Cities in World History - Introduction PDF

INTRODUCTION There is no idea of offering an encyclopaedia of urban developments, even less a conspectus of individual city histories. Rather the strategy is two fold: first, to present case studies of the main trends in the principal urban systems second, to offer a comparative analysis of some key...

INTRODUCTION There is no idea of offering an encyclopaedia of urban developments, even less a conspectus of individual city histories. Rather the strategy is two fold: first, to present case studies of the main trends in the principal urban systems second, to offer a comparative analysis of some key variables—power, population and migration, representations, environment, commercial networking, and so on—that help to explicate, distinguish, and interconnect those systems and networks. Developments and processes are examined over three broad periods: the early era from the origins of cities to around 600 CE the pre-modern era up to the 19th century the modern and contemporary period, from the 19th century to the present time What is clear is that while recent times have seen a growing degree of convergence between urban regions, urban systems, and urban structures across the world, the disparities and differentiation are still very striking. Thus, whereas the Americas, Japan, Europe, and Australasia have urbanization rates well above 70 per cent, the rates in Africa and Asia including the Middle East lag behind. Again the distribution of the urban population living in mega-cities is highly variable—much greater in Asia and the Americas than in Europe or Africa. We need to understand where cities, urban networks, and urban society have come from: the historic rollercoaster of urban growth, the evolution of urban hierarchies the way a range of key factors have shaped the formation of cities and urban networks We need to be able to compare developments in China, Japan, India, and the Middle East, as well as in Europe, the Americas, and Africa. There is no teleological agenda, no reductionist idea that cities develop along the same trajectory. There are many different types of city, many different urban inventions, most notably in the early period; by later times there may have been greater urban confluence. However, it is the fundamental contention of this work that the comparative study of the world’s urban communities in the past is a prerequisite for comprehending contemporary and future urban development on a global basis. COMPARATIVE APPROACHES TO URBAN HISTORY We are confronted by many challenges in a comparative approach—related to literature, definition, and conceptualization. First, literature. One of the paradoxes of urban studies, particularly urban history, is that 40 or 50 years ago there was lively interest in comparative research. One early influence came from Robert Park and the Chicago School which tried in the 1920s to construct a general model of the city, but their comparative analysis was superficial and largely geared to American cities. A more important impetus came from the French Annales School which after World War II was increasingly interested in urban studies. Following the example of Fernand Braudel’s La Méditerranée et le Monde Méditerranéen a l’époque de Philippe II (1949) which compared developments across southern Europe, North Africa, and (fleetingly) parts of the Near East, a series of French area studies shed comparative light on Middle Eastern and European cities with incidental illumination of Indian cities Another major stimulus for comparative research derived from the English translation of Max Weber’s The City in 1958. First published in 1921 Weber’s study argued strongly for the distinctive civic and communal identity of the European city rooted in its medieval Christian heritage with significant levels of urban autonomy—an ‘urban community in the full meaning of the word’ elsewhere in the Middle East and Asia communal identity and action was variable and incomplete without the distinctive civic burgher leadership of European towns. Though his argument has provoked continuing debate, Weber’s work gave important momentum to comparative work on Islamic and Chinese cities. A third influence in the 1950s and 1960s was the exciting research being done by social anthropologists on, for instance, contemporary American and African towns. This encouraged historians to highlight possible similarities between the cities of early modern Europe and present day urban structures and developments By the 1980s, however, comparative studies had started to run out of steam—for at least two reasons. One was the post-modernist reaction against broad comparative histories, so-called meta-narratives, as a kind of colonialist construct, an imperialist project. Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) argued that such an approach distorted our understanding of the Middle East and its world (though he says little about cities as such). Subsequent writers were even more critical of comparative area studies. Another reason was the extraordinary upsurge from the 1980s of specialist literatures, boosted by the growth of research institutes, specialist journals, and the like Even more problematic has been the way that national research communities have formulated their own distinct agendas of research prioritizing particular periods and themes. Trying to undertake comparative analysis across Europe is thus fraught with difficulty, certain urban topics being completely ignored in some countries but lavishly explored in others The challenge is how to direct this upsurge of specialist literature into a new comparative analysis of