Week 1: City and development Assignment

Essay (2250 words), worth 75% of the total mark for the module.

 

DEADLINE:

 

 

Drawing on examples, discuss how digital technology has changed urban life, and for whom it works.

 

What are the challenges to the provision of pro-poor housing OR public transport in cities of developing countries. Discuss with examples.

 

What is the relationship between cities, development and EITHER informal employment OR violence? Discuss with examples.

 

Topics covered by week:

 

Cities and development: an introduction

 

Urbanisation and development in historical perspective

 

Navigating urban theory I: Political economy approaches

 

Navigating urban theory II: The post-colonial turn and seeing cities “from the South”.

 

“Informal” employment

 

[Reading week]

 

Urban crime and violence

 

Housing, “speculative” real estate development and urban inequalities
Public transport

 

 

 

New visions of the urban: smart cities

 

The city, platform capitalism and digital labour: The case of UBER

 

 

 

Week 1: City and development: an introduction

 

In the first session we will review the course structure and set the context for the remainder of

 

the course. This will start by exploring the meaning and debate surrounding the ‘urban age’ we

 

live in (for some), and by  unpacking the complex relationship between cities and development.

 

Key readings:

 

Fox, S. and Goodfellow, T. (2016). “Development in the first urban century”, chapter 1 in Fox, S. and Goodfellow, T. (2016) Cities and Development. London: Routledge, 2nd [ebook in SOAS library]

 

Turok, Ivan and Gordon McGranahan (2013) ‘Urbanization and economic growth: the arguments and evidence for Africa and Asia’, Environment and Urbanization, 25, 2, 465-482

 

Further readings:

 

Beauregard, R.A (2018) Cities in the urban age: A dissent. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

Satterthwaite, D. (2007) “The transition to a predominantly urban world and its underpinnings”, Human Settlements Discussion Paper Series.

 

Davis, M. (2004). ‘Planet of Slums: urban involution and the informal proletariat’, New Left Review, 26, 5-34.

 

Glaeser, E. (2011) Triumph of the city: How urban spaces make us human. London: MacMillan.

 

Gleeson, B. (2012) ‘Critical commentary: The urban age: paradox and prospect’, Urban studies, 49 (5), 931-943.

 

Lall, Somik Vinay, J Vernon Henderson and Anthony J Venables (2017) Africa’s cities: opening doors to the world, World Bank, Washington DC, available at: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25896 (read Overview ‘Africa’s cities: opening doors to the world’, pp9-34)

 

Pieterse, Edgar and Sue Parnell (2014) ‘Africa’s urban revolution in context’, in Sue Parnell and Edgar Pieterse (eds) Africa’s urban revolution, London: Zed, pp1-17

 

Science (2016). ‘Rise of the city’, Science, 352 (6288), 906-907.

 

Turok, Ivan (2014) ‘Linking urbanisation and development in Africa’s economic revival’, in Sue Parnell and Edgar Pieterse (eds) Africa’s urban revolution, London: Zed, pp60-81

 

UN-Habitat. (2016) World Cities Report 2016: Urbanisation and Development: Emerging futures (chapter 2)

 

 

 

 

Week 2. Urbanisation and development in historical perspective

 

In this session we explore the origins of cities and of urbanization. We compare the experience of urbanization in Europe and North America with that of the rest of the world. We analyse what was the role played by cities during colonialism as well as the legacy of colonialism on urban infrastructure and urban life.

 

 

 

Class discussion questions: What are the main differences between the origins of cities in Europe and that of Asia and Africa? What role did cities play during colonialism? What was the legacy of colonialism on cities?

 

Key readings:

 

Freund, Bill (2007). ‘Colonialism and urbanisation’, chapter 3 in The African city: An

introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.37-64. [On moodle]

 

McFarlane, Colin (2008) ‘Governing the Contaminated City: Infrastructure and Sanitation in Colonial and Post-Colonial Bombay’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 32.2 June 2008, 415–35

 

Further readings:

 

Bairoch, Paul (1988) Cities and economic development: From the dawn of history to the present,

Chicago: Chicago University Press.

 

Burton, A. (2007) ‘The Haven of Peace Purged: Tackling the Undesirable and Unproductive Poor in Dar es Salaam, ca.1950s-1980s, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 119-151.

 

Cooper, Frederick (ed) (1983) Struggle for the city: migrant labor, capital and the state in urban Africa, Sage, Beverly Hills.

 

Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine (1991) ‘The process of urbanization in Africa (from the origins to the beginning of Independence)’, African Studies Review, 34, 1, 1-98

 

Dalberto, S.A.; Charton, H.; & Goerg, O. (2013). Urban planning, housing and the making of ‘responsible citizens’ in the late colonial period: Dakar, Nairobi and Conakry. In Bekker, S., & Fourchard, L. (eds.). Governing Cities in Africa: politics and policies. HSRC Press, pp.43-64.

 

Davis, M. (2006) Planet of Slums. Verso, London and New York.

 

Drakakis-Smith, David (2000). Third World Cities, 2nd ed, London: Routledge.

