While his interest is urbanization in the Global South, Spencer includes writing about places like New York City, and I found his chapter on New York regarding the forces that formed that city to be particularly insightful.
The first chapter, The Global Urban Ecosystem, describes a fascinating history of human civilization as well as the "emerging discipline of ecosystem science." Spencer asks, "what is a city?" and how does it change our personal identities? How do we adapt our behaviours, and how do animals who are impacted by the detritus of cities change and adapt? Clearly cities shape a larger ecology. “Because humans build, occupy, and transform them, cities come alive and develop personalities that represent many people,” says Spencer, sharing collective history and relationships of residents into complex interacting forces. The science of cities is never entirely reliably or empirically measurable as there are so many “second-order categories” that make it difficult to study cities unless they include race gender, age, cultural and socio-physical factors that are difficult to standardize. Here Spencer vividly describes the evolution of human gathering places to actual settlements with markets and resulting economic roles. Spencer's writing is rich in references to other scholars of urban development, and his discussions of Jane Jacobs's ideas and frequent references to Jacobs's work are admiring and set an upbeat tone.
Chapter two offers a deeper historical context to the phenomenon of urban growth, including a "natural history of the city," and a section introducing Lewis Mumford, considered the patrirach of urban planning. Spencer compares Mumford's ideas to other scholars such as Jacobs and later introduces the ideas of planners such as Frank Loyd Wright and Ebenezer Howard, founder of the garden city movement. Here it becomes clear utopian ideas in compassionate, human-centered city design and the garden city concept are important ideals to Spencer. “Utopian planners have long dreamed of an ideal society in which cities and settlements achieve human-scale interactions, social equity, and connections to the environment.”
The book then begins a multi-city tour of those places that Spencer has chosen as interesting comparisons in the urban realm. Here Spencer introduces the concept of "Do-Your-Timers" for people working in cities where rewards hover as potential and in the future. The first city Spencer has chosen is Saigon. Saigon is a city growing very rapidly yet there are still people who cook on open fires inside the house and do other things that identify them as rural people new to urban living. Only China is growing more quickly than Vietnam in terms of GDP. Vietnam signed a trade agreement with the US in 2000 that radically changed markets. As a result entrepreneurs have also flooded into Saigon from China as well as places as far away as North America and Africa to try their entrepreneurial luck. At the same time, Saigon is a textbook example of rural migration, with people coming in from rural places such as the Mekong Delta creating a population of new "Do-Your-Timers" whose numbers swell the labour force but also thwart city planners. Saigon has drawn people from many walks and has a surprising level ofnewcomer diversity. It is not just farmers who have become urban factory workers, as rural people have created an extensive economy including quasi-legal businesses on the fringes offering services such as haircuts and massage for new urban consumers.
In chapter four, Spencer turns his attention to the city of Addis Adaba, titling his chapter: "Do-Your-Timers" African style: Addis Ababa, the Unlikely Capital of Africa. This chapter has some excellent history about a very distinct city that is growing quickly, including through the migration of thousands of Chinese workers into Africa. The chapter describes how Addis Ababa came to be, its unique qualities and unusual aspects that make it an interesting point of study. In particular, the history of the region is unique. Ethiopia has never really been colonized by a major European power. Italian intervention in Ethopia ended after a decisive battle, and emperor Haile Selassie remained monarch from 1930 to 1975. During emperor Haile Selassie's reign his image was elevated with the establishment of Rastafarianism and the granting to hundreds of Jamaican families of Ethiopian land in an area just south of Addis Ababa.
With the overthrow of the royal lineage in 1975, a development strategy built on the model of the Soviet Union was attempted. There was a period of rapid growth both in terms of population and infrastructure, before a civil war put everything on pause. Once stability was restored, a modern airport arrived in Addis and it was made the home of the African Union, a designation which radically changed the character of the city as global investors could suddenly access the city. Interestingly, Addis Ababa still runs on a precolonial time clock and a unique calendar that would normally limit its ability to do busness. Added to this, Ethiopians speak a variety of local dialects, none of which are common in other parts of the African continent. However, the strong role the area has played historically make it a preferred choice by many international business people, including those who have flocked there to escape war or plan business in other parts of Africa, such as Kenya. Although China is investing highly in South East Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa is receiving a massive foreign investment growth rates as well through Chinese investors. Africa is also poised to be a massive market for China not only for things such as phone and technology services, but for many goods and commodities as well. At the moment, 64% of oil is shipped to China from Africa, but these arrangements appear "poised to expand" to mutual benefit.
Chapter five, The Indigenous City? Reconcycling an Old-Timers' Honolulu with a Global Society begins with a description of the lush beaches and beautiful Pacific mountains. The writer then remarks that to drive around Honolulu is to also discover that "the city and county of Honolulu-is a city of pack rats...its residents are accumlating and storing both material goods and garbage, as well as experiences, ideas and aspirations, faster than the pristine and isolated island can cope with them." The author describes it as a city "stranded in an ocean five thousand miles from the nearest major landmass," with a special series of challenges as a result. Spencer quotes Mumford in his assertion that for the residents of Honolulu, living among "lush tropical trees, plants, flowers and bushes," may have given them "license to neglect its insufficient physical infrastructure." Spencer describes the significant diversity of cultural infuences that define modern-dsy Honolulu, including the enduring legacy of the original and contemporary Polynesian culture on the place, as well Japanese and Chinese cultures, and a massive influx of tourists from the mainland United States, many in the form of sunbirds who stayed, bringing considerable wealth and an entire tourist and service economy with them. Recently the idea of "Ahupu'a" has been touted by Honolulu as a way to attract investors as well as convince international interests that Hawai'i is conforming to environmental practices. Spencer explains the concept of "Ahupu'a" is an ancient Haiwaiian land governance concept that creates a structure for a limited area of "complex socio-ecological regions" as a single place. The author also expresses doubt that, given the level of neglect some communities receive including that of basic sanitation services, "Ahupu'a" as more than a marketing ploy is not truly at work in Honolulu. The chapter examines a series of trends, including challenges with waste management, NIMBYism, the plight of poor and "minority" neighbourhoods, and underlying political crisis in in its identity as an "Old-Timer's" city.
The author suggests that Honolulu must not assume that much-needed change will develop naturally, but that great planning will be required to protect the poor and allow them the ability to escape slum-dwelling and participate in the economy of Honolulu, which is propped-up powerfully at the moment by tourism and service industries for the wealthy.he comments that just like the Hawaiian tourist industry was developed with the importation of sand from beaches as far away as LA., growth in Honolulu, if it is to avoid slums, must be planned to prevent urban sprawl by deliberately creating opportunities. a range of opportunities and services that support the poor of Honolulu are as essential as those that cater to newcomers, while efforts to equitably integrate the labour force with the tourist industy that sustains the city rather than allow tensions to remain unresolved will be the road to a more peaceful and equal city longterm. Whether this will deliver "ahupua'a" or simply provide a stronger footing for improving the lot of Honolulu's poor, the sudden differences created by tourist colonialism are a long way from a dream of a "new communalism" and must be addressed.
Chapter six, For All-Timer's New York City's Empire State of Mind was my favourite chapter, despite the fact that the author was not writing on a city in the South. Spencer found New York important to include because, in part, we think of New York as the quintessential city when it is actually much smaller than many cities and has many unique features about it that make it worth considering as both a typical and atypical representation of a city.
Spencer's New York chapter begins by discussing the “ecosystem” behind Jay-Z and Alicia Keys's iconic New York song, Empire State of Mind remarking that a “tense mix of survivalist bravado and creative inspiration that defines a place both celebrated and reviled.” It describes how New York for a time became synonymous with decay and violence. New York is also the city that “comes to mind in the context of globalization and urbanization.” However, the author points out that other cities long ago exceeded the growth of New York, and it is the "culture of urbanity,” more than anything else that keeps new York at the fore. “What today looks like a dynamic, exciting and timeless city has not always been so.” It remarks “digging deeper down into the mechanics of how this urban culture and identity function will reveal that a more universal set of characteristics underlies each of the unique cities in the global ecosystem, making them edgy and familiar, exciting, yet safe.”
New York is a city to which other are compared, when it is in fact, quite young. It has changed rapidly, and in the years following 9/11, “global and domestic shocks literally changed the face” of cities such as New York, where “concrete barricades, security gates, and bulletproof glass” popped up throughout the city, something that became refered to as fortress architecture,” while “smart city” tech allowed for remote monitoring of public spaces. Spencer poses that this created a “physically and psychologically damaged” city but also a “softer, more understanding one.”
Despite this daunting architectural shift, New York City continues to attract people and jobs with the "cultural attributes made possible by demographic and economic growth.” Spencer posits that the “secret to this ongoing vibrancy is a unique and attractive identity that permeates deeper than any physical attribute.” Yet New York is a city that is sweltering in the summer while bitterly cold and overcast in the winter months. It has other disadvantages. Spencer points out it is not as attractive as Boston or Washington. However, Spencer comments it is a city which somehow “resolves its own very material problems compared to other large megacities.” A very interesting example of this are the transit strikes in New York, which resolved in only a few days, while in cities like LA transit strikes were rocked by transit strikes that failed to be resolved for weeks. The author neatly surmises the difference: “Wall street executives take the bus from time to time...Hollywood executives don't.”
In the way that New York residents often bump shoulders with various social classes and find themselves crowded together with a range of talents, skills and economic backgrounds, it is also distinctly filled with people familiar with urban politics. These "shared infrastructures and spaces" have pressed together "diverse residents to confront and negotiate with one another on an hourly basis.” In other words, having to “hash out” their difference has made New Yorkers distictly resilient in living together “socially and politically” in a way that more spawling locations such as LA have not. This chapter also describes in detail the challenges of New Yorkers, in particular the history of the epic debates between Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses. It describes the damages and the benefits reaped by "Moses-built environments" something the city still copes with to this day. The last section of the chapter, "Immortality Through Reinvention," describes how Alicia Keys reinvented the song "Empire State of Mind" with her own lyrics, less explicitly celebratory, but more real than the first. Spencer describes recent examples of communities that were considered high-poverty and high-crime that have positively reversed their fortunes. He remarks that New York remains a city for all time, surviving, even thriving, against all odds, a strength derived from the cultural richness of diverse peoples dwelling together for many generations, which has allowed for the unique capacity of New Yorkers to address their political problems with original and compellingly human solutions.
The last chapter, The Global Ecosystem: A Globally Integrated Ecology of Everyday Lifereviews how ecosystem science has been a valuable tool in helping us better see the complex physical environments that create each setting in which gobalization is unfolding. Spencer's book reminds us that no city is truly "the global city" but each one has deeply-rooted and distinct characters and challenges, and that economics is only one function of many functions in a city. Contemporary relationships which strwngthen the unique character and the health of the poor in any city are the measure of worth in globalization, and those that impose are not. Urban planning "best practices" may do well to reframe their thinking as "informative practices," or "suggestive practices," as standardization wastes public resources and is not a path forward for any city. Much more powerful is the ecosystem lens, which helps us coherently understand the building blocks of cities, and how the fundamental differences allows each place to flourish in its own way. Leadership that is "creative, inspired by the human condition, but anchored to earth by realism" allows for the building of cities that thrive without interference, cities, concludes Spencer, that are "about both poetry and engineering.”
Spencer, J. H. (2015). Globalization and urbanization: The Global Urban Ecosystem. Rowman & Littlefield.
