Contemporary Geographies of Urbanisation

Urbanisation in the Global South

In this course, Dr Mara Nogueira (Birkbeck, University of London) explores urbanisation in the contemporary world, with a particular focus on the Global South. In the first module, we explore geographies of urbanisation, noting that the locations of the most rapid urban growth rates have changed in recent decades, moving most strikingly to Asia and Africa. The second module thinks about two key features of urbanisation in the Global South - the megacity and the slum - and examines in depth why informal settlements have become so widespread in cities in the developing world. In the third module, we look at the turn towards authoritarian approaches to urban poverty by many states in the Global South, such as evictions and slum clearances, with a close analysis of this phenomenon in India. We conclude with a fourth module on how inequality is shaping the impacts of climate change on cities and their residents, considering this in the context of extreme weather events like Hurricane Katrina and global sea level rise.

Contemporary Geographies of Urbanisation

In this module, we think about geographical patterns of urbanisation in the 21st century, and particularly the shift to the Global South as the source of most urban growth. We focus on: (i) the overall global trend towards urbanisation since the 1950s - the world became majority urban in 2007 and this is expected to grow to two thirds by 2050; (ii) the shift in location of the most rapid urban growth from East Asia and Latin America to China, South Asia and Africa in recent decades; (iii) the centrality of China and India in contemporary urbanisation trends, with India for example holding 25 of the world’s 100 fastest growing cities; (iv) the growing roles of Pakistan and Central Africa as major sites of urban growth; (v) how the major challenges facing cities differ between the Global North and the Global South.