 

Fourchard, Laurent (2011) ‘Between world history and state formation: new perspectives on African cities’, African History, 52, 223-248

 

Fox, S. and Goodfellow, T. (2016). “The global urban transition in historical perspective”, chapter 2 in Fox, S. and Goodfellow, T. (2016) Cities and Development. London: Routledge, 2nd

 

Fox S. 2014. Urbanisation as a global historical process: theory and evidence from Sub-saharan Africa, in Parnell S., Pieterse E. Africa’s Urban Revolution. Zed Books.

 

Freund, Bill. (2007) The African city: An introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

King, Anthony D. (1990) Urbanism, colonialism and the world-economy, London: Routledge.

 

Mabogunje, A. L. (1990). Urban planning and the post-colonial state in Africa: a research overview. African Studies Review, 33(2), 121-203.

 

Roy, A. (2006) ‘Praxis in the time of empire’, Planning Theory, 5(1), 7–29.

 

 

 

Tilly, Charles (1994) ‘Entanglements of European cities and states’, in Cities and the rise of states in Europe: A.D. 1000-1800, Colorado: Westview Press, pp.1-27. [On moodle]

 

Yeoh, B. S. (2001). Postcolonial cities. Progress in Human Geography, 25(3), 456-468.

 

Week 3. Navigating urban theory I: Political economy approaches

 

In this session we review a number of key authors and theories inspired by radical political economy, emphasising the connection between global economic processes and urbanisation. We review the debates around “urban neoliberalism” and a number of studies about its impact on cities of Asia and Africa.

 

Class discussion questions:

 

What is the link between global economic processes and urbanization? What do we mean by urban neoliberalism? What are its key drivers? And its impact on cities in Asia and Africa?

 

Key readings:

 

Shenjing He and Fulong Wu 2009. ‘China’s Emerging Neoliberal Urbanism: Perspectives from Urban Redevelopment’, Antipode 41 No. 2 2009, pp 282–304

 

Miraftab, Faranak, (2004) Neoliberalism and casualization of public sector services: the case of waste collection services in Cape Town, South Africa, International Journal of Urban

 

and Regional Research, Volume 28.4    December 2004   874-92

 

Further readings:

 

Brenner, N., Peck, J., & Theodore, N. (2010) “Variegated Neoliberalization: Geographies, Modalities, Pathways.” Global Networks 10(2): 182–222.

 

Brenner, N. and Christian Schmid, “Towards a new epistemology of the urban?” City, 19, 2/3 (2015): 151-182.
Brenner, N. & Theodore, N (2002) Cities and the Geographies of “Actually Existing Neoliberalism.” Antipode 34(3): 349–379.

 

Castells, M., 1977 The Urban Question: A Marxist Approach, London: Arnold.

 

Dagdeviren, H. (2008). Waiting for Miracles: The Commercialization of Urban Water

 

Services in Zambia, Development and Change, 39, 1: 101–121.

 

Jessop, B. (2002) “Liberalism, Neoliberalism and Urban Governance: A State–theoretical

 

Perspective.” Antipode 34(3): 452–472.

 

Lefebvre, H., 2003 [1970] The Urban Revolution, University of Minnesota Press. [esp. pp1-22, ‘From the City to Urban Strategy’.

 

Davis, M. (2006) Planet of Slums. Verso, London and New York.

 

Friedmann, J.1986. ‘The world city hypothesis’, Development and change, 17 (1), 69-83.

 

Harvey 1973. Social Justice and the city. London: Arnold.

 

Harvey, D. (2008) The right to the city, New Left Review, 53, pp. 23–40.

 

Miraftab, Faranak, (2004) Neoliberalism and casualization of public sector services: the case of waste collection services in Cape Town, South Africa, International Journal of Urban

 

and Regional Research, Volume 28.4    December 2004   874-92

 

Obeng-Odoom, Franklin. (2015). Neoliberalism and the Urban Economy in Ghana: Urban Employment, Inequality, and Poverty, Growth and Change, Vol. 43 No. 1 (March 2012), pp. 85–109

 

Rizzo, M. (2017). Taken for a ride: Grounding neoliberalism, precarious labour and public transport

 

in an African metropolis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Series on Critical Frontiers of Theory, Research, and Policy in International Development Studies. Chapter 2 ‘Public transport in Dar es Salaam: From state monopoly to neoliberalism (1970-2015), pp. 27-49.

 

Sassen, Saskia. (2002) Locating cities on global circuits. Environment and Urbanization. April 2002 14: 13-30.

 

 

 

 

Week 4. Navigating urban theory II: The post-colonial turn and seeing cities “from the South”.

 

The 2000s saw a strong “post-colonial turn” in urban studies. It was premised on a strong rejection of what was perceived as a Eurocentric and over-determistic approach to cities by political economy urban scholars. In this session we review the work of a number of key authors who write about cities “from the South”. Drawing on the previous week session, we continue to review the debate around “urban neoliberalism” and whether this is a useful concept to understand the urban experience in Asia and Africa.

 

Class discussion questions:

 

What does theorising “cities form the Global South” entail? What are the key tenets of postcolonial approaches to the study of the urban? Is neoliberalism a misleading or useful concept to the study of the urban?

 

Key readings:

 

Robinson, J., & Parnell, S. (2012). “(Re)theorising cities from the global south: looking

beyond neoliberalism, Urban Geography, 33, 4: 593-617.

