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Question 1

Hugill 2020 - Distinction of a colonial city

Answer 1

“colonial cities” = settlements produced through colonization, a form of territorial and political expropriation through which outside actors assert dominion over lands occupied and used by Indigenous peoples.

The “colonial city”
The “settler-colonial city”
The “postcolonial city”

Differences from colonial-cities and settler-colonialcities:
Extraction –> economic extraction
Workforce or dispossesing

Question 2

Crossa 2020 –> Neoliberalisation concepts

Answer 2

Gentrification
* The restoration and upgrading of deteriorated urban property by middle-class or affluent people, often resulting in the displacement of lower-income urban populations.

Revanchism
* Concept used in 1996 to describe the political climate in New York City during the 1990s, which became the scenario of concerted attacks on the different poor other: a time when homeless, panhandlers, prostitutes, squatters, graffiti artists, and unruly youth became the enemies of public order and decency. And fighting indecency and disorder was the moral imperative not only of the state but of the urban population at large.

Reference –> Swanson 2007 show revanchist policies of urban “cleansing” in Ecuador which entail the discursive construction of indigenous people as a contaminated risk for white or mesitzo populations

The New York model –> Giuliani
Gentrification —> AOD Gillespie 2016

Question 3

Parnell 2016 - Urban agenda

Answer 3

Urban development and cities are seen as solutions to the problems now instead of the problem in 1992

–> Cities are now seen as places for societal change

Question 4

City definition and distinction - Obeng-Odoom 2016

Answer 4

Cities tend to be defined as settlements that contain a specified number of people → Variation in threshold for each country

Density → measured in people pr. square mile/kilometers + total settlement size.
- US-definition: at least 2,500 people with a minimum of 500 people/sqm

Growth from its own local economy → Economically self-sustainable
–> definition by their economic function: “a settlement that consistently generates its growth from its own local economy”

Distinction of city:
City proper: Defines a city according to an administrative boundary
“Urban agglomeration” considers the extent of the contiguous urban area, or built up area, to delineate the city’s boundaries
Metropolitan area: Defines its boundaries according to the degree of economic and social interconnections of nearby areas

Question 5

Obeng-Odoom 2016 - Why cities form

Answer 5

Two complementatory explanations: Agricultural surplus and geography and natural forces
O’sullivan 2012: Agricultural surplus –> Enables non-rural activities to fester –> Urban production – need something to change for the food of the rural

–> Same point from Goodfellow & Fox 2016

Rowland 1974: Geography and natural factors

Articles point –> market forces remain crucially important in the formation, expansion, and form of cities to date.

Question 6

Obeng-odoom 2016 –> Why cities grow

Answer 6

Urban Migration: the movement of people from rural to urban areas increases the size of the urban population –>
Mechanism: five interrelated explanations for rural-urban migration: Wage differentials, Expected wage improvement or expected employment, better education or improvement in their human capital, The availability of information about life in cities, Housing tenure, quality, quantity/availability
–> Push/pull mechanisms

Central place theory: Economic explanation
Cities grow with an increase in the demand for the services they provide for growing adjoining settlements.
According to the theory, there is a clear distinction and formulaic relationship between the regional capital, the largest city and the smallest settlement

Patterns:
The Concentric Zone Theory holds that the internal structure of cities is arranged in circles around one major centre.
Sector theory posits that because of possible obstacles in the patterning of cities, such as the availability of transport lines, urban activities are more likely to develop along sectors, not concentric zones - but one centre
Multiple Nuclei Theory took the view that activities in cities can well be organised from different centre points.

Question 7

Rukmana 2020 - Mega-city

Answer 7

A city with +10 million people
Rukmana (2020) says it has to be a continuous urban area Urban agglomeration

In 2030, the Global South is expected to be home to 34 out of 41 megacities –> Huge development in number of megacities

Question 8

Nevarez 2015 - Urban Political economy

Answer 8

Political economy: Examines how material processes of production and exchange shape, and are shaped by, decisions and activities from economic and political institutions

Urban policial economy:
Urban political economy contends that the city’s form, economy, and political structures comprise a dynamic, contradictory mechanism for the appropriation of wealth.
urban political economy also stretches into, what it is like to be a resident or a worker, having access to services → appropriation of life

Two perspectives – Neo-weberian and Neo-marxism

Banks 2016 –> urban poverty in Dhaka is determined by the political economy and not only ones skills

Question 9

Nevarez 2015 - Neo-Weberian urban political economy

Answer 9

Focus on Who governs the city?

Two perspectives:
The elitist perspective –> a core group of urban elites regularly and successfully promote their interests through city hall and investments etc. – stability and domination
Pluralist perspective countered that certain interest groups may prevail on certain issues, but not consistently enough to dominate urban politics. – no domination
Not only governmental decisions –> The private decisions made by place-based entrepreneurs and businesses to make money from land and development.

Actors:
Politicians/ urban government elites, civil society elites, Place-based Entrepreneurs and businesses

Two theories: Urban growth machine and Urban regime theory

Growth machine:
Coalition of elites (private, public and civic) promotes growth in order to achieve common interests
= a territorially defined coalition of urban elites from public, private, and civic sectors that promotes growth in order to advance common interests in intensifying land-based exchange values
E.g. coalition of elites that aspire World Cup

Urban regime theory
The set of formal and informal arrangements that makes urban governance by a public–private coalition possible.
Example is the Development regime

Question 10

Nevarez 2015 - Neo-Marxian urban political economy

Answer 10

Structuralist: Everything comes down to class relations.
Three factors in urban neo-marxian theory:
City evolution as local expressions of relations of production –> Proletariat vs. (industrial) capitalist view.
Investment in land serves specific functions (production of space as the second circuit of capital jf. Harvey 1982)
Urban function of cities → domain of collective consumption

Flaws according to Neo-weberian:
Not really a focus on urban politics and how they are autonomous from material processes

Urban restructuring due to capitalism accelerates economic polarization and social inequality in prosperous cities and regions, due to economic growth as well as stagnation.

Theory of urban restructuring: Dual city
Dual City as Informal and Formal labour market and split into high-end vs. informal –> The class-struggle is embodied in the dual city eventhough Marx only focus on worker vs. capitalits and not informal workers

Question 11

Davis & Durén 2016 - The transformation of urban Latin America

Answer 11

1950-1980: Urban growth concentrated in a few large cities. - Overurbanization and state-domination of local politics.
reinforcing conditions of primacy and growing demands for urban servicing in a few large locales

1980-2000: decentralization policies to smaller jurisdictions. local authorities more sway in urban servicing and policy-makin but Increased municipal pressure for revenue to finance local urban development

2000-onwards: With economic globalization fueling more open consumer and investment markets, cities have become sites for real estate development and high-end services
* Gated communites
* Social problems as greater privatization of servicing, stark income inequality, structural unemployment, persistent housing informality, and accelerating violence

Question 12

Zafirovski, M. (2015) - Neo-Marxist perspective on political economy

Answer 12

Political Economy Definition: defined by its representatives as the science of the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of wealth - more focus on distribution of wealth where Nevarez 2015 focus on institutions

What does it examine?
(1) The influence of social conditions on economic life. It emphasizes that social institutions, as the state or private property greatly affect the economy.
(2) The class structure of the economy - Landowners, capitalist, laborers, mercantile classes, consumers and Producers –> o Motives: Wealth accumulation and wealth distribution. –> Use vs. Exchange value
(3) The social conditions of production and consumption, such as the impact of the division of labor on economic productivity. –> E.g. Informal sector
(4) Taste and preferences –> some say Plurality of motives and not just wealth motivates the economic actors in the classes

Question 13

Stoker 1998 - Neo-weberian Perspective

Answer 13

Definition of Urban politics:
urban politics is about the making of decisions that protect or undermine citizen well-being in such community

What (and who) is relevant to study in urban politics? Three debates: Community power, urban protest, contextuality theory

Community power: Who governs? two perspective as Nevarez 2015
Growth machine:
Who has the greatest influence over the physical restructuring of places, why and with what effect?” –> Focus on the elites
Urban regime theory:
Who has the ability/capacity and power to get something done → achieve ones goals for the city (which is not necessarily growth)

Urban protest: Social movement → look at civil society
How normal people, living in the city, is able to influence urban politics and the urban political economy.
E.g. Bayat 2004 quiet encroachment

Contextuality theory – two approaches
(1) The process of globalization –> The political economy of cities is seen as conditioned by central features of economic globalization
(2) Regulation theory –> There is an interdependent relationship between economic, social, and political features of society.

Question 14

Robinson 2006 - Ordinary cities and the critique of urban theory

Answer 14

Main claim
Everything we are doing is wrong about urban litterature
Need to Focus on Ordinary cities → instead of the categorizing of cities as Western or Third World and the hierarchy it brings
Ordinary city → Diverse and complex

Main concept Ordinary cities

Critique of urban theory:
existing bias in urban studies towards Western cities and the relegation of cities in poor countries to residual categories –> don’t use Global north as a threshold and mold for cities
Concepts of “urban modernity” and “development” – from a colonial past –> ascribe innovation and dynamism - modernity - to cities in rich countries, while imposing a regulating catch-up fiction of modernisation on the poorest. –> Genereate an a and b team of cities

–> it restricts the way we imagine how a large city can be planned → substantial limitations of how we imagine and plan cities.

Example:
Why is internationalism in New York evidence of that city’s vitality and creativity, yet Rio de Janeiro’s dynamic architectural heritage always carries the spectre of Europe?

Question 15

Piertse 2011 - Critical southern perspective regarding Africa

Answer 15

Main claim:
Certain complexities in African cities, that make it difficult to categorize and systematize the african cities
You can’t take the theory model of the North and put in over african cities → look at the specificity of everyday practices of ordinary Africans

Main critique:
The western approach to measure everything up to western standards
See African cities through western perspective of the right way

Illustrative examples
Nigeria → many ethnic groups. Complex ethnic nature.
There are no theories in European literature that take this into account.

Pieterse’s suggestions
Use African cities as a site for theory construction.
Stop trying to “fix” Africa → we shouldn’t try in fix everything by our means, but more search understanding of how cities become this way

Question 16

Critical southern perspectives summed up

Answer 16

(1) Bias towards Northern cities
(2) Cities from global north become sites for theory construction and the threshold that all other cities must do
(3) End up forgetting the different contexts
(4) Ordinary cities - understand every single of them as individual contexts

Question 17

Parnell & Robinson 2012 - Critical southern perspective –> Empirical observations instead of theory

Answer 17

Main claim:
The work on neoliberalism needs to be revitalized to fit the Global South → we need to look practically at cities in the Global South to understand them.
You have to start with the empirical observations instead of theory – neoliberalism does not serve as explanations of these cities’ situation

Main critique:
What does urban neoliberalism entail? – not relevant for the global south as explanation
Can’t take it one to one from global north and put it over global south

Their propositions:
Start with empirical observations in the Global South and build new theories from there.

Empirical insights
South Africa
After apartheid the social safety net was more for the poor → meanwhile the civil society called for less state action.
→ Point: We can’t use the neoliberal transition framework here. We have to investigate what was at play instead.

Question 18

Schindler 2012 - Critical southern perspective –> Theory building

Answer 18

Main claim: agree with Robinson and Parnell 2012 plus Pierstse 2011
Cities in the global South constitute a distinctive ‘type’ of human settlement –> Something special about southern cities → need to look at them in different perspectives than the Global North and western cities

Main critique:
The theorizing from the Global north –> need to theorize from the global south

Why the context differs?
1) A persistent disconnect between capital and labor
2) The metabolic configurations of Southern cities are discontinuous, dynamic and contested
3) Political economy and materiality are always coconstituent in southern cities

Question 19

Ekeh 1976 - how urban political economies in the Global South are shaped by colonialisation

Answer 19

Main concept: Dual publics due to colonialization. The strategies of the colonizers and the african Burgoius elites led to citizenship with rights but without duties

The main argument:
The experiences of colonialism in Africa have led to the existence of two publics in post-colonial africa instead of one public, as in the West. –> Means there is not a common moral foundation between the private realm and public realm

Two public realms in postcolonial Africa:
(1) Primordial public - originates from before colonization –>
The first public in Africa consists of the traditional African society, which is characterized by communal values, kinship ties, and a sense of collective identity.
The primordial public is moral and operates on the same moral imperatives as the private realm.
–> Primordial public is about duties - gets intangibles - no material winning
derive little or no material benefits but to which they are expected to give generously and do give materially.

(2) Civic public - associated with the colonial administration
Civic public is about your rights → what can you gain and extract from the civic public - Economic value
based on civil structures: the military, the civil service, the police, etc. is amoral – has no moral linkages with the private realm.
The civic public is amoral and lacks the generalized moral imperatives operative in the private realm and in the primordial public.
–> Due to colonizers giving people rights without any duties –> citizenship with rights but without duties

Two sets of Ideologies – ways to justify the colonial-alike rule rule:
(1) Colonial ideologies –> The ideologies used to persuade Africans that colonization was in the interest of Africans
E.g. of strategies –> Discredit the past, Missionary complex (save the locals), Administrative cost of colonization - africans got a great deal with many rights but doesn’t have duties → doesn’t owe anything to the society. citizenship with rights but without duties

(2) African bourgeois/elites ideologies of legitimation - of their rule
It accepts the principles implicit in colonialism but it rejects the foreign personnel that ruled Africa. It claims to be competent enough to rule (due to western education), but it has no traditional legitimacy.
E.g. of strategies:
Anti-colonial –> sabotage of the administrative efforts of the colonizers – learnt the commons to shirk his duties to the government; in the same breath he was encouraged to demand his rights.
Post-colonial –> legitimate their own rule through Education as guarantee of success

Question 20

Informality/informal economy - Bayat 2004 and Narayaran 2022

Answer 20

Bayat vs. Narayaran 2022s definitions:
“Informality as a practice, not a definitive sector, not registered by the state, although coproduced, and altered by the state […] as delinked from people (e.g. urban poor, migrants) and places (e.g. slums, squatters), although practised by people in place” (Narayaran 2022, p. 532)
- different notions of informality and different rationales behind informality - no need for formalization of businesses - illustrative examples of Colombo and Delhi

”Unregulated jobs, unregistered peoples and places, nameless streets and alleyways, and policeless neighborhoods mean that these entities remain hidden from the governments’ books.” (Bayat 2004, p. 95-96)

Binary understanding: formal-informal? –> Interlinked formal and informal sector. Restaurants buy groceries of informal workers

Criteria of State regulation: economic activities outside regulation of the state

Legality concerns: legal and illegal activities? Some of the informal practices are not necessarily illegal

Groups, jobs or practises (e.g. informal practices or linkages in the formal economy)
* Informals are still paying taxes (fees, premise tax, VAT, etc)
* Narayanan text: Informality is a practice → has nothing to do with specific people, groups or jobs

Question 21

Globalization and politics of informal - Bayat 2004

Answer 21

The global restructuring of globalisation drives integration and social exclusion and in formalization that leads people in to informality
–> This has created new populations of marginalised, de-institutionalized groups = “urban marginals,” “urban disenfranchised,” and “the urban poor.
Not captured in Marxist litterature - only worker and capitalits

Critique of other perspectives on marginalised groups
The essentialism of the “passive poor,“
The reductionism of the “survival strategy”
The Latino-centrism of “urban territorial movements,“
The conceptual perplexity of “resistance literature“

Quiet encroachment: not deliberate political act but a way of surviving
Noncollective, but direct action by individuals and households to acquire the basic necessities of life (land for shelter, informal work etc.) in a quiet and unassuming, yet illegal, fashion” -
These actors are driven by the force of necessity – the necessity to survive and improve a dignified life. Necessity is the notion that justifies their often unlawful acts as moral, and even “natural” ways to maintain a life with dignity
It does get political:
Contenders become engaged in collective action and come to see their actions as political when their gains are threatened. Hence, a key attribute of quiet encroachment is that while advances are made quietly, individually, and gradually, defense of these gains is often (although not always) collective and audible.

Two major aims of the informals:
Redistribution of social goods and opportunities
–> This may take the form of the (unlawful and direct) acquisition of collective consumption and services; public space; opportunities; and other life chances essential for survival and acceptable standards.
Autonomy
–> both cultural and political, from the regulations, institutions, and discipline imposed by the state and by modern institutions.

Question 22

Scott 1985 - State legibility processes

Answer 22

“To be able to exert its control, a state needs to make such entities/the informals visible.” (Bayat 2004) –> does this trough state legibility

State-legibility –> det at man nemmere skal kunne “læse” ens indbyggere

State legibility process: increase the control over the city and its inhabitants
–> “state’s attempt to make a society legible, to arrange the population in ways that simplified the classic state functions of taxation, conscription, and prevention of rebellion.”
–> “Social simplifications”
–> Cities are built after a pattern in the favor administration
–> does make it possible to have quite discriminating interventions of every kind, such as public-health measures, political surveillance, and relief for the poor

Four elements in state-initiated legibility and social engineering processes are necessary for failing modern state projects:
(1) State simplification/Administrative ordering.
(2) High-modernist ideology as data/surveillance, digitalization
–> These two have to be combined with the third to become lethal
(3) Authoritarian state who is willing and able to use the full weight of its coercive power to bring these high modernist designs intro being
(4) A prostate (helpless) civil society that lacks the capacity to resist these plans (closely linked to number 3). → the civil society is passive jf. Bayat 2004

Question 23

Harvey 1978 - Capitalism and it circuits

Answer 23

Harvey’s objective: understanding the urban process under capitalism
–> The urban process must thus be understood in relation to the “laws” of capital accumulation.
The urban process implies the creation of a material physical infrastructure for production, circulation, exchange and consumption”

Who are the relevant actors if we are to understand the urban process under capitalism?
* Working class
* Capitalists
* State
* NOT urban poor – or informality jf. –> structuralist

Circuits of capital:
(1) - Primary circuit of capitalists and workers. –> capital goes into producing goods/commodities

(2) - secondary cirtuit –> Capital is put into fixed capital and consumption fund formation, and thereby Built environment as a spatial fix.
–> Built environment as physical infrastructure that can be part of generating more revenue - e.g. Motorways or other “aids” for production as machines
Consumption fund: Sidewalks, housing, etc –> “The frames surrounding consumption”

Built environment –> Docks, roads, police officers, houses

(3) Third circuit of capital: Tertiary circuit (Investments)
Social investments: Police, healthcare, daycare, etc
Technology and science: Universities, science institutes

The main points out of this:
(1) Contradictions internal to the capitalist class generate a tendency towards overaccumulation within the primary circuit of capital.
(2) Overaccumulation tendency can be overcome temporarily at least by switching capital into the secondary or tertiary circuits. Spatial fix to crises.
(3) Investment in the built environment (circuit 2) is a reflection of the forces in the primary circuit of capital. –> “investment in the built environment therefore entails the creation of a whole physical landscape for purposes of production, circulation, exchange and consumption” –> fixed capital and consumption fund

Question 24

Levi 1998 - Politics of rulers revenue

Answer 24

Theory of predatory rule: explain the form of revenue production chosen, given the constraints of rulers’ relative bargaining power, transaction costs, and discount rates.
Y= form of revenue production
X = Relative bargaining power, transaction costs and discount rates

• Focuses on the constraints on a ruler’s capacity to produce revenue.
• How the rulers try to maximize the revenue under these constraints → why they act financially.
• The assumption is that they want to maximize revenue extraction due to their motivation of staying in power and follow their goals - revenue is necessary to attain them –>

Creates an Exchange (contract) between the ruler and the various groups in the polity –> the terms of this is determined by the three constraints - only read 2:
(1) Relative bargaining power (of the contracting parties) –> determined by the extent to which others control resources on which rulers depend and vice versa
Bargaining resources = have a material basis, could be quantified: coercive, economic and political resources

(2) Transaction costs: the costs of implementing and enforcing policies.
Rulers must devise policies that lower their transaction costs: the costs of measuring, monitoring, creating, and enforcing compliance.
e.g. Cost of bargaining, measuring revenue
Costs can be reduced by Quasi-voluntary compliance: Compliance motivated by a willingness to cooperate backed by coercion (sanctions)

(3) Discount rate: depending on personal psychology, short/long time horizon, and security of office

Question 25

Fiscal decentralization - Hobdari et al. 2018 and Bird & Vaillaincourt 1999

Answer 25

Fiscal decentralization definition (Hobdari et al. 2018):
The authority over raising revenues and making decisions on spending and borrowing at the subnational level.

Three types (Bird and Vaillaincourt 1999):
(Least) Deconcentration: the dispersion of responsibilities within a central government to regional branch offices or local administrative unit
(Middle) Delegation: a situation in which local governments act as agents for the central government, executing certain functions on its behalf –> Implementation
(Most) Devolution: a situation in which not only implementation but also the authority to decide what is done is in the hands of local government

Arguments for decentralization:
* “People are getting what they want, rather than what someone in the capital thinks they should want”
Two perspectives:
Top-down: From the central government the rationale for decentralization may be to make the life of the central government easier by shifting deficits downward - Or it may be a desire on the part of the central government to achieve its allocative goals more efficiently by delegating or decentralizing authority to local governments

Bottom-up: Generally stresses political values – improved governance in the sense of local responsiveness and political participation, for example – as well as allocative efficiency in terms of improving welfare
–> Closer to the voters

If it works depends:
if u are sure that the administrative and political setup is in order
But the citizens preferences would be more likely to come to show

Question 26

Financialisation - Mader et al. 2020

Answer 26

Many definitions - here one broad and one Marxist
“financialization means the increasing role of financial motives, financial markets, financial actors and financial institutions in the operation of the domestic and international economies”
OR a pattern of accumulation in which profits accrue primarily through financial channels rather than through trade and commodity production”

Could be a point about real estate

Channels through which economies in the Global South tend to be affected:
(1) the financialization of commodity prices: commodity prices of coffee, cotton, wheat, and oil are more closely correlated with the movement of global financial markets
(2) the financialization of international value chains: being intensely integrated into value chains for food and minerals more closely correlated with the swinging commodity prices
(3) the financialization of land or, more broadly, nature: real estate, infrastructure projects and are the most common basis for financial assets

State finanlication:
State “adoption of financial motives, advancing financial innovation, embracing financial accumulation strategies, and directly financialising the lives of citizens”

Question 27

Informal taxation - Jochi et al. 2014

Answer 27

How?
(1) Indirect taxation e.g. VAT –> taxed by virtue of taxes paid on goods and services higher up and lower down the value chain. So they pay more for a good for example
(2) Expanding the reach of major formal sector taxes - extend the reach of common formal sector taxes through enhanced enforcement and compliance. High transaction cost with small informal businesses
(3) Developing specialised presumptive tax regimes –> use of cash, floor area or other tax regimes embedded on presumptions –> simplified indicator of the tax base to simplify recordkeeping for firms and estimation of tax liabilities by tax collectors.

