. Since then, norfolk’s 144 miles (232 km) of coastline have encouraged trade and commerce. tourism and seafood industries thrive. the city is the home to the world’s largest naval base. the Port of Virginia provides thousands of jobs, millions in revenue, and services to 45 countries worldwide. And, the nearly 250,000 norfolkians have learned to live with water.

Figure 13.7 Even short rainstorms bring flooding to norfolk’s streets and underpasses. the problem promises to worsen as sea levels rise and much of norfolk subsides. Source: Photo by Michael Allen.

however, living in an urban, coastal community also includes challenges. nor’easters and tropical cyclones, most notably hurricane isabel in 2003, often impact the region. And, whether the result of storm surge, sea-level rise, or simple downpours, flooding plagues nor- folk’s residents (Figure 13.7). According to the national Climate Assessment, global sea level has increased about 8 inches (200 mm) since the late 1800s. however, in norfolk, sea level has increased a total of 1.51 feet (0.47 m) just since 1927. And, for norfolk, it’s a one-two punch. While the sea is rising due to greenhouse gases and melting ice, the land is also sink- ing due to prior land-use policy. throughout its history, many creeks, wetlands, and marsh- lands have been filled with debris, and with time, this land naturally sinks. Consequently,

550 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

developing world, where many people mov-

ing to megacities are poor and set up housing

that is both substandard and in hazard-prone

landscapes.

Infrastructure to Mitigate Climate Change

Cities in the near future will be forced to step

up their investments in technology and infra-

structure that protect the built environment

from flooding and storms. The Organization

for Economic Cooperation and Development

(OECD) estimates that in 50 years, the value

of the infrastructure assets that are at risk from

storm damage (buildings, transportation,

and utilities) in New York City, Miami, and

Guangzhou will be worth around ten trillion

dollars combined. Tokyo and Nagoya in Japan

and Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the Nether-

lands are already taking proactive measures to

protect their infrastructure assets. Comparing

a map of the world’s most populous and fast-

est growing cities with one showing shallow

continental shelves reveals that many pros-

perous U.S. cities from Boston to Miami to

Houston will be affected by a two-meter rise

in sea level. Cities in northern and northwest

Europe are also vulnerable, as are cities at the

the federal government recognizes norfolk as the second most vulnerable city in America to sea-level rise, behind only new orleans.

despite overwhelming scientific evidence, the discourse surrounding climate change is often politicized in the United States, and even denied. yet, in norfolk, residents share stories of climate-change reality and narrate complexities that involve morals and values, economics, and the role of government. Who is responsible for environmental change? What should the government do? through the national Flood insurance Program, FEMA subsidizes rates for high-risk, flood-prone regions. Following natural disasters, money is filtered to these regions for redevelopment. Some argue these subsidies encourage coastal development in high-risk zones. norfolk has invested millions of dollars to protect property from rising seas. in 2012 alone, $7 million was used to raise roadways and homes, yet the ability to control nature has proven to be almost impossible: flooding still occurs. Forums, such as the 2015 dutch dialogues, suggest that the city (and region) is beginning to think more creatively in terms of mitigation and adaptation.

With an estimated $300 million price tag, shared investment in climate mitigation and adaptation requires all levels of government, the military, and various nongovernment enti- ties to partner and collaborate. it’s a shared responsibility. norfolk’s mayor, in fact, recently suggested that there may come a time in the near future when norfolk will have to create retreat zones—areas that will be fully inundated by water and unsuitable for development. Significant political willpower to address climate change is needed. named as a top-100 resil- ient city by the Rockefeller Foundation, norfolk is situated to serve as a model for designing cities of the future, for teaching us how to live with the water while supporting economic prosperity, and for addressing social injustice while building more resilient communities.

Urban Sustainability at Center Stage 551

mouth of the Ganges, on the Malay Peninsula,

in insular and mainland Southeast Asia, east-

ern China, and Japan.

Ho Chi Minh City, for example, is expected

to grow from its current population of 8–20

million by 2050. To accommodate this growth,

the city will look to expand into surrounding

agricultural and forested areas, thereby remov-

ing vegetation that acts to mitigate natural

flooding. Rising temperatures in the adjacent

South China Sea are expected to bring more

frequent, heavier rains, bigger storm surges,

and more tropical storms. Other cities in the

region have already begun feeling the pres-

sure. New industrial developments around

Bangkok have expanded into low-lying wet-

lands and former rice paddies, where flood-

ing is a regular feature of the landscape. In

2009, heavy rains from a tropical storm inun-

dated 80 percent of Manila, and even stronger

storms are expected in the near future.

At the other end of the climate-change

spectrum, droughts are also expected to

become more frequent and more severe. As

urban areas in the American southwest like

Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix add land

area and residents, they will put intense pres-

sure on the already strained water supply. Cal-

ifornia is currently in the midst of a prolonged

mega-drought that will likely go unabated for

the foreseeable future, amid high population

growth and agricultural output. Growing cit-

ies, therefore, will have to find new and inno-

vative solutions to meet the water demands of

the population.

Large-scale desalination of seawater is one

proposed solution that is already being devel-

oped. For coastal cities, this is an expensive

option that could meet some of the demand.

Cities will also have to increase their invest-

ments in water treatment plants that recycle

wastewater. The main adaptation, however,

will be to rethink land-use planning and

urban and suburban lifestyles in regions that

are starved for water. Rather than having

sprawling cities with wide roads that create an

urban heat island, cities will need to have more

compact pedestrian zones. Instead of planting

trees in drought-prone areas to provide shade,

buildings will need to be constructed closer

together in a manner that provides human-

made protection from the sun. Narrower alleys

between buildings also create breezes that can

lower surface temperatures. Urban residents

will have to replace their grassy lawns with

vegetation that is more suited to a dry, desert

climate. They will also have to shift from sin-

gle-family housing to multistory buildings to

make water use more efficient.

Deindustrialization and Urban Futures

Cities in the developed world underwent the

same sort of growing pains during their devel-

opment phase in the nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries as cities in the developing

world are facing today. Improper sanitation

and water pollution led to cholera outbreaks

in cities like London, Paris, and New York.

Smog rose to lethal levels in London and else-

where in the United Kingdom in the nine-

teenth century. London’s nickname, in fact,

was “The Smoke.” In the developed world,

many countries passed legislation to rein in

pollution and improve the environment only

as recently as the 1970s.

Just as the developed world implemented

tougher environmental regulations, the devel-

oping world was opened up to economic

globalization, resulting in drastic change in

urban economic functions. This change has

been marked by deindustrialization in for-

mer industrial powerhouses like Pittsburgh,

Milwaukee, and Cleveland in the United States;

552 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

and Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester in

the United Kingdom. Over the past three dec-

ades, these and other former industrial cent-

ers have undergone a marked shift away from

industry and toward services. This transition

resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands

of manufacturing jobs, depriving people of

a living wage. At the same time, deindustri-

alization made way for a much cleaner, more

environmentally sustainable urban economy

based on knowledge and information. It also

allowed for urban revitalization by repurpos-

ing millions of square feet of former ware-

house and factory space.

Pittsburgh, for example, was once the heart

of the U.S. steel industry. Skies darkened by

industrial smoke and buildings blackened by

soot were characteristic images of the city.

When the last steel mill closed in the mid-

1980s, Pittsburgh transformed itself into a

center of engineering and medical research

and integrated itself into the modern knowl-

edge economy. Abandoned buildings from its

industrial heyday became valuable real estate

in the form of loft apartments, boutiques, and

coffee shops. More young professionals are

moving to the urban core rather than to low-

density, auto-dependent suburbs as their pre-

decessors did, thus reducing the necessity for

long commutes. As a result of these changes,

the air is now remarkably clean and clear,

especially when one considers that just a few

decades ago smog levels in Pittsburgh were

no different than those observed in today’s

Chinese cities. Similar trends are occurring in

cities throughout the developed world, which

is a positive sign as far as the sustainability of

urban living is concerned (Figure 13.8).

New industrial cities in China and India

are likely to undergo the same type of tran-

sition in the near future. In these and other

developing countries, the urban middle class

Figure 13.8 is this carbon-neutral office building in Melbourne, Australia, the future of sustainable urban architecture? the colorful panels on the outside are components of the sun-shade system. What you can’t see are the night cooling windows, the green roof, the vacuum toilets, and the anaerobic digester. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

The Geography of Connectivity and Talent 553

is growing as wages and education levels rise.

These trends open the way for a transition

to a cleaner, more sustainable future. At the

same time, a rise in the middle-class popula-

tion in developing countries means that more

people are living in larger residences, buying

automobiles, demanding reliable city utili-

ties, and requesting that governments build

roads and highways to support increased

automobile travel. It will be a challenge for

such cities to dedicate funds and space to the

preferences of their growing metropolitan

middle classes.

Urban Gardening and Urban Futures

In addition to repurposing old industrial

buildings, urban gardening is another attempt

to make cities of the future more sustainable.

Many older neighborhoods in more estab-

lished North American cities feature numer-

ous vacant lots where a building or parking

lot once stood. Programs in these cities allow

local residents to use the vacant plots for com-

munity gardens, which can bring numerous

benefits. First, urban gardening helps reduce

the heat island effect that is common in cit-

ies constructed almost entirely of asphalt and

steel. Second, gardens are a low-cost way to

beautify the urban landscape, especially in

deindustrializing cities where the surround-

ing buildings and infrastructure have fallen

in disrepair. Third, by giving local residents a

chance to grow some of their own food, urban

gardens cut down on the number of food-

miles produce needs to travel before it reaches

urban consumers. Fourth, people come into

closer contact with their neighbors and their

neighborhoods through the act of tending to

a community garden. Finally, urban gardens

offer a serene place to relax in the city. They

can even attract tourists and create jobs.

While the benefits of urban gardening may

apply to all types of cities, they are especially

relevant to the older and deindustrializing cit-

ies of North America and Western Europe.

Urban population shrinkage has already trans-

formed many Rust Belt cities. Managing this

shrinkage with creative and environmentally

sustainable solutions has been and continues

to be a primary concern as deindustrializa-

tion continues for the foreseeable future. It

is even possible that horizontal surface plots

that currently characterize urban gardening

may transition into multistory, vertical urban

farms capable of producing far more volume

and variety of crops than currently possible.

In addition to supplying food, these vertical

gardens could act as a natural temperature

control and add color to the urban skyline.

THE GEOGRAPHy OF CONNECTIVITy AND TALENT

In the developed world, one of the most

important developments of the twenty-first

century has been the rise of the knowledge

economy. While the twentieth-century econ-

omy traded on tangible inputs and manu-

facturing, the knowledge economy trades on

information. Since advanced information and

communications technology (ICT) decouples

access to information from place, this eco-

nomic shift has important implications for

the future of cities the world over (Box 13.3).

