|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Globalising Cities:
Inequality and Segregation in Developing Countries ACCORDING to the United Nations Centre for Human Settlement’s annual report, "Habitat 2006", currently half of the world’s population lives in towns and cities, and this figure will rise to two-thirds by 2030. Today, maximum growth in urban population has been taking place in developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. This can be judged from the fact that out of 100 fastest growing cities in the world, 96 cities are located in these continents. This rising number posed many challenges for administrators, governments, social activists, academicians, etc. In academics, city became an important area of analysis by social scientists since the beginning of the 20th century and with the emergence of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, the city has once again created more interest for rigorous studies. As Sasikia Sassen, known for the seminal work The Global City, said, "The city is once again emerging as the strategic site for understanding major new trends that are reconfiguring the social order." This book is the compilation of selected papers (after several modification by the authors) presented in sessions on "Segregations in Third World Countries", organised by the Senior Editor for the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on Sociology of Urban and Regional Development Conference held in Milan, Italy, on September 25-27, 2003. The theme of the conference was "Challenging Urban Identities". The book contains 13 case studies from 10 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. According to the editors, the objective of the book is to grasp socio-spatial segregation in few cities of developing countries which have been differently affected by the process of globalisation. The book attempts to showcase various manifestations of social, spatial, cultural and economic segregation and inequality due to the process of globalisation. It ranges from multi-national brand coffee shop in Cairo to favelas (squatter settlement) in Rio de Janeiro. There are two distinct schools of thought in the globalisation debate of urban studies. One group argues in favour of globalisation and vociferously pleading that it helps in bridging the urban inequality. The other group counteracts this argument by saying that urban inequality still exists but it has only changed its form through de-regionalising, re-regionalising and re-scaling of uneven development. David Harvey and Manual Castells are two social scientists who wrote many seminal works to depict this view. The later view, rightly so, has been reflected in almost all chapters of the book. All these case studies except two present various aspects of segregation which is presently prevailing in globalising cities. The remaining two case studies, i.e., in Botswana and South Africa lay emphasis on the state intervention towards desegregation. The authors observed that globalisation rather than helping in reducing all the socio-economic anomalies, increase the segregation, inequality and social exclusion in developing countries. In this way, this is another literature that demystifies the process of globalisation as a panacea for eradicating all the evils of urban society in developing world. The editors deserves compliment for this. Now, it is difficult for ‘Globalisers’, in the advanced and developing countries to ignore these numerous studies. This book can help academicians and policy makers of developing countries, including India, in many ways. It would have been better if the editors had selected two more countries, instead of providing two case studies each from countries like Botswana and India, to provide a broader perspective.
|
