![]() There are currently 214 cities ranked as global cities, those deemed most important to facilitating the global economy (Friedmann, 1986 Beaverstock, Smith and Taylor, 1999 GaWC, 2016). Cities are often ranked competitively, based on a variety of criteria: population size, areal size (land consumed), and economic value. By 2050, it is anticipated that as many as two-thirds of all people will be living in cities – with modest gains in already urbanized North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe and exploding growth in Asia and Africa – ultimately resulting in as many city-people at mid-century as live on the Earth today (UNDESA, 2009). An estimated one in eight people live in a megacity, or in cities with a population greater than 10 million nearly half live in cities with a population below 0.5 million (UNDESA, 2016). This means that roughly twice as many people are (re)producing their lived spaces in cities than the entire global population in 1900. As of 2009, over half the world’s population lives in a city (UNDESA, 2014). ![]() ![]() Indeed, this kind of debate has only intensified as urbanization continues its hyper-acceleration on a planetary scale (Brenner, 2014). ![]() This is a problem showcased by current debates in urban theory today, particularly the recent debate between Scott and Storper (2015) in their discussion of the nature of cities, contested by such researchers as Mould (2016) and Roy (2016b), which calls into question whether a shared theoretical understanding of the ‘city’ is even possible. All of these framings are descriptive of key dynamics witnessed in some (but not all) cities, but none describe well all those dynamics in any city. Cities have been labeled post-modern, post-industrial, post-colonial, mega, global, sustainable, creative, neoliberal, gentrified, themed, among a multitude of theoretical framings. The past half-century has seen a fragmentation of urban theory, one that is also evidenced in city-spaces. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |