Edgar Pieterse – författare

It is well known that the world is transitioning to an irrevocable urban future whose epicentre has moved into the cities of Asia and Africa. What is less clear is how this will be managed and deployed as a multi-polar world system is being born. The full implications of this challenge cry out to be understood because city building (and retrofitting) cannot but be an undertaking entangled in profound societal and cultural shifts. In this highly original account, renowned urban sociologists AbdouMaliq Simone and Edgar Pieterse offer a call for action based fundamentally on the detail of people''s lives. Urban regions are replete with residents who are compelled to come up with innovative ways to maintain or extend livelihoods, whose makeshift character is rarely institutionalized into a fixed set of practices, locales or organizational forms. This novel analytical approach reveals a more complex relationship between people, the state and other agents than has previously been understood. As the authors argue, we need adequate concepts and practices to grasp the composition and intricacy of these shifting efforts to make visible new political possibilities for action and social justice in cities across Asia and Africa.

In a world of disruptions and seemingly endless complexity, cities have become central to thinking about the future of humanity. Yet the study of cities is fragmented among different silos of expertise, diverse genres of scholarship, and widening chasms between theory and practice. How can we do better? 

Cities Rethought suggests that we need to remake the way we see and know cities in order to rethink how we act and intervene within them. To this end, it offers the contours of a new urban disposition. Its normative, analytical, and operational elements offer an opportunity for scholars, practitioners, and citizens alike to approach the complexity of cities anew.

Written collectively for a wide audience, the text draws from cities across the global north and south, speaks across diverse genres of ideas, and reflects on the lived experience of the authors as both researchers and practitioners. It is an essential text for anyone committed to knowing their own cities as well as finding ways to meaningfully intervene in them.