‘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 Cities in Global Capitalism Urban Futures series Talja Blokland, Community as Urban Practice Julie-Anne Boudreau, Global Urban Politics Loretta Lees, Hyun Bang Shin & Ernesto López-Morales Planetary Gentrification Ugo Rossi, Cities in Global Capitalism Cities in Global Capitalism Ugo Rossi polity 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-states–Economic aspects | Globalization–Economic aspects Classification: LCC HT321 R674 2017 (print) | LCC HT321 (ebook) | DDC 330.9173/2–dc23 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 Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction Viewing Cities in Global Capitalism Conceptualizing Cities in Global Capitalism Overview of the Book 12 19 Emergences Cities in Capitalism: A History of the Present Financial Power Entrepreneurialism Cognitive Capital Conclusion 24 24 26 33 43 50 Extensions Looking for the Global Structuring Capitalist Globalization Deepening Capitalist Globalization The Policy Mobility Paradigm The Global Urbanism and Planetary Urbanization Theses Conclusion 52 52 55 66 67 Continuities Neoliberalism as a Living Entity The City–Neoliberalism Nexus 80 80 82 71 77 vi CONTENTS Urbanizing Neoliberalism The Consumption Machine The Dream (and Nightmare) of a Homeownership Society Neoliberalizing the Urban Experience Creative Cities in the Age of Integrated Spectacle Conclusion 84 85 91 101 102 109 Diffusions One-dimensional City McDonaldization and the Rise of Capitalist Globalization Disneyfication and the Spatio-Temporal Moratorium of Late Capitalism Guggenheimization: Re-creating the Magical Aura of the Capitalist City Conclusion 111 112 Variations Cities in and after the Global Economic Crisis: The Present as History The Socialized City The Dispossessed City The Revenant City Conclusion 142 Conclusion: Living in the Age of Ambivalence 174 References Index 182 204 115 123 132 140 142 151 158 164 172 Acknowledgements 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 206 INDEX creative city (cont.) creative entrepreneurs 49 creative-city discourse 70, 109 creative-city policy 69 critical theory 7, 112, 132 Frankfurt School 7, 113, 132–3 critical urban studies 2, 6, 16, 69, 83, 110, 146 Croce, Benedetto 13, 14, 51 cultural political economy 7, 76, 83 Dean, Jodi 167, 169 Debord, Guy 102, 109, 123–4 Deleuze, Gilles 5, 16, 41, 137 Deleuze, G and Guattari, F 5, 17 deprived neighbourhoods 59, 68, 107, 120–1, 155 urban segregation 5, 59, 100–1, 105, 157, 162 dialectical thought (critique of ) 13, 16–17, 132 Dicken, Peter 55, 114 disadvantaged minorities 8, 58–9, 101, 107, 155, 162, 174, 180 African-Americans 101, 121, 155, 162 Hispanics 101, 121, 155, 162 discourse 1, 23, 39, 42, 58, 70–1, 76–8 discursive formations 91, 146, 155 discursive investors 121 global discourse 70, 130–1, 166 displacement 86, 160–1, 181 dispossession 18, 22, 29, 73, 75, 158–64 double dispossession 162, 164, 178 Drucker, Peter 152–3, 171 Dublin 107–8 Dutch Randstad 64–5 East Asia 60, 62, 83, 128–9 economic crisis of 1974–5 3, 4, 11, 29, 56, 58, 80 economic crisis of 2008 2, 8, 18, 30, 61, 84, 138, 178 anaemic growth 174 Eurozone crisis 94, 129 financial crash of 2007–8 10, 18 129, 137, 157 Great Recession (or Global