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GEOGRAPHIES OF URBAN THEORY AND FUTURITY (NON-WESTERN MEGACITIES AS URBAN…
GEOGRAPHIES OF URBAN THEORY AND FUTURITY
NEW GEOGRAPHIES OF URBAN THEORY (Roy, 2009)
Current problem
Urban theory largely EuroAmerican-centred
'Truth-spots' or great cities
Part of canonical tradition
Proposal
Need an urban theory that is 'simultaneously located and dislocated'
Based on certain places (located)
Not just one (McGee, 1976)
But insights can be modestly extended (dislocated)
Not universalised (Dick & Rimmer, 1998)
Middle ground
Need to move beyond West
For multiple truth spots
Diversify sites of theoreisation
CENTRAL UNIVERSAL THEORIES (Geiryn, 2006)
Chicago as Anywhere
Burgess diagram
Chicago School
Famous and transplanted everywhere
Resources
Developed during time of quantitative (scientific) legitimacy and modeling engagements
Scholars made findings 'portable' and 'detachable'
LA as Urban Future Everywhere
Postmodern era
Suspicious of grand scientific claims
Established credibility through feigned weakness
Multiple truths
Co-constructed by audience
No single dominant narrative
Similar universalizing tendencies and fantasies
LA as the city of
the
future, where it all comes together
'Advanced' form of urbanism to be seen in every metro region
Link to Dick & Rimmer (1998) who diagnosed Jakarta vs. LA to show convergence in urban forms and characteristics
Ed Soja and the Exopolis (both centralised and decentralised)
(-) NY is almost antithetical
(-) Universalising claims, problems of 'synecdoche' (Amin & Graham, 1997)
NON-WESTERN MEGACITIES AS URBAN FUTURE
Proposal: Non-western sites of urban futurity (Roy, 2009)
(-) Still metro-centric on large populated cities
Rising Asia
Shanghai, Cairo, Mumbai
Eurocentric perspectives as 'outdated and anachronistic' (Soja)
Problems: (Zeiderman, 2008)
Still ends up western-centric
Fear they will 'end up as' megacity
An unspoken bad future for
them
Western experience retained as core
Ignores histories of global capitalism that cause megacity disorder (King, 1990; Harvey, 2000)
Case Study: Lagos (Gandy, 2005)
Rem Koolhaas touted Lagos as 'ahead' of Western cities
(-) Romanticized
Informal sector is hierarchal
Only those on poverty border can catch up
Abject poverty cannot
(-) Assumes single conveyor belt of development
Lagos can 'catch up'
(-) Ignores history
Underdevelopment due to colonial extraction for dev of LDN
Also a result of SAPs by West