DOI: / Interwoven Cities

Transcription

1 DOI: / Interwoven Cities

2 Cities and the Global Politics of the Environment Series editors: Michele Acuto and Sofie Bouteligier are Senior Lecturer in Global Networks and Diplomacy and Associate Fellow at University College London, UK. Elizabeth Rapoport is Research Associate at University College, London. Editorial board: Neil Adger, Chadwick Alger, Michele Betsill, Lorraine Elliott, Peter M. Haas, Paul James, Kristine Kern, Karin Backstränd, Susan Parnell, Steve Rayner, Heike Schroeder More than half of humanity lives in cities, and by 2050 this might extend to three-quarters of the world s population. Cities now have an undeniable impact on world affairs: they constitute the hinges of the global economy, global information flows, and worldwide mobility of goods and people. Yet, they also represent a formidable challenge for the 21st Century. Cities are core drivers not only of this momentous urbanisation, but also have a key impact on the environment, human security and the economy. Building on the Palgrave Pivot initiative, this series aims at capturing these pivotal implications with a particular attention to the impact of cities on global environmental politics, and with a distinctive cross-disciplinary appeal that seeks to bridge urban studies, international relations, and global governance. In particular, the series explores three themes: 1) What is the impact of cities on the global politics of the environment? 2) To what extent can there be talk of an emerging global urban as a set of shared characteristics that link up cities worldwide? 3) How do new modes of thinking through the global environmental influence of cities help us to open up traditional frames for urban and international research? Titles include: Antonio A. R. Ioris WATER, STATE AND THE CITY Cities and the Global Politics of the Environment Series Standing Order ISBN Hardback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England DOI: /

3 Interwoven Cities Liam Magee Senior Research Fellow, Western Sydney University, Australia DOI: /

4 Liam Magee 2016 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act First published 2016 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: PDF ISBN: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. DOI: /

5 Contents List of Illustrations Series Editors Preface Acknowledgements About the Author vii viii x xii Introduction: Threads 1 1 Frictions in the Urban Fabric The total city Urbanisms of the new millennium Hyper-urbanism in the Global South Fabrics of a planetary urbanism Development of the super-suburb: Parramatta, Australia 30 2 Spreading Out the Fabric: Urban, Rural, Global Intertwining town and country The emergence of the global city Tangled threads of land registration: Phnom Penh, Cambodia 57 3 Upholding the Urban Fabric Reconditionings: dispositifs, assemblages, fabrics An analytic for a global urban fabric Weaving sustainable urban futures 75 DOI: / v

6 vi Contents 3.4 Refabricating the interwoven city Child trafficking on the new front of global urbanism: Siliguri, India 84 4 Refabricating the City Urban complexities: circuitry, networks, algorithms Computational epistemologies of the city Open fabrications The Janus Face of technification Simulating the interwoven city: Fierce Planet Sensing the Urban Fabric Opening up the forbidden city A carnivalesque urbanism Metis and the city Patterning the interwoven city Urban comedies of the commons 125 Conclusion: Reweaving the Global Urban Fabric 128 Bibliography 133 Index 150 DOI: /

7 List of Illustrations Figures 4.1 A basic settlement pattern A city skyline Metropolitan clustering Social networks Ecopolitan relations Cosmopolitan relations Cosmopolitan relations overhead image 110 Table 3.1 Combining Circles of Sustainability with the urban fabric analytic 79 DOI: / vii

8 Series Editors Preface The nature and future of cities globally is very much a shared problem. Cities do not stand alone as islands in a sea of globalised flows and transnational challenges, but rather exist in relation with each other and themselves as complex bundles of social, political and economic connections. Liam Magee s Interwoven Cities offers an important reminder to students of world politics, urban affairs and environmental studies alike that this complex urban fabric is today critical to understand the evolution of the urban age. Magee s work is an apt addition to this series collaborative and inquisitive ethos. As he puts it, cities are interwoven by an ensemble of urban fabrics, and we should not respond to such complexity with rigid disciplinary boundaries and individualist policies, but rather by drawing together a number of lines of contemporary urban critique and thinking through their possible renewal. As per the spirit of Cities and the Global Politics of the Environment, this is a book that challenges conventional thinking about cities by testing new analytical and theoretical ground, surpassing the tradition of relying on models developed through studies of the global North models. Magee argues that it might be necessary to extend the metaphor of the urban fabric to better grasp how the various systems linking cities internally and externally are now emerging. Equally important, Magee does this in order to offer us a chance to reflect on opportunities and strategies for remaking this urban fabric more effectively, justly and openly. In doing so the book tackles the problem of urban viii DOI: /

9 Series Editors Preface ix sustainability with a practical intention: Magee wants us to keep a keen eye on developing instruments for critique, assessment, or evaluation. Interwoven Cities already suggests some ways that a craft of city-making can be rethought sustainably. Ultimately, then, Liam Magee s contribution continues the eclectic mix of theoretical and case-study based explorations in the series, asking us to pay attention to the complex texture of the city and of the urban flows defining our time. And if the scope and complexity of the interwoven nature of cities might, as Magee points out, be partly beyond limits of comprehension this does not mean despair. Rather, as the book tells us, this should be seen as a call for even more critical questioning of our rapidly evolving and increasingly interconnected urbanised world. Michele Acuto Sofie Bouteligier and Elizabeth Rapoport DOI: /

10 Acknowledgements I am indebted to the extraordinary patience and generosity of a small group of people. Paul James has been a tireless discussant, reader and provocateur, and through his own critical and engaged work on cities and sustainability he has generated the academic impetus and practical opportunity for this book to emerge. Donna Mann has offered constant enthusiastic encouragement and demanded clarification where needed. Jakki Mann has been a vital intellectual and moral companion in our shared explorations of urban questions. A much wider group helped in the development of the book. With her time, and her critical acumen in relation to the junctures between social theory and technology, Nicole Pepperell has been unfailingly generous over many years. Discussions with Andy Scerri and Meg Holden were invaluable in shaping how a technologist might come to see problems of urban sustainability in new ways. Elizabeth Ryan, Julia Laidlaw, Felicity Cahill, Sandra Moye, and other colleagues at the UN Global Compact Cities Programme provided a welcome and engaging foundation for examining world cities and their relationships. Shai Diner gave further valuable support in the development of the Phnom Penh case study. I have also been immensely fortunate to work with Joyati Das, John van Kooy and David Lansley at World Vision. Teresa Swist, Ned Rossiter and David Sweeting offered much appreciated advice on early drafts. The greater intellectual community at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University has made decisive, significant impacts on the directions of x DOI: /

11 Acknowledgements xi the book. Over the longer term, I have benefited immeasurably from many years of friendship and discussion about technology and art with Tobias Granger, Gus Gollings, Lou Weis and Liz Magee. My father, Louis Magee, offered important background on Cambodia and helped develop a general concern for development in Asian cities. My son, Joshua, has been a significant intellectual foil on urban and environmental issues. My mother, Barbara Magee, is responsible for an abiding interest in the overlapping strands of culture, language and social welfare that intersect in the city. DOI: /

12 About the Author Liam Magee is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Australia. His current research focus is on the intersections between urban development and open source software cultures. xii DOI: /