When ICT was first becoming mainstream

and transforming communication, many

technology writers predicted the demise of

cities because decentralized communication

seemed to remove the need for clustering by

industries and people. Telecommuting was

expected to transform the modern work-

place and give workers the opportunity to

554 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

Box 13.3 Human Geographies of the twenty-first Century

Stanley d. brunn, University of Kentucky

Economic, social, and political futures in any region are affected by local cultures and events as well as regional and global actions and institutions.

1. Continued urbanization at the global scale. Urban agglomerations will grow bigger and urban institutions will increasingly dominate even rural areas. interactions and associ- ations are likely to be increasingly between cities near and distant rather than between cities and rural trade areas.

2. Urban connectedness, anomie, and placelessness. Faster transportation and communi- cation technologies may lead people to devalue their sense of place, thus increasing anomie, alienation and social instability.

3. Meshings of the local and global in daily life. Scale meshings will be evident in transac- tions and interactions—where one works, with whom one works, and the destinations of goods and services. While some urban residents will interact predominantly at local levels, others are will operate at transnational scales.

4. Asianization and Africanization of Europeanized worlds. An ongoing contemporary cul- tural global process is the impress of Asian and African diasporas on traditionally Euro- peanized worlds. these new cultures will add new layers of food, music, entertainment, and intellectual diversity to city life.

5. Increased regional and global awareness. the diffusion of iCts and instant global report- ing of crises will increasingly transcend political boundaries and raise the awareness of planetary concerns. one example is the growing emphasis on the basic human rights of women, children, elderly, disabled, and cultural minorities.

6. Competitive K-economies. “K” is for knowledge. it symbolizes the transition from handware to brainware and the importance of images and symbols in product consumption. these brain economies will be of increased significance in globally competitive and creative cities.

7. Contested legal structures. increased volumes and densities of transborder urban net- works and circulations will raise questions about the effectiveness of traditional gov- ernments in daily life: individual versus group rights, temporary verses permanent residents, those with and without property, and possibly with and without statehood.

8. Redefining norms and abnorms. Urban cultural and political clashes (subtle and vio- lent) are likely to continue to emerge among groups: those calling for tolerance and diversity in work, living, lifestyle, and social spaces versus those seeking to retain traditional norms based on religious and rural values or outdated modes of authority.

9. Limits on technological breakthroughs. Prepare for more constraints on the adoption and dissemination of new technologies because of adverse social impacts on a culture, high fixed costs, and government security. Will technology “gaps” between haves and have-nots begin to narrow or will technological solutions be too expensive?

The Geography of Connectivity and Talent 555

finally leave the city in favor of the cheaper,

pastoral countryside. Although ICT certainly

adds geographic flexibility to the traditional

workplace, its impact on the future of cities

is still unclear. On the one hand, major cities

are places with superior capacity to receive,

process, and transmit the information that

fuels the knowledge economy (Figure 13.9).

In addition, being near competitors in the

same field makes it possible to keep up with

the state of the art. As Richard Florida has

pointed out, industry insiders stay abreast

of the latest rumors, gossip, advancements,

and innovations in their respective fields by

being in constant contact with their com-

petitors, whereas those far from the pri-

mary cluster of activity may find it difficult

to access the same type of information in a

timely manner.

On the other hand, because of its ability to

decentralize information, the internet makes

it possible for a wider range of places to par-

ticipate in the knowledge economy. Business

interactions can now take place remotely and

instantaneously because commodities and

information are no longer bound to physical

space. Therefore, it is possible that smaller cit-

ies in the global periphery can take advantage

of the decentralized nature of the internet and

insert themselves into the modern knowledge

economy. The intersection of the cultural

industries with advanced ICT is particularly

illustrative of this point.

Historically, innovations in music, fashion,

art, and in other cultural industries have come

from major centers of global cultural produc-

tion like New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Milan,

and London. These world cities provide both

a large and sophisticated local marketplace

and a critical mass of creative individuals

with whom to share new ideas and collabo-

rate on innovative projects. In the digital age,

the internet decentralizes the marketplace for

cultural products in addition to providing

a platform for mass sharing and collabora-

tion. As a result, new producers have entered

the cultural industries en masse, regardless

of their location. If a new music group lives

in a remote location with few performance

venues, they can easily distribute their music

to a global audience online. Likewise, fashion

designers can create new items, advertise them

online, sell them, and ship them to consumers

around the world.

Elite cultural industries in large production

centers, such as fashion in Milan and film in

Los Angeles, will likely continue to dominate

the cultural economy into the future. How-

ever, the internet creates new opportunities for

a wider range of production centers in smaller

cities to compete in niche markets, even if one

or a few large centers remain dominant. The

ability to remotely access and participate in the

cultural economy bodes well for newly urban-

izing places, especially those in the developing

world. At the same time, it is important to note

10. Veneers of homogeneity amidst diversity. the “Mcdonaldization of the World,” or the creation of a Western globalized consumer world dominated by Western food, music, fashion, and entertainment, will reflect a certain visible sameness. but beneath these landscapes and icons of Westernization will be the rich historical and cultural mosaics of enduring regional cultures.

556 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

that the internet is far from being a spaceless,

placeless phenomenon. Advances in ICT have

shrunk the global time-space continuum, but

the economic landscape is still highly uneven.

The best access to high-speed internet and

other components of the digital infrastructure

are overwhelmingly concentrated in urban

areas, leaving many small towns and rural areas

on the other side of the digital divide. In addi-

tion, service provision favors wealthy places as

companies compete for consumers who are

able to afford the highest possible prices.

Cities as Virtual Crossroads

How can we expect ICT to impact the size,

shape, and function of cities in the com-

ing decades? How much will decentralized

information chip away at the economic domi-

nance and informational privileges that cur-

rently characterize cities? The answer to those

questions is not so straightforward. The mod-

ern world of business and communication

is no longer a “space of places” but rather, in

Manuel Castell’s words, a “space of flows.”

In other words, even though the economy is

already highly globalized, it will become even

more interconnected in the near future. Cit-

ies that are best able to accommodate flows

of information and commodities will thrive,

while those lacking this ability will struggle.

The most successful cities will establish more

intensive connections with each other, and

some peripheral places that were previously

less touched by globalization will also come

into the network.

Figure 13.9 the Shard, completed in 2012, is the latest addition to London’s collection of skyscrapers and the tallest building in the European Union. Globalization has bid a whole new generation of skyscrapers into construction. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

The Geography of Connectivity and Talent 557

Urban form has always been shaped, in

part, by communication and transportation

systems and structures. Canals, tramlines,

subways, and expressways have all significantly

altered the time it takes to travel between any

two connected places. The time that it takes to

move people, goods, and information within

or between cities affords places distinct advan-

tages and disadvantages.

In the past, cities thrived or atrophied based

on their relative positionality within global

flows of trade. Many large urban agglomera-

tions still owe their prosperity to transpor-

tation facilities, including important roads,

canals, and airports. While positionality will

be no less important for cities of the future,

prosperity will increasingly rely on an alterna-

tive structure. Telecommunications networks,

as well as the social, economic, and political

opportunities for people in cities to access

such networks, are currently very unevenly

distributed across the globe. Broadband and

fiber optic cables are heavily concentrated

in (and link) East Asia, Europe, and North

America. Heavily wired cities include Seoul,

London, and Boston; and they are much more

likely to experience change brought about by

time-space compression than cities lacking

high network connectivity, such as Pyongyang

or Kinshasa.

Many cities have been, and continue to

be, restructured as wired and wireless cities

in order to compete for a vast array of high-

technology digital transfers that link busi-

nesses and households. San Francisco, Seattle,

San Diego, San Jose, Los Angeles, New York,

Washington, DC, Chicago, Boston, and Miami

are among the top U.S. cities in internet pen-

etration. The internet is being utilized not

only for luring capital and businesses, but also

for security purposes. For example, web cam-

eras monitor London’s streets and its financial

district. Internet penetration in some LDCs is

also significant and is a deliberate strategy to

attract economic investment from the MDCs.

Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore are all wired

cities in India’s globalized economy.

Examples of countries making heavy

investments in national and urban digital

economies are Singapore, Estonia, Slovenia,

countries of the Persian Gulf (as part of their

post-petroleum economic planning), Hong

Kong, Ireland, Jamaica, and Trinidad. Digital

cities invest in computer hardware and soft-

ware design and support large and small com-

panies performing various digital tasks, as well

as the many nongovernmental organizations

and governmental institutions. These include

libraries, courts, hospitals, and employment

and environmental centers.

Certain cities are more tightly connected to

global networks than others. However, physi-

cal connections do not ensure that a major-

ity of a city’s inhabitants will benefit from

globalized networks. Large groups in a highly

connected city, as measured by bandwidth,

can remain disconnected. Unfamiliarity with

world languages that dominate the internet,

especially English, but also Chinese and Span-

ish, can render network connections without

meaning and value. Similarly, various cultural

and political restrictions can exclude people,

based on gender, ethnicity, or religion, from

regular internet use. For instance, in certain

cities it is highly inappropriate for women to

spend time in male-dominated internet cafes.

Finally, economic barriers may be the most

powerful exclusionary force. Both the means

(a computer and a mobile device) and the cost

of access (hourly or monthly fees) can be pro-

hibitively expensive for many residents even in

the most connected cities. Questions of inclu-

sion and exclusion are becoming ever more

important for cities, because unequal access

558 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

to distant information and communica-

tions will likely cause other increasing urban

inequalities.

Ultimately, highly connected cities will

continue to be command-and-control points

for the global economy, housing headquarters

of far-reaching corporations, particularly in

the financial, insurance, and real estate fields;

as well as government and nongovernmental

organization offices. Cities will thrive because

they are well-connected hubs in the global

flows of information and travel. Those cities

that have the satellite dishes, fiber optic cables,

and internet routing switches will prosper,

as will cities that provide wireless internet

and mobile device networks that enable large

proportions of the population to be con-

nected and become economically productive

(Figure 13.10). Cities that have successfully

transitioned to idea-based economies,

specializing in research and innovation, will

thrive because these cities are where ideas are

born and content is created.

Currently, London and New York are the

most outstanding examples of such highly

connected world cities, but with high popu-

lation and economic growth, cities such as

Shanghai and Dubai may increase in global

economic status. These and other command-

and-control cities will be increasingly con-

nected to each other, rather than to their

local hinterlands. Cosmopolitan migrants,

business people, and government leaders

will commonly move between them, over

great distances, rather than moving between

world cities and their outlying regions. Larger

airports, longer-range commercial jets, and

high-quality communications networks ena-

ble such distant movement of people as well

as ideas to occur quickly.

Figure 13.10 Wireless networks, cell phones, and matrix barcodes bring urban landscapes to life, tell the stories of times past, and signal advances in technology that mark world cities. London is so wired, you can even talk to the long-gone goats. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

The Geography of Connectivity and Talent 559

Cities as Nodes of Globalization

Globalization is, and will likely continue to be,

one of the most frequently repeated themes

of the twenty-first century. The idea that cit-

ies are becoming economically, culturally,

and politically more globally connected is

grounds for hope, desire, fear, and despair.