Recession, Great Contraction) 7, 11, 12, 92, 94, 138, 151, 158, 162, 168, 174 post-recession 11, 18, 22, 48, 75, 94, 164, 167–8, 179–80 secular stagnation 11, 150 economization of life 22, 81 ecosystem 165 embeddedness and dis-embeddedness 165–6, 180 entrepreneurialization of society and the self 13, 17–18, 42, 71, 77, 79, 80–1, 88, 90, 114, 140–1, 145, 148, 168–9, 172, 178 Erikson, Erik 125 Esposito, Roberto 14 ethical substance 170 Europe/Western Europe 10, 19, 26, 39, 57, 59, 60, 62, 64, 92, 128–9, 158, 163–4 continental Europe 62, 140 European Central Bank 96 European cities 3, 25–6, 89, 104, 106, 155, 165, 170, 175 European Commission 64 European project 129 European Union 94–5, 129, 138, 147, 151, 163–4, 171, 174 Northern Europe 40, 163 INDEX Southern Europe ix, 3, 161, 163 experience economies 11, 180 fascism 18, 23, 176–8 financialization 15, 23, 25, 29–33, 99–100, 151, 153–4, 174 household indebtedness 30, 91, 101, 174 of housing 99, 110, 161 of urban development 163–4 Finland 40, 138–9, 163 flexible specialization 35–7 economies of specialization 65 flexible production 86, 129, 166 flexible work 139 lean production 129, 153 Florida (state) 124–7, 162 Florida, Richard 15, 45, 48, 69–70, 97, 103–9, 153–4, 156, 167 creative class 45, 50, 70, 103–5, 109, 121, 154, 156, 181 Fordism vii, 4, 6, 34, 38, 55, 80, 82, 85, 124, 126, 136, 147, 152, 155 mass production 85–6, 129 forms of life 13, 16, 18, 47, 73–5, 79, 110, 122, 144–5, 148–51, 154, 167–8, 171, 178 integral form of life 167 Foucault, Michel 5, 14–15, 19, 26, 32–3, 41, 51, 82, 143, 148, 150, 169, 179 history of the present 14, 51 freedom 5–6, 32, 82, 88, 100, 112, 116, 156 Friedmann, John 54–8, 60–1 Fukuyama, Francis 34 gateway cities 56 logistical functions 56, 73 207 general intellect 47, 66, 122, 140, 152–3 affects 22, 25, 47, 74–5, 91, 109, 122 language 16, 22, 148, 153, 156–7, 176 Genoa 26–7 gentrification 15, 48, 58, 75, 105, 120–1, 160 hipster 104–5 longtime residents 8, 104, 160 of supermarkets 120–1 Germany 6, 10, 35, 40, 94, 143 Giddens, Anthony 94, 180 Glaeser, Edward 45, 48 global cities 53, 56, 59–62, 78, 129–30 global city-regions 63–6 polycentric urban regions 64 global North 23, 40, 63, 71, 75, 160 global South 12–13, 19, 23, 40, 49, 53, 56, 57, 63, 93, 131, 160 Southern theory 76 global urbanism 13, 20, 37, 53, 71, 74 global urbanization 12, 54, 70–2, 78, 86, 110, 112, 114 urban species 12, 172 globalization 1–2, 5–6, 10–12, 14–15, 19–20, 24–5, 27–8, 31, 36–9, 42–3, 52–79, 80, 84, 86, 113–14, 130–1 discovery of 5, 55 global sense of belonging 165 golden age of capitalism 4, 31, 84–5, 92, 110 Gramsci, Antonio 135, 137, 146, 167 Great Depression of the 1930s 11 crisis of 1929 11, 33 New Deal 100, 126, 134 208 INDEX Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 41, 128, 138, 168, 174 Guggenheim effect 136 Hägerstrand, Torsten 111 Hall, Peter 43–4, 166 happiness 11, 79, 167 Harvey, David 3–4, 7, 15, 29–30, 32, 36, 73–4, 81–2, 93, 158–61 Helsinki 40, 135–40 high-tech urbanization 11, 157, 165–6 regional clusters 44, 46, 126, 130 technopoles 139, 166, 168 homeownership 7, 20, 49–50, 91–102 Hong Kong 12, 57, 59–62, 118, 125, 127–8, 130–1, 175 umbrella movement 12, 175 housing 8, 45, 91 co-housing 170 eviction 131, 160–1 foreclosure 101, 160, 