John Wiley and Sons - Cities in Global Capitalism

Ugo Rossi offers a highly original analysis of the current urban condition. The book plays imaginatively on the complex relationships linking cities, neoliberal capitalism and globalization, and extracts from these materials a remarkably informative and incisive diagnosis.

Allen J. Scott, University of California, Los Angeles

Reading contemporary global capital from the perspective of the city, Ugo Rossi's Cities in Global Capitalism presents a critical geography, rich in analysis and haunted with spectral figures. Rossi shows how the city the site of historical struggle, artistic and social innovations, and revolutionary uprisings has been shaped by capital and its state partners with new spatial inequalities, potentialities, and peripheries. As the city once again becomes the destination for the global rich, economic innovation becomes a leading edge of gentrification and the abandoned warehouses of Fordist production become the ghost towers haunting the urban sky vast areas the mega rich own but rarely inhabit as the ever-expanding homeless below pass by.

Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Columbia University

Cities in Global Capitalism presents an impressive tour de force on the mutually reinforcing relationship between cities, on the one hand, and the capitalist system on the other. Sifting through a wide range of work from across numerous disciplines, Ugo Rossi's account of the contemporary global urban condition is conceptually sophisticated, geographically nuanced and historically sensitive!

Kevin Ward, University of Manchester

Ugo Rossi's book is a clear and illuminating overview of the complex relationships between globalized capitalism and urban spaces. A valuable contribution to the project of critically reflecting on our contemporary condition.

Nick Srnicek, author of Platform Capitalism and Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work

Urban Futures series

1. Talja Blokland, Community as Urban Practice
2. Julie-Anne Boudreau, Global Urban Politics
3. Loretta Lees, Hyun Bang Shin & Ernesto Lpez-Morales
4. Planetary Gentrification
5. Ugo Rossi, Cities in Global Capitalism

Copyright Ugo Rossi 2017

The right of Ugo Rossi to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2017 by Polity Press

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

350 Main Street

Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-8966-1

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-8967-8(pb)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rossi, Ugo, 1975- author.

Title: Cities in global capitalism / Ugo Rossi.

Description: Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity Press, 2017. | Series: Urban futures

Identifiers: LCCN 2016031538 (print) | LCCN 2016047586 (ebook) | ISBN 9780745689661 (hardback) | ISBN 9780745689678 (pbk.) | ISBN 9780745689685 (Epdf) | ISBN 9780745689692 (Mobi) | ISBN 9780745689708 (Epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Urban economics. | Regional economics. | Capitalism. | City-statesEconomic aspects. | GlobalizationEconomic aspects.

Classification: LCC HT321 .R674 2017 (print) | LCC HT321 (ebook) | DDC 330.9173/2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016031538

Typeset in 11.5 on 15 pt Adobe Jenson Pro by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited

Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website:

politybooks.com

While my interest in the transformations of contemporary capitalism the crisis of Fordism and the transition to post-Fordist societies dates back twenty years ago now, to the mid-1990s, when I was studying Political Sciences at the University Orientale of Naples, I have been thinking more specifically about the relationship between cities and capitalism over the last six or seven years. I first approached this theme when I received an invitation from the editor of the Encyclopedia of Urban Studies, Ray Hutchison, to write two entries: one on the capitalist city and another on Manuel Castells (Rossi, 2010a; Rossi, 2010b). While my previous work had dealt with conceptual issues related to the theorization of urban economic development in post-Fordist and neoliberal times, this invitation led me to systematize my understanding of the evolution of critical urban theory from the 1970s onwards. At the same time, during the last ten years in my research I have been dealing with a set of categorizations, such as the creative city, the smart city and the start-up city, which have stimulated my reflections on the urban realities of contemporary capitalism.

Whereas the ideas presented here draw on this long-term engagement with the conceptualization of post-Fordist capitalism and its relationship to the urban phenomenon, this book has been written over a much more concise period of time, approximately one year, starting in the spring of 2015 and ending in the summer of 2016. During this year, I had the opportunity to share my thoughts as well as to discuss drafts of the chapters of the manuscript with different colleagues and students. In April 2015, I organized a session on the urban political in late neoliberalism at the annual conference of American Geographers in Chicago along with Theresa Enright, who teaches at the University of Toronto in Canada. Theresa has read drafts of some chapters of my manuscript, providing very useful feedback. Over the last few months, with Theresa I have shared reflections on the ambivalence of post-crisis global capitalism and the urban condition, which I have started presenting in this book and would like to develop further in the coming years. In May 2015, I was invited by Bernd Belina to teach a seminar on Southern European cities in the global recession as part of his Master's course on the Geographies of Globalization in the Institute of Human Geography at the Goethe University of Frankfurt, in Germany. My conversations with Bernd, with the other members of the department and with the students enrolled in the seminar provided me with a lively intellectual environment which helped me sharpen my ideas, particularly my understanding of the crisis of 2008, which is at the centre of this book. In Frankfurt I also met Sami Moisio, when we were both visiting the human geography department. In April 2016, Sami invited me to lecture in his urban geography course at the University of Helsinki, in Finland, and to present my work to the department when I was in the very final stages of the writing process. This presentation gave me the opportunity to clarify the structure of the book, particularly the meaning of the terms being used as titles of the chapters.