The speed, scale and scope of urbanisation have increased dramatically in recent decades. To decipher the rapidly changing urban territories across the planet, we need a radical shift in the analytical perspective on urbanisation.

In this book, a transdisciplinary international research team presents an expanded vocabulary of urbanisation processes through a comparison of Tokyo, Hong Kong – Shenzhen – Dongguan, Kolkata, Istanbul, Lagos, Paris, Mexico City and Los Angeles.

Based on a novel cartography and on detailed ethnographic and historical explorations, this book systematically analyses the diversity of responses to urgent contemporary urban challenges. It proposes a series of new concepts that allow us to assess the practical consequences of different urban strategies in everyday life.

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Vocabularies for an Urbanising Planet: Theory Building through Comparison (Birkhäuser, 2023) edited by Christian Schmid and Monika Streule. With contributions by Naomi Hanakata; Ozan Karaman; Anne Kockelkorn; Lindsay Sawyer; Christian Schmid; Monika Streule; Kit Ping Wong.

ISBN: 978-3-0356-2301-7