Abstract
A significant part of urban theory now engages with southern cities. In this paper, we synthesize the various theoretical propositions and influential concepts that have shaped the rapidly emerging field of southern urbanism in urban studies. We conduct a systematic review of the literature that engages with the idea of southern urbanism. We trace the origins and theoretical landscape of southern urbanism, from being characterized as the global South to being deployed as a theoretical strategy to critique all urban theory. We synthesize the most influential concepts that have attempted to describe observed phenomena in the southern urban space. We identify seven characteristics that dominate the everyday realities of southern cities, making them distinct from their northern counterparts. In addition, we identify existing gaps in the literature and discuss their implications for research in planning. In the discussion, we attempt to create a simplified conceptual toolbox that can be useful for future studies in southern cities' contexts. We conclude the paper by providing a framework using five characteristics of southern cities as potential starting points in future inquiries in urban planning.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
In this study, we employ a broad understanding of the term ‘southern urbanism’, described as everyday realities of cities in the global South (cities in large parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America). We acknowledge the limitations of using binary categories, yet we build on Roy (2015) and Lawhon (2020) that both the South and North have analytical value in research, however imperfectly.
Urban studies broadly refers to multiple disciplines that engage in study of cities and towns, including Sociology, Urban Planning, Geography, Anthropology, Political Science and Economics.
We considered adding other keywords such as ‘global South’ and ‘developing world’, but ultimately did not add them since most of the results from those queries focused on categorization of countries (rather than conceptualize the urban).
Publishing venues include books, edited book chapters, and articles from journals such as Urban Studies, International Journal of Urban & Regional Research, Planning Theory, Urban Geography, Cities, City and similar high ranked journals relevant to the field of urban studies, and indexed within Scopus and Web of Science.
We acknowledge that many theories and concepts may have emerged that conceptualize southern urbanism that may not have been captured in this study. This may be attributed partly to the method employed (search terms and criteria used) as well as the research objectives.
It is useful to acknowledge here that the role of informal power and networks (for example grassroot organizations such as neighbourhood associations, ratepayers associations etc.) are now well recognized and institutionalized in the planning process of northern cities. However, in southern cities, informality is less dominant in northern cities compared to their southern counterparts.
References
Acuto, M., Dinardi, C., & Marx, C. (2019). Transcending (in) formal urbanism. Urban Studies, 56(3), 475–487. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098018810602
Alsayyad, N. (2004). Urban informality as a “new” way of life. In urban informality: Transnational perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia.
Amin, A. (2013). Telescopic urbanism and the poor. City, 17(4), 476–492. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2013.812350
Asher Ghertner, D. (2013). The nuisance of slums: Environmental law and the production of slum illegality in India. Urban Navigations: Politics Space and the City in South Asia, 43(20), 23–49. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203085332
Avni, N., & Yiftachel, O. (2014). The new divided city? Planning and ‘gray space’ between global north-west and south-east. Routledge.
Bankoff, G., & Hilhorst, D. (2009). The politics of risk in the Philippines: Comparing state and NGO perceptions of disaster management. Disasters, 33(4), 686.
Banks, N., Lombard, M., & Mitlin, D. (2020). Urban Informality as a site of critical analysis. Journal of Development Studies, 56(2), 223–238. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2019.1577384
Bayat, A. (2000). From “dangerous classes” to “quiet rebels” politics of the urban subaltern in the global South. International Sociology, 15(3), 533–557.
Benjamin, S. (2008). Occupancy urbanism: Radicalizing politics and economy beyond policy and programs. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research., 32(3), 719.
Bhan, G. (2009). This is no longer the city I once knew. Evictions the Urban Poor and, 21(1), 127–142. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247809103009
Bhan, G. (2019). Notes on a Southern urban practice. Environment and Urbanization, 1(2), 639–654. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247818815792
Bhan, G., Srinivas, S., & Watson, V. (Eds.). (2019). The Routledge Companion to Planning in the Global South. Routledge.
Brenner, N., & Schmid, C. (2015). Towards a new epistemology of the urban? City, 19(2–3), 151–182. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2015.1014712
Caldeira, T. P. R. (2017). Peripheral urbanization : Autoconstruction, transversal logics, and politics in cities of the global south. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 35(1), 3–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775816658479
Chatterjee, P. (2004). The politics of the governed: reflections on popular politics in most of the world. Columbia University Press.
Chu, E., & Michael, K. (2019). Recognition in urban climate justice: Marginality and exclusion of migrants in Indian cities. Environment and Urbanization, 31(1), 139–156. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247818814449
Chu, E. (2015). Urban adaptations observed: The politics of governing climate resilience in Indian cities. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Connell, R. (2007). Southern theory. The global dynamics of knowledge in social science. Polity Press.
