Synopses & Reviews
From Dubai to Delhi and from Singapore to Shanghai, cities across Asia are sites of intense experiments with different ways of being global. This book intervenes in urban theory focused on established global cities, and instead argues that the urban globality is something that is continually being imagined, assembled, and contested. Greater Asia is a region of vibrant innovations in urban design, built forms, governance, aesthetics, and politics. Worlding Cities draws attention to diverse projects of 'worlding' and "reworlding" that draw upon local and transnational relationships. Alternative ways of being global are instantiated through practices of mobility, modeling, and speculation that inter-reference other Asian sites. As many of the essays in this book illustrate, different Asian futures are being shaped in cities, from green governmentality to eco-city, from corporate speculations to political contestations over urban development, from "world-class" city branding to demands for "world-class" services, and from sky-high hopes to dashed dreams on the ground for city-dwellers and migrants. This inter-generation and interdisciplinary group of authors offers the first serious examination of diverse actors, energies, and conditions at play in defining new worlds of inter-Asian urbanism.
Review
"Urban studies is marked by an ingrained tendency to consider cities in Western Europe and North America as the leading edge of global urban change. This important book draws attention to ways in which cities in Asia are experimenting with ways of being global which do not necessarily refer back to antecedents in the North Atlantic world. The book should be read not only by Asianists but by anyone who is interested in the dynamics of urban change globally."
—Tim Bunnell, National University of Singapore
Synopsis
Worlding Cities is the first serious examination of Asian urbanism to highlight the connections between different Asian models and practices of urbanization. It includes important contributions from a respected group of scholars across a range of generations, disciplines, and sites of study.
- Describes the new theoretical framework of ‘worlding’
- Substantially expands and updates the themes of capital and culture
- Includes a unique collection of authors across generations, disciplines, and sites of study
- Demonstrates how references to Asian power, success, and hegemony make possible urban development and limit urban politics
About the Author
Ananya Roy is Professor of City and Regional Planning and Co-Director of Global Metropolitan Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her most recent book is
Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Making of Development (2010).
Aihwa Ong is Professor of Socio-cultural Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her most recent publications are Privatizing China, Socialism from Afar (2008) and Asian Biotech: Ethics and Communities of Fate (2010).
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Notes on Contributors viii
Series Editors’ Preface xiii
Preface and Acknowledgments xv
Introduction Worlding Cities, or the Art of Being Global 1
Aihwa Ong
Part I Modeling 27
1 Singapore as Model: Planning Innovations, Knowledge Experts 29
Chua Beng Huat
2 Urban Modeling and Contemporary Technologies of City-Building in China: The Production of Regimes of Green Urbanisms 55
Lisa Hoffman
3 Planning Privatopolis: Representation and Contestation in the Development of Urban Integrated Mega-Projects 77
Gavin Shatkin
4 Ecological Urbanization: Calculating Value in an Age of Global Climate Change 98
Shannon May
Part II Inter-Referencing 127
5 Retuning a Provincialized Middle Class in Asia's Urban Postmodern: The Case of Hong Kong 129
Helen F. Siu
6 Cracks in the Façade: Landscapes of Hope and Desire in Dubai 160
Chad Haines
7 Asia in the Mix: Urban Form and Global Mobilities – Hong Kong, Vancouver, Dubai 182
Glen Lowry and Eugene McCann
8 Hyperbuilding: Spectacle, Speculation, and the Hyperspace of Sovereignty 205
Aihwa Ong
Part III New Solidarities 227
9 Speculating on the Next World City 229
Michael Goldman
10 The Blockade of the World-Class City: Dialectical Images of Indian Urbanism 259
Ananya Roy
11 Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class City Making in Delhi 279
D. Asher Ghertner
Conclusion Postcolonial Urbanism: Speed, Hysteria, Mass Dreams 307
Ananya Roy
Index 336