162 housing bubble 97, 100–1, 161 housing crisis (late 2000s) 10, 162 housing discrimination 101 housing prices 75, 89, 91–2, 104, 162 mortgage sector 25, 30 property-owning democracy 96, 99 Proposition 13 92–3 public housing 91–2, 104 real-estate agents and developers 47–9, 104 residential segregation 5, 59, 100–1, 105, 157, 162 Right to Buy policy 92–3, 95 subprime mortgages 31, 98, 100–1, 161 iconic consciousness 134 immanence 17, 20, 90, 109, 144, 171 income inequalities 2, 8, 157 India 49, 60, 86–7, 158, 160, 175 consumers 49, 86–7 ‘Make in India’ 87 slums 49, 67 individualization 169, 179 information and communication technologies 25, 43, 67, 108, 139, 166 infrastructure 29, 63, 73, 87, 106, 130–1, 181 innovation 2, 8, 25, 43–6, 50, 60–1, 102, 106, 111, 126, 147, 167 innovative milieu 44 social innovation 181 inter-city competition 36 inter-city relationality 55, 61–2, 69, 76 invention 1, 7, 15, 34, 47, 66, 69, 109, 121, 156, 159, 168, 180–1 investor citizen 91 Ireland 30, 161, 163 Italy 6–7, 10, 27, 33–5, 95, 113, 161, 166, 175–6 housing policy 95 Third Italy 35 Jacobs, Jane 65, 134 Jameson, Frederic 17, 113, 133 Japan 93, 128, 147 Japanese economy 128 Jessop, Bob 7, 39, 42, 74, 77, 84, 130, 135, 143–7, 167 Keynesianism 4, 6, 11, 20, 31, 34, 36, 38, 55, 80, 84, 87, 92–5, 100, INDEX 105, 110, 124, 126, 135, 147, 157, 166, 168 budget deficit policy 94, 135 Keynesian exception 20, 157 redistributive policy 4, 12, 31, 36, 38, 87, 96 spatial Keynesianism 135 knowledge 12, 19, 22, 25, 27, 44–5, 47, 50, 55, 67–8, 74–5, 78, 103, 109, 114, 122, 149, 152, 152–4 knowledge-intensive economy 22, 30, 45–7, 71, 74, 140, 144, 148, 172, 180 tacit knowledge 35, 65 Krugman, Paul 11, 93 Las Vegas 108 Lazzarato, Maurizio 9, 31, 33, 88, 90, 154, 163, 177 Lefebvre, Henri 3, 29–30, 32, 72, 82 living politics of the city 12 London 27, 52, 57, 59–62, 64, 89, 105–6, 120, 128, 165,168, 172, 175 Lordon, Frédéric 170 Los Angeles 4, 59–60, 62, 65, 123–5 Orange County 125–6 southern California 126 Lukács, György 88, 112–13, 133 Marazzi, Christian 30, 33, 153–4 Marcuse, Herbert 112–13 Marxism/Marxists 4, 5, 7, 13, 15–16, 27, 30, 57, 66, 76, 86, 88, 113, 119, 122, 146, 160, 173 Marx 33, 47, 66, 112, 150–3, 158–9 Marxist political economy 45, 82, 84 megacities 19, 63, 86 209 mega-events 39–41, 141 megalopolises 64–5 mega-projects 41, 141 middle class 9, 18, 23, 97, 153, 174, 177, 181 Middle East 60, 137, 178 Milan 60, 64, 176 model city 136, 165 Moretti, Enrico 15, 45, 104, 153 Moscow 116–18 Moses, Robert 133–5 multinational corporations 50, 56–9, 62, 78, 87, 108, 122, 129 foreign investment 87, 17, 131 multi-localization strategies 87 Naples 161 nation-state 4, 27–9, 33, 39, 52–3, 72, 92, 96, 99, 124, 143, 146–7, 163, 172 chauvinistic (or nationalistic) politics 175, 179 representative democracy (crisis of ) 176–8 Negri, Antonio 153–4, 170 Hardt, Michael and Negri, Antonio 13, 16–7, 41, 47–8, 74–5, 90, 124 real subsumption 13, 21, 33, 41, 47, 153, 158, 168, 170 social factory 33 neo-institutionalism 7–8, 16, 16, 35, 38, 45–6, 142 associational economies 35 institutional thickness 35 neoliberalism 5–7, 11, 17, 20, 32–3, 42, 51, 67, 69–70, 78, 80–110, 111, 143, 160, 164, 180 art of government 6, 80, 82 210 INDEX neoliberalism (cont.) city-neoliberalism