Comparative Urbanism

Jennifer Robinson is Professor of Human Geography, University College London, UK. She is the author of Ordinary Cities, a seminal work which developed a postcolonial critique of urban studies. Her empirical research in South Africa examined the history of apartheid cities and the politics of post-apartheid city-visioning, while her comparative research has considered urban development politics in London, Shanghai and Johannesburg, and transnational circuits shaping African urbanisation.

‘Comparative Urbanism fully transforms the scope and purpose of urban studies today, distilling innovative conceptual and methodological tools. The theoretical and empirical scope is astounding, enlightening, emboldening. Robinson peels away conceptual labels that have anointed some cities as paradigmatic and left others as mere copies. She recalibrates overly used theoretical perspectives, resurrects forgotten ones long in need of a dusting off, and brings to the fore those often marginalised. Robinson’s approach radically re-distributes who speaks for the urban, and which urban conditions shape our theoretical understandings. With Comparative Urbanism in our hands, we can start the practice of urban studies anywhere and be relevant to any number of elsewheres.’Jane M. Jacobs, Professor of Urban Studies, Yale-NUS College, Singapore  ‘How to think the multiplicity of urban realities at the same time, across different times and rhythmic arrangements; how to move with the emergences and stand-stills, with conceptualisations that do justice to all things gathered under the name of the urban. How to imagine comparatively amongst differences that remain different, individualised outcomes, but yet exist in-common. No book has so carefully conducted a specifically urban philosophy on these matters, capable of beginning and ending anywhere.’AbdouMaliq Simone, Senior Research Fellow, Urban Institute, University of Sheffield‘Jenny Robinson’s strong belief in the need to experiment with comparative methods, theories and concepts in urban studies for ‘a globally diverse urban’ has long inspired many of us. In this book, she takes this plea forward in a comprehensive journey through philosophy, anthropology and geography. Her wonderful voice in this book takes the reader by the hand through a landscape of ideas and a heartfully felt passion for comparative urbanism. Written by one of the most original geographers of our times, it provides resources to make interdisciplinary scholarship work by drawing on many theoretical angles from various corners of the field of social sciences and humanities. It is a must-read for all of us interested in that ‘impossible’ object of our studies, the urban, whether we are starting to explore this field of study or share the dearly felt need to re-imagine our central concepts in this rapidly changing world.’Talja Blokland, Department of Social Sciences, Humboldt-University of Berlin

• Series Editors’ Preface Preface ixIntroduction 1Part I Reformatting Comparison 231 Ways of Knowing the Global Urban 25Uncertain Territories, ‘Strategic Essentialisms’: Regions, the Global South and beyond 27The Disappearing City: Planetary Urbanisation and its Critics 35Decolonial, Developmental, Emergent: Different Starting Points, or Incomparability? 41Dimensions of a Comparative Urban Imagination 47Conclusion 502 The Limits of Comparative Methodologies in Urban Studies 53Some Analytical Limits to the ‘World’ of Cities: Beyond Incommensurability 54Conventional Strategies for Comparison in Urban Studies 57The Potential of Comparative Research 69Conclusion 763 Comparative Urbanism in the Archives: Thinking with Variety, Thinking with Connections 79Expanding the Comparative Gesture 80Thinking with Variety 83Stretching Comparisons: Thinking with Connections 91Conclusion 1044 Thinking Cities through Elsewhere: Reformatting Comparison 107Thinking with Concrete Totalities 108Singularities, Repeated Instances, Concepts 119Genetic and Generative Grounds for Urban Comparisons 125Conclusion: From Grounds to Tactics 128Part II Genetic Comparisons 1355 Connections 137Connections as Urbanisation Processes 138Connections Producing Repeated Instances 146Every Case Matters 154Conclusion 1596 Relations 161Wider Processes 164Urban Neoliberalisation, Comparatively 171Connected Contexts 186More Spatialities of the Urban: Topologies, Partial Connections, Submarine Relations 191Conclusion 195Part III Generative Comparisons 1997 Generating Concepts 201The Conceptualising Subject: Institutions, Horizons, Grounds 204A Life of Concepts: Ideal Types 217Thinking the ‘Concrete’ 230Negotiated Universals: Concepts ‘In-common’ 235Conclusion 2438 Composing Comparisons 247Working with ‘Conjuncture’ 249Conceptualising from Specificity 263Thinking across Diversity 271Conclusion 2769 Conversations 279Shifting Grounds: Comparison as Practice 280Comparison as Conversations 284Theoretical Reflections 292Mobile Concepts, or ‘Arriving at’ Concepts 295Conclusion 301Part IV Thinking from the Urban as Distinctive 30510 Territories 307Thinking from Territories 308Which Territorialisations? 312Assembling Territories 320Conclusion 32511 Into the Territory, or, the Urban as Idea 329Detachment 331Suturing 336Standstill 340Ideas 346Informality, as Idea 357Conclusion 362Conclusion: Starting Anywhere, Thinking with (Elsew)here 369A Reformatted Urban Comparison 370Conceptualisation 376An Explosion of Urban Studies 383References 387Index 441