Question 28

Taxation of Land/Land value capture - Goodfellow 2017

Answer 28

Land value capture: The range of instruments used by governments to derive revenue from the value of land and structures build upon it
–> include leasing or sale of publicly owned land, land acquisition and resale, recurrent (e.g. annual) property taxes, capital gains taxes
Can use the revenue to urban development

Goodfellow 2017 explores the politics of efforts to introduce property tax in both cases - Addis Ababa and Kigali

Risks & potentials
The more precise your property value is, the more value you can capture
But in Rwanda and Ethiopia the failure of getting people to pay property tax - pay lease-fees that isn’t high enough

The risk explained in Kigali: People leased housing and didn’t pay property tax but a lower lease-tax because the lease-tax didn’t resemble the value of the place –> Didn’t get revenue for the land

Why the two cases failed regarding land value capture:
when development beganhere there where already a land holding elite → elites jumped into lucrative investments in real-estate because no other
In both Rwanda and Ethiopia, land leasing is proving a much bigger revenue stream than property tax. –> but leasing-tax doesn’t resemble the real value of the place and over time.
E.g. Rwanda pays lease-tax based on square-meters

Question 29

Financing urban development/International investment - Kharas & Linn 2013

Answer 29

Main claim –> International assistance should not just be money for a quick fix
Among the national and local policies that will be critical for meeting the needs of the rapidly growing areas in developing countries are those that determine the effective mobilization of financial resources for urban service provision, their efficient and equitable allocation to urban development priorities, and their effective management.
–> Not only aim to help meet the immediate funding needs but also contribute to improve the urban financial resource mobilization and management capacity

Who? The Actors
Banks: Development banks and Investment banks.
States: Especially Western states, Former imperial states, “The Global North” and CHINA
Recipients: Maybe more Sub-saharan countries e.g. Tanzania and Ethiopia. China was on the figure before but BRI

Different strategies:
(1) Decentralisation: fiscal decentralization (Bird & Vaillencourt 1999)
(2) Own-Source Revenues –> Improving local revenue authority and effort
(3) Borrowing –> Need to improve cities’ credit worthiness, supported by structured debt instruments and credit enhancements
(4) Intergovernmental Transfers –> Most cities today depend heavily on transfers from higher-level government but found the transfer mechanisms unpredictable and poorly structured in terms of the support and incentives
(5) Transfers should be a combination of (1) untied grants, linked to reliable national revenue sources (e.g., the value added tax or sales tax); and (2) performance-based grant
(6) Private Participation in Urban Services –> need to rely on private engagement in urban services and on private sources of funding.
(7) Financial Management and Planning
(8) Partnerships and Donor Coordination –> forming partnerships with local communities, local and national governments, the private sector, and civil society organizations
(9) Scaling up –> Lacking focus on the interventions are not one-off, small, or pilot projects but also are designed to support a longer- term strategy under which successful interventions are systematically scaled up?

Question 30

Criticism of the world bank - Ravallion 2016

Answer 30

Two main critics are often posed about the World Bank.
(1) The Bank’s efforts are largely wasted because poor countries face nonfinancial constraints that limit their development.
(2) Global financial markets are no longer “thin” and can now serve the Bank’s original role. The Bank was created after WWII because the global market was not stable and secure enough as a source of finance → but this has changed now.

Why there is still need a world bank –> developing countries have improved their access to global capital markets. But private capital flows have tended to be selective, not reaching all countries and sectors.
Secure even opportunities regarding development - More stable than private investment and solves the fix of missing investment
Has knowledge about development and what works –> Bundling knowledge to the investment jf. Kharas & Linn 2013

Point:
The World Bank mainly still disappoints because it needs to evaluate its projects better and thereby create more knowledge that can be shared, so that everyone can make better development. Furthermore it needs to make policy advice based on this → and not based on the interest of important countries that run it

Question 31

Municipal neoliberalism and municipal socialism regarding International investment in Latin America (Goldfrank & Schrank 2009)

Answer 31

Outward orientation thougwards the world economy –> municipal neoliberalism
“neoliberal cities prioritize accumulation, and therefore use tax breaks, regulatory rollbacks and the repression of organized labor to attract and retain foreign direct investment” –> Wants foreign investment
–> city authorities prioritize economic liberalization and pro-business policies to attract foreign investment and promote business growth.
–> creating favorable conditions for businesses, offering incentives to foreign investors, and establishing free trade zones (FTZs) within the city

Inwards orientation: Socialist
“socialist [cities] prioritize distribution, and therefore use social funds, microcredit arrangements and participatory institutions to employ and empower their citizens.”
–> city authorities prioritize social and welfare-oriented policies aimed at improving the well-being of the city’s residents.

Question 32

Infrastructure gap in Africa - Goodfellow 2020

Hint: Global infrastructure and local real estate

Answer 32

This article argues that foreign capital are focused now more heavily on infrastructure projects and this affects the domestic market → As international financial flows are becoming infrastructuralised domestic capital is increasingly “real-estatised” jf. Goodfellow 2017 and Gillespie 2020 as Real-estate frontier - Infrastructure development
Different ways of financing

The ‘infrastructure gap’ –> Limited infrastructure in Africa especially sub-saharan Africa even relative to other low-income countries or areas

International investment in infrastructure and investment in real estate by domestic actors

Infrastructure and real estate:
The investments in infrastructure are primarily international –> The upgraded infrastructure/investemtns have large effects on land value and real estate in the African countries. –> increasing the value of underutilized areas
–> it transforms land and creates opportunities for real estate investment. As infrastructure projects progress, new gaps and opportunities emerge, and local actors often capitalize on these opportunities, contributing to the real-estatisation of domestic capital.

Increases the exchange value but maybe not the use value - Urban slums?

Will have implications for Africa:
“Africa’s real estate boom thus differs from its infrastructure boom in terms of financing, but the two interlink in ways that have significant implications for domestic political economy”

The domestic actors as the large real estate investors will shape politics in a matter of ways:
(1) Resistance to Property Taxation: Property-owning elites often resist efforts to effectively tax property, impacting the state’s revenue generation and its ability to provide basic services (Goodfellow 2017 - Rwanda and Tanzania).

(2) Widespread Dispossession: Urban land becomes a site of value extraction through inflated land prices. This can lead to widespread dispossession, even in democratic settings → when this happens, some are forced to give up their land because they can’t afford it anymore. –> Accumulation by dispossession (Gillespie 2016)

(3) Land-Based Violence: The competition over land and property among the groups of the country, along with increased land values, can lead to land-based violence between groups.

Reference –> Infrastructure-led development regime and the infrastructure state as part of territorial rivalry Schindler & Kanai 2021 and Dicarlo & Schindler 2022

Question 33

Implications of foreign investments on the informal sector - Hasan (2004)

Answer 33

The texts focus on the negative sides of the liberalization and foreign influence on the informal sector - Globalization also –> Pushes even more into the informal sector and doesn’t make it liable

Liberalization has led to new practices and new needs for workers –> the marginalization of the poor, uneducated and unskilled. The informal settlements are also getting less impowered

Informal sectors new purpose –> Try to bridge the gap between aspirations and means for the informal. Can’t compete with Southeast-Asias products –> created by structural adjustmensts that promote liberalization

	○ Links between informal workshops and formal-sector industry are slowly being eroded, except in those industries (such as garments) where there is export potential.

The informal sector is now moving into producing cheap consumer goods for the poorer sections of the population.
–> This means less profit and greater marginal- ization from formal-sector processes and economy
–> All this means the marginalization of all those without merit, skills, or access to expensive private-sector education.

This are creating unemployment, and this will increase until such time as formal-sector private investment replaces the informal-sector job market. But this development is nowhere in sight, and as a result, the rich-poor divide is increasing, leading to violence and crime

New settlements: far from center and have less political power - not as many people and they are continueing to get marginalized

Question 34

Use and Exhange-value

Answer 34

According to Marxists commodities has a dual nature – both a use and exchange value (Macfarlane 2020)

Logan and Molotch (1987): Definition
– Use value: The value an item has when using it. –> Personal/social utilities giving to a piece of property.
–Exchange value: The value an item has when it can be changed for something else → monetary return. E.g. Bic mac – can trade a big mac

Place as an example:
Use value: A park, a place where people enjoy social life
Exchange value: The money it is worth on the market for investors, possible landlords, etc..

Who pursues use values of place – and who pursues exchange value?
–Use: citizens/ordinary → protests/activities, residents,
– Exchange: Entrepreneurs which includes Capitalist/capitalistic actors, business owners producing to much goods in the first circuit of capital, governments, property developers, home owners, landlords

Pluralistic elites become growth machine because of their shared interest for urban development –> Look at Exhange value
E.g. Commodification of place: “place is not only a basis for carrying on life but also an object from which to derive wealth (the exchange value)

Fundamental conflict over urban places between
- “The use value side” vs. the exchange value side”
- Informal residents vs. formal authorities.
- Investors/entrepreneurs vs. Residents
- Residents vs. landlords

What is special about place as a commodity?
It is not a infinite ressource –> It’s limited: You can’t just produce more of it → you can’t invent new space in a specific area (you have to tear something down, to build something new)
Same location
Not labour-based as a Iphone

Question 35

how capital shapes space and how space shapes capital - Macfarlane 2020

Answer 35

Marxian perspective:
–Space is formed actively through social relations - those between people, society, and the environment.
–Capitalist society is marked by a particular kind of social relation: class conflict.