 

Storper, M. and Scott, A.J. 2016. ‘Current debates in urban theory: a critical assessment’.

 

Urban Studies 53 (6): pp. 1114–1136.

 

Further readings:

 

Bhan, Gautam, (2019) ‘Notes on a Southern urban practice’, Environment & Urbanization, Vol 31(2): 639–654.
Brenner, Neil, David J. Madden, and David Wachsmuth. 2010. Assemblage urbanism and the challenges of critical urban theory. City 15, no. 2: 225–40.

 

Gandy, M. 2005. ‘Learning from Lagos’. New Left Review 33: pp. 37–53.

 

Ghertner, D. A. (2014). India’s urban revolution: geographies of displacement beyond gentrification. Environment and Planning A, 46(7), 1554-1571.

 

Myers, G. (2011) African Cities: Alternative Visions of Urban Theory and Practice. Zed Books, London, New York.

 

Patel, S. 2014. “Is there a ‘south’ perspective to urban studies?” In The Routledge Handbook on the Cities of the Global South, eds. S Parnell and S Oldfield. London: Routledge. 37-53.

 

Peck, J. 2015. Cities beyond compare. Regional Studies 49: 160-182.

 

Pieterse, E. 2008. City Futures: Confronting the Crisis of Urban Development. London, UK, and

 

New York, NY: Zed Books.

 

Rizzo, M. (2017). Taken for a ride: Grounding neoliberalism, precarious labour and public transport

 

in an African metropolis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Series on Critical Frontiers of Theory, Research, and Policy in International Development Studies. Chapter 1 ‘Taken for a ride. Rethinking neoliberalism, precarious labour and public transport from an African metropolis’, pp. 1-26.

 

Robinson J (2011) Cities in a world of cities: The comparative gesture. International Journal

 

of Urban and Regional Research 35(1): 1–23

 

Robinson, J. (2006) Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development. Routledge, Questioning Cities Series, Abingdon, UK.

 

Robinson, J. 2002. Global and World Cities: a view from off the map, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 26, 3, 531-554.

 

Roy, A. (2009). The 21st-Century Metropolis: New Geographies of Theory. Regional Studies, 43(6), 819-830.

 

Roy A. 2011. Slumdog Cities: Rethinking Subaltern Urbanism, International Journal of Urban

 

and Regional Research, 35 (2): 223-38

 

Roy, A. 2011. Postcolonial Urbanism: The Worlding of Asia: speed, hysteria, mass

 

dreams,in Roy, A. and Ong, A. (eds) Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global, Blackwells.

 

Sheppard, E, H Leitner, and A Maringanti. 2013. Provincializing global urbanism: a

 

manifesto. Urban Geography 34: 893-900.

 

Simone, A. (2004a) “People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg.”

 

Public Culture 16(3): 407–429.

 

Simone, A. (2004b) For the City Yet to Come: Changing African Lives in Four Cities. Duke University Press, Durham, NC.

 

Simone, A. (2005) “Introduction: Urban Processes and Change.” Urban Africa: Changing

 

Contours of Survival in the City: 1–26. Edited by A. Simone & A. Abouhani. Zed Books, London; and Codesria Books, Dakar, Senegal.

 

Simone, A. 2010. City Life from Jakarta to Dakar, Routledge.

 

Watts, M.J. (2005) “Baudelaire over Berea, Simmel over Sandton?” Public culture 17(1).

 

 

 

Week 5. “Informal” employment.

 

The concept of the “informal sector” was born out of the growing concern about urban unemployment and underemployment in cities of developing countries. In this session we analyse the evolution of the debate on informality, placing particular emphasis on the shift from the residual status it occupied in early development thinking, to its central role in current processes of globalization. We will review the main theoretical approaches to the informal economy and reflect on their policy implications.

 

Class discussion questions:

 

What is the origin of the term informal economy? How do mainstream and structuralist approaches to the informal economy explain the causes of widespread economic informality? What are the main policy solutions to support people in the informal economy associated with them?

 

Key readings:

 

Harriss-White B. (2010) ‘Work and wellbeing in informal economies: the regulative roles

of institutions of identity and the state’ World Development Vol. 38 (2): 170-183

 

Rizzo, M. (2017). Taken for a ride: Grounding neoliberalism, precarious labour and public transport

in an African metropolis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Series on Critical Frontiers of Theory, Research, and Policy in International Development Studies. Chapter 3, Life is war: Capital and informal labour in bus public transport.

 

Further readings:

 

Agbiboa, Daniel (2016) ‘No condition is permanent’: informal transport workers and labour precarity in Africa’s largest city’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 40, 5, 936-957

 

Beall J., ‘Social Security and Social networks Among the Urban Poor in Pakistan’, HABITAT International, Vol. 19, No. 4, pp 427-445.

 

Bromley R. and Wilson T.D. (2018) ‘Introduction: The Urban Informal Economy’

 

Revisited. Latin American Perspectives 45(1): 4-23.

