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Context : OnCities, (ReadWith) OnFavelas, BlackMarket

Book by MikeDavis

Interview

Classical urbanization via the Manchester/Chicago/Berlin/ Petersburg model is still occurring in China and a few other places. It's important to note, though, that the urban industrial revolution in China precludes similar ones in other places. It absorbs all the capacity for light manufacturing goods – and increasingly everything else. But in China and a few adjacent economies, you still see city growth with an industrial motor. Everywhere else it's occurring largely without industrialization; even more shockingly, often without development in any sense. Moreover, what were, historically, the great industrial cities of the south – Johannesburg, Sao Paulo, Mumbai, Bello Horizonte, Buenos Aires – have all suffered massive deindustrialization in the last twenty years, absolute declines in manufacturing employment of 20-40%.

Compare and contrast :