Main point: capital and spaces link in capitalism is that capital relies on space for its accumulation and expansion. Capital shape and reorder urban development through the spatial fix jf. Harvey 1978

Link between capital and space:
(1) Capital, which refers to a sum of value that seeks to produce more value, relies on space for its accumulation and expansion. –> Capital must move and expand to accumulate surplus value
(2) Space plays a crucial role in the movement of capital. Capital encounters spatial barriers as it seeks to expand and generate profit. –> communication as a way of compressing time and space
(3) Moreover, space is not a passive container but is actively shaped by social relations –> Class conflict requires and produces specific kinds of space
(4) The movement of capital relies on patterns of uneven development, leading to divisions and conflicts between different cities, regions, and nations.

Spatial Fix: How Capital Transforms Space - the way capital resolves its inner tensions by expanding across and reordering space
(1) Uneven development –> Spatial division eases some the tensions resulting from class division: It generates masses of cheap workers while driving down the overall cost of labor. –> Necessary for capital accumulation
(2) Creative destruction: destruction of space to foster capitalism –> Destruction (or “underdevelopment”) works to devalue capital previously invested in an area, driving down the costs of land and labor there, opening it up to new streams of outside investment - a cycle of capitalism
–> Capital’s creative destruction leads to further uneven development. Destruction leads to creation, creation leads to destruction, the cycle repeats.
The poor gets displaced when creation comes around again :(

Question 36

Land Politics - Lund & Boone 2013

Answer 36

Key takeaway: Land issues are not isolated but are interconnected with broader social and political dynamics, including the formation of national states and markets.
Focus on Africa and struggle over land

Three dimensions of land control: who is the rightful owner?
Territorial jurisdictions
Functional Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction Over Persons

Four principles: forms of tenure and transactions
–Use Rights: Rights based on actual use of land
–Customary or Communal Rights: Much of the land in Africa - Membership in the community provides entitlement to claim rights, and these rights can be influenced by factors like ethnicity, caste, age, and gender.
–Market-Based Rights: a commodity - sold on the market
–Government Allocation: government give it to settlers or political elite

Question 37

The right to the City - Collins & Staedtler 2020

Answer 37

What is Public space?
The answer is a combination of three dimensions: access, ownership, and regulation.
Public space is understood to consist of large-scale civic sites as city squares and plazas, which often host ceremonies, rallies, and protests as well as sidewalks and parks.
–> All of these types of space tend to be characterized by enduring and substantial public use, by public ownership, and by few if any access restrictions

The right to the city:
At the heart of the concept of the right to the city is the claim that urban space belongs to its inhabitants, rather than to the state or private interests - The inhabitants and users of urban space as its rightful owners
–> Prioritizes the use-value over exchange-value
It encompasses the right to access the resources of the city (including its public spaces) and to participate in what a city has to offer, but also the more fundamental freedom to change and reinvent the city through such access and participation.
The ownership claim of the residents are often undermined by the commodification and privatization of space, which enable exclusion - even class-based exclusion

Neclegeted due to neoliberal policies of the growth machine who privatize space trough real estate and gentrification in pursuit of revenue

Question 38

Land conflict analysis - Lombard & Rakodi (2016)

Answer 38

Main point: To understand and explain land conflicts comprehensively, it is crucial to examine the roles played by various individual, group, and collective actors at different levels.

Land as a cause of urban conflict → Land is not just an economic resource: it holds a deeper meaning for many groups (religious meaning in Jerusalem)
–> need to recognize the emotional value of land in the litterature when examining this topic.

Look at the actors - Land conflicts typically involve a minimum of two parties.

Question 39

Clash of Rationalities when planning cities - Watson 2009

Answer 39

2 rationalities:
(1) Rationality of governing
–> Urban modernist ideals: aesthetics, efficiency, modernisation
–> Techno-managerial and marketised systems of government administration and service - jf. Scott 1985 State legibility - better of controlling the city
Actors –> planners, city officials, elites

(2) Rationality of survival
”the need and desire to survive and thrive” - quit encroachment? because the need of basic necessities
Actors –> Marginalised and impoverished urban populations surviving largely under the conditions of informality
Focus on Food, shelter and basic needs

→ The interface:
it is the point at which state efforts at urban development and modernisation are met, or confronted, by their ‘target populations’
–> Clash of rationalities’ –> between techno-managerial and marketised systems of government administration, service provision and planning (in those parts of the world where these apply) and increasingly marginalised urban populations surviving largely under conditions of informality - Zone of resistance for the poor

State efforts at urban development and modernisation, urban administration or political control and market regulation and penetration, are met, or confronted, by their ‘target populations’ in various and complex ways, and these responses in turn shape the nature of interventions.

Explanation to why, so often, sophisticated and ‘best practice’ planning and policy interventions have unintended outcomes

Reference to
–> Bayat 2000 with Quiet encroachment and Scott 1985 with state legibility

Question 40

World, Global and Ordinary cities - Robinson 2002

Answer 40

World Cities: Politically relevant and important for the global economy
They serve as the organizing nodes of a global economic system –> “The dots that connect the world into a global economy”.
Focuses on central finance cities as New York, London, Dubai etc.
Hierarchy –> They are seen as better than non-world cities while World cities also can be arranged hierarchically, roughly in accord with the economic power they command.
–> Leaves many cities and populations of the map as - economically irrelevant

Global Cities (Sassen 1991): Are also world cities → but in the “top hierarchy” we find the global cities.
The only difference between the world city and the global city is that the global city is the top of world cities.

By using these two concepts, it restricts the way we imagine how a large city can be planned → substantial limitations of how we imagine and plan cities. –> Implies that we only built theory from World city – how do you get there

What approaches are used in what cities?
World and global cities approaches are used as theory-building cases –> How do you get to New York –> Big-dick energy way of thinking
The rest is approached through Mega-city (Big but not powerful) and developmentalist approaches
maybe mega-cities can provide insights to the World-cities

Ordinary cities as a solution - a world of ordinary cities, which are all dynamic and diverse, if conflicted, arenas for social and economic life.
–> don’t categorize cities in world cities – or by economic status

Three keys to ordinary cities:
(1) It emphasizes the economic potential and creativity of all cities, highlighting their diverse sectors and their role in fostering economic production and innovation.
(2) It challenges the dominant narratives that prioritize global city status or developmentalist interventions as the only paths for urban development.
(3) Focus on the importance of proximity in economic interactions to establish trust among complex organizations and individuals.

Question 41

Worlding - Roy 2011b

Answer 41

Counterpoint to the framework of global/world cities –> wants to focus on more of the urban life than world cities

Worlding practices: Vast array of global strategies that are being staged at the urban scale around the world in order to make a urban transformation
Can be either Buttom up (as laboring bodies circulate in search of survival, livelihood and hope) or Top-down, where it is tied to elite-aspirations about making a world-class city

One type –> Inter-referencing: A specific type of worlding practice focusing on how production of urban space takes place trough reference of models of urbanism
Global referents:
–> North-South: post-industrialised London, policed New York.
–> South-South: Shanghaification of Mumbai, Dubaification of Khartoum.

They become the goal - follow their urban policies

Question 42

Urban redevelopment through intro perspective urban politics (Croese 2018)

Hint: World class city making

Answer 42

World-class city making:
Wants that “‘world-class cityness’ through the planning and implementation of mega urban development projects, ranging from large-scale urban renewal to the construction of new towns in the image of cities such as Dubai, Shanghai and Singapore” –> to resemblance world-class cities

Urban redevelopment as driven by introspective urban politics and not a wish/focus for international competitiveness:
Urban redevelopment has been thought of as a way to attract foreign investment and enhance competitiveness through leisure, tourism, and global capital (–> Growth machine to enhance revenue) → but she argues that it is also a way of getting local and domestic political legitimacy. - Goal is not to enhance international competiveness
–> Redevelopment through infrastructure and creating better built environment → create better public spaces (sports facilities, cultural sites)

Empirical case from Luanda, Angola –> Bay of Luanda
redevelopment is primarily driven by the highest levels of the national government and the ruling party in Angola.
are primarily focused on achieving domestic political legitimacy and stability –> a project that reflects the governments authority over the urban landscape and is a result
–> Due to The weak role of local governments and centralization of power
Need to Focus on the “introspective” politics of urban policy as driver for redevelopment in contexts where power is highly centralized, as opposed to the typical focus on global competitiveness.