nexus 17, 20 deregulation 6–8, 30, 75, 90, 93–4, 127 expansionary austerity 94 fiscal policy 83, 93–5, 96, 107–8, 110, 150–1, 164, 178 free market 32, 96, 158, 179 governmentality (or governmental rationality) 18, 20, 32, 36, 67, 71, 77, 79, 82–4, 88, 94, 103, 114, 142, 144, 146, 163, 167, 172, 180 idea of 5, 17 late neoliberalism 91, 164, 174 mobile government technology 32, 67, 69, 83 neoliberalization 32, 38, 87, 110–11, 124–5 ordo-liberalism 94 privatization 6, 38, 69, 73, 93, 127, 159–60 project of 6, 8, 80–1, 84, 144 Reagan and Thatcher 6, 92–3, 96, 146 urban neoliberalism 7, 82, 85, 100, 111 variegated neoliberalization 17, 68, 83, 144 network society 43, 46 New Labour New York 3–4, 6, 12, 52, 57–62, 85, 89, 105, 128–9, 133–5, 137, 155, 162, 165–8, 172 North–South divide 34, 75, 129 Paris 3, 12, 59–60, 62, 64, 85, 89, 125, 127–30, 141, 165, 175 Nuit Debout protests 12, 175 Peck, Jamie 7, 42, 67–9, 72, 84, 107, 117 143, 163 Piketty, Thomas 157 Pirenne, Henri 26–8, 32 Pittsburgh 4, 103, 107–8 planetary urbanization 20, 37, 53–4, 71–8, 86 Polanyi, Karl 23, 33, 178 policy mobility 17, 20, 40, 42, 66–71, 77–8, 83, 136, 144, 172 policy transfer 69, 71, 77, 127 populism 174–5 postcolonialism 5, 7, 13, 53, 71, 76 postcolonial urbanism 7, 13, 50, 53–4, 72, 75, 84 West-centrism 13, 37, 54, 76, 156 post-Fordism 7, 11, 21, 35–6, 41, 45–6, 50, 65, 75, 85–6, 102, 122, 124, 126, 129, 139, 147, 152–4, 166, 176–7 post-Fordist city 157 post-Fordist entrepreneurs 165 postmodern urbanism 123–5, 130 poststructuralism/poststructuralists 5, 46, 83 Povinelli, Elizabeth 170 presentism 14, 51, 173 private equity firms 164 public policy 8, 17–18, 38, 50, 68, 80, 84, 86, 94, 98, 155 public services 38, 69, 86, 88, 160, 164 Putnam, Robert 33–4, 43 Occupy Wall Street 12, 175 Ong, Aiwha 32, 83 ontology 16–17, 144–5, 148–9 Orlando 123–7 racial discrimination 2, 101, 181 Islamophobia 175 real abstraction 76, 122, 133 reification 88, 112, 133 INDEX Rifkin, Jeremy 129, 171 Rio de Janeiro 49, 141, 165 Robinson, Jennifer 13, 75–6, 84, 138, 140 Roy, Ananya 13, 50, 76 San Francisco 104, 106, 121, 157, 162, 165 Sarkozy, Nicolas 6, 97, 99 Sassen, Saskia 5, 47, 52, 54, 56, 58–61, 128 Schumpeter, Joseph 44, 126, 147 Scott, Allen 45, 65–6, 70, 126 Scott, A and Storper, M 37, 45–6, 74–6 second modernity 179 sub-politics 180 self-organization 167, 177 self-regulating market economy 92, 178 Sennett, Richard 85, 139 service economy 4, 56, 88–90, 119, 153, 180 Shanghai 60, 63, 118, 125–8, 130–1 sharing economy 8–9, 48, 75, 88–90, 164, 168–72, 179, 181 Shenzhen 64, 105, 130, 165 shipping container 115 Silicon Valley 35, 104, 106, 126, 165 Sklair, Leslie 113–14 smart urbanism 42, 45, 68, 74, 107, 109 smart growth 104 smart labour 50, 181 smart people 153 Smith, Michael Peter 5, 56, 62, 77 Smith, Neil social capital 34 societalization 62, 145–8, 151, 154, 158 211 society of spectacle 102, 109, 123–4 socio-spatial inequalities 8, 22, 48, 52, 75, 87, 101, 104–5, 109, 157 food deserts 121 socio-spatial differentiation (or unevenness) 8, 101, 121, 180 socio-spatial polarization 58 socio-spatial restructuring 4, 58, 129, 160, 164, 177 deindustrialization 82, 103, 136, 154,156 Soja, Edward 4, 65, 123 Sorkin, Michael 123–4 South America 3, 63, 158, 165, 178 Southern