 

Castells, M. and Portes, A., (1989) ‘World Underneath: the Origins, Dynamics and Effects of the Informal Economy’, in A. Portes, M. Castells and L.A. Benton, The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries, (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press), 11-37

 

Chen, M. A. (2005) Rethinking the informal economy Research Paper UNU-WIDER No. 2005/10 ((https://www.econstor.eu/dspace/bitstream/10419/63329/1/488006546.pdf)

 

Chhachi A. (2014) ‘Introduction: The ‘Labour Question’ in Contemporary Capitalism’,

 

in Development and Change, 45(5): 895–919 [see also the other articles in the special issue]

 

Davis, M. (2004). ‘Planet of Slums: urban involution and the informal proletariat’, New Left Review, 26, 5-34.

 

de Soto, H. (1989) ‘The Other Path: the Invisible Revolution in the Third World’ (London: Tauris)

 

de Soto, H. 2001. The Mystery  of  Capital:  Why  Capitalism  Triumphs  in  the  West  and  Fails

 

Everywhere Else. London: Black Swan.

 

Gilbert, A. (2002) “On the Mystery of Capital and the Myths of Hernando de Soto. What Difference Does Legal Title Make?” International Development Planning Review 24(2): 1–19.

 

Goodfellow, Tom (2019) ‘Political informality: deals, trust networks, and the negotiation of value in the urban realm’, The Journal of Development Studies, [online early]

 

Hart, K. (1973). Informal income opportunities and urban employment in Ghana. Journal of modern African studies, 11(01): 61-89.

 

Kinyanjui, Mary Njeri (2014) Women and the informal economy in urban Africa: from the margins to the centre, Zed Books, London.

 

Meagher K. (1995) ‘Crisis, Informalisation and the Urban Informal Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa’, Development and Change, 26, pp. 259-283

 

Mezzadri A. & Fan L. (2018) ‘Classes of Labour’ at the Margins of Global Commodity Chains in India & China’. Development & Change (49)4:1034-1063.

 

Obeng-Odoom Franklin (2016) Reconstructing urban economies: towards a political economy of the built environment, Zed, London (Chapter 5 ‘Informal economies’)

 

Pieterse, E. 2008. City Futures: Confronting the Crisis of Urban Development. London, UK, and

 

New York, NY: Zed Books.

 

Roy, A. (2005). Urban informality: toward an epistemology of planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, 71(2), 147-158.

 

Simone, Abdoumaliq 2004. For the City yet to Come. Changing African Life in Four Cities. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

 

Thieme, TA (2018). The hustle economy: Informality, uncertainty and the geographies of getting by. Progress in Human Geography, 42(4), 529-548.

 

Week 6: READING WEEK – No classes

 

Week 7: Urban crime and violence

 

Crime and violence are infamous traits of urban life in many cities of developing countries. In this session we investigate the key characteristics of urban violence, the way in which violence and insecurity has knock on effects on the development of cities. We also explore a range of policy to “police” insecurity.

 

Class discussion questions:

 

Are cities conducive to certain types of violence? What factors can be linked to the manifestation of urban violence? What are the main policy approaches/initiatives to deal with urban violence and insecurity?

 

Key readings:

 

 

 

Oosterbaan, Sarah & van Wijk, D. (2015) “Pacifying and integrating the favelas of Rio de Janeiro An evaluation of the impact of the UPP program on favela residents”, International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 39, No. 3, 179–198.

 

Kaker, Sobia Ahmad (2014). Enclaves, insecurity and violence in Karachi. South Asian History and Culture, 5(1), 93-107

 

Further readings:

 

Beall, J., Goodfellow, T., & Rodgers, D. (2013). Cities and conflict in fragile states in the developing world. Urban Studies, 50(15), 3065-3083.

 

Bourgois, P. (2003), In search of respect: Selling crack in El Barrio, (2nd edition), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Caldeira, T. P. (2000). City of Walls: crime, segregation, and citizenship in São Paulo. University of California Press.

 

 

 

Michaela Collord, Tom Goodfellow and Lewis Abedi Asante, “Uneven development, politics and governance in urban Africa: An analytical literature review”, African Cities Research Consortium, Working Paper no. 2. https://www.african-cities.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ACRC_Working-paper-2_November-2021.pdf

 

Fox, S., & Goodfellow, T. (2016). Cities and Development. Routledge. Chap. 7 “Violence, crime and insecurity”.

 

Graham, S. (2010) Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism. London: Verso Books.

 

Hazen, J. M., & Rodgers, D. (2014). Global Gangs: Street violence across the world. University of Minnesota Press.

 

Jones, Gareth. A., & Rodgers, Dennis . (2015). Gangs, guns and the city: Urban policy in dangerous places. In Lemanski, C. & Marx, C. (eds.) The City in Urban Poverty. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 205-226.
Koonings, K., and Kruijt, D. (eds.) (2007). Fractured Cities: Social Exclusion, Urban Violence

and Contested Spaces in Latin America. London: Zed Books.

 

Kooning, K. (2014). ‘The Conundrum of Violence and Insecurity in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro’, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, No. 97 October, pp. 135-143.
Lemanski, C. (2004). A new apartheid? The spatial implications of fear of crime in Cape Town, South Africa. Environment and Urbanization, 16(2), 101-112.

 

Meth, P. (2010). Unsettling insurgency: reflections on women’s insurgent practices in South Africa. Planning Theory & Practice, 11(2), 241-263.

