Foreword

by German Solinís
and Françoise Lieberherr-Gardiol

Historical perspectives

Globalization and new features of urbanization

“Contemplating these essential landscapes, Kublai reflected on the invisible order that sustains cities, on the rules that decreed how they rise, take shape and prosper, adapting themselves to the seasons, and then how they sadden and fall in ruins.

At times he thought he was on the verge of discovering a coherent, harmonious system underlying the infinite deformities and discords”

By transforming spaces and societies, expanding cities are restructuring territories and their inhabitants as well as institutions and the actors who govern them. Assimilated into modernity and progress in the wake of war, urbanization followed the path towards economic development. At the end of the twentieth century, globalization, through the introduction of a new structure of the world, increased social transformations and conferred to cities new roles while creating new dynamics around the questions of security, governance and environment.  And in the twenty-first century, still in the era of globalization, transformations in the world geopolitical context has led to emerging relations and influence of power characterized by non western values in certain Southern countries.

In the accelerated urbanization that the contemporary world is facing, this collective book [1] is looking for a better understanding of the recent evolution of cities over the past forty years. It was born out of a reflection on the dynamics characterizing territories, institutions and actors at various scales. It is also the result of the awareness that urbanization is a major and irreversible change that not only modifies deeply societies, their values, their way of life, making cities as economic, social and cultural engines but also represents dangerous sources of collective threats in the field of environment, health, instability and exclusion.

The first reflections explored led us to a book structured in three chronological parts. The first part, historical perspectives, tackles urban evolution through international cooperation and social movements. The second part questions about regulations in the context of globalization, from governance, through participatory democracy to sustainable development, while the third section presents responses to urban challenges produced by three of the most important countries in our current global structure: Brazil, China and India. The conclusion provides us a reflection on the major challenges of the future. In its global scope, the book turns towards the vision of a multipolar world not Western-centered.

The authors of this book have highlighted three aspects: the urbanization phenomenon as a historical process and therefore as a demonstration of ongoing social transformation; the approaches of various urban areas and thirdly, concrete practices in various geopolitical and socio-cultural contexts.

Despite the complexity of the urban issue today, the book’s structure holds a single objective: better understand and consider the transformation operating in cities through a multidisciplinary vision combining analytical, conceptual and critical points of views. With an international frame of experiences, the various contributions try to seize how strategies of intervention interact with institutions at different levels -international, national and local-, which answers urban problems find, how local actors participate in the formation of the city.

The originality of this book lies in a methodological process that combines a global approach of the urban questions and the multidisciplinary approaches of eleven internationally renowned authors in the field of urban studies from various perspectives of the academic world, international organizations and civil society. The articles of this book bring a theoretical contribution as well as case studies in majority of Southern cities, which increasing importance is proved by demographic perspectives that evaluate that nine urban dwellers out of ten will live in the South in 2025.

This book is not a simple collection of contributions concerning a common theme, but results from a double approach: on the one hand the collective construction of a problematic and of its issues, and on the other hand the individual reflection of the authors of the different articles who have developed their contributions from their respective fields of research. If the distribution of articles in three parts aims at clarifying the perception of the theme of cities, the authors in their respective articles make reference to historical and conceptual references that impose on us a transversal interpretation of the urban issues in this presentation.

Historical perspectives

In the recent history, decolonization has introduced deep transformations on institutional issues and on the way actors interact in the international, national or local areas by modifying the power struggle, and cities in their increased dynamic have found new challenges and threats. Therefore, in the past forty years, by creating a framework of reference, international cooperation has launched urban operations over the world. This book sets some fundamental questions: How, in the course of these processes, has international cooperation tackled and defined the urban issues, bringing consequently its own contribution to the general debate ? How has international cooperation tried to define norms in a broad sense of political trends for town planning ? And finally, how have these norms been conveyed in policies, producing implementation practices within a widened network of actors ?

Cooperation is thus understood in a broad sense, not only in its multilateral or bilateral scope, but also as a process undertaken by private interventions which may include decision-makers, development agencies, experts and consultants, universities, researchers and think-tanks, businesses, local communities and citizens, etc. This is therefore about the creation and evolution of a space for exchange linking knowledge, policies, instruments and actors in their action on urban area.

Urban policies are the catalyzing centre of this space for discussion and they must be based on public interest. For, as Gustave Massiah expounds in his chapter “an urban policy is a way of implementing, in a given situation, the strategy of social transformation conceptualized into a development model”. For his part, Adrian Atkinson insists in his text on the “quality of political decision-making and adequate knowledge all the way from decision-makers and government staff down to the ordinary citizen, whose everyday practice contributes to the problems”. The forms and dispositions of urban policies have changed over the past forty years: “From 1976 to 1986, master planning disappeared progressively from the priorities of developing countries… Between 1982 and 1986, a new concept of urban management emerged. The idea was to replace long-term physical planning, with daily action-oriented urban management… urban plans were designed by bureaucrats and experts, generally ignoring political and social dynamics of the city”, as Daniel Biau explains in his chapter.

