I have written one piece that deals with this sort of Saskia's theme. Geography, uneven development and distributive justice: the political economy of IT growth in India
*Anthony P. D'Costa* *Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society<http://econpapers.repec.org/article/oupcjrecs/> *, 2011, vol. 4, issue 2, pages 237-251 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Anthony P. D'Costa, Chair & Professor of Contemporary Indian Studies Australia India Institute and School of Social & Political Sciences University of Melbourne 147-149 Barry Street, Carlton VIC 3053 Ph: +61 3 9035 6161 Visit the Australia India Institute Website http://www.aii.unimelb.edu.au/<https://owa.unimelb.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=KGdpeyp6YEyjUaiENKoAtx8nOn9uStAIlCVtCNE3uLxqkGIwkWdEYjJXILfPlddrM0Q1713syQQ.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.aii.unimelb.edu.au%2f> [image: cid:9A86825B-BEA5-4325-9640-1C18BBE1FE84] *Recent books:* *http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198082286.do#.UI5Wzmc2dI0<https://owa.unimelb.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=KGdpeyp6YEyjUaiENKoAtx8nOn9uStAIlCVtCNE3uLxqkGIwkWdEYjJXILfPlddrM0Q1713syQQ.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fukcatalogue.oup.com%2fproduct%2f9780198082286.do%23.UI5Wzmc2dI0> ** http://www.oup.com/localecatalogue/cls_academic/?i=9780199646210<https://owa.unimelb.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=KGdpeyp6YEyjUaiENKoAtx8nOn9uStAIlCVtCNE3uLxqkGIwkWdEYjJXILfPlddrM0Q1713syQQ.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.oup.com%2flocalecatalogue%2fcls_academic%2f%3fi%3d9780199646210> **http://www.anthempress.com/pdf/9780857285041.pdf<https://owa.unimelb.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=KGdpeyp6YEyjUaiENKoAtx8nOn9uStAIlCVtCNE3uLxqkGIwkWdEYjJXILfPlddrM0Q1713syQQ.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.anthempress.com%2fpdf%2f9780857285041.pdf> ** *http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=295354<https://owa.unimelb.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=KGdpeyp6YEyjUaiENKoAtx8nOn9uStAIlCVtCNE3uLxqkGIwkWdEYjJXILfPlddrM0Q1713syQQ.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.palgrave.com%2fproducts%2ftitle.aspx%3fpid%3d295354> *KOREA CONFERENCE April 18-19, 2013* *http://tinyurl.com/cwrxcg4* xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 11:51 PM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > Financial Times June 14, 2013 6:49 pm > Priced out of Paris > > By Simon Kuper > > Our great, global cities are turning into vast gated citadels where the > elite reproduces itself > > Two mournful friends dropped by our flat in Paris last Sunday. They are > a well-paid couple from the caste known in Paris as “bobos”: people with > bourgeois incomes and bohemian tastes. In the popular narrative, bobos > have invaded Paris, driving out pure bohemians and the working class. > But my bobo friends had a new story: they themselves were being driven > out of Paris. To get enough space for their kids, they were leaving for > the suburbs. When they’d told the headmaster at the children’s school, > he had looked sad and said: “Everyone is leaving.” Paris is pricing out > even the upper middle-class. > > There is a wider story here. The great global cities – notably New York, > London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Paris – are unprecedentedly desirable. > At last week’s fascinating New Cities Summit in São Paulo, the architect > Daniel Libeskind said: “We live in a time of renaissance … cities are > coming back to life, after a long neglect.” Edward Luce chronicled the > urban revival in last Saturday’s FT Magazine. However, there’s an iron > law of 21st-century life: when something is desirable, the “one per > cent” grabs it. The great cities are becoming elite citadels. This is > terrifying for everyone else. > > At the New Cities Summit I had a coffee with Saskia Sassen of Columbia > University, leading thinker on cities. That took some doing: Sassen > arrived from Bogotá that morning, and was flying to Zurich hours later. > “Cities were poor,” she told me, in between. “In the 1970s London was > broke, New York was broke, Tokyo was broke, Paris was much poorer than > now. And the built environment was a bit run down.” > > But from the 1980s, these cities recovered. An increasingly complex > financial sector needed more sophisticated networks of lawyers and > accountants. Corporate mergers and takeovers meant global headquarters > got concentrated in fewer places. Crime declined, making cities less > scary. And so great cities grew richer. Fancy architects put up lovely > buildings. House prices rose. > > First, the working classes and bohemians were priced out. Nowadays the > only ribald proletarian banter you hear inside Paris is from the market > sellers, who don’t live there anymore. > > That was gentrification. Now comes plutocratisation: the middle classes > and small companies are falling victim to class-cleansing. Global cities > are becoming patrician ghettos. In 2009, says Sassen, the top 1 per cent > of New York City’s earners got 44 per cent of the compensation paid to > its workers. The “super-prime housing market” keeps rising even when the > national economy collapses. After Manhattan, New York’s upper-middle > classes are being priced out of Brooklyn. Sassen diagnoses “gradual > destruction”. > > Global cities are turning into vast gated communities where the one per > cent reproduces itself. Elite members don’t live there for their jobs. > They work virtually anyway. Rather, global cities are where they network > with each other, and put their kids through their country’s best > schools. The elite talks about its cities in ostensibly innocent > language, says Sassen: “a good education for my child,” “my > neighbourhood and its shops”. But the truth is exclusion. > > When one-per-centers travel, they meet peers from other global cities. A > triangular elite circuit now links London, Paris and Brussels, notes > Michael Keith, anthropology professor at Oxford. Elite New Yorkers visit > London, not Buffalo. > > Sassen says: “These new geographies of centrality cut across many older > divides – north-south, east-west, democracies versus dictator regimes. > So top-level corporate and professional sectors of São Paulo begin to > have more in common with peers in Paris, Hong Kong et cetera than with > the rest of their own societies.” > > . . . > > All through history, bright young people migrated to metropolises: think > of Dick Whittington, the semi-mythical medieval English country boy who > ended up mayor of London. But today Dick wouldn’t be able to afford a > bedsit in London. He’d have to turn down an internship. To buy in these > cities now, you must either earn a fortune or inherit a house there – > and often the same people do both. Outsiders who reach the city late > rarely have the education and contacts to succeed. > > Inevitably, the one per cent in the global city shapes national > policies. Sassen mentions core features of the “neoliberal project”, > such as deregulating finance or privileging control of inflation over > job growth. “The work was done in Wall Street, the City of London,” she > says. Elite opinion-formers, who live in global cities alongside > financiers (albeit in smaller flats), assured the little people that > these policies would help everyone. > > Sassen sighs: “The capture by a very small number of cities of a lot of > the excitement and wealth produced by the system – this is a problem.” > Outside these hubs, things are less desirable. Most western cities have > lost manufacturing. Market towns struggle as small-scale agriculture > fades. A few secondary cities (Lyon, Denver, Bristol) thrive. Most > don’t. Even cities as prominent as São Paulo, Moscow or Johannesburg may > prove too violent or congested to succeed. “You also have cities that > simply die – Detroit,” adds Sassen. But if they’re out in the sticks, > nobody powerful will hear them scream. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
