Overview

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

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9780745691565

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Reviews

Ceaselessly inventive and frequently provocative, New Urban Worlds anticipates new models, methods, and modes of urbanism. Paying attention to the details, AbdouMaliq Simone and Edgar Pieterse recount a multiplicity of urban stories from Asia and Africa stories of political possibility and experimental potential with a keen-eyed and always-creative purpose. Jamie Peck, University of British Columbia Deeply conceptual and creatively pragmatic, this is a core text from two of the most significant voices in urban studies today. At a time when international urban policy is being rethought, this is a pertinent and timely intervention which should change how cities in Africa and Asia are approached by scholars and practitioners alike. They offer a highly original re-theorisation of the urban, based on decades of research and practical engagement in cities across Africa and Asia, but also open up distinctive new horizons for urban scholars everywhere seeking to catch the dynamic, varied meanings and effects of the urban. Jennifer Robinson, University College London

Ceaselessly inventive and frequently provocative, New Urban Worlds anticipates new models, methods, and modes of urbanism. Paying attention to the details, AbdouMaliq Simone and Edgar Pieterse recount a multiplicity of urban stories from Asia and Africa stories of political possibility and experimental potential with a keen-eyed and always-creative purpose. - Jamie Peck, University of British Columbia Deeply conceptual and creatively pragmatic, this is a core text from two of the most significant voices in urban studies today. At a time when international urban policy is being rethought, this is a pertinent and timely intervention which should change how cities in Africa and Asia are approached by scholars and practitioners alike. They offer a highly original re-theorisation of the urban, based on decades of research and practical engagement in cities across Africa and Asia, but also open up distinctive new horizons for urban scholars everywhere seeking to catch the dynamic, varied meanings and effects of the urban. - Jennifer Robinson, University College London

Author Information

AbdouMaliq Simone is Professor of Sociology and Urbanism at Goldsmiths, University of London. Edgar Pieterse is South African Research Chair in Urban Policy at the University of Cape Town.

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