cities. Certainly the last decade or so has seen a revived appetite for comparative urban studies, fed in part by growing interest in globalization and the role of metropolitan cities in that process, and pioneered by sociologists and geographers. More recently research on the pre-history of globalization, in which Asianists and economic historians have been influential, has opened up crucial discussions, not just about the so-called Great Divergence between Asia and the West in the late 18th and 19th centuries, but about global living standards, manufacturing, marketing, and much else: in this analysis cities have steadily moved to centre stage Other challenges confront the student of global urbanization. Major difficulties are associated with defining what is meant by a city or town. Weber defined cities largely in institutional or communal terms. The German geographer Walter Christaller in the 1930s created a Central Place theory that used the provision of service functions for other settlements as the key criterion for urbanism; work that influenced researchers on China as well as Europe. Demographers like Josiah Russell and Kingsley Davis writing in the post-war era deployed population thresholds to define cities. Such simplicity can be treacherously misleading. It would seem sensible to adopt a non-prescriptive framework, recognizing the multifunctionality of urban communities over time. On this basis we might expect cities and towns, usually but not invariably, to have a relatively dense population concentration a range of economic functions complex social and political structures (but not necessarily institutional ones) a cultural influence extending beyond community borders a distinctive built environment—often distinguished by important public buildings and public spaces. But not all these definitional markers would be present at the same time. This kind of catholic definitional matrix avoids the rigid urban modelling that the post-colonialist critics of early comparative studies excoriated. It is not a perfect solution. Contemporary sprawling, mega-city regions do not fit easily into this picture, though at their centre there is often a multi-functional core on this model. The urbanization process in the past was far from being predictable or sustained. In the Ancient Period early towns often sprang up independently to meet local needs, but later urban patterns were frequently of wider significance. Of fundamental interest is why expansion (and sometimes contraction) was a general, nearglobal process at certain times, as in the great era of urban growth reaching from Asia to Europe during the 11th to 14th centuries, but not in others, as in the 17th and 19th centuries, when first Europe, and then later China and India stood outside the main urbanization trends. Regional differentiation at all levels is crucial to understanding the historic trends in urban growth. a shared concern of town dwellers has been with the provision and delivery of urban services. no less vital and related are how services are organized: the different types of agency—municipal, state, private, or mixed (including religious and voluntary organizations) the problems of finance, a critical issue for urban development. If there were a growing measure of convergence and interaction of urban networks from ancient and premodern times, what were the main vectors of connectivity? Two at least were critical: diasporas international trade While immigration was the life blood of cities, offsetting recurrent demographic deficits caused by high mortality, so it seems likely that ethnic migration, often large-scale and long-distance, was a powerful force for internationalism In the same way overseas commerce may from early times, and certainly by the 14th century, have connected up trading centres URBAN TRENDS IN EARLY TIMES Cities appear to have originated in Mesopotamia (modern Syria and Iraq) around the 4th millennium BCE, then appear in the Nile River valley, and afterwards are found across the Mediterranean world. Cities also emerge on an important scale in the Indus Valley during the mature Harappan era (2600–1900 BCE), and in China reached a high point of development by the 3rd millennium BCE Mesopotamian cities generally contained planned temple and palace complexes but unplanned neighbourhoods and areas of industry. Many cities were organic developments, with water supply, transport routes, hinterland links, and immigration critical to their development. Fewer were planted political cities, associated with regional states In the Mediterranean region we see the emergence of an integrated network of cities (often deliberate foundations) of a density and complexity that would not be matched until the early modern era. Communities were self-conscious of their urban identity and city evolution was shaped not just by economic activity (industry, services, and long-distance trade) but by norms of ordered space and relations to power. In the Indus Valley four to five major settlements developed into large fortified cities, with some craft industries and involvement in long-distance trade but compared to the Mediterranean and Middle East, urban centres appear the exception rather than the norm; and by the 2nd millennium BCE they were all in decline. Although early proto-urban settlements in China date from the 6th millennium BCE, by the mid3rd millennium BCE China had experienced, an urban revolution: numerous cities appeared often replete with large walled areas, ruling elites, and largely agricultural resources, though with some artisan workshops By the 1st century CE, developed urban systems are found in many areas