 

Moncada, E. (2013). The politics of urban violence: Challenges for development in the Global South. Studies in Comparative International Development, 48(3), 217-239.

 

Moser, C. O. N. , and McIlwaine, C. (2014). New frontiers in twenty-first century urban conflict and violence. Environment & Urbanization, 26(2), 331-344.

 

Pavoni, A. & Tulumello, S. (2018) What is urban violence? Progress in Human Geography. [Online]

 

Robins, S. (2002). At the limits of spatial governmentality: a message from the tip of Africa. Third World Quarterly, 23(4), 665-689.

 

Souza, M. L. (2005). Urban planning in an age of fear: the case of Rio de Janeiro. International Development Planning Review, 27(1), 1-19

 

Steinberg, Jonny. (2005). The number. One man search for identity in the Cape underworld and prison gangs. Jonathan Ball Publishers

 

Wacquant, L. 2003. ‘Towards a Dictatorship over the Poor? Notes on the Penalization of Poverty in Brazil’, Punishment and Society 5 (2): 197–205.

 

Wacquant, L. 2010. Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham

and London: Duke University Press.

 

Winton, A. (2004). Urban violence: a guide to the literature. Environment and Urbanization, 16(2), 165-184.

 

World Bank (2010). Violence in the City: Understanding and Supporting Community

Responses to Urban Violence . Washington, DC: World Bank.

 

Week 8: Housing, “speculative” real estate development and urban inequalities

 

In this session we review two inter-related facets of the acute housing crisis to be found in cities of developing countries: first the tendency to speculative real estate development and second the proliferation of informal “slums”. Making sense of the two will require exploring the relationship between capitalism and the built environment, and how this plays itself out in the rapidly growing metropolises of the cities of developing countries.

 

Class discussion questions:

 

How do we understand the existence of large-scale slums in cities of the global South? What are the main challenges of slum formalization? What are the key drivers and consequences of speculative real estate development?

 

Key readings:

 

Goodfellow, T. (2017). Urban fortunes and skeleton cityscapes: real estate and late urbanization in Kigali and Addis Ababa. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(5), 786-803.

 

Meth, P Buthelezi, S and Rajasekhar, S (2019) Gendered il/legalities of housing formalisation in India and South Africa. Environment and Planning, 2019, Vol. 51(5) 1068–1088

 

Further readings:

 

Buckley R, Kallergis A and Wainer L (2016). The emergence of large-scale housing programmes: beyond a public finance perspective. Habitat International 54(3), 199-209.

 

Charlton, S (2018) Spanning the spectrum: infrastructural experiences in South Africa’s state housing programme. International Development Planning Review 40(2), 97-120.

 

City, 2011. Special Issue Beyond the Return of the Slum. 15, 6.

 

Croese S, Cirolia, LR and Graham N (2016). Towards Habitat III: confronting the disjuncture between global policy and local practice on Africa’s ‘challenge of slums’, Habitat International, 53, 237-242.

 

Davis, M. 2006. Planet of Slums. London and New York: Verso.

 

Ghertner, D. A. (2014). India’s urban revolution: geographies of displacement beyond gentrification. Environment and Planning A, 46(7), 1554-1571.

 

Goldman, M. (2011). Speculative urbanism and the making of the next world city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35(3), 555-581.

 

Harvey, D. (1978). The urban process under capitalism: a framework for analysis. International journal of urban and regional research, 2(1-3), 101-131.

 

Lees, L., Shin, H. B., & Lopez-Morales, E. (2016). Planetary gentrification. John Wiley & Sons.

 

Mageli, E. (2004) Housing mobilization in Calcutta – empowerment for the masses or awareness for the few? Environment and Urbanization 16 (1), 129-138.

 

Manji, A (2015). Bulldozers, homes and highways: Nairobi and the right to the city, Review of African Political Economy, 42 (144), 206-24.

 

Mercer, Claire (2018) ‘Boundary work: becoming middle class in suburban Dar es Salaam’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research [online early].

 

 

 

Meth, P (2013) Millennium development goals and urban informal settlements: unintended consequences” International Development Planning Review 35(1), v-xiii.

 

Mbiba, B. (2017). Idioms of Accumulation: Corporate Accumulation by Dispossession in Urban Zimbabwe. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(2), 213-234.

 

Parnell, S (2016) Defining a global urban development agenda. World Development 78, 529-540.

 

Pitcher, M. Anne (2017) ‘Varieties of residential capitalism in Africa: urban housing provision in Luanda and Nairobi’, African Affairs, 116, 464, pp365-390

 

Shatkin, G. (2008). “The city and the bottom line: urban mega projects and the privatisation of planning in South-East Asia”, Envirorment and Planning A, Vol 40 (2), 383-401.

 

Shatkin, G. (2017). Cities for profit: the real estate turn in Asia’s urban politics. Cornell University Press.

 

Watson, V. (2014). African urban fantasies: dreams or nightmares? Environment and Urbanization, 26(1), 215-231.

 

Williams, G, Omankuttan U, Aasen, B, Devika, J 2018. “Enacting Participatory, Gender-Sensitive Slum Redevelopment? Urban governance, power and participation in Trivandrum, Kerala.” Geoforum 96 150-159.

