Extended Urbanisation
Extended methods of analysis for urbanisation processes illustrated in eight world regions.
Urbanisation processes are unfolding far beyond the realm of agglomerations, profoundly transforming agrarian areas, rain forests, deserts and oceans. Inextricably bound to the earth’s ecologies, these developments are causing manifold planetary crises which require urgent scrutiny and call for new conceptions and cartographies of the urban beyond-the-city.
Through detailed analysis and fieldwork captured in text, photographs and hand-drawn maps, the book portrays the effects of extended urbanisation in eight world regions. It offers a redefinition of the very notions of the “city”, “urban” and “urbanisation” and outlines new urban agendas developed to address planetary challenges.
This book decenters the perspective on the urban, foregrounds urban struggle, and transcends rural-urban and north-south divides.
Editors
Christian Schmid is an urban researcher, geographer and sociologist, Professor of Sociology, Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich. His scientific work is on planetary urbanisation, comparative urban analysis and theories of urbanisation and of space. He wrote an encompassing reconstruction of Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space and is a member of the International Network for Urban Research and Action (INURA).
Milica Topalovic is an architect and Professor of Architecture and Territorial Planning at the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich. Her work addresses territories beyond-the-city and the transformation processes they are exposed to through the movement of capital, social restructuring, and environmental change. She has studied remote regions, resource hinterlands, and countrysides in an effort to decentre and ecologise architectural approaches to the city, the urban, and urbanisation.
Contributing authors
Nitin Bathla, Zurich; Elisa T. Bertuzzo, Berlin; Rodrigo Castriota, Belo Horizonte; Nancy Couling, Lausanne; Alice Hertzog, Zurich; Nikos Katsikis, Delft; Metaxia Markaki, Zurich; Christian Schmid, Zurich; Abdou Maliq Simone, Sheffield; Milica Topalović, Zurich; Kit Ping Wong, Hong Kong