of the world Generally, urban growth was promoted by: movement from the countryside agrarian improvement increased political stability the expansion of long-distance trade Thus across the Mediterranean and into the Middle East, mostly under Roman rule, we see a developed hierarchy of settlements led by metropoles like Rome with over a million people and Antioch and Alexandria, each having about half a million, but with a range of provincial capitals, major ports, and smaller cities We also find cities flourishing in China under the Western and Eastern Han dynasties. Their two great capitals Chang’an and Luoyang were extensively planned with palaces, temples, official buildings, markets, and crafts: Chang’an had around 250,000 people and Luoyang twice that figure. General growth of cities across the country was boosted by trade, strong government, and identification with Chinese culture. Urban developments also spring up elsewhere: for instance, the early Mayan and other Mesoamerican developments in central America. Fundamental to the growth of cities at this time, as in other eras, was migration, the data are often sparse and difficult to interpret. Still it is likely that with high mortality in cities—due to disease (for instance, malaria, plague) and environmental problems— migration flows were necessarily high to sustain the relatively advanced levels of urbanization. Mobility included not only forced movement by war captives and slaves but also voluntary migration by herdsmen, farmers, and craftsmen attracted by economic opportunities and charitable handouts in cities; among the movers were ethnic groups (for instance, Jews and Greeks at Alexandria). David Stone emphasizes the variation in the economies of early cities, highlighting the complexity of relations with the countryside (transfers of surpluses and taxes but also labour services and parasitism), as well as the variable significance of specialist producers, and the powerful economic interaction with ruling elites. He also points to the propensity of early cities to economic decline and disappearance, underlining the rollercoaster nature of urbanization Political power was frequently associated with religious and ceremonial structures that identified cities as distinct to the countryside, and interacted closely with urban society. But as J.A. Baird indicates cities were not only notable for the plurality of religious spaces (such as temples, sanctuaries, procession ways and walls) but the complex temporality and topography of religious and ritual life, serving both to demarcate social groups in the city and position it in wider urban networks, as well as projecting its image to the world. At the same time, the cultural matrix of the urban community was specific and individual —a legitimizing force for the city rather than the ruler Together power and culture defined the built environment of cities, Planning was particularly important in the case of the foundation of new cities both in China and the West. But whereas planning was a manifestation of power and cultural vision, it was also a response to the serious environmental problems facing virtually every ancient city such as water supply, sanitation, rubbish clearance, and traffic congestion. URBAN TRENDS IN THE PRE-MODERN ERA The Graeco-Roman network of cities divided into the Eastern and Western empires and then suffered major decline, especially in the West. Across the Middle East Muslim Arab conquests from the 7th century led to short-term upheaval with ancient cities occupied and new ones established. Chinese cities during the Age of Disunion (3rd to 6th centuries) suffered from instability and warfare. New capitals were established and urban fortifications extended, but growth was often short-lived. The Indian picture is obscure: cities after the Gupta kings experienced variations in urban growth, some centres in the north going into decline but others in the south flourishing Generally, political instability—tribal invasions into urban Europe; Muslim invasions of the Byzantine empire; political upheavals in India and China—had an impact. But the spread of pandemics, especially bubonic plague from the 3rd century, decimating populations, disrupting agriculture, and disturbing long-distance trade, equally contributed to the loss of urban traction Crucial was the commercialization of agriculture and intensification of trade the ambition of rulers the impact of an expansive Church the emerging cultural and intellectual identity of cities this period witnessed the development of the social, economic, and cultural specificity of towns, complementing their administrative role. Strong, rapid, dramatic, and uneven urbanization resulted from major demographic shifts, marketization, and commercialization—due to government policy as well as private initiative. In sum, this second great wave of global urbanization was driven by a number of powerful forces evident in many countries: the widespread growth of populations, helped by a diminution of epidemics increased agrarian output (due to a combination of more intensive and extensive farming) greater political stability—most notably the creation of the Mongol empire linked to this and other developments, the revival and efflorescence of intercontinental trade During the 14th and 15th centuries urban growth lost some of its momentum again and in some areas of the world may have gone into reverse. Demographic decline is evident for a number of the world’s leading cities, while few new urban centres were founded. Economically, the disruption of intercontinental, especially overland, trade between Asia, the Middle East, and Europe may