Nevertheless, the authors do not dwell on issues connected solely with urban growth and the appropriateness of its organization. The new urbanization processes also bring into play important issues of a qualitative nature. If urbanization has been brought into the development sphere, this is precisely because it is basically a phenomenon of a social, cultural and political nature that it involves having a development model at its root. In this respect, Gustave Massiah reminds us that to each development model there is a corresponding urban model and to each development policy there is a corresponding urban policy. Adrian Atkinson and Françoise Lieberherr-Gardiol also underline the fact that the notion of development, as an expression of modernity, has been imposed by the North on the South with neoliberal dominating values.

In addition, urban policies depend on the articulation of the levels and scales between the local, national and global. At the local level, the links between the population, the territory and economic activities are concretizing with a social and environmental responsibility of the entire local community in a democratic contract. The national level creates the legitimacy of the regulations for wealth distribution, social justice and international relations in an interstate global order, whereas in the global arena challenges are setting up regarding the environmental urgency and democratic demand of the geopolitical system.

At these various levels of decision and intervention many actors are interacting, decision-makers, public institutions, private companies or citizens. Therefore social movements highlight the roles and responsibilities of the different actors that are in direct leverage with the urban life and urban production. If in the 1970s new ideas were developed on the right to housing, the imbalances created by structural adjustments programs are accompanied by a rise in inequality, exclusion and poverty since the 1980s. Land occupations and hunger riots illustrate the resistances. Municipalities assert their autonomy and the inhabitants get organized to demand rights for the city by creating solidarity and citizen associations, in a context of crisis. Therefore social movements that are holders of social transformations, which fight for the homeless and land security, for the migrants and the landless, against the expulsions and unemployment in Europe and North America, in Latin America and Asia, are currently being developed as reported by Gustave Massiah. Local policies play an important part of experimentation and social alternatives between the constraints of the economic markets and citizen’s demand to ensure the common good and the general interest. Places like the World Social Forum (WSF) or the Local Governments Forum (UCLG) born along with the 21^st Century reassert the importance of towns on the world stage and contribute to the renewal of a democratic transition through approaches with different origins such as the Agenda 21, participatory budgeting, urban consultations or local communities’ networks.

We should not forget that urbanization is above all a historical process (described by German Solinís and Thierry Paquot), linked moreover to social transformations, in spite of the too important consideration of its political and economic dimensions. Urbanization of the twenty-first century corresponds to a breach in its evolution. The new nature of its current phase, strongly influenced by globalization, is one of the major issues that must be resolved, understood and taken into account in urban policies and the mechanisms of future international cooperation. Getting to grips with the future of the urban issues is doubtless the main challenge for specialist research, and for town and country planning.

Globalization and new features
of urbanization

From the “urban issue” of the past century (G. Solinis and T. Paquot), specific features of urban reality have increased significantly due to globalization. On the first hand migrations, either economic, environmental or due to war, demand new answers for host countries and re-settling in a time-frame shortened by increased mobility. They modify relations that populations have with their regions and set new questions regarding wealth distribution and the rights of migrants (G. Massiah). Decentralization, linked to the importance that local level has acquired, appears as the second feature in today’s urban society. This is significant not only because of its dialectic relations with globalization but also because of its implications in the development of citizenship and the exercise of democracy (F. Lieberherr-Gardiol, G. Massiah and I. Milbert). Finally, questions regarding security reveal one of the perverse effects of social organization’s problems nowadays where delinquency should be tackled by policies of social cohesion and better governance. Insecurity, which is linked to fear and violence, can appear as a symptom of the urban divide where vulnerable and poor populations are the most threatened. (F. Vanderschueren).

Pursuing the analyses, the articles in this book also present other characteristics of urban processes that appear as necessary strategic conditions to be taken into account for an urbanization of quality. The first of these conditions is of a paradigmatic nature. Thus, three authors give us their comprehensive, promising, critical views on sustainable urbanization linked to environmental sustainability as a new paradigm integrating three dimensions of urban development: economic, social and environmental (A. Atkinson, G. Allegretti, E. Fernándes).

The second principle is normative as the result of a fight that has been led for years for the recognition of a new human right, “the right to the city”. It was made official in the 1996 Istanbul Declaration, on the one hand inspired by the demands of citizens focused mainly at the time on the “right to housing” and, on the other hand by Henri Lefebvre’s broader analysis on urban spaces in 1968 in the circle of influence of social movements at that time. In general, the term refers to a holistic view of social, economic, political and cultural equality which would ensure social inclusiveness (G. Allegretti).

