Globalization and Urbanization

The Global Urban Ecosystem

By (author) James H. Spencer

Publication date:

26 June 2014

Length of book:

268 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442214750

During the past decade, the world reached the point of becoming more urban than not, as the majority of people on the planet now live not in small towns or villages but in provincial, national, and global cities. Scholars have long been fascinated by so-called global cities, world cities, and the urban engines of the global economy. James H. Spencer argues, however, that such an emphasis misses the central fact that urbanization goes well beyond the usual suspects of New York, Tokyo, London, and Shanghai. The author charts urbanization across the Global South and North, resulting in what he describes as a planetary global urban ecosystem. This concept that challenges us to realize that in daily life, their similar physical and social ecosystems that make cities more understandable to each other than to their own rural hinterlands. Spencer’s vivid case studies of Addis Ababa, Ho Chi Minh City, Honolulu, and New York draw out the commonalities of our intertwined built and social environments and how they express a shared humanity across continents and cultures.

Introduction
Chapter 1: Urbanization and the Construction of the Global Urban Ecosystem
Chapter 2: Urban Histories: Arriving at the Global Urban Ecosystem
Chapter 3: Saigon’s “Do-Your-Timers”: Rural Transformation and the Urban Transition in Saigon
Chapter 4: “Do-Your-Timers” African Style: Addis Ababa, the Unlikely Capital of Africa
Chapter 5: The Indigenous City? Reconciling an Old-Timers' Honolulu with a Global Society
Chapter 6: “For-All-Timers”: New York City’s Empire State of Mind
Chapter 7: The Global Urban Ecosystem: A Globally Integrated Ecology of Everyday Life
Bibliography

Fueled by advances in electronic communication and transportation technology, the globe is becoming more and more urbanized. Over the past two decades the expanding megacities of the Global South have had and continue to have a profound effect on the character of globalization at this critical historical juncture. Spencer’s book is a path-breaking contribution to our understanding of this process.