have led to the reduced importance of urban industries, though urban services expanded. Influential was the return of plague pandemics from the early 14th century, spreading from China via central Asia to the Middle East and Europe, depressing urban populations, agriculture, and long-distance trade. Also significant was the break-up of the Mongol empire and other forms of political instability in Europe, the Middle East, and India. Yet the picture was varied on the ground. In Europe depopulation meant city buildings became uninhabited and economic life disrupted; but the main urban networks survived, and there was a growth of new services, cultural industries, and luxury trades, as cities in north-west Europe started to outshine those in the Mediterranean. The urban rollercoaster lurched forward again during the 16th to 18th centuries. Why? One common factor was: The renewed agricultural improvement and the increasing sophistication of agrarian trade the rise of global maritime trade between the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe that provided impetus for industrial production and urban consumption the new consolidation of state power in Asia, the Middle East (under the Ottoman and Safavid empires) in Europe (with the advent of more effective, often centralized states), and the extension of European rule to the Americas. Many new towns were established—in China, Japan, but also in Europe and Latin America— and there was the development of a necklace of interconnected international port cities from Havana to Manila, Guangzhou, Nagasaki, Batavia, Bombay, Amsterdam, London, and Philadelphia. The resurgence of urban growth was particularly remarkable and sustained in China under the later Ming and Qing, marked by an upsurge of periodic markets and market towns, while the great port of Guangzhou flourished in the 18th century as a hub for international trade. Urbanization was underpinned by the production of bulk staples linked to agricultural commercialization, the expansion of interregional trade and large-scale exports of manufactured goods such as silks and ceramics. By the end of the 18th century the Chinese urban system seemed to be treading water, despite the proliferation of small commercial cities and towns, while in India political fragmentation and instability after the fall of the Mughal empire, together with Western political and commercial penetration of coastal regions disrupted the urban system and privileged colonial port cities at the expense of inland towns. Probably the world’s most dynamic urban system of the early modern era was in Japan. After the end of the 16th century civil wars the Japanese urban system was restructured with the creation of a new administrative capital, Edo (Tokyo), which was home to over a million inhabitants by the 1720s, the rise of important provincial castle towns, and the advent of many market towns. At the start of the 18th century the urbanization rate may have reached over 15 per cent. Here little impetus came from overseas trade (strictly regulated from the 1630s) but from: agrarian innovation commercial integration infrastructure investment political stability The Middle East likewise enjoyed strong urban growth into the 18th century under the dual dominance of the powerful Ottoman and Safavid (Persian) empires, which provided greater security and opportunities for manufactures and international commerce with Asia and Europe. During the 18th century the commercial significance of the region suffered competition from the oceanic trade routes, and some industries lost out to European imports: but there remained significant urbanization and urban prosperity until the last decades of the century. Europe experienced the most volatile change, as the urban revival of the 16th and early 17th centuries, signalled by the rise of capital cities in all regions and the foundation of hundreds of new market towns, was succeeded by urban stagnation or decline. Deceleration was caused by: economic political instability extensive warfare high levels of epidemic disease Recovery in the late 18th century was limited and marked by urbanization from below, including the renewed dynamism of small towns having agrarian and industrial functions and boosted by general population growth. Only in England (and later in the southern Low Countries) do we find a new kind of urbanization powered by: innovative technology improved transport more intensive and productive agriculture heavy investment in international trade most evidently with the Americas but also with Asia. Nonetheless, right across Europe cultural life and material culture were urbanized Across the Atlantic, Spanish conquistadores, built on limited but important networks of preColumbian cities to create one of the most extensive systems of new towns—ports, mining towns, and administrative centres—in the world. Initially focused on the extraction of bullion for export to Asia and Europe, by the 18th century the region’s thousand or so towns were more concerned with local and international trade in agrarian goods (sugar, tobacco, cocoa, coffee). In contrast, up to the end of the 18th century major North American cities were relatively few, all Atlantic ports like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston; and a more developed urban hierarchy including smaller market centres was confined to New England and some of the mid-Atlantic states. In 1800 a maximum of 6 per cent of people lived in urban communities as most European immigrants settled in rural areas. In Africa urban growth as in the past was unstable and mainly clustered in coastal areas: in the Niger area and Gold