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Urban Informality

Transnational Perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia

Edited by Ananya Roy and Nezar AlSayyad - Contributions by Asef Bayat; Ray Bromley; Alan Gilbert; Arif Hasan; Janice E. Perlman; Ahmed M. Soliman; Peter M. Ward; Haim Yakobi and Oren Yiftachel

The turn of the century has been a moment of rapid urbanization. Much of this urban growth is taking place in the cities of the developing world and much of it in informal settlements. This book presents cutting-edge research from various world regions to demonstrate these trends. The contributions reveal that informal housing is no longer the domain of the urban poor; rather it is a significant zone of transactions for the middle-class and even transnational elites. Indeed, the book presents a rich view of "urban informality" as a system of regulations and norms that governs the use of space and makes possible new forms of social and political power.

The book is organized as a "transnational" endeavor. It brings together three regional domains of research—the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia—that are rarely in conversation with one another. It also unsettles the hierarchy of development and underdevelopment by looking at some First World processes of informality through a Third World research lens.
  • Details
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  • Author
  • Author
  • TOC
  • TOC
  • Reviews
  • Reviews
Lexington Books
Pages: 346 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-0-7391-0740-9 • Hardback • November 2003 • $136.00 • (£105.00) - Currently out of stock. Copies will arrive soon.
978-0-7391-0741-6 • Paperback • November 2003 • $56.99 • (£44.00)
978-0-7391-6220-0 • eBook • November 2003 • $54.00 • (£42.00)
Series: Transnational Perspectives on Space and Place
Subjects: Political Science / Public Policy / City Planning & Urban Development, Political Science / Public Policy / Regional Planning, Social Science / Sociology / Urban, Social Science / Developing Countries
Ananya Roy is Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley. Nezar AlSayyad is Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Professor of Architecture and Planning at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author or editor of eight books, including Muslim Europe or Euro-Islam: Politics, Culture, and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization (Lexington Books, 2002).
Chapter 1 Urban Informality: Crossing Borders
Chapter 2 Urban Informality as a "New" Way of Life
Part 3 Liberalization, Globalization, and Urban Informality
Chapter 4 Love in the Time of Enhanced Capital Flows: Reflections on the Links Between Liberalization and Informality
Chapter 5 The Changing Nature of the Informal Sector in Karachi Due to Global Restructuring and Liberalization, and Its Repercussions
Chapter 6 Globalization and the Politics of the Informals in the Global South
Chapter 7 The Politics of Urban Informalities
Chapter 8 Marginality: From Myth to Reality in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, 1969-2002
Chapter 9 The Gentleman's City: Urban Informality in the Calcutta of New Communism
Chapter 10 Tilting at Sphinxes: Locating Urban Informality in Egyptian Cities
Chapter 11 Control, Resistance, and Informality: Urban Ethnocracy in Beer-Sheva, Israel
Part 12 Transnational Interrogation
Chapter 13 Informality of Housing Production at the Urban-Rural Interface: The "Not So Strange Case" of the Texas Colonias
Chapter 14 Power, Property, and Poverty: Why De Soto's "Mystery of Capital" Cannot be Solved
Chapter 15 Transnational Trespassings: The Geopolitics of Informality
This rich and provocative collection succeeds not only in deconstructing the outmoded antinomies of informal versus formal, local versus global, and marginalized versus institutionalized power, but, mirabili dictu, takes a giant leap along the path to fruitful reconstruction. Its strong chapters, written by theoretically sophisticated and research-grounded area specialists with considerable experience in specific urbanized settings in the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia, not only illustrate common problems but identify variations in response, contingent on differences in their cultural, economic, and geopolitical contexts.
— Janet Abu-Lughod, New School for Social Research (Emerita)


The spread of urban informality is the most significant trend shaping the space and time of our 21st century world. This book is the finest collection of scholarly essays I know on this phenomenon. It should be mandatory reading for courses on urbanization and on development studies.
— Manuel Castells, University of California at Berkeley (Emeritus)


The book presents a rich view of 'urban informality' as a system of regulation and norms that governs the use of space and makes possible new forms of social and political power. The editors are well experienced in teaching town planning and the book will be found very useful reading by the town planners, developers, and other government and local self-government officials.
— Educational Book Review