Globalization can lead to shared advances in

science and technology, economic growth,

and the exchange of philosophic, political,

and artistic ideas between people and places

that were once isolated from each other. How-

ever, increased connections can also result in

economic and political exploitation and the

destruction of cultural bonds.

Globalization is not something that spreads

across the surface of the globe like fog rolling

over a chain of hills. Rather it is evident only

in specific times and places. In other words,

if we take the example of any city experienc-

ing transformations because of global con-

nections, that city is not necessarily spatially

proximate to the sources of those transforma-

tions or to other cities experiencing similar

transformations.

A widely repeated idea is that the absence

of globalization is responsible for global ineq-

uities. In other words, cities that remain dis-

connected from global processes and flows of

trade are unlikely to have high living stand-

ards. Such ideas are usually based on eco-

nomic theories that rely on “the logic of the

marketplace.” By allowing the global market

to regulate society instead of being regulated

by society, it is argued that market forces will

enrich people in poor cities by effectively gov-

erning and creating wealth for all participants.

The counterpoint of this argument is the idea

that ever-increasing globalization and inte-

gration of cities will only exacerbate global

inequalities. Within the globalized economy,

capital and jobs can now be moved rapidly

from place to place, but the actual popula-

tions remain rooted in their home cities. The

effects of globalizing processes have led some

scholars to refer to “a race to the bottom,”

in which people have to accept increasingly

lower wages and benefits in order to perform

the same jobs. These concerns have fueled

a massive global movement of protest and

highlight the inequalities caused and intensi-

fied by globalization, including antiglobaliza-

tion demonstrations at biannual World Trade

Organization conferences wherever they

occur.

One of the most important ways that

globalization can be measured is through

the movement of people and cargo by air.

However, the most globalized airports are

not always located in cities that most people

would associate with a high degree of global

connectivity. Of the world’s three largest

cargo airports in 2010, one comes as a sur-

prise. Memphis, Tennessee, is outranked only

by Hong Kong as the world’s second-largest

cargo-handling airport, due to FedEx’s pri-

mary hub being located there. Following

Memphis are Shanghai and Seoul, and, then,

surprisingly, Anchorage, Alaska, which serves

as the crossroads between North America and

Asia. In Europe, the leading cargo-handling

airports are Frankfurt and Paris; Dubai leads

in the Middle East.

When passenger flows between cities are

considered, we get a more familiar picture

of cities networked into the global economy.

Europe and particularly North America domi-

nate the rankings. While some highly ranked

cities have high connectivity because they

serve as major airline hubs, others including

London and New York are highly connected

due to their central position in global eco-

nomic and tourist flows. Among the world

560 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

leaders for city airport systems by passenger

traffic are London, New York, Tokyo, and

Atlanta.

Cities Beyond the Networked Core

Large cities are home to the longest life expec-

tancies in developed countries because of

the presence of public health infrastructure,

research hospitals, safe occupations, and the

near absence of heavily polluting industry.

These characteristics attract people from

across the lifespan, but they may be especially

appealing to seniors, who comprise an ever-

larger share of total city populations. In fact,

the graying generation, by virtue of its dis-

posable income and consumer-buying hab-

its, may be drawn to such cities and serve as

a key to growth and economic development.

The idea that cities are the healthiest places to

live is rather remarkable when compared to

previous centuries during which cities were

unhealthy places due to manufacturing-gen-

erated pollution and diseases caused by inad-

equate sanitation, ventilation, and hygiene.

In addition to cities that specialize in health

care, we can also expect some smaller cities

with low global profiles to boom because they

are situated near newly exploitable natural

resources. Examples include towns that have

grown into cities near the burgeoning tar

sands of central Canada, like Fort McMurray,

Alberta, and around natural gas fracking in the

United States, such as Williston, North Dakota.

Increasing affluence around the world means

more people are consuming energy, which is

driving energy prices higher, causing resource

exploitation in remote regions that have pre-

viously been cost-prohibitive. The long-term

viability of cities that are dependent upon nat-

ural resources is unclear, however. “Boom and

bust,” rather than long-term prosperity, are

typical of natural-resource-based economies.

Cities in the petro-states of the Persian Gulf,

especially Dubai in the United Arab Emirates

and Doha, Qatar, are now testing the proposi-

tion that economies built on petro-dollars can

transition to economies based on high-end

services. At the present time, the price of crude

oil is dropping and all cities with an economic

base in the petroleum sector may be in for a

coming bust.

Other cities outside the world’s core net-

work will thrive because they are located near

inexpensive labor, taking over labor-intensive

manufacturing tasks for the global market in

a process called offshoring. As African cities,

for instance, procure reliable information-

technology infrastructure such as fiber optic

cables, and as electricity provision and ship-

ping connections improve, labor-intensive

manufacturers will likely relocate labor-inten-

sive operations in this inexpensive region. It is

probable that cities in Africa will industrialize

and grow in the coming years, similar to the

recent experience of Asian cities.

Will this movement of manufacturing jobs

to Africa come at the expense of Asian cities

that are currently growing? When economic

growth tapers in today’s developing coun-

tries, will cities in those countries experience

real estate busts, especially in China? Or will

developing countries transition from export-

driven economies to domestic-demand econ-

omies? People in developing countries are

starting to earn enough money to travel, and

transportation services are growing, as are

casinos, theme parks, golf courses, and other

tourist activities.

In the near future, some cities will decline,

losing population and influence because they

have not successfully navigated a changing

globalized economy. Cities based on labor-

intensive manufacturing located in developed

Governance, GIS Use, and Security Provision 561

countries will decline because rich countries

do not have low-cost labor. Instead, cities in

developed countries that transition to capital-

intensive economic activities that use high-

skilled labor will thrive. Examples of cities

that have not negotiated the deindustriali-

zation transition well include Detroit in the

United States and Newcastle-upon-Tyne in

the United Kingdom. Both saw their popula-

tion peak in 1950 and decline for decades after

that. Now, the rate of decline has leveled off

for the former, and population has begun to

increase for the latter.

GOVERNANCE, GIS USE, AND SECURITy PROVISION

Governmental Cooperation

New and modified forms of urban governance

will likely emerge in coming decades to deal

with interurban economic connectivity as well

as larger and changing city populations. City

and metropolitan-region governments have

increased in importance and are predicted

to do so into the future. Port authorities that

operate airports and seaports, development

authorities that promote economic growth,

and transit and toll road authorities that build

and operate transportation systems are com-

monly metropolitan-area based, rather than

being housed at the provincial or federal level.

In metropolitan areas that cross an inter-

national border, such as El Paso/Juarez and

San Diego/Tijuana, city governments are

cooperating on some of the issues noted here.

World cities are increasingly cooperating with

other large city governments across the globe

because of shared challenges and potential

solutions. For example, New York City looks

to London for traffic management ideas such

as congestion tolling instead of calling on New

York City’s state government or the U.S. fed-

eral government. Increasingly, cities are find-

ing that they have more in common with other

cities and are aligning government coopera-

tion accordingly. Cities are collaborating with

other cities across international borders rather

than with their provincial hinterlands, mir-

roring economic realignments that have been

occurring for the past several decades.

As countries throughout the world become

more urban, politics is also likely to change.

Generally, regions that have a higher propor-

tion of their populations living in urban areas

are more politically liberal, progressive, and

open-minded compared to regions with more

nonurban residents. Urban residents, who

live in compact, diverse, and highly socially

connected places tend to be more tolerant of

diversity and change. Urban populations have

driven movements to legalize same-sex mar-

riage, marijuana use, casino gambling, and

assisted suicide. These urban voters are very

different politically than their rural coun-

terparts or the countries in which they are

located; instead, they share more in common

with other cities.

Geographic Information Systems

Digital technologies, especially geographical

information systems are used to plan, build,

and manage the urban environment. Since

the early 1970s, GIS has become routine in

urban planning tasks in North America, West-

ern Europe, Japan, and Australia. These sys-

tems are also becoming adopted in the cities

of some less developed countries, particularly

India, China, South Africa, Senegal, Ghana,

Brazil, and Mexico. GIS is the science and tech-

nology that integrates vast databases with geo-

referenced data (exact latitudinal/longitudinal

coordinates) to prepare maps, satellite images,

562 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

and aerial photographs. These databases allow

researchers and planners to perform a range of

statistical and spatial analyses including mod-

eling, visualization, and simulation; to design,

plan, and manage urban environments; and

to propose and evaluate future scenarios. GIS

can easily be linked to the Global Position-

ing System (GPS) to ensure highly accurate

spatial analysis. Also, mobile and hand-held

GPS units integrated into GIS programs can

be taken to remote areas to conduct real-time

research.

Usage of GIS has become popular with cit-

izen-based grassroots organizations because

GIS enables them to be informed—and pow-

erful—participants in community planning

efforts. Key GIS applications executed with

technocrats working in tandem with grassroots

groups include natural resource management

and conservation efforts, community-based

planning and neighborhood revitalization

in urban areas (Figure 13.11), and activism

organized at local, national, global, and mul-

tiscalar levels. In such efforts, local, qualita-

tive knowledge is integrated with quantifiable

public data sets, and mental maps and sketch

maps are integrated with official digital maps,

aerial photographs, and satellite images. These

practices have been used in a number of pro-

jects among indigenous societies in the non-

Western world.

In the context of neighborhood revi-

talization in the Western world, community

organizers use public data sets through GIS

to inform and legitimate local knowledge to

obtain action and formulate strategies, moni-

tor and predict neighborhood, prepare for

organizational tasks, fund recruitment efforts,

enhance service delivery tasks, and explore

how spatial relations shape urban policy. GIS

Figure 13.11 What would you build here? Let your voice be heard. here, people along 14th Street in Washington, dC, are being challenged to create the neighborhood they want by voting on ideas that they themselves come up with. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

Governance, GIS Use, and Security Provision 563

analysis has enabled communities to accom-

plish such tasks as:

• fighting blighted housing conditions

by tracking down absentee landlords

through property records;

• providing police assistance by identi-

fying crime hot spots across time and

space;

• analyzing land-use data to track vacant

and boarded up houses;

• keeping track of school-age populations

to optimize assignments to schools and

plan new school bus routes;

• combining mortgage-lending data with

demographic data to address discrimi-

natory investments; and

• generating sophisticated, multiscalar

maps to measure a community’s chang-

ing well-being.

Community GIS activities have been aided

by the emergence of internet mapping sites

such as Google Earth, in which high-resolu-

tion satellite images of places across the world

can be accessed in minutes for free by anyone.

The power of Google mapping is evident in

the case of southern Brazil’s Surui people,

whose chief approached Google for high-

resolution satellite imagery to monitor illegal

loggers and miners on the tribe’s 600,000 acre

reserve. While high-tech mapping has already

been used to track illegal activity and record

knowledge, this is the first time an Amazon

tribe will share their own vision of their ter-

ritory with the rest of the world via Google

Earth. In essence, they have a technology that

allows them to stand up against globalizing

forces that are biased in favor of urban econo-

mies. In the western world, various govern-

ment agencies provide easy access to public

databases through Internet GIS sites. One site,

COMPASS, enables citizens of Milwaukee to

access, view, query, and map detailed property

data, health data, crime data, community asset

data, and demographic data at no cost. Such

Internet GIS sites are particularly useful for

resource-poor organizations that have diffi-

culties in creating and maintaining in-house

GIS.