Coast, influenced by European traffic in slaves, ivory, and imported goods and also by state formation in East Africa succoured by Islamic and Portuguese trade to the Middle East and across the Indian Ocean in the south focused on the Dutch settlement at Cape Town with its global transit activity Urban growth from the 16th century was propelled by widespread demographic expansion— despite the continuing high incidence of epidemic disease in all major cities. Population growth frequently outran economic expansion and in most cities, as in earlier periods there was endemic poverty (and social inequality), housing shortages, poor nutrition, and morbidity. Recurrent population deficits, as mortality exceeded fertility rates, confirmed the critical reliance on large-scale immigration. If more forced migration occurred in Asia than Europe, in other ways the typology of mobility was broadly similar, distinguished by: short distance migration of poorer folk often from the countryside more long-distance intercity movement by merchants, officials, and the like ethnic and female migration. Patterns of integration in China may have been less institutional than in Europe with its municipal controls, more dependent on native place associations In Ch. 21 Bas van Bavel, Jan Luiten van Zanden, Eltjo Buringh, and Maarten Bosker emphasize the importance of political institutions, particularly more open participatory government and greater urban autonomy, in contributing to the faster economic growth of European cities by the 18th century. They also point to the same factors influencing the rise of the Atlantic urban region in the early modern period, laying the foundations for the first Great Divergence between East and West Relative autonomy and municipal institutions made European communities distinctive, but nonEuropean cities could also develop a voluntaristic public sphere and exploit the opportunities provided by weak rulers. What is evident is that the new consolidation of state power in Asia, the Middle East, and in Europe and the extension of European rule to the Americas and beyond were crucial to global urban development in the early modern era. Cities became the privileged hubs of expanded state power. URBAN TRENDS IN THE MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY PERIOD Before, Asian cities had been among the biggest, most advanced, and most dynamic in the world, but by the early 19th century West European cities were picking up the baton. The so-called Great Divergence was not only of major significance for global economic history but also for the development of urban systems across the world. Thus, urbanization began to accelerate in Europe, led by Britain and Belgium, whilst Chinese, Japanese, and Indian rates stabilized or stagnated. But before the 1850s the urban transformation in the West was selective. True, European capital cities like London, Paris, and Brussels grew strongly and there was an upsurge of specialist towns, including new industrial centres, global port cities, and early leisure towns, and the invasive export of colonial towns. Yet European cities retained many traditional features and in consequence they were slow to adapt to the mounting social pressures of urbanization. In 1850 the vast majority of humankind still lived outside cities and towns and, even those who were town dwellers for the great part inhabited communities that were essentially pre-modern in organization and environment. The era from the late 19th century to World War II marked the onset of the third great age of urbanization. European cities forged ahead on many fronts: in accelerating urbanization rates in the proliferation of big cities (123 by 1910, three times the number in 1850) the creation of new models of urban culture, society, and active municipal governance which had a powerful influence across the world. Though Western Europe led the way, Europe’s less urbanized regions in the north and east soon began to catch up. Both in Europe and North America urban growth was propelled by an increase in natural population as mortality rates declined. Nonetheless rural to town migration remained important, just as international ethnic movement was increasingly significant, especially from Europe to the cities of North America, but also within Europe. Economically, the spread of new technology and rising productivity was vital, but so too was the expansion of the service sector in response to rising urban living standards. Again world commerce, with free trade policies dominant at least until near the close of the 19th century, surged forward, powered by steamships and railways. the ascendancy of strong national governments in Europe and the United States served to protect and bolster the interests of Western cities in the global marketplace, supporting protectionism when it suited them elsewhere governments were often weak or under colonial sway Outside Europe and North America, urban systems were slow to expand. Imperial China saw only limited changes with traditional administrative structures, ancient regional patterns, and inter-regional trade countering the dynamic effects of international trade and Western urban models, both centred on the coastal area of the treaty ports. Under the Chinese Republic (after 1911) the new impetus for Western-style innovation—in industry, urban planning, and culture—was largely stymied by political instability, warfare, and Japanese competition. Likewise, South Asia experienced urban stagnation during the long 19th century, albeit with spurts of growth—mostly concentrated in imperial ports like Bombay and Calcutta. From the 1930s, however, urbanization was fed