Reference –> Infrastructure-led development as it will encourage foreign direct investments

Question 43

Urban redevelopment through the real-estate frontier (Gillespie 2020)

Answer 43

Redevelopment through real estate –> real estate driven urban transformation.

The real estate frontier: This real estate frontier is characterized by the incremental and contested commodification of state land to enable the growth of the real estate sector in the city
–> a situation where state-owned land is gradually being turned into tradable assets for real estate development
–> The real estate frontier is characterized by the interface between real estate capital (investors, developers) and previously uncommodified urban land –> can be slums but also just other non-gentrificated land

Empirical case of Accra in Ghana:
Urban redevelopment in Accra can be explained by “the real estate frontier”
In Accra the real-estate frontier creates a lot of private sector investments and activity but in the process poor and marginalized groups are harmed.
When state lands are privatized and sold as a commodity it results in some groups being excluded and investment focused more on luxury properties and not housing for the poor.

Reference to other topics:
–> Urban Elites Prioritizes exchange value over use value of Public space
–> Elites become part of Growth coalition/machine as they prioritize exchange value
–> Goodfellow 2020 regarding Dispossession of those who can’t afford it
Social exclusion –>
right to the city –> Repurposing of urban land that is owned by all and could be accessed by all
Synopsis

Question 44

Further Development of The right to the city –> Urban citizenship (Parnell & Piertse 2010)

Answer 44

Central argument: a universal rights agenda should apply as much at the city or regional level as it does nationally or for migrating populations.

The “right to the city” entails more than just basic services or voting rights. It encompasses the broader concept of urban citizenship, including the right to participate in urban planning and governance, the right to access affordable land and housing, and the right to a safe and environmentally sustainable urban environment.

Need to focus on 2 and 3 generation rights which include households services (2) and city/neighbourhood scale entitlements as safety, public transport, social amenities (3)

Cape Town –> focus on voting and basic service have divert attention from essential matters of urban citizenship and the other rights

Question 45

Infrastructure (Larkin 2013)

Answer 45

Main take-aways:
Definition of infrastructure: built networks that facilitate the flow of goods, people, or ideas and allow for their exchange over space –> Matter that enable the movement of other matter

Infrastructures provide the foundation for modern societies and shape the everyday environment.

Especially two ways of looking at infrastructure:
1. Systems thinking
2. Technopolitics
This shapes how we investigate and understand infrastructure.

Give insights into the practices of government

Technopolitics involves studying how infrastructures are shaped by political decisions, power dynamics, and societal values and how they, in turn, shape politics and society.
–> They reveal forms of political rationality that underlie technological projects and which give rise to an “apparatus of governmentality”

The spects to Larkins argument
(1) Origins: Infrastructure and modernity have conceptual roots in the enlightenment idea, open to change where the free circulation of goods, ideas and people created the possibility of progres.
(2) Imaginative links: By promoting circulation, infrastructure bring about change, and through change they enact progress, and through process we gain freedom
(3) Copying modernity: Many infrastructural project are copied from other cities, funded so cities can take part in a contemporary modernity. (Flow of infrastructural ideas)

Worlding - world class city-ness by coping modernity (Croese 2018 and Roy 2011b)

Question 46

Infrastructure-led development - Schindler & Kanai 2021

Answer 46

Infrastructure-led development
“This regime of ‘infrastructure-led development’ is based on the premise that enhanced infrastructural connectivity will encourage foreign direct investment and ultimately lead to structural transformation of economies and societies from agricultural to advanced industrial”

International development regime whose imperative is to ‘get the territory right’.
–> ultimate objective is to produce functional transnational territories that can be ‘plugged in’ to global networks of production and trade.
“Get the territory right” → the right territory is needed to attract foreign investment, foster industrial upgrading and export-oriented growth.
Infrastructure-led development appeals to governments because it allows them to pursue ‘state spatial objectives” –> as infrastructural mega-projects

Spatial manifestation –> transnationally networked territories

Shows the durability of globalization and the ongoing expansion of Global Value Chains to emerging and frontier economies –> seen as the way of helping developing countries

Examples: Belt and Road Initiative

Other development regimes:
Post-war consensus - rural areas and even regional growth
(1) Neoliberal roll-back –> Market-oriented - Demand/supply determines the investments. Structural adjustment loans with conditions → Liberalize
(2) Neoliberal roll-out –> Fix institutions → loans with conditions → Good governance

Question 47

Infrastructure state and infrastructure rivalry - DiCarlo and Schindler (2022)

Answer 47

Infrastructure state:
Developmental objectives of governments are now often spatial – ‘infrastructure gap’ (Goodfellow 2020 in africa)

The infrastructure state “seeks to address longstanding developmental challenges through the enhancement of connectivity.”

The expansion of large-scale infrastructure projects is seen as the key to fostering social and economic transformation.

The legitimacy of the infrastructure state is partly underpinned by the ability of the state apparatus to articulate and achieve spatial objectives

Infrastructure rivalry between USA and China:
Contemporary great power rivalry is geared towards the management of territorial integration, as both the US and China seek to establish positions of centrality in the networks of trade, production and consumption through which power will be projected

Question 48

Bypass Urbanism - Sawyer et al. 2021

Answer 48

“Bypass urbanism” conceptualize an urbanization process that goes beyond the reach of even the largest new town or urban megaproject, with impacts that extend to a regional scale, reorganizing and reconfiguring entire urban regions. –> Projects resulting in huge affluent and exclusive urban zones that are bypassing the extant urban areas.
–> reordering the center-periphery relations of urban regions into new hierarchies.

What characterises it?
(1) the material production of a relatively dense, affluent and exclusive urban landscape in a remote sector of the urban region
(2) bypasses existing territorial regulations –> result of a convergence of interests over large areas of land at the geographical periphery of urban regions that have strategically been made available for urban development (reference to Gillespie 2020 real estate frontier and Goodfellow 2020 about domestic real estate due to international infrastructure investment)
–> A key feature of bypass urbanism is the fact that it plays out at the urban periphery and turns large expanses of “non-urban” peripheral land into prime urban land with a much higher market value.
(3) generates a sociospatial separation from existing urban areas and instantiates a socioeconomic segregation at a very large scale.

What drives it?
Growth machine of urban elites –> Territorial alliances
It typically emerges through a convergence of interests among public and private actors, including private corporations, developers, and state agencies - multiple alliances seeking financial gain, prestige, and political power

Which consequences does it have?
The production of new centralities: it also entails the production of new centralities in these peripheral areas jf. Central place theory
–> The production of new strategic centralities led to a process of devaluation of entire parts of urban regions – replacing existing centers.
bypass urbanism goes hand in hand with the peripheralization of extant centralities. peripheral centers become an alternative to the main central area

Empirical examples:
Mexico City –> The Centro Historico has thus regained importance as cultural and political center, yet it is still only a partial centrality and thus not challenging Santa Fe as a financial and commercial center and as a headquarter economy.
Kolkata –> Bypass urbanism was the result of several, sometimes haphazard attempts by West Bengal’s government to urbanize rural land in various locations of the urban region.
Lekki corridor in Lagos –> It developed gradually, involving varying power and actor constellations including Private public partnerships, private developers, but also powerful traditional landowning families who all play influential roles.

Question 49

Implementation of mega-projects - BRT in Dar es Salaam (Rizzo 2015)

Answer 49

What characterises a BRT system?
It is part of a type of projects called Bus Rapid Transit
Systems → the solution to chronic and rapidly escalating traffic congestion.
Other cities have already implemented these including: Cape Town, J-burg and Lagos.