 

 

 

Week 9: Public transport

 

Public transport in cities of developing countries tend to be in a state of crisis, with fading public provision of the service, and highly inefficient private sector operators filling the vacuum left by the demise of the public sector. In this session we explore the case for and against Bus Rapid Transit, a fashionable policy solution promoted by the World Bank to address the crisis of public transport.

 

Class discussion questions:

 

What is Bus Rapid Transit? Since when and why was it suggested as the most cost-effective solution to public transport problems? What is its impact on public transport in cities of developing countries?

 

Key readings:

 

Rizzo, M. (2017). Taken for a ride: Grounding neoliberalism, precarious labour and public

 

transport in an African metropolis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Series on Critical Frontiers of Theory, Research, and Policy in International Development Studies. Chapter 7 ‘The new face of neoliberalism: The Bus Rapid Transit project in Tanzania (2002-2016)’, pp. 142-170.

Quality Public Transport. 2012b. “Briefing Number 8: A Model BRT? Transmilenio in Bogotá.”
World Bank. 2010. “From Chaos to Order: Implementing High Capacity Urban Transport

 

Systems in Colombia.” IBRD Results. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/100571468244175261/pdf/916790BRI0B ox30nsit402301000Public0.pdf

 

 

 

Further readings:

 

Agbiboa, Daniel (2016) ‘No condition is permanent’: informal transport workers and labour precarity in Africa’s largest city’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 40, 5, 936-957

 

Bassett, T.E. and A. Marpillero-Colomina, ‘Sustaining Mobility: Bus Rapid Transit and the Role of Local Politics in Bogotá’, Latin American Perspectives, issue 189, vol. 40 No. 2, march 2013 135-145

 

Gilbert, Alan. 2008. “Bus Rapid Transit: Is Transmilenio a Miracle Cure?” Transport Reviews 28 (4):439-467.

 

Gwilliam, K. 2002. Cities on the Move: A World Bank Urban Transport Strategy Review. The World Bank.

 

Gwilliam, K. 2013. Cities on the move: Ten years after. Research in Transport Economics,

40(1): 3–18.

 

Hidalgo, D., Custodio, P., and Graftieaux, P. 2007. ‘A Critical Look at Major Bus Improvements in Latin America and Asia: Case Studies of Hitches, Hic-Ups [sic] and Areas for Improvement: Synthesis of Lessons Learned’. Washington, DC: World Bank.

 

Hidalgo, D. and Gutiérrez, L. 2013. ‘BRT and BLHS around the World: Explosive Growth, Large Positive Impacts and Many Issues Outstanding’, Research in Transportation Economics 39: 8–13.

 

Klopp, J. (2012) ‘Towards a political economy of transportation policy and practice in Nairobi’, Urban forum, 23, (1), 1-21.

 

Paget-Seekins, L. 2015. ‘Bus rapid transit as a neoliberal contradiction’. Journal of Transport Geography 48: pp. 115–120.

 

Paget-Seekins, Laurel, and Manuel Tironi. 2016. “The Publicness of Public Transport: The Changing Nature of Public Transport in Latin American Cities.” Transport Policy, no. 49:176-183.

 

Pucher, J. Zhong-Ren Peng, Neha Mittal, Yi Zhu and Nisha Korattyswaroopam, 2007, Urban Transport Trends and Policies in China and India: Impacts of Rapid Economic Growth, Transport Reviews, Vol. 27, No. 4, 379–410, July 2007

 

Quality Public Transport. 2013a. “Briefing Number 16: Public-Private Partnerships: Why They Happen and How They Work in Urban Public Transport”. International Transport Workers Federation (ITF)/Public World/Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, http://qualitypublictransport.org/qpt/wp-content/uploads/qpt-briefing-16.pdf

 

Van Mead, Nick (2019). “How an emerging African megacity cut commutes by two hours a day”, The Guardian.

 

Rizzo, Matteo (2019). “Dar es Salaam’s new rapid bus system won international acclaim – but it excludes the poor”, The Conversation.

 

Ross, Benjamin. 2016. “Big Philanthropy Takes the Bus.” Dissent (Summer):128-135.

 

Venter, C. et al (2017) The equity impacts of bus rapid transit: A review of the evidence

and implications for sustainable transport, International Journal of Sustainable Transportation · June 2017 [on moodle]

 

 

 

Wood, A. 2014. ‘Moving policy: global and local characters circulating bus rapid transit

through South African cities’. Urban Geography 35 (8): pp. 1238–1254.

 

Wood, A., 2015. ‘The politics of policy circulation: unpacking the relationship between South African and South American cities in the adoption of Bus Rapid Transit’. Antipode 47 (4): pp. 1062–1079.

 

Wright, Lloyd, and Karl Fjellstrom. 2005. Sustainable Transport: A Sourcebook for Policy-

makers in Developing Cities, Module 3a: Mass Transit Options. Eschborn: GTZ.

 

Week 10: New visions of the urban: smart cities

 

The smart city agenda has been strongly promoted to govern cities of the future. Put forward by ICT companies with the support of international institutions, the smart city idea has reshaped debates about contemporary urbanism and is becoming normalised in global policy frameworks such as the ‘New Urban Agenda’ elaborated by UN-Habitat. In this sessions we explore the origin and key implications of this idea, as well the meaning of “alternative smart cities” put forward by its critics.