by urban economic growth and large-scale migration (in flight from rural deprivation). Likewise under imperial rule, South East Asia similarly enjoyed only limited urban expansion before World War II. Japan was the exception. After the Meiji Restoration (1868) urban change was initially slow, but from the end of the 19th century Western-style industrialization, along with state reforms, energized modern urbanization —building on the advanced urban system of the early modern era. By the 1920s urbanization rates had reached 18 per cent, the big cities were growing fast (Tokyo, for instance, numbered nearly 4 million at the time of the 1923 earthquake), while the urban infrastructure was modernized with the introduction of town planning and social welfare reforms. In the Middle East the impetus for urban growth during the 19th century, exemplified by the revival of Istanbul, Cairo, and Baghdad, stemmed from Ottoman: administrative reforms (including the recognition of some municipal autonomy) favourable terms of trade infrastructure improvements the powerful impact of European metropolitan models on urban development and planning In Africa, as Bill Freund explains, urban growth remained highly selective, during the 19th century mainly limited to areas of European commercial and colonial intervention—most obviously South, North, and West Africa. Nonetheless, from the 1930s one finds accelerating urbanization across the continent as scrappy colonial towns turned into expansive cities, their growth fuelled by heavy migration from the countryside. In Latin America, the post-independence decades suffered general stagnation, but as Alan Gilbert contends in Ch. 26, from the late 19th century booming Atlantic trade, foreign investment, and European immigration, as well as state formation, led to an urbanization surge in the south and the rise of Buenos Aires, Rio, and Santiago as modern cities Around 1930 Latin America’s urbanization rate still stood at only 14 per cent, but thereafter accelerated sharply. Crucial factors were general demographic increase and the emergence of urban manufactures, encouraging rural movement to town Inaugurating a time of dramatic change, the late 20th century saw the onset of a new urban world. The transformed pattern of global urbanization by 2000 is visible from Table 1.3. First, after World War II urban growth rates began to rise sharply in East Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, though Africa trailed behind until recent years; by comparison European and North American urbanization rates broadly stagnated from the 1970s— reflecting the onset of the Second Great Divergence in economic and urban development. Secondly, and no less striking, a significant proportion of the accelerated urban growth in the expanding countries was concentrated in a score or so of mega-cities (above 10 million) from Shanghai to Cairo and Mexico City; relatively few new towns were founded. Thirdly, the earlier specialist cities—industrial towns and global port cities—suffered serious set-backs, not only in Europe and North America but (where they were established) in Asia too. Lastly, there has been a major expansion of urban services, though with a significant shortfall of provision in many developing countries; even in North America and parts of Europe the major municipal advance of the post-war decades stalled from the 1970s and 1980s, affected by privatization, segmentation, and fragmentation of provision the North American system has experienced major upheaval since the late 20th century: the decay of old industrial cities the relentless suburbanization of cities (a solid majority of North Americans living there by 1990) problems of municipal finance and governance. No less striking were regional trends: the stagnation of the urban Midwest and the North East, but the new vitality of the Sun-Belt cities of the West and South, buoyed up by immigration, leisure, and defence industries the rise of mega-regions (for instance the Boston–Washington corridor and Chicago– Toronto–Pittsburgh cluster). Across the Atlantic, European cities recovered rapidly from World War II and the planned city enjoyed its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s. Since the 1980s however de-industrialization, mounting social problems associated with unemployment and ethnic immigration, suburban growth, and financial retrenchment have posed major challenges for European cities. Even so, for much of the period up to 2010 they maintained (by global standards) relatively high levels of social cohesion and stability, prosperity, and civic identity By comparison to cities elsewhere European cities are generally striking for their modest size In the Gulf region virtually new cities such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi have been created, boosted by gushing oil revenues and powerful state intervention, while in Turkey cities have benefited from increased industrialization and tourism. Too often, urban development in the post-war era was distorted by the hegemony of state capitals, political instability (warfare and disruption of elites), and the nationalist policies of authoritarian regimes. From the 1990s, however, a new wave of globalization linked to economic liberalization has stimulated renewed urban growth and modernization In China, the post-war era saw the Communist Party try to remodel and reconstruct cities on the Soviet model and rebalance the urban system away from the coast towards the interior (with, for instance, the establishment of Soviet-style industrial towns). But since the political reforms of the 1980s such policies have been reversed; economic