Surveillance of Public Space

At the neighborhood scale, street-level govern-

ance in cities will continue to evolve. In terms

of law enforcement, community policing has

been credited with driving street crime down

to historically low levels, particularly in North

American central cities. Some of this decline

is likely due to gentrification, as residents with

higher incomes and levels of education com-

prise a greater proportion of downtown and

inner-city neighborhoods compared to past

decades. These populations are also demand-

ing better city services and have flexed their

political muscle to secure enhanced police,

public transit, and sanitation services. New

York has utilized a controversial stop-and-

frisk policing policy, but this method has been

challenged in court for allegations of racial

profiling.

City governments have recently responded,

and continue to respond to, the threat of ter-

rorism. The attacks on September 11, 2001

in New York; March 11, 2004 in Madrid;

July 7, 2005 in London; November 26,

2008 in Mumbai; April 15, 2013 in Boston;

and November 13, 2015 in Paris, are some

instances in which international and domestic

terrorists have targeted civilian urban spaces

such as office buildings, hotels, shops, streets,

and transit systems. City police departments

have responded by adding antiterrorism divi-

sions to supplement more traditional patrol,

564 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

for those studying urban worlds as security

concerns affect the daily lives of individuals

and influence where they reside, work, and

play. Human security concerns include deal-

ing with terrorism in its many dimensions.

Transnational terrorism and biological and

environmental terrorism are considered high-

priority threats for urban governments. Public

officials must insure that dangerous individu-

als, goods, and substances do not cross their

borders or enter their country’s airports and

ports. They are ever vigilant for contaminated

products, whether foods, live plants and ani-

mals, or other materials, that might endanger

their food supplies, livestock, public water sys-

tems, and the unique natural and built envi-

ronments that attract tourists. The security

industry will remain one of the urban growth

industries for much of this century, as evi-

denced already in airports, train stations, har-

bors, and border crossings.

CONCLUSIONS

The cities of the future will be more popu-

lous and more numerous than those that

exist today. In fact, one prediction has the

world’s metropolises, merging into megalo-

polises, and then into one giant ecumenopo-

lis (Figure 13.12). Until that time comes, the

most populous cities will increasingly be

located in today’s developing countries. This

urban growth in the developing world is being

driven by dropping mortality amid high fer-

tility, industrialization, and the accompany-

ing urban in-migration as redundant labor

leaves rural areas to fill newly created jobs in

cities. The same urban population transition

has already played out in the developed world,

where city populations have plateaued. In the

developed world, low birth rates mean that

detective, transportation, and organized crime

units.

Almost all cities, with London and New

York being among the first, have increased

surveillance via networks of police cameras

mounted throughout the central city. In addi-

tion to providing a record of street activity,

these cameras can also track license plate num-

bers and employ facial recognition software.

At a macroscale, unmanned drones have the

ability to capture high-resolution photos and

videos from a distance, unbeknownst to pas-

sersby on the street. Terabytes of surveillance

can be sent, received, and analyzed in a matter

of seconds by technicians in remote locations.

At the microscale, police offers are beginning

to wear body cameras, and that trend is likely

to extend to other professions as well. Cities of

the future will have an even greater number of

cameras, in a greater variety of locations, and

operating at a greater range of scales. Urban

residents will either adapt to this new reality

or stand up against becoming a surveillance

society.

Cities in the developed world justify mass

surveillance by maintaining that it gives law

enforcement officials far greater ability to

make cities safer. Critics counter that mass

surveillance programs create new realities

that are also undesirable. For example, as

biometric recognition software increases in

sophistication, it becomes possible to track an

individual’s every movement. Civil liberties

activists have concerns about the possibility

to abuse such an extensive and powerful tool.

Urban governments, especially in democratic

countries, must find an appropriate balance

between managing security concerns and pro-

tecting an individual’s right to privacy.

Human security issues are emerging as

important topics for those in the social and

policy sciences. They are also important

Conclusions 565

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566 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

transportation networks. Other cities will

thrive by offering cheap labor, proximity to a

natural resource, or a particular specialty like

advanced medical treatment. Cities with such

nondiversified economies will need to prepare

for a possible future when their singular com-

petitive advantage wanes, such as when wages

rise or drilling wells become played out.

Cities are increasingly cooperating with

each other, even across international borders,

in activities from preventing terrorism and

crime to operating ports. They are becoming

more linked to each other in a governmental

sense and less connected to their provincial

or national governments. GIS is commonly

used to foster more responsive and efficient

governance. Such technologies are employed

not only by city officials, but also by commu-

nity groups and organizations, and the private

sector.

Urban Living at Its Best

What cities will successfully navigate the geo-

graphic, demographic, economic, environ-

mental, and political challenges of the coming

decades? Cities that provide high-paying,

service-sector jobs at the same time that they

tend to the welfare of the underprivileged;

cities that guarantee a healthy environment

backed up by a flourishing health-care indus-

try; cities that invest in infrastructure to facili-

tate transportation and communication; cities

that assure housing markets respond to both

private and public sector demands; cities that

look after public safety at the same time that

they affirm personal freedoms; and cities that

realize the role of education, recreation, cul-

ture, and the arts in competing with other cit-

ies in a globalized economy.

Many organizations are interested in qual-

ity-of-life measures, which can be used to rank

growth will come primarily from immigra-

tion, with most immigrants now showing a

preference for suburban areas. Urban revitali-

zation is occurring in the developed world as

smaller, older, and wealthier households relo-

cate closer to city centers, along with young

adult households. Amid these changes, cities

in less developed countries will grapple with

providing adequate infrastructure, services,

and housing to their residents. And, urban

areas in more developed countries will accom-

modate urban revitalization, diversification of

their suburbs, and the postindustrial transi-

tion to services.

Sustainability and climate change will be

near the forefront of challenges facing cit-

ies the world over in the near future. Urban

living is more energy efficient, but it concen-

trates pollution. The urban poor, especially

in less developed countries, commonly reside

in low-cost and environmentally degraded

neighborhoods often characterized by infor-

mal housing. These residents often lack access

to education and high-quality jobs and often

experience health challenges associated with

poor environmental quality. Cities will have to

develop ways to become more sustainable as

well as provide opportunity for their residents.

This will happen against the backdrop of cli-

mate change, which will force cities to adapt

to withstand more fierce and frequent storms,

rising sea levels, and increased drought.

Demographically and economically grow-

ing cities will follow one of several paths. In

the more developed world, the most success-

ful cities will continue to navigate the transi-

tion from deindustrialization to a high-tech,

creative, service economy based on the com-

mand and control of the increasingly glo-

balized economy. These cities will continue to

augment their positions as important nodes

in the global information technology and

Conclusions 567

In 2010, Mercer also developed an Eco-City

Ranking based on water availability, water

potability, waste removal, sewage, air pollu-

tion, and traffic congestion (Table 13.3). The

top five “eco-cities” were Calgary, Honolulu,

Ottawa, Helsinki, and Wellington. Nordic cit-

ies ranked especially high; those in Eastern

Europe ranked somewhat below their coun-

terparts in Western Europe. United States

and Canadian cities ranked high. In the Asia-

Pacific region, Adelaide, Kobe, Perth, and

Auckland ranked the highest, and Dhaka the

lowest. In the Middle East and North Africa,

Cape Town, Muscat, and Johannesburg

ranked high; Antananarivo and Baghdad were

at the bottom.

Will some cities in today’s developing world

ascend these rankings? Will others fall? As the

world becomes more urban and more inter-

connected, how will cities, their landscapes,

cities and to promote an individual city’s ability

to attract investment, conferences, and sport-

ing events, as well as specific groups such as

artists, scientists, wealthy retirees, and tour-

ists (Figure 13.13). The Mercer Quality of Life

Index provides one widely respected ranking of

cities that offers the highest quality of living in

the world (Table 13.3). The Mercer methodol-

ogy includes measures of personal health and

safety, the economy and physical environment,

transportation and communications, public

services, and the overall political climate. Not

surprisingly, the top cities were in high-income

European countries, plus similar cities in Can-

ada, Australia, and New Zealand. Vienna topped

the list. The highest U.S. cities were Honolulu,

which ranked 31st, and San Francisco, which

ranked 32nd. The cities with the lowest rank-

ings were Baghdad followed by the African cit-

ies of Brazzaville, Bangui, and Khartoum.

Figure 13.13 the creative class responds to culture and the arts. Without them, cities decline. that’s why the Chrysler Museum in norfolk, Virginia, just invested $24 million in an upgrade and brought to town Florentijn hofman’s Rubber duck, at least for a short visit. Source: Photo by d. J. Zeigler.

568 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

Table 13.3 Quality of Living and Eco-City Rankings

The World’s Top Twenty Cities, by Rank

Mercer Quality of Living Survey 2015 Mercer Eco-City Ranking 2010

1 Vienna, Austria 1 Calgary, Canada

2 Zurich, Switzerland 2 Honolulu, USA

3 Auckland, New Zealand 3 Ottawa, Canada

4 Munich, Germany 3 Helsinki, Finland

5 Vancouver, Canada 5 Wellington, New Zealand

6 Düsseldorf, Germany 6 Minneapolis, USA

7 Frankfurt, Germany 7 Adelaide, Australia

8 Geneva, Switzerland 8 Copenhagen, Denmark

9 Copenhagen, Denmark 9 Kobe, Japan

10 Sydney, Australia 9 Oslo, Norway

11 Amsterdam, Netherlands 9 Stockholm, Sweden

12 Wellington, New Zealand 12 Perth, Australia

13 Bern, Switzerland 13 Montreal, Canada

14 Berlin, Germany 13 Vancouver, Canada

15 Toronto, Canada 13 Nuremberg, Germany

16 Ottawa, Canada 13 Auckland, New Zealand

16 Melbourne, Australia 13 Bern, Switzerland

16 Hamburg, Germany 13 Pittsburgh, USA

19 Luxembourg, Luxembourg 19 Zurich, Switzerland

19 Stockholm, Sweden 19 Aberdeen, U.K.

Source: Mercer Quality of Living Ranking 2015; Mercer Eco-City Ranking 2010.

Box 13.4 Seeing Cities on the Soles of your Feet

donald J. Zeigler, old dominion University

the cities of the world await your visit. Start learning urban geography the way it should be learned: on the soles of your feet. be attentive to details, but also use the wide-angle lens that your education in geography has provided. Look for patterns and processes on the landscape and document them for the future. When geographers are traveling, they are doing research. here’s how:

take pictures. Photograph people and landscapes—ordinary and extraordinary. you can’t cover everything, but you can find a few topics of personal interest and follow them from city to city: skylines, waterfronts, signs, buskers, open space, monuments, maps on the landscape, etc. Meander off the “high streets” and slow down. What story is the city trying to tell you? help tell that story in pictures. to do that, you will have to become a master of field notes as well.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Brunn, S. D. 2011. “World Cities: Present and

Future.” In Geography for the 21st Century, ed.

