Hyun Bang Shin

Lees

Ernesto LÃ3pez-Morales

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, proclamations rang out that gentrification had gone global. But what do we mean by ‘gentrification’ today? How can we compare ‘gentrification’ in New York and London with that in Shanghai, Johannesburg, Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro? This book argues that gentrification is one of the most significant and socially unjust processes affecting cities worldwide today, and one that demands renewed critical assessment. Drawing on the ‘new’ comparative urbanism and writings on planetary urbanization, the authors undertake a much-needed transurban analysis underpinned by a critical political economy approach. Looking beyond the usual gentrification suspects in Europe and North America to non-Western cases, from slum gentrification to mega-displacement, they show that gentrification has unfolded at a planetary scale, but it has not assumed a North to South or West to East trajectory the story is much more complex than that. Rich with empirical detail, yet wide-ranging, Planetary Gentrification unhinges, unsettles and provincializes Western notions of urban development. It will be invaluable to students and scholars interested in the future of cities and the production of a truly global urban studies, and to all those committed to social justice in cities.

Planetary Gentrification

Murray Mckenzie

Do Young Oh

COVID-19 has presented huge challenges to governments, businesses, civil societies, and people from all walks of life, but its impact has been highly variegated, affecting society in multiple negative ways, with uneven geographical and socioeconomic patterns. The crisis revealed existing contradictions and inequalities in society, compelling us to question what it means to return to “normal” and what insights can be gleaned from Southeast Asia for thinking about a post-pandemic world. In this regard, this edited volume collects the informed views of an ensemble of social scientists – area studies, development studies, and legal scholars; anthropologists, architects, economists, geographers, planners, sociologists, and urbanists; representing academic institutions, activist and charitable organisations, policy and research institutes, and areas of professional practice – who recognise the necessity of critical commentary and engaged scholarship. These contributions represent a wide-ranging set of views, collectively producing a compilation of reflections on the following three themes in particular: (1) Urbanisation, digital infrastructures, economies, and the environment; (2) Migrants, (im)mobilities, and borders; and (3) Collective action, communities, and mutual action. Overall, this edited volume first aims to speak from a situated position in relevant debates to challenge knowledge about the pandemic that has assigned selective and inequitable visibility to issues, people, or places, or which through its inferential or interpretive capacity has worked to set social expectations or assign validity to certain interventions with a bearing on the pandemic’s course and the future it has foretold. Second, it aims to advance or renew understandings of social challenges, risks, or inequities that were already in place, and which, without further or better action, are to be features of our “post-pandemic world” as well. This volume also contributes to the ongoing efforts to de-centre and decolonise knowledge production. It endeavours to help secure a place within these debates for a region that was among the first outside of East Asia to be forced to contend with COVID-19 in a substantial way and which has evinced a marked and instructive diversity and dynamism in its fortunes.

Insights for a post-pandemic world

COVID-19 in Southeast Asia

Loretta Lees

Ernesto López-Morales

This is the first book in Polity's new 'Urban Futures' series. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, proclamations rang out that gentrification had gone global. But what do we mean by 'gentrification' today? How can we compare 'gentrification' in New York and London with that in Shanghai, Johannesburg, Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro? This book argues that gentrification is one of the most significant and socially unjust processes affecting cities worldwide today, and one that demands renewed critical assessment. Drawing on the 'new' comparative urbanism and writings on planetary urbanization, the authors undertake a much-needed transurban analysis underpinned by a critical political economy approach. Looking beyond the usual gentrification suspects in Europe and North America to non-Western cases, from slum gentrification to mega-displacement, they show that gentrification has unfolded at a planetary scale, but it has not assumed a North to South or West to East trajectory – the story is much more complex than that. Rich with empirical detail, yet wide-ranging, Planetary Gentrification unhinges, unsettles and provincializes Western notions of urban development. It will be invaluable to students and scholars interested in the future of cities and the production of a truly global urban studies, and equally importantly to all those committed to social justice in cities.

Insights for a Post-pandemic World

Se Hoon Park

Hyun Soo Kang

A detailed examination of the “Korean development model” from its urban dimension, evaluating its sociopolitical contexts and implications for international development cooperation. There is an increasing tendency to use the development experience of Asian countries as a reference point for other countries in the Global South. Korea’s condensed urbanization and industrialization, accompanied by the expansion of new cities and industrial complexes across the country, have become one such model, even if the fruits of such development may not have been equitably shared across geographies and generations. The chapters in this book critically reassess the Korean urban development experience from regional policy to new town development, demonstrating how these policy experiences were deeply rooted in Korea’s socioeconomic environment and discussing what can be learned from them when applying them in other developmental contexts. This book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers in the field of urban studies and developmental studies in general, and in Korea’s (urban) development experience in particular.

Hyun Bang Shin

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