Connell, R. (2014). Using southern theory : Decolonizing social thought in theory, research and application. Planning Theory, 13(2), 210–223. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095213499216
Dados, N., & Connell, R. (2012). The global south. Contexts, 11(1), 12–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/1536504212436479
de Satgé, R., & Watson, V. (2018). Urban planning in the global south: Conflicting rationalities in contested urban space. Urban Planning in the Global South. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69496-2
Dear, M. (2005). Comparative urbanism. Urban Geography, 26(3), 247–251. https://doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638.26.3.247
Ellis, R. (2012). “ A world class city of your own !”: Civic governmentality in Chennai. Antipode, 44(4), 1143–1160. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00958.x
Ghertner, D. A. (2010). Calculating without numbers : Aesthetic governmentality in Delhi ’ s slums. Economy and Society, 39(2), 185–217. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085141003620147
Ghertner, David Asher. (2015). Rule by aesthetics: World-class city making in Delhi. Oxford University Press.
Ghertner, David Asher. (2017). Aesthetic governmentality: Administering the ‘world-class’ city in Delhi’s slums. In S. Hall, R. Burdett, & R. Burdett (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of teh 21st Century City. Retrieved from https://scholar.google.ca/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=ipwrqoIAAAAJ&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=ipwrqoIAAAAJ:3fE2CSJIrl8C
Goldman, M. (2011). Speculative urbanism and the making of the next world city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35(May), 555–581. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.01001.x
Grant, M. J., & Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews : An analysis of 14 review types and and associated methodologies. Health Information and Libraries Journal. 26(2), 91–108. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x
Gururani, S., & Kennedy, L. (2021). The co-production of space, politics and subjectivities in India’s urban peripheries. South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 26(May), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.7365
Holston, J. (2009). Insurgent citizenship in an era of global urban peripheries. City & Society, 21(2), 245–267. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-744X.2009.01024.x.City
Innes, J. E. (1995). Planning theory’s emerging paradigm: Communicative action and interactive practice. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 14(3), 183–189.
Kotharkar, R., Ramesh, A., & Bagade, A. (2018). Urban climate urban heat Island studies in South Asia : A critical review. Urban Climate, 24, 1011–1026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2017.12.006
Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press.
Kundu, D. (2019). Urban informality. In anthony orum (Ed.), The wiley blackwell encyclopedia of urban and regional studies. John Wiley & Sons Ltd. (pp. 1–5)https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0372
Lawhon, M., & Roux, L. L. (2019). Southern urbanism or a world of cities ? Modes of enacting a more global urban geography in textbooks, teaching and research. Urban Geography, 40(9), 1251–1269. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2019.1575153
Lawhon, M., & Truelove, Y. (2020). Disambiguating the southern urban critique: Propositions, pathways and possibilities for a more global urban studies. Urban Studies, 57(1), 3–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098019829412
Lawhon, M., Roux, L. L., Makina, A., Nsangi, G., Singh, A., & Sseviiri, H. (2020). Beyond southern urbanism ? Imagining an urban geography of a world of cities. Urban Geography, 41(5), 657–667. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2020.1734346
Lopez, A. J. (2007). Introduction: The (Post) global South. The Global South, 1(1), 1–11. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40339224
Maringanti, A. (2020). Seizing the day for southern urbanism : Reflections from the lockdown. Urbanisation, 5(1), 37–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/2455747120970803
Mcfarlane, C., & Silver, J. (2017). Navigating the city : Dialectics of everyday urbanism. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 42, 458–471. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12175
McGee, T. G. (1991). Presidential Address: Eurocentrism in geography–the case of Asian urbanization. Canadian Geographer/le Géographe Canadien, 35(4), 332–344.
Meerow, S., Newell, J. P., & Stults, M. (2016). Defining urban resilience: A review. Landscape and Urban Planning, 147, 38–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2015.11.011
Meijer, M., & Ernste, H. (2019). Broadening the Scope of Spatial Planning: Making a Case for Informality in the Netherlands. Journal of Planning Education and Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X19826211
Munn, Z., Peters, M. D. J., Stern, C., Tufanaru, C., Mcarthur, A., & Aromataris, E. (2018). Systematic review or scoping review ? Guidance for authors when choosing between a systematic or scoping review approach. BMC Medical Research Methodology., 18, 1. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-018-0611-x
Myers, G. A. (1994). Eurocentrism and African urbanization: The case of Zanzibar’s other side. Antipode, 26(3), 195–215.
Ngwenya, N., & Cirolia, L. R. (2021). Conflicts between and Within: The ‘conflicting rationalities’ of informal occupation in south Africa. Planning Theory and Practice, 22(5), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2020.1808237
Oldfield, S. (2014). Engaging critical urbanism ‘from the south’? In Lecture text for: ‘Debating cities of the south: Theories and materialities.’ Capital Cities Public Conversation.