5 common characteristics of BRT’s
Substantial Investments from international
Public-Private Partnerships
Phasing Out Privately Owned Minibuses: dalalala
Faster Trips:
Urban Road Infrastructure Upgrading

General narrative: promoted as the solution to chronic and rapidly escalating traffic congestion and to the low quality of public transport provision

What does Rizzo want to explain?
The article discredits BRT’s “win-win” narratives by showing what some Tanzanian actors stood to lose from the implementation of the Dar es Salaam Rapid Transit scheme and their capacity to resist the project.
–> tensions over the inclusion of the current public transport workforce, employment destruction, displacement of current paratransit operators, compensation, and the affordability of the new service
–> Negative employment effect of BRT

Question 50

Urban Inequality - Kombe et al. 2022

Answer 50

Different types of inequality we see in Sub-Saharan Africa and asia

Sub-Saharan Africa –> In Africa there is a lot of focus on income inequality and informality/formality based inequality.
Spatial segregation
Lack of access to basic infrastructure services
Increased urbanisation leads to inadequate public infrastructure
Conflict and disaster hits poorer people disproportionally

Asia –> very prevalent
Gender equality
Inequality in work and social protection domain
Access to public space
Spatializing inequality
* E.g. Caste in India

Question 51

Subaltern urbanism and its criticism - Roy 2011a

Answer 51

The main point:
Focuses on Subaltern Urbanism and that litteratures theorization of the megacity and its subaltern spaces and subaltern classes.
Primarily focus on the slum, and how it describes and portrays the slum with a positive picture of entrepreneur-spirit, political actors and the many possiblities
Describes some limits and alternatives to subaltern urbanism and comes with 4 thing to consider in slums and future studies of urbanism and mega-cities:
o Peripheries
o Urban informality
o Zones of exception
o Gray spaces.

What is subalternity?
The condition of the people, those who did not and could not belong to the elite classes, a ‘general attribute of subordination’ –> related to the popular
a theory of change: agency of change located in the sphere of subaltern politics
the fundamental relationships of power, of domination and subordination –> The elites and the popular

What is subaltern urbanism? - a theoretical perspective
Two themes are prominent in subaltern urbanism: economies of entrepreneurialism and political agency.
Focusing on subaltern people being
o Political agents
o Economic entrepreneurs –> Subaltern people channeling their skills into the economy

What is Roy’s (2011a) critique of subaltern urbanism?
Focussing on subaltern urbanism overlooks the entrance into neo-liberalism → through the economic entrepeneurs, where people are in different positions –> Women, lower-caste and marginalized ethnic groups have unfavourable conditions when trying to become economic entrepeneurs

Other things to consider:
Peripheries
Urban informality –> heuristic device that uncovers the ever-shifting urban relationship between the legal and illegal, legitimate and illegitimate, authorized and unauthorized.
Zones of exception
Gray spaces - between legal and illegal

Question 52

Urban inequality - Race –> How neoliberal urban policies affect marginalized people (Swanson 2007)

Answer 52

Exploring the particular and pernicious ways in which these neoliberal urban policies affect indigenous peoples in the urban informal sector
–>The regulation of indigenous street vendors and beggars in the Andean nation of Ecuador.

Poor indigenous people because no revenue in agriculture –> forced into being street vendors

How city authorities in Quito and Guayaquil in Ecuador have engaged in revanchist policies of urban “cleansing” which entail the discursive construction of (poor) indigenous people as a contaminated risk for white or mesitzo populations.
–> Discursive element jf. Gillespie 2016 - AOD

Inspired by zero tolerance policies from the North (Giulianis New York), the cities of Quito and Guayaquil in Ecuador have recently initiated urban regeneration projects to cleanse the streets of informal workers, beggars, and street children. –> which are often poor indigenous people

Findings:
A particular imperative for Ecuadorian revanchism is to push these individuals beyond the city limits and back into the hidden folds of the Andes where Indians are deemed to “belong”

Ecuador’s punitive neoliberal urban policies are only displacing troubling social problems (p. 724)
* By constructing city space as a sanitised space for tourism and global capital, Guayaquil’s and Quito’s urban regeneration campaigns merely turn attention away from the pressing social problems forcing indigenous peoples onto the streets in the first place

–> Argue that Ecuador’s particular twist on revanchism is through its more transparent engagement with the project of blanqueamiento or “whitening” –> meaning no indigenous people –> Blatant racial displacement
–> Further argue that Ecuador’s “refinement” of revanchist urban policies only works to displace already marginalised individuals and push them into more difficult circumstances - dangerous travels

Question 53

Urban inequality between Gender/Race (Nwanko 2019)

Answer 53

The text wants to answer the question: How do women traders negotiate spatial relationships to facilitate their trading ventures? (p. 61).
(1) Looks at Oke Arin Market in Lagos over a one-year period.
Masseys –> Gendered spaces

Definition of market: a physical location for the exchange of goods and services, with aggregates of sellers and buyers (p. 61).

The majority of traders in Lagos’ markets are women, making trading the primary occupation for women in the city
–> This study argues that the appearance of women being in control may be misleading, as power dynamics in markets may place the majority of women traders in a subordinate position, in constant contestation with male-dominated market power structures.

Gender inequality eventhough mostly women in the markets
* Difficult for women to own stall –> This structure reinforces the domination of men as property owners and subordinates women, who are forced to operate in trading spaces only with men’s permission. - 95 pct. of women didn’t own their stall
* Associations are compulsory to be a part of, so they don’t shut down your business. –> market association is effectively an arm of the government and maintains its power and control over the women traders through threats and the use of violence
* Use different strategies to overcome the power structures

Question 54

Urban inequality of employment - Banks 2016

Answer 54

The analysis in Dhaka (India) highlights the importance of settlement-level structures and hierarchies in shaping individual and settlement outcomes.
(1) Despite connecting settlements to external resources and opportunities, community leadership has a strong vested interest in keeping distribution networks closed –> because it is the foundation of their power
(2) Virtually no channels exist through which low-income urban households in Dhaka can extend their networks into the upper levels of the hierarchy to accumulate the social resources they need for greater livelihoods security.

–> Peoples social networks and status in the settlements determine their possibilitets to improve their households. Same skills - different outcome

Critique of actor-oriented frameworks for understanding urban poverty: need to look at political economy and society
Actor-oriented –> focus on the characteristics of the actor (i.e. income, gender, ethnicity) –> how do they influence the opportunities
–> Actor-oriented frameworks do not pay sufficient attention to the local political economy and the constraints on agency it creates - overlook poverty’s political roots
Does not illustrate the full limitations of economic and political opportunity of households agency when it comes to supporting ‘coping’ households to follow similar paths to improvement

How does the local political economy influence low-income households’ prospects for sustained household improvements?
- Formal representation for the urban poor in Bangladesh is limited, but does include voting rights in municipal and national elections (1st generation rights).
The majority of low-income urban residents are dependent on these influential intermediaries of community leadership in and the relationships they hold with strongmen, elected officials and local and national politicians

These clientelistic relationships have come to dominate the wider forms of participation through which the urban poor in Bangladesh gain access to services and opportunitie

Question 55

Development-induced displacement - Adeaola 2020

Answer 55

the origin of the idea that “development projects can modernise and shift societies to industrialised” economies:
–> The marshall plan after WW2 → evidence from then, that it works in European countries
– Doesn’t necessarily apply to countries in the global south

What is development-induced displacement? focus on africa
–> Large projects that require dispossesion of people e.g. Highways, Business-areas, natural ressource extraction, agricultural investment
The text mentions climate projects
–> Setting up climate projects as Windmills and Solar panel parks → Need to displace large sums of people some times → Expropriation

Displacement of rural groups can lead to urban migration and urban poor

Accumulation by dispossession –> Gillespie 2016 –> In the pursuit of growth you disposed marginalized people

Question 56

Accumulation by dispossesion - Gillespie 2016

Answer 56

Marxist view
“Accumulation by urban dispossession” is the process through which urban development → often driven by entrepreneurial governance and capitalist interests - leads to the dispossession of certain groups or communities from their land and resources. This dispossession is a way of accumulating wealth, typically benefiting the more powerful and wealthy segments of society.
–> Enclosure of urban space → Overtaking urban space so others can’t use it, but you can build wealth
–> For example real estate

Accumulators: governant, private, financial interests –> Growth machince –> Focus on exchange value
* Dispossessed: marginalized –> informals –> the subaltern –> emphasize use value

Simple accumulation: “where extra-economic force was employed in order to create the necessary conditions for accumulation proper by transforming common wealth (such as land) into private capital and generating a supply of labour by creating a landless proletariat”

What are the mechanism of enclosure in Accra? Empirical example from Ghana
The physical-legal mechanisms:
(1) the privatization of communal land for elite development projects
–> Accra Case: Expropriation of communal land –> Real estate frontier? –> Robbing the Ghanese people the opportunity of using the communal land
(2) Revanchist cleansing of street hawkers from the city’s public spaces
–> Could also be ethnic minorities and other poor marginalized groups, who the government find “dirty” jf. Swanson 2007
(3) The eviction and displacement of squatters from central Accra.

