Vocabularies for an Urbanising Planet: Theory Building through Comparison

Cartography as an instrument for the analysis of urbanisation processes

The speed, scale and scope of urbanisation have increased dramatically in recent decades. To decipher the rapidly changing urban territories across the planet, we need a radical shift in the analytical perspective on urbanisation.

In this book, a transdisciplinary international research team presents an expanded vocabulary of urbanisation processes through a comparison of Tokyo, Hong Kong - Shenzhen - Dongguan, Kolkata, Istanbul, Lagos, Paris, Mexico City and Los Angeles.

Based on a novel cartography and on detailed ethnographic and historical explorations, this book systematically analyses the diversity of responses to urgent contemporary urban challenges. It proposes a series of new concepts that allow us to assess the practical consequences of different urban strategies in everyday life.

• Essential book on urbanism
• New evaluation models for urbanisation processes
• Comprehensive analyses and illustrations of the urban patterns of international metropolises
• Comparison of urbanisation processes in eight metropolises around the world

Autorentext

Editors Christian Schmid is an urban researcher, geographer and sociologist, Professor of Sociology, Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich. His scientific work is on planetary urbanisation, comparative urban analysis and theories of urbanisation and of space. He wrote an encompassing reconstruction of Henri Lefebvre's theory of the production of space and is a member of the International Network for Urban Research and Action (INURA).

Monika Streule is an urban researcher at the intersection of social anthropology, geography and sociology. She has extensively published on urban extractivism, socioterritorial struggles and experimental methodologies, particularly with reference to postcolonial and decolonial perspectives. Currently, she is a Marie-Sklodowska Curie Fellow at the Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Contributing authors

Naomi Hanakata, Singapore; Ozan Karaman, Paris; Anne Kockelkorn, Ghent; Lindsay Sawyer, Sheffield; Christian Schmid, Zurich; Monika Streule, London and Mexico City; Kit Ping Wong, Osaka