J. P. Stoltman, pp. 301–14. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Sage Publications, Surveys major population

trends and problems facing the world’s cities.

Castells, M. 2009. The Rise of the Network Society:

The Information Age: Economy, Society and Cul-

ture, Vol. I, 2nd ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Examines the “network society” and changes

that gave rise to the “new economy.”

Keep a journal. document your observations in words. When you stop for coffee or lunch, take out your journal, activate notes on your iPhone, or open your tablet computer. before you forget them, record a few observations and impressions. then, at the end of the day, synopsize what you have learned. it will take discipline but your essays will bring back the experience like nothing else you can do. And remember the first axiom of learned travel: writing it down helps you think it out.

open your ears. Attune your ears to new languages, new words, new music, and new cacophony. Each city has an auditory signature of its own. Listen to how the local place names are pronounced. Pick up some slang. Find out what music is saturating the air waves. talk to people you meet, give ear to their accents, and pay attention to how they tell their stories, not just what they have to say. Record what you can.

educate your taste buds. Eating is a learning activity, and the cities you visit will be anxious to educate you. Learn about the dishes that define a nation, the regional cuisines, and favorite desserts. Patronize the microbreweries; search out the farmers’ markets; take as much time as the locals do to finish their meals; and become a locavore. And always ask questions about what you are eating. Use words and pictures as gustatory aides memoires, field documents that will activate your taste buds’ memory.

acquire some mementos. but be selective. Look for post cards, buy a local newspaper, find a local language dictionary or children’s book, save a few coins or bills, and buy a few stamps at the post office (the visit alone will be worth the experience). Go to the super- market for a box of cereal: eat the cereal and save the box. Go to the newsstands and buy a copy of National Geographic in a foreign language. Go to the tourist kiosks for a souvenir, and make sure it was actually made in the country you are visiting.

570 CITIES OF THE FUTURE

Institute. Examines the challenges that cities face

in dealing with terrorism in the post-9/11 world.

World Bank. 2013. Global Monitoring Report 2013:

Rural-Urban Dynamics and the Millennium

Development Goals. Washington, DC: World

Bank. An annual report that examines how

urbanization helps countries achieve the UN’s

Millennium Development Goals.

Worldwatch Institute. 2007. State of the World 2007:

Our Urban Future. Washington, DC: World-

watch Institute. Reports on challenges facing

urban humankind, accompanied by valuable

tables, footnotes, and references.

Extremes: Exposure Estimates,” OECD Environ-

ment Working Papers, No. 1. OECD Publishing.

Examines the extent to which 136 port cities

around the world will be affected by climate

change.

United Nations Development Programme

(UNDP). 2014. Human Development Report

2013: The Rise of the South. The UN Human

Development Index quantifies the status of

health, education, economies, and gender

equity across the globe.

Urban Land Institute. 2002. ULI on the Future:

Cities Post 9/11. Washington, DC: Urban Land

572 APPENDIX

Cover Photo Credits

Clockwise from top left:

New construction in cities around Russia (Vladivostok is pictured) relegates Soviet urban land-

scapes to the background as new commercial and residential buildings vie for valuable real

estate locations. Photo by Sergei Domashenko.

As cities fill up with people, streets become more congested with not only cars, but bicycles and

camels as well. Photo by George Pomeroy.

Three young girls find time for fun as they assist their mothers who labor as ambulantes (street-

vendors) in the informal economy of Huancayo, a city in the Peruvian central Andes. Photo by

Maureen Hays-Mitchell.

Since the early 1990s, Shanghai’s new CBD has arisen across the river in Pudong, centered on

the futuristic TV tower surrounded by ultramodern skyscrapers. Pudong CBD is China’s finan-

cial district. Photo by Kam Wing Chan.

The Dome of the Rock (venerated by Muslims) and the Western Wall (venerated by Jews) are

symbols of a religiously divided Jerusalem. Photo by D. J. Zeigler.

African cities located in low-elevation coastal zones, such as Monrovia, Liberia, are vulnerable

to severe flooding from sea-level rise. Photo by Robert Zeigler.

The traditional markets of Marrakech, Morocco, are some of the most well-known in the world.

In Arabic-speaking countries they are known as souks or suqs. Photo by D. J. Zeigler.

Angkor Wat, built between 1113 and 1150 by Suryavarman II, is one of but hundreds of wats

spread throughout Cambodia. Because it symbolizes Cambodia’s golden age, its image can also

be found on the nation’s flag. Photo by James Tyner.

The citadel, or cale, of Gaziantep, Turkey, occupies a strategically located hilltop that dominates

the fertile agricultural region near the Turkish-Syrian border. Photo by D. J. Zeigler.

574 COVER PHOTO CREDITS

Slater’s Mill is today an historical landmark in Pawtucket, Rhode Island; it marked the begin-

ning of the factory system in the United States. Photo by D. J. Zeigler.

The Pelourinho historic district, named for the “pillory” formerly used to punish slaves, indi-

cates the strong Afro-Brazilian influence in Salvador da Bahia. Photo by Brian Godfrey.

This view of the 9/11 Memorial shows one of the two reflecting pools which sit within the foot-

prints where the Twin Towers once stood. Photo by John Rennie Short.

The Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood, in St. Petersburg, was built on the spot where

Emperor Alexander II was assassinated in March 1881. Built from 1883-1907, the Romanov

family provided funds for this glamorous cathedral. Photo by Jared Boone.

Paris evolved around an island in the Seine River: Île de la Cité. Today, it is most famous for the

cathedral of Notre Dame, whose spire is barely visible here. Photo by D. J. Zeigler.

Now a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Sydney Opera House has become a symbol of the

island continent. Photo by D. J. Zeigler.

The Sikhs, neither Hindu nor Muslim, are a major part of India’s cultural diversity, seen here in

their main gurdwara, the place where they worship. Photo by D. J. Zeigler.

Abidjan, 338 Abuja, 339, 347 Accra, 329, 332, 337, 342, 343,

344, 345, 359, 366 Aceh, 420, 422 Addis Ababa, 327, 359 Aden, 284, 285, 300 Agra, 380, 381 Akron, 56, 574 Aleppo, 280, 285, 293 Almaty, 248, 252 Amsterdam, 5, 46, 64, 77, 187,

194, 196, 201, 202, 203, 211, 233, 300, 550, 568

Angkor Wat, 380, 417, 571 Astana, 252, 253 Athens, 189, 193, 225, 231, 232 Atlanta, 49, 52, 57, 73, 75, 76, 77,

80, 83, 92, 560 Auckland, 503, 504, 505, 509,

516, 527, 528, 529, 530, 531, 567, 568

Baghdad, 13, 281, 285, 288, 309, 320, 567

Baguio City, 427 Baltimore, 50, 54, 78, 86 Bandung, 426 Bangalore, 369, 370, 393, 409,

557 Bangkok, 77, 413, 414, 416,

417, 419, 424, 425, 427, 429, 430, 431, 433, 435, 439, 442, 443, 444, 445, 449, 450, 452, 453, 551

Barcelona, 77, 161, 215, 223, 224, 225

Barnaul, 248 Batavia, 422, 423, 425 Beijing, 13, 77, 273, 396, 457,

458, 459, 464, 466, 470, 471,

472, 473, 474, 475, 476, 477, 490, 497, 498, 541

Beirut, 277, 280, 281, 286, 294 Belize City, 100, 101 Belo Horizonte, 143, 163, 164 Benghazi, 285 Berlin, 77, 197, 202, 208, 211,

216, 226, 227, 228, 231, 232, 233, 366, 545, 568, 574

Beverly Hills, 66, 317 Blantyre-Limbe, 537 Bogotá, 135, 137, 138, 141, 143,

144, 148, 150, 155, 177, 179, 180, 184, 185

Borobudur, 421 Boston, 19, 33, 40, 49, 50, 51,

52, 66, 75, 77, 94, 462, 550, 557, 563

Brasilia, 41 Brazzaville, 327, 567 Bridgetown, 112 Brisbane, 503, 504, 506, 507,

513, 514, 527, 528, 529 Brussels, 77, 187, 189, 201, 203,

221, 231, 233 Budapest, 193, 198, 204, 205,

233 Buenos Aires, 13, 77, 118, 135,

137, 138, 141, 142, 143, 144, 148, 150, 151, 155, 157, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 185

Buffalo, 52, 54, 56, 76 Bukhara, 14

Cabinda, 324 Calgary, 50, 52, 54, 56, 75, 80, 93,

567, 568 Canberra, 18, 504, 508, 509, 511,

534 Cancún, 18, 99, 100, 101, 124 Cape Town, 323, 324, 326, 328,

332, 354, 355, 365, 366 Caracas, 135, 137, 138, 144, 150,

185 Cardiff, 193 Cartagena, 121, 148 Casablanca, 285, 288 Celebration, 61 Chandigarh, 370, 375 Changan, 15 Charlotte, 52, 57, 73, 80, 112 Chennai, 369, 374, 375, 382, 383,

386, 389, 390 Chicago, 6, 17, 22, 46, 49, 52, 53,

54, 58, 66, 67, 73, 75, 76, 77, 80, 83, 87, 545, 557

Chongjin, 489 Christchurch, 504, 509, 516, 528 Ciudad Guyana, 41 Cleveland, 29, 56, 68, 69, 76,

551 Colombo, 370, 374, 383, 386,

390, 400, 402, 403, 407 Copenhagen, 77, 205, 568 Cuzco, 147, 148, 149

Dallas, 39, 52, 56, 75, 77, 80 Damascus, 280, 281, 299,

309, 320 Dar es Salaam, 324, 327, 333,

340, 358, 365 Delhi, 3, 8, 9, 13, 39, 40, 369,

370, 374, 375, 376, 381, 382, 390, 393, 394, 395, 396, 403, 404, 406, 408, 537, 540, 541, 547, 557

Detroit, 17, 52, 56, 68, 69, 75, 76, 545, 561

Dhahran, 287, 288 Dhaka, 3, 40, 369, 370, 374, 377,

389, 396, 399, 400, 401, 408, 409, 537, 541, 543, 567

Geographical Index

576 GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX

Doha, 294, 308, 560 Donetsk, 537 Dongtan, 498 Dortmund, 194, 196, 200, 233 Dubai, 77, 253, 277, 281, 293,

294, 306, 307, 308, 309, 319, 448, 539, 558, 559, 560

Dublin, 77, 193, 209 Dunedin, 504, 509, 516, 528 Durban, 323, 332, 354

Edinburgh, 212 Edo, 459, 464, 465, 500 Ekaterinburg, 255, 256 eThekwini, 355

Fertile Crescent, 277, 281, 282, 303, 312

Fès, 285 Flint, 56 Fort-de-France, 112 Funafuti, 512

Geneva, 19, 77, 202, 568 Glasgow, 17, 193, 212, 552 Guadalajara, 97, 102, 103, 128,