The third condition is based on the essential values of modern democracy and touches on the broad, ambiguous field of democratic governance. Characterized by a multisectoral and common vision of the city, such a democratic governance engages in a public-private-citizen partnership involving negotiated rules and shared responsibilities. The participation of inhabitants as citizens in decision-making, thus intersects participatory democracy and its urban mechanisms, principally the famous “participatory budget”. Urban agglomerations may renew a genuine political contract between representatives and citizens regarding the value of public interest and the sharing of local resources. (F. Lieberherr-Gardiol, G. Allegretti and D. Westendorff).

Together with democratic ideals, with a view to accomplishing an urbanization of quality, social equity of the territory seems to be last principle. While accepting that the urban divide is a new characteristic of urban space today, the alternative is territorial affirmative action combating the inequalities of current development in terms of housing, transport or employment and promoting social inclusion (D. Biau, G. Allegretti, E. Fernándes).

The global urban framework gathers in the South 23 of the 27 megalopolis exceeding ten million inhabitants, and three emerging countries economically and politically dynamic – India, China and Brazil- were undertaking urban projects of global importance at the turn of the century. Throughout their urban policies, each country implements an economic and social transformation strategy shaped by diverse elements of the urban patterns, from the colonial to the world liberal. In a balancing process between North and South, they take part in a new international geopolitical system.

In these three countries that are illustrative of an urban dynamic in the South, the trend of massive urbanization over the past two decades is analyzed by Isabelle Milbert, David Westendorff and Edesio Fernandes under an angle of governance in specific sociopolitical contexts and different institutional frameworks. Without getting into a non relevant comparative analysis considering the distinct approaches, we can identify several global considerations on the side of very deep analysis of each case.

Urban development is always taking place in parallel of a steady economic development, with economic liberalization in India and Brazil and State capitalism in China, and it builds on a recent democratic basis around the end of the 20^th century in a political modernization idea, and under a particular form known as “socialist democracy” in China. Urban democracy as such, rises up with its legal frames fifteen years ago, under the frame of the Indian decentralized government, the Chinese harmonious city and the  Brazilian right to city. For a similar issue, that is to say the creation of the conditions needed for a livable city for everyone, the three emerging countries are going to call for different approaches and instrumentations.

From the Law of Decentralization (India 1992), the Status of Cities and its Ministry (Brazil 2001) or the 11^th Chinese Five-year Plan (2006), local authorities’ power and citizen participation are still at the centre of concerns but at various degrees until its most pioneer form in Brazil. In particular, the rights of the poor, minorities, women, migrants, are formally recognized creating the multiplication of social actors in urban management. However, regarding the reforms of this scope that affect thousands of municipalities modifying fundamentally the internal balances of the State as well as mentalities and the culture of citizen responsibility, the rhythm of their implementation are hindered by all the malfunctioning linked to corruption, land speculation, electoral vote-catching, bureaucratic inertia, the rise of inequalities. With a major trend to the urban privatization of spaces, services, investments, these emerging cities in the beginning of the 21^st century appear as laboratories of the future urbanization, among the typology of urban forms and their challenges as set by Thierry Paquot.

As a conclusion, this book is meant to be multidimensional in its approaches, references and themes, and transversal in a vision and interpretation of cities throughout the world. The international renowned eleven authors come from different backgrounds –international organizations, civil society, universities- and share in this publication, there experience of researchers, teachers, independent experts, international civil servants and representatives of citizen movements. The diversity of their respective disciplines, political and economic sciences, sociology, and anthropology, urbanism and geography enables to better apprehend urban complexity in its opportunities, threats and challenges. Their contributions have been produced independently of any institutional attachments and prompted solely by their interest and passion for urban questions that commit them, beyond analyses and expertise, in their part of citizen.

The reflections contained in the articles review both North and South and carry us in four continents- Latin America, Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe. Experiences of middle-sized cities or Chinese, Indian or Brazilian metropolis do not target an overall urban situation, but a deep insight of the urban problematic in their various geopolitical and socio-cultural contexts.

In their attempts to conceptualize urban questions differently and to reflect on cities after the post-colonial age in a globalized society that is not exclusively westernized, the authors are really setting themselves in the 21^st century and its multipolar world with an assessment of successes, dysfunctions and failures. The place entitled to Southern cities corresponds to the increased urbanization in these countries and a new consideration regarding a trend of dewesternization. The scale of perspectives and ideas and the relevancy of information in this book are a genuine source for searchers, urban planners and decision-makers in the field of urban development and environment.