 

Class discussion questions:

 

What does a move from technology-intensive to a knowledge-intensive smart urbanism entail? What has big data got to do with it? In which ways does the argument proposed by the authors provide an alternative to dominant representations and practices of the smart city?

 

Key readings:

 

McFarlane, Colin & Söderström, Ola 2017. On alternative smart cities: From a technology-intensive to a knowledge-intensive smart urbanism. City, [online]
Datta, A. (2015). New urban utopias of postcolonial India: ‘Entrepreneurial urbanization’in Dholera smart city, Gujarat. Dialogues in Human Geography, 5(1), 3-22.

 

Further readings:

 

Barnett, C., & Parnell, S. (2016). Ideas, implementation and indicators: epistemologies of the post-2015 urban agenda. Environment and Urbanization, 28(1), 87-98.

 

Caprotti, Federico, Cowley, R., Datta, A., Broto, V.C., Gao, E., Georgeson, L., Herrick, C., Odendaal, N. and Joss, S. 2017. The New Urban Agenda: key opportunities and challenges for policy and practice. Urban Research & Practice, 10(3), 367-378.

 

Hollands, R. G. (2008). Will the real smart city please stand up? Intelligent, progressive or entrepreneurial?. City, 12(3), 303-320.

 

Kitchin, R. (2014). The real-time city? Big data and smart urbanism. GeoJournal, 79(1), 1-14.

 

Kaika, M. (2017). ‘Don’t call me resilient again!’: the New Urban Agenda as immunology… or… what happens when communities refuse to be vaccinated with ‘smart cities’ and indicators. Environment and Urbanization, 29(1), 89-102.

 

Luque-Ayala, A., & Marvin, S. (2015). Developing a critical understanding of smart urbanism?. Urban Studies, 52(12), 2105-2116.

 

Marvin, S., Luque-Ayala, A., & McFarlane, C. (Eds.). (2015). Smart Urbanism: Utopian vision or false dawn?. Routledge.

 

 

 

Roseland, M. (1997). Dimensions of the eco-city. Cities, 14(4), 197-202.

 

Satterthwaite, D. (2016). A new urban agenda?. Environment & Urbanisation,Vol 28(1): 3– 12

 

Shelton, T., Zook, M., & Wiig, A. (2015). The ‘actually existing smart city’. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 8, 3-25.

 

Söderström, O., Paasche, T., & Klauser, F. (2014). Smart cities as corporate storytelling. City, 18(3), 307-320.

 

UN Habitat III (2017) New Urban Agenda.

 

Shoshana Zuboff, (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at

the New Frontier of Power (London: Profile Books).

 

Watson, V. (2014). African urban fantasies: dreams or nightmares?. Environment and Urbanization, 26(1), 215-231.

 

Watson, V. (2016). Locating planning in the New Urban Agenda of the urban sustainable development goal. Planning Theory, 15(4), 435-448.

 

 

 

Week 11: The city, platform capitalism and digital labour: The case of UBER.

 

 

 

Building on the previous week focus on the digital economy, in this week we explore the so-called gig economy – variously referred to as the ‘sharing economy’ or ‘platform economy’ or the ‘on-demand economy’ – which has been growing rapidly in recent years. Work on demand via apps and crowd work are new forms of work that have emerged as a result of this growth.

 

We will explore the technological changes that have been instrumental to the emergence of the gig economy and unpacks the notion of ‘digital capitalism’ which is central to these changes. We will review the cases for and against the enthusiasm about the gig economy. Throughout this session we will analyse Uber and its politics as an entry point to explore the impact of the gig economy on labour.

 

 

 

Class discussion questions:

 

What do we understand by platform capitalism and the sharing economy? How and why has it emerged as a new sector of the economy? To what extent and how do ride hail apps control work and “partners”? What are the key benefits and costs of UBER work for its “partners” and/or workers?

 

 

 

Core readings:

 

Surie, A. and J.Koduganti, ‘The Emerging Nature of Work in Platform Economy Companies in Bengaluru, India: The Case of Uber and Ola Cab Drivers’, E-Journal of International and Comparative Labour Studies, Volume 5, No. 3 September-October 2016.

 

Chinguno, Crispen (2019) ‘Power Dynamics in the Gig/Share Economy: Uber and Bolt Taxi Platforms in Johannesburg, South Africa’, Labour, Capital and Society 49:2 (2019)

 

Additional Readings:

 

 

 

Henrique Amorim and Felipe Moda (2020), “Work by app: algorithmic management and working conditions of Uber drivers in Brazil, Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation , Vol. 14, No. 1 (2020), pp. 101-118

 

Anwar, M. A. 2020 We work for Uber: South Africa’s gig drivers left alone at the wheel, African Arguments. April 28, 2020. Available at: https://africanarguments.org/2020/04/28/we-work-for-uber-south-africa-covid-19-gigdrivers-alone-wheel/
Anwar, M. A. and Graham, M. (2019) Hidden transcripts in the gig economy: Labour agency and the new art of resistance among platform workers in Africa. Environment and Planning A. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X19894584
Anwar, M. A. and Graham, M. (2020) Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Freedom, Flexibility, Precarity and Vulnerability in the Gig Economy in Africa. Competition and Change, Special Issue on Digitalisation and Labour. https://doi.org/10.1177/1024529420914473.

