Politics and the Urban Frontier

Transformation and Divergence in Late Urbanizing East Africa
Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-0-19-885310-7
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 352 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 226 mm, Gewicht: 680 g

Reihe: Critical Frontiers of Theory, Research, and Policy in International Development Studies

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

Despite the rise of global technocratic ideals of city-making, cities around the world are not merging into indistinguishable duplicates of one another. In fact, as the world urbanizes, urban formations remain diverse in their socioeconomic and spatial characteristics, with varying potential to foster economic development and social justice. In this book, Tom Goodfellow argues that these differences are primarily rooted in politics, and if we continue to view cities as economic and technological projects to be managed rather than terrains of political bargaining and contestation, the quest for better urban futures is doomed to fail. Dominant critical approaches to urban development tend to explain difference with reference to the variegated impacts of neoliberal regulatory institutions. This, however, neglects the multiple ways in which the wider politics of capital accumulation and distribution drive divergent forms of transformation in different urban places.

In order to unpack the politics that shapes differential urban development, this book focuses on East Africa as the global urban frontier: the least urbanized but fastest urbanizing region in the world. Drawing on a decade of research spanning three case study countries (Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Uganda), Politics and the Urban Frontier provides the first sustained, book-length comparative analysis of urban development trajectories in Eastern Africa and the political dynamics that underpin them. Through a focus on infrastructure investment, urban propertyscapes, street-level trading economies, and urban political protest, it offers a multi-scalar, historically-grounded, and interdisciplinary analysis of the urban transformations unfolding in the world's most dynamic crucible of urban change.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Goodfellow, Tom

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Wirtschaftspolitik, politische Ökonomie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Wirtschaftswachstum
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Entwicklungspolitik, Nord-Süd Beziehungen
• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Humangeographie Wirtschaftsgeographie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Internationale Wirtschaft Entwicklungsökonomie & Emerging Markets
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Regional- und Städtische Wirtschaft

Über Autor(innen)

Tom Goodfellow is a Professor of Urban Studies and International Development at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on the comparative political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, migration, and urban institutional change. His current and recent research has involved collaborations with a range of institutional partners including Addis Ababa University, Hawassa University, Makerere University, and Wits University. He is co-author of Cities and Development (Routledge 2016), sits on the Board of African Affairs, and is Treasurer of the IJURR Foundation.