Europe 3, 161 Spain 10, 30, 161, 175 spatial economists 8, 104 urban economists 15, 44 spatio-temporal fix 30, 136 spatio-temporal moratorium 125 spatio-temporal stratification 13, 49, 79, 145, 150, 173 Storper, Michael 35–8, 130 suburbanism 106, 125–6, 130, 176 Summers, Larry 11 Taylor, Peter 5, 27–28, 54, 60–2, 77 Tea Party 175 technology-based economy 9, 35, 46, 48, 75, 104, 106, 108, 130, 164–68 co-living businesses 172 digital technologies 9, 18, 71, 75, 108, 122, 168, 171 social media 48, 167 start-up firms 8, 42, 48–9, 106, 109, 139, 164–8, 179 tech boom 8, 11, 48, 92, 104–5 universities and research 139, 165–6 212 INDEX Tel Aviv 165 Third Way 94–5, 98 life politics 180 Thompson, Edward 152 Thrift, Nigel 35, 47 Tokyo 52, 57, 59–62, 125–9 Toscano, Alberto 122 transnationalism 54–5, 62, 66, 77, 131, 165 Trump, Donald 175–7 Turin 59, 166, 177 uneven geographical development 3, 57, 72 inter-regional imbalances 9, 92 157 United Kingdom 6–7, 10, 27, 92–4, 98, 175 housing policy 92–3, 96 United States of America 8, 10, 27–8, 31, 48, 59, 62, 68, 84, 89, 92–3, 104, 106, 112, 120–1, 125–8, 133–4, 147, 151, 153, 158, 161–6, 168, 170, 175–6, 180 American way of life 102, 124, 161 anti-Americanism 117 Department of Housing and Urban Development 98 Federal Housing Administration 100 Rustbelt (or Frostbelt) 121, 126 Sunbelt 46, 125–6 urban politics 84 US capitalism 125, 142 US economy 91, 168, 174 universalism 13–14, 178 urban age 2, 14, 37, 51, 72 urban citizenship 53, 69 acts of citizenship 157 urban development imaginaries 42, 67, 70–1 urban entrepreneurialism 25, 33–43, 130, 166 politico-economic elites 17–18, 37, 40–1, 67–71, 102–3, 136–7, 139, 154, 156, 166, 172 pro-growth coalitions 36, 39, 42, 81 public–private partnerships 36–9 urban governance 3, 21, 25, 37–8, 42, 52, 69, 73–4, 82, 84–5, 87, 101, 122, 118, 124, 135–6, 141–5, 151, 156, 160, 163, 172 austerity-driven governance 151 capital accumulation strategies 56, 76, 146 corporatization of public sector 83 entrepreneurialization of 85, 136, 160 hegemonic projects 13, 21, 76, 109, 134–5, 137, 146, 156 multi-spatial meta-governance 42–3 urban political economists 16, 72, 84 urban regeneration 37, 39, 48, 58–9, 67–9, 103–5, 109, 136, 154–6 business improvement districts 68, 127 urban renewal 134–5, 162 urban social movements 3, 8, 12, 104–5, 132, 161–2, 171, 175 civil rights 3, 162 commons-oriented movements 18, 23 post-2011 movements 12, 157, 175 ‘right to stay put’ 162 INDEX Virno, Paolo 16, 18, 144, 150, 152–4, 176 Wacquant, Loïc 163 Wallerstein, Immanuel 28, 57 Weber, Max 24, 36, 112, 119 rationalization 119, 163 world cities 25, 27–8, 52, 55–8, 59–62, 77–8 world of cities 84 Young, Iris Marion 169 Žižek, Slavoj 122 213 ... reprint or edition For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction Viewing Cities in Global Capitalism Conceptualizing Cities in Global. .. key aspects of society into its system, but encompassing everything, including life itself The distinctive contribution of this book lies in this understanding of capitalism in relation to the urban... but also in intellectual terms, as it has sparked renewed interest in the understanding of the general mechanisms of capitalism, understood as an incessantly evolving entity in the globalized