 

Belk, R. (2014) Sharing versus pseudo-sharing in Web 2.0. Anthropologist 18 (1), 7–23.

 

Botsman, R., Rogers, R., 2011. What’s Mine Is Yours: How Collaborative Consumption Is Changing the Way We Live. Harper Collins Publishers, New York.

 

Carmody, P. & Alicia Fortuin (2019) “Ride-sharing”, virtual capital and impacts on labor in Cape Town, South Africa, African Geographical Review, 38:3, 196

 

208, DOI: 10.1080/19376812.2019.1607149

 

Cockayne, D.G. (2016) Sharing and neoliberal discourse: the economic function of sharing in

the digital on-demand economy. Geoforum, 77: 73–82.

 

Chris Marquis and Zoe Yang ‘The Sharing Economy in China: Toward a Unique Local Model’

 

Dreyer, B., Florian Lüdeke-Freund, Ralph Hamann and Kristy Faccer ‘Upsides and downsides of the sharing economy: Collaborative consumption business models’ stakeholder value impacts and their relationship to context’, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 125, December 2017, pp. 87-104.

 

Dudley, G., D. Banister and T. Schwan (2017) The Rise of Uber and Regulating the Disruptive Innovator. The Political Quarterly, Vol. 88, No. 3, July–September, pp. 492-99.
Friedman, T. (2013) ‘Welcome to the ‘Sharing Economy’. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/opinion/sunday/friedman-welcome-to-the-sharing-economy.html

 

Hook, L. (2016) ‘Uber’s battle for China’, Financial Times.

 

Huws, U. (2014) Labour in the Global Digital Economy. Monthly Review Press, New York.
Iazzolino, G. “2021) ‘Going Karura’: colliding subjectivities and labour struggle in Nairobi’s

gig economy”, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Society, Online early

 

Gianluca Iazzolino

 

James Manyika, Susan Lund, Jacques Bughin, Kelsey Robinson, Jan Mischke, and Deepa Mahajan (2016) Independent Work: Choice, Necessity and the Gig Economy. McKinsey Global Institute. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/independent-work-choice-necessity-and-the-gig-economy

 

Jeremias Prassl, Martin Risak, (2016). ‘Uber, Taskrabbit, and Co.: Platforms as Employers – Rethinking the Legal Analysis of Crowdwork’, 37 Comparative Labour Law & Policy Journal. 619.
Jopson, B., Hook, L., 2016. Elizabeth Warren Slams Uber and Lyft. Financial Times.
Kässi, O. and Lehdonvirta, V. (2018) Online labour index: Measuring the online gig economy for policy and research. Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 137, 241–248.

 

 

 

Lehdonvirta, Vili (2017) How Uber is changing transportation in Southeast Asia – and with what lessons for Europe. Oxford Internet Institute Blog.

 

Lomas, N., 2016. Uber loses employment tribunal in the UK. TechCrunch Mag.

 

Martin, C.J., 2016. The sharing economy: a pathway to sustainability or a nightmarish form of neoliberal capitalism? Ecological Economics. 121, 149–159.

 

Meagher, K. ‘Illusion of inclusion: Assessment of the Word Development Report 2019 on the changing nature of work’, Development and Change.

 

Murillo, D., Buckland, H. and Val, E. (2017) When the sharing economy becomes neoliberalism on steroids: unravelling the controversies. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 125: 66-76.
Purcell, C. and P. Brook, 2020. “At Least I’m My Own Boss! Explaining Consent, Coercion and Resistance in Platform Work”, Work, Employment and Society, Online Early.

 

Rekhviashvili L, Sgibnev W. Uber, Marshrutkas and socially (dis-)embedded mobilities. The Journal of Transport History. 2018;39(1):72-91. doi:10.1177/0022526618757203

 

SC Dube ‘Uber: a game-changer in passenger transport in South Africa? CCRED (2015). Available at: https://www.competition.org.za/review/2015/11/22/uber-a-game-changer-in-passenger-transport-in-south-africa
Srnicek, N., 2017. Platform Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.

 

Sundararajan, A. (2017.) The sharing economy. The end of employment and the rise of crowd-based capitalism. MIT Press, Cambridge and London.

 

Trebor Scholz (2016) Uberworked and Underpaid: How Workers are Disrupting the Digital Economy.

New York: Polity Press.

 

Unni, J. and Rani, U. (2008) Flexibility of Labour in Globalizing India: The Challenge of Skills and

Technology. New York: Columbia University Press.

 

Woodcock, J. and M. Graham (2020). ‘How does the gig economy work?’, chapter 2 in J. Woodcock & M. Graham, The gig economy: A critical introduction (Cambridge: Polity) [on moodle].
Wu Q, Zhang H, Li Z, Liu K. Labor control in the gig economy: Evidence from Uber in China. Journal of Industrial Relations. 2019;61(4):574-596. doi:10.1177/0022185619854472

 

Zou, Mimi. The Regulatory Challenges of ‘Uberization’ in China: Classifying Ride-Hailing Drivers. International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations 33, no. 2 (2017): 269–294.