133 Guayaquil, 138, 144

Hamburg, 192, 203, 568 Hanoi, 414, 419, 445, 446, 447,

449, 453, 454 Harappa, 377 Harare, 333, 359 Hausa cities, 330 Havana, 98, 99, 112, 120, 121,

122, 123, 124, 135, 537 Helsinki, 233, 260, 567, 568 Ho Chi Minh City, 413, 414,

416, 417, 419, 423, 425, 430, 432, 433, 445, 446, 447, 448, 450, 453, 551

Hobart, 504, 506, 507, 513, 514, 515, 532

Hollywood, 66, 67, 301, 479 Hong Kong, 46, 72, 77, 80, 125,

199, 334, 436, 457, 458, 460, 461, 463, 464, 466, 480, 481, 482, 483, 484, 486, 491, 492, 499, 557, 559, 577

Honolulu, 454, 567, 568 Houston, 52, 56, 75, 77, 80, 92,

94, 324, 550 Hyderabad, 3, 370, 371, 374, 393

Indus Valley, 11, 377 Islamabad, 370, 375 Istanbul, 13, 21, 191, 277, 278,

280, 283, 285, 288, 310, 311, 312, 313, 316

Izmir, 312

Jakarta, 40, 77, 413, 414, 417, 422, 427, 430, 431, 432, 433, 435, 440, 441, 442, 444, 445, 449, 450

Jamshedpur, 375, 389, 390 Jebel Ali, 306 Jeddah, 284 Jericho, 282 Jerusalem, 46, 285, 288, 303, 304,

305, 306, 319, 571 Johannesburg, 323, 336, 338,

354, 355, 356, 366, 567

Kabul, 374, 400 Kaliningrad, 251, 256 Kampala, 329, 333, 537 Kansas City, 52, 93 Kaohsiung, 484, 495 Karachi, 369, 374, 375, 398, 403,

409, 537, 541 Kathmandu, 32, 400, 402, 404,

405 Khabarovsk, 239 Kiev, 241, 243 Kilwa, 332 Kingston, 112, 575 Kinshasa, 323, 327, 337, 340,

341, 342, 343, 347, 359, 365, 537, 557

Kitwe, 334, 340 Kolkata, 13, 370, 374, 375, 382,

383, 386, 389, 390, 395, 397, 398, 408

Kostroma, 244 Krasnodar, 254 Kuala Lumpur, 77, 413, 414, 426,

427, 429, 433, 439, 440, 441, 442, 449, 450

Lagos, 40, 323, 336, 338, 345, 346, 347, 537, 541

Lahore, 370, 374, 381 Las Vegas, 30, 52, 73, 93, 460,

551 Leningrad, 265, 266 Lhasa, 489, 490 Lima, 121, 122, 135, 137, 138,

142, 143, 144, 150, 153, 155, 167, 168, 169, 171, 173, 174, 183, 185

Ljubljana, 191, 205 London, 3, 5, 21, 22, 26, 36, 46,

54, 64, 77, 95, 135, 187, 188, 192, 193, 197, 198, 201, 202, 203, 204, 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 223, 225, 227, 233, 274, 275, 312, 319, 332, 334, 366, 403, 409, 441, 500, 533, 540, 544, 551, 555, 556, 557, 558, 559, 560, 561, 563, 564, 569

Long Beach, 13 Los Angeles, 11, 13, 26, 46, 49,

51, 52, 56, 60, 62, 66, 67, 68, 76, 77, 80, 85, 92, 110, 111, 122, 410, 414, 442, 444, 445, 540, 545, 551, 555, 557

Lourenço Marques, 332 Luanda, 323, 332, 333, 337, 338,

350, 359 Lusaka, 334, 335, 336, 338, 358,

359, 361, 363, 364, 365 Lyon, 42, 198, 223

Madrid, 77, 187, 192, 208, 223, 563

Madurai, 380 Magadan, 239 Makasar, 420 Manama, 281, 287, 288, 294, 308 Manila, 21, 28, 413, 414, 417,

418, 422, 423, 425, 426, 427, 430, 431, 432, 433, 435, 439, 442, 443, 444, 445, 446, 449, 450, 451, 452, 453, 551

Maracaibo, 144 Mecca, 46, 280, 284, 303, 304,

308, 309, 310, 320 Medellín, 135, 138, 143, 148, 185

Geographical Index 577

Medina, 280, 281, 284, 303, 309, 320, 353

Melbourne, 77, 503, 504, 505, 506, 507, 508, 509, 513, 514, 519, 529, 533, 552, 568

Memphis, 76, 559 Mexico City, 8, 11, 13, 26, 39, 40,

77, 97, 99, 101, 102, 103, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 122, 128, 133, 142, 537, 541

Miami, 34, 49, 52, 57, 76, 77, 80, 94, 550, 557

Milan, 77, 187, 191, 198, 203, 233, 555

Milwaukee, 551, 563 Mohenjo Daro, 377, 378, 389 Mombasa, 332, 333, 340 Monterrey, 97, 99, 102, 103,

133, 134 Montevideo, 137, 141, 143,

144, 150 Montreal, 46, 50, 51, 52, 54,

69, 70, 75, 77, 79, 80, 83, 92, 274, 568

Mumbai, 3, 8, 9, 13, 37, 39, 40, 77, 369, 370, 371, 372, 374, 375, 377, 382, 383, 386, 390, 391, 392, 393, 398, 403, 406, 407, 408, 409, 537, 541, 557, 563

Mumbai-Pune corridor, 392 Munich, 193, 198, 201, 208, 211,

233, 568 Murmansk, 251 Musqat, 284

New Delhi, 369, 395, 396, 409, 410

New York, 3, 5, 8, 11, 13, 21, 29, 37, 40, 42, 43, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 73, 75, 76, 77, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 91, 93, 95, 109, 113, 126, 135, 144, 164, 182, 185, 192, 199, 216, 232, 233, 274, 275, 319, 403, 409, 414, 416, 433, 453, 454, 474, 476, 485, 486, 500, 533, 536, 540, 541, 545, 550, 551, 555, 557, 558, 559, 560, 561, 563, 564,

569, 574, 575 Newcastle, 194, 507, 529, 532,

576 Niamey, 327, 537 Nile Valley, 11, 282 Nineveh, 283 Norilsk, 247, 252, 268, 269, 270 Novgorod, 241 Novosibirsk, 43, 247

Orlando, 52, 57, 73, 75 Osaka, 11, 457, 464, 465, 467,

540, 541 Oslo, 226, 568 Ottawa, 50, 70, 71, 72, 80, 83, 90,

567, 568 Ouagadougou, 537

Palembang, 420 Paris, 5, 11, 13, 42, 46, 77, 82,

151, 157, 174, 175, 187, 188, 191, 192, 193, 197, 198, 201, 202, 203, 209, 210, 211, 221, 222, 223, 227, 228, 229, 231, 233, 249, 301, 312, 419, 439, 540, 545, 551, 555, 559, 563, 572

Pawtucket, 55, 572 Pearl River Delta, 463, 482 Perth, 504, 507, 513, 525, 526,

527, 534, 567, 568 Philadelphia, 50, 52, 54, 67, 75,

77, 85, 320 Phnom Penh, 414, 415, 417, 419,

428, 430, 431, 432, 445, 446, 447, 448, 450, 451, 453

Pleiku, 418 Port Elizabeth, 332 Port Moresby, 505, 506, 510,

511, 531, 532 Port Vila, 510 Port-au-Prince, 129, 130,

131, 134 Pretoria, 354 Punjab, 375 Putrajaya, 439, 440 Pyongyang, 489, 557

Quebec City, 28, 51, 52, 53, 54, 71, 75, 76

Quezon City, 442, 443, 453 Quito, 138, 144, 148

Raleigh, 52 Randstad, 39, 195, 198, 204 Rangoon (Yangon), 418 Recife, 150, 182 Reykjavik, 193 Rhine-Ruhr, 39, 194, 198 Richmond, 52, 77 Riga, 209 Rio de Janeiro, 42, 135, 137, 138,

142, 143, 144, 150, 151, 155, 156, 158, 160, 163, 164, 182, 185, 359

Rome, 13, 14, 15, 77, 188, 189, 203, 211, 243, 310, 312

Rotterdam, 194, 196, 203, 233, 550

Salvador, 72, 104, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 134, 139, 149, 150, 171, 183, 572

San Diego, 51, 52, 56, 57, 98, 172, 557, 561

San Francisco, 19, 46, 49, 52, 56, 57, 60, 77, 83, 557, 567

San José, 97, 99, 107, 116, 119, 120, 128, 133, 134

San Juan, 99, 112, 126, 127, 128 Santiago, 109, 135, 137, 138, 141,

143, 144, 150, 185 Santo Domingo, 111, 112 São Paulo, 3, 8, 13, 26, 42, 116,

137, 138, 142, 143, 144, 149, 150, 154, 155, 156, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 174, 182, 185, 537, 541

Sarajevo, 202, 231 Saratov, 537 Savannah, 51, 60, 61 Seattle, 37, 44, 51, 52, 57, 76, 77,

557 Shahjahanabad, 381, 393 Shakhrisabz, 20 Shanghai, 3, 8, 13, 26, 28, 39, 77,

203, 439, 457, 458, 461, 463, 464, 466, 476, 478, 479, 480, 481, 482, 492, 495, 497, 498, 541, 558, 559, 571, 574

578 GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX

Shenzhen, 482, 488, 491 Silicon Valley, 57, 71, 76, 393,

406, 474 Singapore, 3, 4, 5, 19, 46, 77, 124,

203, 413, 414, 416, 423, 426, 427, 429, 430, 431, 433, 435, 436, 437, 438, 439, 440, 442, 448, 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, 534, 557

Sofia, 193, 233 Soweto, 356 St. Petersburg, 42, 243, 244,

245, 248, 255, 258, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 271, 537, 572, 574

Stavropol, 254 Stockholm, 77, 205, 568 Strasbourg, 203, 223 Surat, 375, 377 Suva, 505, 506, 510, 531 Sydney, 46, 77, 503, 504, 505,

506, 507, 508, 512, 513, 514, 516, 517, 518, 520, 521, 522, 523, 524, 525, 528, 529, 533, 534, 568, 572, 574, 576

Taipei, 45, 77, 457, 458, 461, 462, 466, 480, 484, 486, 491, 492, 494, 495, 498

Teheran, 277 Tel Aviv, 277, 285, 288 Tema, 339, 344, 345 Tenochtitlan, 39 Ternate, 420 Tijuana, 98, 103, 135, 185, 561 Timbuktu, 330 Tokyo, 3, 8, 9, 11, 13, 40, 46, 64,

77, 192, 199, 216, 273, 403, 414, 436, 457, 458, 459, 464, 465, 466, 467, 468, 469, 470, 471, 486, 492, 493, 498, 537, 540, 541, 550, 560

Toronto, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 70, 71, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 83, 85, 92, 93, 94, 95, 480, 568, 573