The discursive mechanism → Used to legitimize the physical-legal mechanisms
(1) Framing: Hawkers or squatters as being criminals, enemies of the state, dirty
(2) Scapegoating: street robbery, litter, sanitation problems

Gillespie 2020 –> Real estate frontier in Accra –> commodification of state land into real estate with focus on the rich
Exchange and use-value - Public space
Swanson 2007 –> Revanchist policies
Development-induced displacement
Gentrification
Right to the city - acces, ownership and regulation

Question 57

Four political discourses of subordinate groups - Scott 1990

Answer 57

focus on political acts that are disguised or happen “off-stage” to help us understand the more social and normative forms of resistance

What do the four political discourses of subordinate groups look like? –> Use slavery as example
(1) Public transcript (Socio - Front-stage)
–> how you are acting when power relations are present
(2) Hidden transcript? (Socio → Back-stage)
–> when you are safe to act as you want
(3) Politics of disguise and anonymity
–> Takes place in public view but is designed to convey a double meaning or shield the identity of those involved.
(4) Rupture of the political cordon sanitaire
–> Refers to the breaking of the barrier between what is concealed in the hidden transcript and what is presented in the public transcript
–> Most resistance → Conflict is most extreme

What could the ‘low-profile forms of resistance’ (also called the infrapolitics of subordinate groups’ or everyday resistance) be?
* Politics of disguise

Question 58

Politics of resistance - Quit encroachment (Bayat 2000)

Answer 58

Who are the subaltern?
–> The poor, Marginalized, the informal etc.

How do the four different perspectives view the urban subaltern?
(1) Passive poor –> Political passive group → if you are poor, you are also passive = Deterministic
(2) Surviving poor –> The poor are not powerless → active in the search for surviving through informal sector or other stuff –> Reductionism - does more than just survive
(3) Political poor –> The urban poor can mobilize and change the political landscape → doesn’t happen very often –> Urban territorial movements?
(4) The resisting poor –> There is an ongoing struggle between the rich and poor → the poor resists the change that will benefit the rich. Many conceptual problems – what is resistance

Quit encroachment:
The silent, protracted but pervasive advancement of the ordinary people on the propertied and powerful in order to survive and improve their lives.
Cumulatively encroaching: the actors tend to expand their space by winning new positions to move on –> contest many different things
Not a collective or deliberate political act –> act of surviving
While advances are made quietly, individually and gradually, the defense of their gains is often collective and audible.

Question 59

Social movement strategies - Mitlin 2018

Answer 59

Social movements strategies research in Kenya and South Africa

rather than seeing strategies of contention, collaboration and subversion as separate approaches, they can best be understood as alternative strategies, adopted simultaneously and iteratively by urban social movements.

The three strategies:
(1) Contention refers to the practice of engaging in protest and direct confrontation with the state or other power structures. It involves mobilizing people and resources to challenge existing policies and demand change. This strategy aims to create pressure and disrupt the status quo.
(2) Collaboration involves working with the state and other political groups to negotiate and advocate for policy reform. It emphasizes building relationships and alliances to influence decision-making processes and bring about positive change. This strategy recognizes the importance of engaging with existing institutions and policies.
(3) Subversion, particularly through encroachment, is a more covert strategy employed by social movements. It involves asserting rights and claiming space through actions that challenge or bypass formal systems and regulations. This can include occupying land or resources, engaging in informal economic activities, or participating in urban governance processes. Subversion aims to render the movement visible and assert its rights through resistance and campaigning.

Social movements move between alternatives to strengthen their negotiating positions, influence and respond to changing circumstances

Question 60

Urban Securitization - Abello Colak et al. 2023

Answer 60

Main take-away
Examines the issue of urban securitisation in Latin America and the Caribbean.
* Remember the term from IP
Securitisation processes –> by which certain issues or actors are framed as existential threats leading to the adoption and legitimation of urgent, exceptional and often aggressive measures by the state

It goes beyond the focus on Neoliberalism as the primary driver and militarisation as the main manifestation –> Instead it emphasizes the embedded, contextualised, and historically situated nature of securitisation and its diverse manifestations.

It focuses on the construction of security threats in these regions and proposes a framework for analyzing the causes, manifestations, and consequences of securitisation,

Urban securitisation in this region is influenced by four socio-spatial dimensions - segregation, territorial stigmatisation, overlapping insecurities, and territorial struggles

These dimensions shape the construction of issues, spaces, and populations as security threats.

The four dimensions:
(1) Segregation – from colonial times:
In LAC, urban segregation itself has become securitised, seen as a problem that justifies the use of exceptional measures.
Social and spatial segregation therefore shapes and is shaped by urban securitisation, as it facilitates the normalisation of ‘extraordinary measures’ in poor communities

(2) Territorial stigmatisation is a key driver and a consequence of urban securitisation. –> for example of Favelas
–> Very much linked to racial and etnicity as a colonial past - hierarchies
Territorial stigmatisation therefore intersects with racial discrimination, which in turn shapes and is shaped by urban securitisation.

(3) Overlapping insecurities
overlapping insecurities contribute to urban securitisation by creating a sense of fear and vulnerability among the population. The state, in response to these insecurities, adopts securitising measures that are often urgent, exceptional, and aggressive. These measures aim to control and manage the perceived threats, but they can also lead to the marginalization and stigmatization of certain groups, particularly those living in impoverished and marginalized areas.

(4) Territorial struggles –> Urban securitisation in various cities is driven by attempts to consolidate state power privileging territorial control of spaces over the capacity to protect those who inhabit them.

Concepts
Social production of space (Lefebvre)
highlights the different ways in which space is constructed by, and in turn constructs social relations (and by extension, social phenomena such as securitisation)

Penal-assistential state (Wacquant):
bureaucracy can play a double role in controlling certain groups of the population
Penal policies (criminalisation and punitive control), that show the lethal side of the state against particular groups of the population, combine with its managerial–administrative side to target social policies against these groups –> constitute each other

Reference –>
Revanchist policies –> Swanson 2007
Critical southern perspective

Question 61

Climate adaptation - Anguelovski et al. 2016

Answer 61

How can climate adaptation negatively affect vulnerable groups in the cities?
(1) Acts of commission: when infrastructure investments, land use regulations, or new protected areas disproportionately affect or displace disadvantaged groups.
(2) Acts of omission: plans that protect economically valuable areas over low-income or minority neighborhoods, frame adaptation as a private responsibility rather than a public good, or fail to involve affected communities in the process.
–> Both reference to development-induced displacement Adeola 2020

What do the equity impacts entail?
(1) Uneven access to flood protective infrastructure (New Orleans and Dhaka) → Low-income and minority groups in both New Orleans and Dhaka continue to face high flood risks despite the construction of new flood infrastructure.

(2) Selective land use regulations and resettlement (Manila and Medellin)

(3) Privileging elite participation (Santiago and Jakarta) –> Protected the wealthier areas at the expense of the poor. Didn’t listen to the subaltern/marginalized

(4) Private sector embeddedness (Boston and Surat) –> creates inequalities because of uneven flood protection because of lacking private investment from locals