Talk: Are We Entering an Age of Urban Revolution? Rethinking the "Miracles" of Shanghai and Bangalore in Light of the "Uprisings" in Cairo and London

Are We Entering an Age of Urban Revolution? Rethinking the "Miracles" of Shanghai and Bangalore in Light of the "Uprisings" in Cairo and London

by Michael Goldman
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
Global Studies, and the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change (ICGC)

September 13, 2011
12:00 to 1:30 p.m. (Lunch served at noon)
101 University International Center (map)
331 17th Ave SE, East Bank

All are welcome but RSVPs are appreciated!

Or watch online at https://umconnect.umn.edu/tuesday/

As a member of a university-wide collaboration, the Global Urban Laboratory, Professor Goldman introduces in this talk the idea that we have entered the age of urban revolutions. Three types will be presented. First, since the early 1990s, there has been a sea change in policies toward the urban, with leaders using cities as platforms for national integration into the global economy. By putting up for sale public goods and urban spaces, they are transforming the structure of labor and production, politics and rights, and access to space and goods in our cities.

Consequently and secondly, popular protests globally are sparking what appear to be political revolutions with deep urban roots and ambitions (e.g., Jakarta, Cairo, Tunis, Santiago, Madrid). Third, urban scholars and activists has begun to rethink the staleness of our intellectual frameworks, inspiring a conceptual revolution grounded less in old models emanating from our traditional notions of global cities (London and New York) and more from new ways of seeing complex realities unfolding in cities in the global South. The talk will highlight dimensions to these three "urban revolutions," with a focus on Goldman's own research on Indian cities.