Geography 352 Urbanization in the Global South Jim Glassman Lecture #3, January 13

1. Geography 352 Urbanization in the Global South Jim Glassman Lecture #3, January 13

3. Liberalism in historical perspective • Locke, Smith, Mill, Friedman • Emphasis on individual property rights

4. Marxism as a historical response to liberalism • Marx, Engels, Lenin, Panitch • Emphasis on exploitation as driving force in capitalism

5. Liberal accounts of urbanization • Markets allocate resources where needed • States are independent of markets and can cause distortions in market operations • Some common goods demand state intervention (e.g., roads, education)

6. Marxist accounts of urbanization • Investment driven not by social need but by need for profit and by effective demand • States are expressions of class power and operate in relation to class struggles, not independently of markets • Fixed capital and difficulty of capital switching leads to uneven, unjust development

7. Why do cities in Global South have worse problems than in the Global North? • Lack of adequate capital in South? (liberal theories) • Uneven development (Marxist theories)

8. Cities in the Global South • Primacy • Dominant city is excessively large compared to secondary cities • Parasitism • Dominant city drains resources from other areas, rather than generating growth • Overurbanization • Urban population growth is more rapid than GDP and/or industrial growth

9. Urban Primacy • Demographic • Functional (economic, industrial)

12. Intra-national urban hierarchies in comparative perspective • Modernization theory analysis • US taken as norm for developed countries • Normal course of development assumed • Primacy seen as part of intermediate development stage • Political interventions (e.g., colonialism) can distort • The rank-size rule • Fully developed countries have log-normal distribution • Intranational urban hierarchy relates to economic functions

13. Primacy and Socio-spatial inequality • Primacy may express this inequality, but is it the cause? • inequality rooted in social relations • inequality expressed in, not caused by, spatial relations • Could primacy be altered without changing inequality? • examples of decentralization without greater equality • issues of intra-regional inequality and primacy • Could inequality be altered without reducing primacy? • possibility of reducing urban inequality in place • substantial national inequality might still remain

14. Primacy and the Environment • Some stresses on eco-systems from “too much” in one place • organic runoff pollutants in water systems • certain forms of air pollution (e.g., ozone) • Many eco-system stresses independent of concentration • environmental/occupational health threats • toxic chemicals and industrial waste • Could primacy be altered without reducing urban pollution? • Could disecologies be altered without reductions in primacy?

15. Problems with rank size rule, emphasis on primacy • US/North America taken as norm • Lognormal distribution not pervasive in the Global North

17. “Generative” vs. “parasitic” cities • Generative: impact on regional economic growth and cultural change is favorable • Parasitic: impact on regional economic growth and cultural change is unfavorable • Colonial contexts may have helped produce parasitism

18. “Overurbanization” • Urban growth > than GDP growth • Urbanization that leads to economic inefficiency • Urbanization that leads to social inequity • Urbanization that leads to political instability • Urbanization that leads to environmentally unsustainable growth

19. Connections between concepts • Primate cities may be part of overurbanization but need not be • Primate cities could be generative or parasitic • Overurbanization usually is seen as connected to parasitism