Parnell, S., & Oldfield, S. (2014). The routledge handbook on cities of the global south. Routledge.
Partelow, S., Schlüter, A., Armitage, D., Bavinck, M., Carlisle, K., Gruby, R.L., Assche, K.V. (2020). Environmental governance theories : A review and application to coastal systems. Ecology and Society, 25(4) https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-12067-250419
Patel, S. (2014). Is there a South perspective to urban studies ? In S. Oldfield & S. Parnell (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South.
Pieterse, E. (2008). City futures: confronting the crisis of urban development. Zed books.
Pieterse, E. (2011). Introduction : Rogue urbanisms. Social Dynamics, 37(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2011.573955
Pieterse, E. (2015). Epistemological practices of southern urbanism. In W. Ding, A. Graafland, & A. Lu (Eds.), Cities in transition II (pp. 311–325). Society.
Prieto, E. (2021). The possibilities of urban informality: Two views from istanbul. In M. Salmela, L. Ameel, & J. Finch (Eds.), Literatures of Urban Possibility). Cham: Springer International Publishing.19 42 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70909-9_2
Robinson, J. (2002). Global and world cities: A view from off the map. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 26(3), 531–554.
Robinson, J. (2004). In the tracks of comparative urbanism: Difference, urban modernity and the primitive. Urban Geography, 25(8), 709–723.
Robinson, J. (2005). Urban geography: World cities, or a world of cities. Progress in Human Geography, 29(6), 757–765.
Robinson, J. (2006). Ordinary cities: Between modernity and development. Routledge.
Robinson, J. (2014). Introduction to a virtual issue on comparative urbanism. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12171
Robinson, J. (2015). Comparative urbanism : New geographies and cultures of theorizing the urban. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12273
Roy, A. (2005). Urban informality: Toward an epistemology of planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, 71(2), 147–158. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944360508976689
Roy, A. (2009a). Civic governmentality : The politics of inclusion in beirut and Mumbai. Antipode, 41(1), 159–179. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2008.00660.x
Roy, A. (2009b). Why India cannot plan its cities: Informality, insurgence and the idiom of urbanization. Planning Theory, 8(1), 76–87. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095208099299
Roy, A. (2011). Slumdog Cities: Rethinking subaltern urbanism. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35(2), 223–238. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01051.x
Roy, A. (2015). Who’s afraid of postcolonial theory? International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 40(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12274
Roy, A., Wright, W. J., Al-Bulushi, Y., & Bledsoe, A. (2020). ‘A world of many Souths’: (anti)Blackness and historical difference in conversation with Ananya Roy. Urban Geography, 41(6), 920–935. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2020.1807164
Roy, A., & Alsayyad, N. (Eds.). (2004). Urban informality: Transnational perspectives from the middle east, Latin America, and South Asia. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Roy, A., & Ong, A. (Eds.). (2011). Worldling Cities. Wiley-Blackwell.
Roy, A. (2012). Urban informality: The production and regulation of space. In J. Wright (Ed.), The oxford handbook of urban planning. Oxford: Elsevier. (pp. 818–822)https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.74051-7
Sanders, R. (1992). Eurocentric bias in the study of African urbanization: A provocation to debate. Antipode, 24(3), 203–213.
Satterthwaite, D., Archer, D., Colenbrander, S., Dodman, D., Hardoy, J., Mitlin, D., & Patel, S. (2020). Building resilience to climate change in informal settlements. One Earth, 2(2), 143–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.02.002
Satterthwaite, D., Huq, S., Pelling, M., Reid, H., & Lankao, P. R. (2007). Adapting to climate change in urban areas: The possibilities and constraints in low- and middle-income nations. Retrieved from http://www.iied.org/HS/topics/accc.html
Scheba, S. (2021). Pathways toward a dialectical urbanism Thinking with the contingencies of crisis, care and capitalism. In Michele Lancione & C. Mcfarlane (Eds.), Global Urbanism: Knowledge, Power and the City. Routledge.
Schindler, S. (2014a). A New Delhi every day : Multiplicities of governance regimes in a transforming metropolis. Urban Geography, 35(3), 402–419. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2014.881019
Schindler, S. (2014b). Producing and contesting the formal / informal divide : Regulating street hawking in Delhi. India, 51(12), 2596–2612. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098013510566
Schindler, S. (2017a). Beyond a state-centric approach to urban informality: Interactions between Delhi’s middle class and the informal service sector. Current Sociology, 65(2), 248–259. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392116657296
Schindler, S. (2017b). Towards a paradigm of Southern urbanism. City, 21(1), 47–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2016.1263494
Shatkin, G. (2004). Planning to Forget: Informal settlements as ‘ forgotten places ’ in globalising metro manila. Urban Studies, 41(12), 2469–2484. https://doi.org/10.1080/00420980412331297636
Shatkin, G. (2007). Global cities of the South: Emerging perspectives on growth and inequality. Cities, 24(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2006.10.002
Shatkin, G. (2013). Contesting the indian city, global visions and the politics of the local. (G. Shatkin, Ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
Shin, H. B. (2021). Theorising from where ? Reflections on De-centring Global (Southern) Urbanism. In M. Lancione & C. Mcfarlane (Eds.), Global Urbanism: Knowledge, Power and the City. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429259593-9
Simone, A. (2001). Ways of Seeing: Beyond the new nativism. African Studies Review, 44(2), 15–41.