planning has been decentralized and state and foreign investment channelled towards burgeoning port and industrial centres on the south coast: thus the creation of Special Economic Zones at Shenzen and Pudong has triggered the rise of mega-cities with high levels of immigration, housing shortages, pollution, and other problems In South Asia too the post-war decades under nationalist governments (with anti-urban sentiment in vogue) led to a slowdown in urban expansion but economic liberalization since the 1990s has contributed to accelerating urban economic growth. states have played a vital part in building new capitals and industrial towns, influencing economic policy and restricting civic autonomy. In South East Asia, a similar pattern of delayed development is visible. Since the 1980s there has been an explosion of sprawling large cities, with twenty boasting over a million inhabitants in 2010, including three mega-cities, Jakarta, Manila, and Bangkok, with over 10 million. Here international trade and state investment have played critical roles, as well as migration from an overcrowded countryside. By comparison, Australian cities have seen more modest but affluent growth, erected on a colonial heritage, Western capital, and immigration, and exploiting the new commercial and industrial opportunities offered by a dynamic East Asia. In Japan urban development during the late 20th century has been long term and sustained. Overcoming the destruction caused by World War II, the Japanese landscape was transformed from the 1950s by urbanization and industrialization. Growth was initially based quite widely, though mainly in the Tokaido corridor from Tokyo to Osaka. However, from the 1980s the focus concentrated on the Tokyo metropolitan area, marked by intensive vertical as well as horizontal building development. Sponsored strongly by the state, Tokyo has become the hegemonic capital of Japanese high finance, commerce, and industrial direction, controlling an empire of factories that are increasingly located outside Japan: in consequence some of the leading provincial and older industrial towns in the country have stagnated or declined Outside Asia the most dynamic urbanizing region has been Latin America. Expansion has been fed by large-scale rural migration to town (up to the 1980s) and structured around the runaway rise of a cohort of six or seven mega-cities—mostly capitals and ports— that have benefited from foreign investment, expanding manufactures, and international trade. Though metropolitan growth is slowing, still in numerous countries the leading city contains a quarter or more of the total population. Metropolitan concentration has left the vast majority of smaller cities and towns marginally integrated into the wider international economy. As elsewhere, the outcomes of mega growth have been mixed: improved living standards, primarily but not exclusively among the urban middle classes, have to be set against widespread pollution, traffic problems, and the urbanization of poverty. In post-colonial Africa urban growth was at first strong, driven by high state investment in new capitals and public infrastructure, by exports of raw materials, and by heavy rural immigration; but by the 1980s it had largely ran out of steam due to governmental failures, the changing terms of trade, declining Western support, and falling migration. However, recently urbanization has revived in much of Africa, despite limited urban investment or growth of production. Rather, newcomers to the city are attracted by urban entertainment and culture and the superior health and education facilities, as well as government activity, concentrated there. Behind this reordering of global urban systems in the late 20th century we can identify a number of core determining factors: relative declines in: industrial output technological leadership labour productivity in European and North American cities major population growth in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, leading to large-scale movement from the countryside; expansive global trade, boosted by transport advances and renewed liberalization, but now restructured and more evenly balanced towards nonWestern countries the growing problem of state–city relations in many parts of Europe and North America the growth of an engineering culture in the West the rise of dynamic business elites state support for business including urban production and overseas trade inputs from the rural economy, through transfers of surplus agrarian capital to the urban industrial sector, through the role of smaller towns as growth centres cheap workers from rural immigration. To the present day, cities remain confections of movers. Leo Lucassen (Ch. 35) discusses the importance of: migration and ethnicity in modern urban development and pinpoints traditional aspects the high volatility of mobility the importance of temporary movement the fundamental problem of social integration (with a balance of informal assimilative agencies and state policies at play migration to cities clearly has a fundamental impact on urban social inequality, serving as one of the vital causes of poverty turning into an urban phenomenon (though with wide variations between regions). At the same time, Gilbert also shows the complex effect of globalization and international capital flows, and contends that while social polarization and segregation have increased, largescale communal agitation and protest have not. This he attributes to modestly rising living standards and improved welfare provision by states and urban governments in developing countries Words Excoriate = criticize (someone) severely.