Urban Informality

Transnational Perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia

Cover Image
Hardback
Paperback
eBook
Summary
Summary
  • The turn of the century has been a moment of rapid urbanization. Much of this urban growth is taking place in the cities of the developing world and much of it in informal settlements. This book presents cutting-edge research from various world regions to demonstrate these trends. The contributions reveal that informal housing is no longer the domain of the urban poor; rather it is a significant zone of transactions for the middle-class and even transnational elites. Indeed, the book presents a rich view of "urban informality" as a system of regulations and norms that governs the use of space and makes possible new forms of social and political power.

    The book is organized as a "transnational" endeavor. It brings together three regional domains of research—the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia—that are rarely in conversation with one another. It also unsettles the hierarchy of development and underdevelopment by looking at some First World processes of informality through a Third World research lens.
Details
Details
  • Lexington Books
    Pages: 346 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
    978-0-7391-0740-9 • Hardback • November 2003 • $136.00 • (£105.00) - Currently out of stock. Copies will arrive soon.
    978-0-7391-0741-6 • Paperback • November 2003 • $56.99 • (£44.00)
    978-0-7391-6220-0 • eBook • November 2003 • $54.00 • (£42.00)
    Series: Transnational Perspectives on Space and Place
    Subjects: Political Science / Public Policy / City Planning & Urban Development, Political Science / Public Policy / Regional Planning, Social Science / Sociology / Urban, Social Science / Developing Countries
Author
Author
  • Ananya Roy is Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley. Nezar AlSayyad is Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Professor of Architecture and Planning at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author or editor of eight books, including Muslim Europe or Euro-Islam: Politics, Culture, and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization (Lexington Books, 2002).
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • Chapter 1 Urban Informality: Crossing Borders
    Chapter 2 Urban Informality as a "New" Way of Life
    Part 3 Liberalization, Globalization, and Urban Informality
    Chapter 4 Love in the Time of Enhanced Capital Flows: Reflections on the Links Between Liberalization and Informality
    Chapter 5 The Changing Nature of the Informal Sector in Karachi Due to Global Restructuring and Liberalization, and Its Repercussions
    Chapter 6 Globalization and the Politics of the Informals in the Global South
    Chapter 7 The Politics of Urban Informalities
    Chapter 8 Marginality: From Myth to Reality in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, 1969-2002
    Chapter 9 The Gentleman's City: Urban Informality in the Calcutta of New Communism
    Chapter 10 Tilting at Sphinxes: Locating Urban Informality in Egyptian Cities
    Chapter 11 Control, Resistance, and Informality: Urban Ethnocracy in Beer-Sheva, Israel
    Part 12 Transnational Interrogation
    Chapter 13 Informality of Housing Production at the Urban-Rural Interface: The "Not So Strange Case" of the Texas Colonias
    Chapter 14 Power, Property, and Poverty: Why De Soto's "Mystery of Capital" Cannot be Solved
    Chapter 15 Transnational Trespassings: The Geopolitics of Informality
Reviews
Reviews
  • This rich and provocative collection succeeds not only in deconstructing the outmoded antinomies of informal versus formal, local versus global, and marginalized versus institutionalized power, but, mirabili dictu, takes a giant leap along the path to fruitful reconstruction. Its strong chapters, written by theoretically sophisticated and research-grounded area specialists with considerable experience in specific urbanized settings in the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia, not only illustrate common problems but identify variations in response, contingent on differences in their cultural, economic, and geopolitical contexts.
    — Janet Abu-Lughod, New School for Social Research (Emerita)


    The spread of urban informality is the most significant trend shaping the space and time of our 21st century world. This book is the finest collection of scholarly essays I know on this phenomenon. It should be mandatory reading for courses on urbanization and on development studies.
    — Manuel Castells, University of California at Berkeley (Emeritus)


    The book presents a rich view of 'urban informality' as a system of regulation and norms that governs the use of space and makes possible new forms of social and political power. The editors are well experienced in teaching town planning and the book will be found very useful reading by the town planners, developers, and other government and local self-government officials.
    — Educational Book Review


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