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With contributions from an international range of established and emerging scholars drawing upon real world examples, this title is the first to use the lens of speed to examine the postcolonial 'urban revolution'. It explores the contradictions between intended and unintended outcomes of fast cities and points to their fault lines between
List of contents
Introduction
- Fast cities in the Urban Age
Ayona DattaFast cities and ‘new’ urban utopias
2. Frictionless Utopias for the Contemporary Urban Age: Large-scale, Master-planned Redevelopment Projects in Urbanizing Africa
Martin Murray
3. New African city plans: local urban form and the acceleration of urban inequalities.
Vanessa Watson
4. Speed kills: Fast urbanism and endangered sustainability in the Masdar City project
Federico Cugurullo
Entrepreneurial states
5. Envisioned by the State: Entrepreneurial Urbanism and the Making of Songdo City, South Korea
Hyun Shin
6. From petro-urbanism to knowledge megaprojects in the Persian Gulf: Qatar Foundation’s Education City
Agatino Rizzo
7. ‘Their houses on our land’: Perforations and blockades in the Planning of New Town Rajarhat, India
Ratoola Kundu
Mega-urbanization and Masterplanning
8. Mega-suburbanization in Jakarta Mega-urban Region
Delik Hudalah and
Tommy Firman9. Mega- Scale Sustainability: The relational production of a new Lusaka
Mathew Lane
10. Planning new towns in the People’s Republic: Political dimensions of eco-city images in China.
Braulio Morera
Slow: Towards a decelerated urbanism
Abdul Shaban and
Ayona Datta
About the author
Ayona Datta is Reader in Human Geography at Kings College London, UK.
Abdul Shaban is Professor at the School of Development Studies and Deputy Director (Tuljapur campus), Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India.
Summary
With contributions from an international range of established and emerging scholars drawing upon real world examples, this title is the first to use the lens of speed to examine the postcolonial ‘urban revolution’. It explores the contradictions between intended and unintended outcomes of fast cities and points to their fault lines between
Additional text
"Unpacking the cultural, economic and historical determinants of speed as a central feature of contemporary city-making in the global south, this carefully edited volume brings together fresh and innovative analyses of urban change across a wide variety of contexts. It also lucidly identifies the deleterious consequences of fast or 'instant' cities. One of those rare books which truly renews our understanding of urban dynamics."
Professor Ola Söderström, Department of Geography, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
"The fast and intoxicating logic of building smart/green/new cities as a panacea to the world’s problems is this outstanding book’s object of inquiry. With laser-sharp precision, these scholars demonstrate that from Johannesburg to Lusaka, Jakarta to Songdo City, ‘speed kills’. Pulsating throughout this terrific collection is the call to ‘decelerate or else’, making it the perfect new primer on questions of urban justice in the global South."
Professor Michael Goldman, Sociology and Global Studies, University of Minnesota, USA
