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Telescopic urbanism and the poor

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  • Ash Amin

Abstract

In 2003, UN-Habitat warned that by 2030 around a third of the world's 9 billion humans could be suffering from multiple deprivations, living in slum-like conditions in the world's cities. Urban attention is beginning to turn to this problem, and to questions of sustainable urban competitiveness and growth, but without much referencing of the one to the other. This paper claims that the city of the future is being looked at through the wrong end of the binoculars, with 'business consultancy' urbanism largely disinterested in the city that does not feed international competitiveness and business growth, and 'human potential' urbanism looking to the settlements where the poor are located for bottom-up solutions to well-being. The paper reflects on the implications of such an urban optic on the chances of the poor, their areas of settlement and their expectations of support from others in and beyond the city. While acknowledging the realism, inventiveness and achievements of effort initiated or led by the poor, the paper laments the disappearance of ideas of mutuality, obligation and commonality that telescopic urbanism has enabled, in the process scripting out both grand designs and the duty of distant others to address the problems of acute inequality and poverty that will continue to plague the majority city.

Suggested Citation

  • Ash Amin, 2013. "Telescopic urbanism and the poor," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 476-492, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cityxx:v:17:y:2013:i:4:p:476-492
    DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2013.812350
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    Cited by:

    1. Bruno Meeus & Luce Beeckmans & Bas van Heur & Karel Arnaut, 2020. "Broadening the Urban Planning Repertoire with an ‘Arrival Infrastructures’ Perspective," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 11-22.
    2. Hillary Angelo & Christine Hentschel, 2015. "Interactions with infrastructure as windows into social worlds: A method for critical urban studies: Introduction," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2-3), pages 306-312, June.
    3. Martina Bovo, 2020. "How the Presence of Newly Arrived Migrants Challenges Urban Spaces: Three Perspectives from Recent Literature," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 23-32.
    4. Alma Clavin & Niamh Moore-Cherry & Gerald Mills, 2021. "Mapping Green Dublin: Co-Creating a Greener Future With Local Communities," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(4), pages 96-109.
    5. Alan Gilbert, 2015. "Urban governance in the South: How did Bogotá lose its shine?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(4), pages 665-684, March.
    6. Tabea Bork-Hüffer & Simon Alexander Peth, 2020. "Arrival or Transient Spaces? Differentiated Politics of Mobilities, Socio-Technological Orderings and Migrants’ Socio-Spatial Embeddedness," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 33-43.
    7. Melissa Wilson & Bob Catterall, 2015. "City 's holistic and cumulative project (1996-2016): (1) Then and now: 'It all comes together in Los Angeles?'," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 131-142, February.
    8. Bruno Meeus & Luce Beeckmans & Bas van Heur & Karel Arnaut, 2020. "Broadening the Urban Planning Repertoire with an ‘Arrival Infrastructures’ Perspective," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 11-22.
    9. Tarini Bedi, 2016. "Mimicry, friction and trans-urban imaginaries: Mumbai taxis/Singapore-style," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(6), pages 1012-1029, June.
    10. Laura Cesafsky, 2017. "How to Mend a Fragmented City: a Critique of ‘Infrastructural Solidarity'," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 145-161, January.
    11. Nicholas L Caverly, 2021. "Sensing others: Empty buildings and sensory worlds in Detroit," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(6), pages 1079-1096, September.
    12. Mike Hodson & Frank W. Geels & Andy McMeekin, 2017. "Reconfiguring Urban Sustainability Transitions, Analysing Multiplicity," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-20, February.
    13. Jenny Mbaye & Cecilia Dinardi, 2019. "Ins and outs of the cultural polis: Informality, culture and governance in the global South," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(3), pages 578-593, February.
    14. Ananya Roy, 2013. "Spectral futures," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 493-497, August.
    15. Yakubu, Ibrahim, 2021. "From a cluster of villages to a city: Housing politics and the dilemmas of spatial planning in Tamale, Ghana," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    16. Jenny McArthur & Enora Robin, 2019. "Victims of their own (definition of) success: Urban discourse and expert knowledge production in the Liveable City," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(9), pages 1711-1728, July.
    17. Linda Peake, 2016. "The Twenty-First-Century Quest for Feminism and the Global Urban," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 219-227, January.
    18. Martina Bovo, 2020. "How the Presence of Newly Arrived Migrants Challenges Urban Spaces: Three Perspectives from Recent Literature," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 23-32.
    19. Cardoso, Rodrigo V. & Meijers, Evert J. & van Ham, Maarten & Burger, Martijn J. & de Vos, Duco, 2017. "The City as a Self-Help Book: The Psychology of Urban Promises," IZA Discussion Papers 10693, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Andrea Pollio, 2020. "Architectures of millennial development: Entrepreneurship and spatial justice at the bottom of the pyramid in Cape Town," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(3), pages 573-592, May.
    21. Rodrigo Cardoso & Evert Meijers & Maarten van Ham & Martijn Burger & Duco de Vos, 2019. "Why bright city lights dazzle and illuminate: A cognitive science approach to urban promises," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(2), pages 452-470, February.

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