Tripoli, 285 Tshwane, 354, 355 Tunis, 39, 298, 299 Tver, 244, 574

Ur, 11, 282, 533 Uruk, 282

Vancouver, 50, 52, 56, 76, 77, 79, 80, 94, 480, 568

Varanasi, 375, 380 Vatican City, 203

Venice, 43, 191, 207 Veracruz, 102 Vereeniging, 354, 355 Vienna, 77, 192, 193, 202, 210,

212, 227, 312, 567, 568 Vladivostok, 238, 239, 247, 250,

252, 257, 271, 272, 273, 571 Voronezh, 256

Warsaw, 197, 198, 199, 204, 205, 216, 231, 233

Washington, DC, 46, 50, 62, 70, 72, 73, 75, 77, 79, 80, 85, 86, 92, 233, 275, 454, 557, 562, 570

Wellington, 504, 509, 516, 567, 568

Windsor, 68, 92 Wollongong, 507, 529 Wuhan, 492

Xidan, 474

Yamoussoukro, 339, 537 Yerevan, 283

Zacatecas, 101 Zaporizhzhya, 537 Zurich, 77, 568

abnorms, 554 agglomeration, 45, 144 air pollution, 92, 162, 180,

184, 494 air quality, 315 Al-Qaeda, 452 ancient cities, 13 antidevelopment, 263

bazaar, 384, 390, 402 BIDs, 65, 79 Blue Banana, 198, 200 Bollywood, 390, 391 borders, 226 boundaries, 320, 529 brand, 576 BRICS, 337

California lifestyle, 67 caste, 378, 379 central place theory, 17 Chinatowns, 73, 426 Citadel, 303, 318 Civil Lines, 388, 390, 395 Civil war, 370 climate change, 6, 95, 315, 512 CMSAs, 41 Cold War, 107, 188, 313,

458, 481 colonialism, 323, 347, 457, 507 communism, 43, 188, 197,

230, 232 communist, 22, 43, 124, 191,

194, 197, 198, 204, 205, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 239, 244, 245, 264, 275, 470, 476

conflict, 288, 525 connectivity, 5, 77, 553, 555,

557, 559 conurbation, 39, 194, 195 cyberabad, 393

cyberspace, 439

decentralization, 57, 493, 500 declining, 145, 204 degradation, 145, 315 deindustrialization, 196, 551 digital cities, 557 disaster, 405 drug, 132

earthquake, 404 Emirates, 288, 306, 560 ethnic, 34, 140, 202 EU, 188, 189, 202, 203, 204, 205,

211, 232, 233 European heritage, 137, 139 European Union, 188, 197, 200,

201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 221, 224, 226, 228, 232, 233, 271, 274, 556, 575

everyday life, 432

fast food, 425 FIFA, 157, 161, 225, 294, 356 flood/ flooding, 74, 130, 550 foreign investment, 264, 435 future, 93, 120, 133, 220, 233,

263, 273, 319, 410, 534, 537, 569, 570

gang, 67 gated communities, 116, 132 gateway, 69, 72, 119, 391, 515 GaWC, 5 gender, 15, 577 gentrification, 65, 529, 530 GIS, 35, 538, 539, 561, 562,

563, 566, 574 Global North, 154, 172, 545 Global South, 46, 362, 539, 541,

543, 575

globalization, 5, 35, 36, 75, 76, 81, 124, 132, 185, 201, 203, 205, 274, 370, 393, 402, 403, 405, 430, 453, 514, 556, 559

Golden Quadrilateral, 374, 375 Google Earth, 102, 105, 131,

539, 563 Google mapping, 563 governance, 37, 233, 532,

561, 563 governing, 365 GPS, 562 green, 46, 174, 205, 218, 233,

286, 403, 454, 485, 518, 524 Green City Index, 205 green space, 174 greening, 403, 495 growth, 3, 7, 13, 20, 28, 128,

169, 221, 235, 253, 341, 409, 424, 430, 468, 500, 537, 539, 541, 543

Hajj, 308 hill stations, 387 HIV/AIDS, 336 human security, 564 hyperurbanization, 30, 167

ICTs, 554 immigrants, 73, 80, 200,

210, 233 immigration, 34, 58, 67, 70, 73,

79, 80, 93, 95, 150, 174, 188, 194, 202, 233, 348, 426, 429, 510, 525, 544

indigenous, 513 Industrial Revolution, 15, 16, 18,

99, 210 infrastructure, 405, 534, 550 Internet, 183, 539, 557, 563 ISIS, 299, 300

Index to Subjects

580 INDEX TO SUBJECTS

Islam, 14, 243, 254, 262, 264, 277, 279, 280, 284, 295, 299, 301, 303, 308, 309, 310, 319, 422, 575

Islamic empires, 278

K-economies, 204, 554 Kentucky Fried Chicken,

449, 453

land reclamation, 414 Law of the Indies, 113, 116, 126 LDCs, 7, 11, 24, 26, 30, 32, 35,

36, 38, 557 localization, 76

McDonaldization, 409, 555 McDonalds, 370, 404 Medina, 280, 281, 284, 303, 309,

320, 353 megacity/megacities, 3, 9, 40, 49,

97, 116, 137, 160, 187, 235, 277, 323, 345, 369, 413, 440, 457, 468, 503

megalopolis, 40, 50, 64, 155, 287, 288, 375, 467

mercantile, 15 metacity/metacities, 40, 49, 97,

137, 369, 457 microrayon, 248 migrant, 430, 492 migration, 16, 80, 103, 108, 128,

135, 142, 150, 152, 168, 177, 193, 197, 200, 216, 221, 224, 250, 259, 285, 288, 289, 309, 315, 316, 329, 334, 341, 353, 354, 362, 363, 370, 393, 408, 419, 426, 427, 429, 430, 435, 445, 448, 452, 458, 466, 467, 469, 471, 475, 476, 486, 487, 488, 491, 510, 512, 513, 514, 515, 520, 522, 533, 541, 542, 574, 576

millennials, 544 mission, 403 modernization, 35, 246, 297,

410, 496 multiculturalism, 236, 275,

521, 522 muslim, 202, 262, 299, 304, 305,

378, 380, 381, 382, 384, 387,

392, 398, 399, 407, 414, 423, 437, 443, 489, 522, 572

network, 5, 71, 77, 178, 354, 569 new town, 41, 205 NGOs, 182, 406

Oblast, 246, 251 OECD, 202, 311, 550, 570 okrug, 241 Olympics, 69, 157, 160, 161,

225, 488 OPEC, 202

PMSAs, 41 polarization, 144 police, 67 policing, 65, 85, 86, 182, 231,

297, 563 pollution, 90, 230, 546 port cities, 148 post 9/11, 570 poverty, 108, 315, 409, 474, 500 Pre-Columbian, 147 preindustrial, 18, 41, 458 presidency town, 369, 382, 383 primate city, 99 psychogeography, 25

Quality of Life Index, 567

race, 171, 185 railway colonies, 387 recycling, 44, 184, 438 redevelopment, 68 revolution, 50, 101, 122, 222,

244, 264, 265, 299, 303, 366, 476

rickshaws, 377 Roma, 201, 202, 228, 334, 335 Russian history, 241 Rustbelt, 56

SARS, 482 satellite cities, 448 security, 72, 84, 182, 219, 451,

538, 561, 563 segregation, 63, 86, 98, 129, 132,

175, 181, 182, 183, 352, 387, 395, 431, 524, 575

sewage, 90, 163 Shanghaization, 409 Shantytowns, 183 site, 42, 308, 380, 481 situation, 42 slave, 353 slavery, 98, 135, 160, 346 slum, 408, 409 slumification, 256 smog, 26, 90, 92, 551 social movement, 145 socialist, 43, 197, 236, 445 souks, 296 Soviet era, 236, 256, 258, 265,

268, 275 squatter, 31, 481 Starbucks, 37, 286, 431, 449 stormwater, 29 suburban, 60, 78, 117, 209, 274,

492, 517, 530, 545, 546 suburbanization, 30, 56, 116,

154, 175, 196, 209, 211, 218, 255, 274, 316, 467, 486, 487, 498, 531

Subway, 293 Sunbelt, 75 suqs, 281, 571 surveillance, 219, 563 sustainability, 38, 44, 94, 95, 120,

130, 141, 155, 164, 177, 184, 211, 233, 238, 263, 307, 317, 452, 469, 495, 518, 530, 531, 546, 548, 552, 573

sustainable, 44, 177, 188, 206, 366, 534, 548

telecommuting, 553 terrorism, 84, 89, 299, 407, 453,

564, 566, 570 tourism, 101, 123, 132, 298,

405, 449, 482, 489, 515, 527, 528, 549

tourist, 18, 28, 65, 100, 101, 120, 124, 132, 157, 182, 206, 211, 216, 223, 225, 238, 251, 298, 328, 340, 381, 436, 443, 481, 523, 525, 527, 559, 560, 569

transnational, 105, 414, 564 transnational cities, 414

Index to Subjects 581

UNESCO, 70, 123, 160, 166, 168, 203, 267, 270, 380, 405, 420, 521, 572

UPP, 157 urban agglomerations, 554 urban area, 540 urban government, 37, 258, 564 urban growth, 54, 150, 429, 537 urban landscape, 8, 277, 413 urban region, 56 urban sprawl, 120 urbanism, 44, 46, 61, 147, 181,

233, 453, 507, 509

urbanization, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 44, 48, 81, 96, 99, 101, 103, 105, 107, 109, 111, 113, 128, 136, 142, 143, 144, 150, 164, 185, 186, 197, 245, 276, 284, 313, 322, 325, 327, 331, 333, 334, 336, 360, 368, 410, 412, 419, 421, 427, 429, 430, 431, 477, 499, 502, 510, 527, 536, 547

violence, 185, 403, 405 vulnerability, 133, 327, 569

vulnerable, 73, 129

water quality, 89 water security, 451 water supply, 89, 518 Westernization, 35, 555 WHO, 396 World Heritage City, 421 World Heritage Program, 160 World Heritage Site, 117, 123, 420 World Water Day, 155

Zócalo, 111, 116, 117, 118

About the Editor and Contributors

Roberto I. Albandoz is an academic adviser at the Pennsylvania State University’s World

Campus. He holds a bachelor’s degree in geog-

raphy from the University of Puerto Rico, a

master’s degree in environmental and urban

systems from Florida International University,

and a PhD in geography from the Pennsylva-

nia State University. His primary interests lie

in historical geography, cultural geography,

and geography-based travel. He has worked as

a member of the United States Coast Guard

and as an engineer at the Applied Research

Center at Florida International University.

He also writes travel articles for El Nuevo Día

newspaper in Puerto Rico.

Amal K. Ali is associate professor in the Department of Geography and Geosciences at

Salisbury University in Maryland. She teaches

and conducts research in land-use planning,

smart growth, and international development

planning.

Lisa benton-Short is associate professor and Geography Department chair at George

Washington University. She teaches courses

on cities and globalization, urban planning,

and urban sustainability. She has research

interests in urban sustainability, environmen-

tal issues in cities, parks and public spaces, and

monuments and memorials.