Simone, A. (2004). For the city yet to come: changing african life in four cities. Duke University Press.
Simone, A. (2010). City life from jakarta to dakar: Movements at the crossroads. Routledge.
Simone, A. (2014a). Jakarta: Drawing the city near. University of Minnesota Press.
Simone, A. (2014b). The near-south between megablock and slum. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816693351.001.0001
Simone, A. (2006). Pirate towns : Reworking social and symbolic infrastructures in Johannesburg and Douala. Urban Studies, 43(2), 357–370. https://doi.org/10.1080/00420980500146974
Singh, C., Madhavan, M., Arvind, J., & Bazaz, A. (2021). Climate change adaptation in Indian cities : A review of existing actions and spaces for triple wins. Urban Climate, 36(January), 100783. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2021.100783
Singh, C., & Basu, R. (2020). Moving in and out of vulnerability : Interrogating migration as an adaptation strategy along a rural – urban continuum in India. The Geographical Journal, 186, 87–102. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12328
Slater, D. (1992). On the borders of social theory: Learning from other regions. Environment and Planning D Society and Space, 10(3), 307–327.
Sood, A. (2017). Speculative urbanism. In AM Orum (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies. London: Wiley-Blackwell.
Sparke, M. (2007). Everywhere but always somewhere: Critical geographies of the global south. The Global South, 1(1), 117–126. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40339236
Srivastava, S. (2014). Entangled urbanism: Slum, gated community, and shopping mall in Delhi and Gurgaon. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198099147.001.0001
Swilling, M., & Annecke, E. (2012). Just transitions: Explorations of sustainability in an unfair world. University of Cape Town Press.
Tacoli, C. (1998). Rural–urban interactions; A guide to the literature. Environment and Urbanization, 10(1), 147–166.
Takayama, K., Heimans, S., Amazan, R., & Maniam, V. (2016). Doing southern theory: Towards alternative knowledges and knowledge practices in/for education. Postcolonial Directions in Education, 5, 1–25.
Trovalla, E., & Trovalla, U. (2015). Infrastructure as a divination tool: Whispers from the grids in a Nigerian city. City, 19(2–3), 332–343. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2015.1018061
Truelove, Y (Eds.), Global urbanism: Knowledge, power and the city (pp. 259–266). Routledge. (2021). Beyond-the-network urbanism: Everyday infrastructures in states of mutation. In Michele Lancione & C. McFarlane
UNDP. (2018). Forging a path beyond borders: The Global South. Geneva. Retrieved from https://unctad.org/webflyer/forging-path-beyond-borders-global-south
Wallerstein, I. (1974). The modern world-system. Academic Press.
Watson, V. (2003). Conflicting rationalities: Implications for planning theory and ethics. Planning Theory and Practice, 4(4), 395–407. https://doi.org/10.1080/1464935032000146318
Watson, V. (2006). Deep difference: Diversity, planning and ethics. Planning Theory, 5(1), 31–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095206061020
Watson, V. (2009a). Seeing from the south : Refocusing urban planning on the globe ’ s central urban. Issues, 46(October), 2259–2275. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098009342598
Watson, V. (2009b). Seeing from the south: Refocusing urban planning on the globe’s central urban issues. Urban Studies, 46(11), 2259–2275. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098009342598
Watson, V. (2015). The allure of ‘ smart city ’ rhetoric: India and Africa. Dialogues in Human Geography, 5(1), 36–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820614565868
Yiftachel, O. (2006). Re-engaging planning theory? Towards “south-eastern” perspectives. Planning Theory, 5(3), 211–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095206068627
Yiftachel, O. (2011). Critical theory and “gray space”: Mobilization of the colonized. Routledge.
Acknowledgements
No funding was acquired for this study
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interests.
Ethical approval
All ethical guidelines were followed in line with the University of Alberta’s Research Ethics Board.
Consent to participation
Not applicable, all data used in this study are drawn from literature sources.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Parida, D., Agrawal, S. Southern urbanism: a systematic review of concepts, debates, and future directions. GeoJournal 88, 2587–2608 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10761-x
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10761-x