Alana boland is associate professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at the

University of Toronto. She teaches courses on

China, environment, and development. Her

research examines how the changing relation-

ship between the economy and environment

has influenced the management of resources

and governing of spaces in Chinese cities. Her

current work focuses on urban environmental

infrastructure in China during the 1950s and

1960s.

Timothy S. brothers is associate professor emeritus of geography at Indiana University

Perdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). He

specializes in human-environment relations

in the Caribbean. His book Caribbean Land-

scapes is an interpretation of the most char-

acteristic natural and human landscapes of

the region based on satellite imagery, photo-

graphs, and essays.

Stanley D. brunn is emeritus professor of geography at the University of Kentucky.

He has taught classes on world cities, future

worlds, political and social geography, and the

geographies of information and communi-

cation. He has traveled in more than seventy

countries and taught in seventeen. He has

written and edited books and chapters on U.S.

elections, Walmart, post-9/11 worlds, ethnic-

ity, geography/technology interfaces, time/

space cartographies, religions, and mega-

engineering projects. Currently, he is editing

a book on world languages, studying discipli-

nary history questions, and writing poetry.

584 ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS

Kam Wing Chan is professor of geography at the University of Washington. His main

research focuses on China’s cities, migration,

employment, and the household registration

system. He has served as a consultant for the

World Bank, Asian Development Bank, United

Nations, and McKinsey & Co. His recent com-

mentaries and interviews have appeared in the

Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Econ-

omist, South China Morning Post, BBC, Caixin,

and China Daily.

Ipsita Chatterjee is assistant professor in the Department of Geography, University of

North Texas. She is interested in issues relat-

ing to globalization, neoliberalism, urban

transformation and renewal, conflict and vio-

lence, and social movements. Her research has

focused on issues of class and ethnic segrega-

tion, ghettoization, and other forms of urban

exclusions.

Megan L. Dixon is instructor of writing, geography, and environmental studies at The

College of Idaho. Her research in urban and

cultural geography focuses on high-profile

development in St. Petersburg and Shanghai

as well as on the impacts of Chinese migra-

tion to Russia. Current research involves over-

lapping Latino/Anglo narratives of place and

water use in the intermountain west (central

Idaho). Her persistent interest in shifting par-

adigms of place began with a visit to Kalinin/

Tver in 1989, just before the fall of the Berlin

Wall.

Seth Dixon is associate professor in the Geog- raphy Program at Rhode Island College. He

regularly teaches courses in urban geography,

cultural geography, GIS, and world regional

geography. Past research of his has centered

on urban landscapes of identity in Mexico as

well as the politicization of heritage. He has

served as the coordinator for the Rhode Island

Geography Education Alliance and as a blog-

ger for National Geographic Education. His

main project is to archive and share digital

geography education resources through social

media networks to other educators.

Robyn Dowling is an urban cultural geog- rapher at Macquarie University in Sydney,

Australia. Her primary research interests are

in cultures of everyday urban life, focusing

on gender, home and suburbs. She publishes

widely on issues such as home ownership,

suburban gender identities, and cultures of

transport. Her current research explores the

contours of privatization and privatism in

Sydney’s residential life.

Ashok K. Dutt is professor emeritus of geog- raphy, planning, and urban studies at the Uni-

versity of Akron in Ohio. His research focuses

on religion, language, development, crime,

and medical geographies of Indian cities. He

has authored, coauthored, edited or co-edited

23 books, and authored or coauthored more

than 80 journal articles and 60 book chapters.

Alexis Ellis is a research urban forester with the USDA Forest Service. Her work in this

field focuses on the research and development

of tools for analysis of urban tree growth and

mortality and their associated ecosystem ser-

vices. She has a background in geospatial anal-

ysis and is currently developing tools for the

spatial analysis of urban tree populations and

their associated benefits.

Irma Escamilla is a doctoral candidate in geography at the National Autonomous

University of Mexico, where she serves as

an academic technician in the Institute of

About the Editor and Contributors 585

Geography. Her research focuses on urban-

regional geography, urban labor markets,

population geography, gender and geography

and historical geography.

brian J. Godfrey is professor of geography at Vassar College. He studies urban and regional

change with a primary focus on the Ameri-

cas, including North America, Latin Amer-

ica, Brazil, and the Amazon Basin. Favoring

the analytical lens of historical geography,

his scholarship has examined such topics as

global cities and urbanization, neighborhood

change and gentrification, ethnic geography

and racial segregation, politics of memory

and historic preservation, urban political ecol-

ogy, and public space. His current research

explores the heritage-based redevelopment of

Brazil’s historic cities.

Jessica K. Graybill is associate professor of geography and director of Russian and Eura-

sian Studies at Colgate University. Ongoing

interdisciplinary research on coupled human

and natural systems investigates environmen-

tal change due to socioeconomic and political

transformation, natural resource extraction,

and climate change in multiple regions of the

Former Soviet Union, especially the Far North

and East. With students, she also examines the

human and natural ecologies of shrinking cit-

ies in upstate New York.

Maureen Hays-Mitchell is professor of geography at Colgate University. Her schol-

arly interests center broadly on the gendered

dimensions of development in the Global

South, with a primary focus on Latin America

where she conducts grassroots fieldwork. She

applies a feminist lens to issues involving the

urban informal economy, the role of women’s

associations in peace-building, the work of

truth commissions, and post-conflict recon-

ciliation. Her current research explores mem-

ory on the post-conflict landscape of several

Latin American countries.

Ishrat Islam is professor and chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning

at the Bangladesh University of Engineering

and Technology (BUET). Her teaching and

research interests are spatial planning, wet-

lands preservation, disaster management, and

indigenous architecture.

brian Edward Johnson is director of the Uni- versity of Alabama at Birmingham’s Office for

Study Away, where he also teaches introduc-

tory, urban, population, and regional geog-

raphy courses. His research focuses on urban

planning in cities experiencing revitalization

and demographic change. He serves as chair

of the AAG’s Stand Alone Geographers Affin-

ity Group and is a City of Birmingham plan-

ning commissioner.

Corey Johnson is associate professor of geog- raphy at the University of North Carolina,

Greensboro. He teaches courses on Europe,

the European Union, and political and urban

geography. He has lived and worked in Ger-

many. His current research is on geopoli-

tics of energy and borders in the European

Union.

Nathaniel M. Lewis is lecturer in human geography at the University of Southampton.

His work focuses on relationships between

gender, sexuality, health, and the urban envi-

ronment. He completed his PhD at Queen’s

University in Kingston, Ontario, and a post-

doctoral fellowship at Dalhousie University

in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His recent publica-

tions can be found in journals such as Health

586 ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS

& Place, Annals of the Association of American

Geographers, The Canadian Geographer, and

the Journal of Homosexuality.

Linda McCarthy is associate professor of geography and urban studies at the University

of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She is also a certi-

fied planner. Her teaching interests include

Europe, cities, and globalization. Her research

focuses on public policy and economic devel-

opment. Her recent publications have been on

government subsidies to corporations, glo-

balization, and brownfields.

Pauline McGuirk is professor of human geog- raphy and director of the Centre for Urban

and Regional Studies at the University of

Newcastle, Australia. Her research focuses on

the politics, development, and governance of

metropolitan cities, but she has also published

widely on aspects of urban development, city

politics, planning, urban identity, and place

marketing. She is currently investigating new

forms of governance and residential housing

in Sydney.

Garth A. Myers is distinguished professor of Urban International Studies at Trinity College

in Hartford, Connecticut, and director of the

Urban Studies Program. He is the author of

four books and co-editor of two others. He

has also published more than 60 articles and

book chapters on African urban development,

and he teaches a variety of courses on African

geography and urban studies.

Arnisson Andre Ortega is assistant profes- sor at the University of the Philippines, Dili-

man. His research interests include urban

geography, migration, and critical demogra-

phy. His current projects focus on spatialities

of peri-urban transition, dispossession and

gentrification, and social politics of transna-

tional migration.

Francis Owusu is professor and chair of the Department of Community and Regional

Planning at Iowa State University. He has con-

ducted research in several African countries

and has published extensively on urban liveli-

hood strategies, development policy, and pub-

lic sector reforms. He teaches geography and

planning courses, including the geography

of Africa and a course on world cities. He is

originally from Ghana.

George Pomeroy is professor of geography- earth science at Shippensburg University of

Pennsylvania. He teaches land-use planning,

environmental planning, and courses related

to both South and East Asia. His research

focuses on new-towns planning and on build-

ing capacity for local government planning

activities.

zia Salim is assistant professor of geography at California State University, Fullerton. He

teaches courses on urban geography, geo-

graphic thought, and social and environmen-

tal issues in urban areas. His research interests

include urban inequality, uneven develop-

ment, and cultural landscapes. More spe-

cifically, his work has examined central city

redevelopment, affordable housing, home-

lessness, gated communities, nonprofit service

provision, and public art.

Joseph L. Scarpaci is associate professor of marketing at the Gary E. West College of Busi-

ness in West Liberty, West Virginia. He is also

the executive director of the Center for the

Study of Cuban Culture and the Economy. He

is the coauthor of Marketing Without Adver-

tising: Brand Preference and Consumer Choice

About the Editor and Contributors 587

in Cuba, among other works focused on Cuba

and the Caribbean.

benjamin Shultz is assistant professor at International Balkan University in Skopje,

Macedonia, where he teaches courses on

American society and politics, nationalism,

and cultural industries. His current research

interest is in the processes of integration of the

Balkan states into Europe. As a side project, he

is interested in applying spatial analysis meth-

ods to sports statistics.

Thomas Sigler is lecturer in human geogra- phy at The University of Queensland in Bris-

bane, Australia. He holds a bachelor’s degree

in geography and international relations from

the University of Southern California, and a

master’s degree and PhD in geography from

Penn State University. His primary interests lie

in economic and urban geography, specifically

in the evolution and formation of contem-

porary cities through historical interurban

networks. He has conducted research on the

United States, Panama, Hong Kong, and Aus-

tralia. Prior to finishing his PhD, he worked

in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and

Honduras for governmental and nonprofit

organizations.

Angela Gray Subulwa is associate professor in the Department of Geography and Urban

Planning at the University of Wisconsin–

Oshkosh. Her research interests include exam-

ining the processes of forced displacement and

identity as they relate to development, gender,

political, and cultural geographies. Most of

her research focuses on southern Africa, with

a concentration on Zambia. In addition to

numerous geography courses, she also teaches

in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.

James Tyner is professor of geography at Kent State University, where he teaches East and

Southeast Asia, political geography, and other

courses on social, population, and urban

geography. His current research focuses on

political violence in Southeast Asia and inter-

national population movements.

Donald J. zeigler is professor of geography at Old Dominion University in Hampton Roads,

Virginia. He teaches courses on the Middle

East, urban and cultural geography. He is an

avid traveler and photographer, a past presi-

dent of the National Council for Geographic

Education, and the current president of the

Southeast Regional Middle East and Islamic

Studies Seminar.