Abstract
In this highly readable and sharply argued volume, Martin J. Murray—a professor of urban planning and sociology at the University of Michigan—both criticizes the interdisciplinary field of urban studies for its tendency to develop would-be universal theories and conceptual frameworks that rely exclusively on global North cases, and offers an alternative categorization scheme. The latter, designed with inclusivity in mind, aims to make sense of the complex and contradictory, but also interrelated, trajectories of cities around the world. Contrary to the seemingly hegemonic “global cities” paradigm, which—in his rendering—presupposes a linear path to globality (p. 26), Murray seeks to capture a messier reality in which cities of vastly different sizes, aspirations, and prospects are all mutually imbricated with global processes, though in diverse ways. Seeking to strike a balance between the general and the particular, the author thus calls for a “rethinking” of urban theory that entails eschewing “unwarranted generalizations, sweeping universals, and unhelpful abstractions” (p. 63) in favor of more nuanced and context-sensitive theorization and concepts. While certain facets would benefit from further elaboration, his critiques and substantive proposals are cogently presented and argued. Accordingly, overall, this book provides an insightful and helpful overview of (and response to) the transdisciplinary literatures on global cities.
Murray’s principal target is what he refers to as “conventional [or, alternatively, ‘mainstream’] urban studies,” a phrase that features in the title of the first chapter and appears dozens more times throughout the text (though he does not offer a sufficiently precise definition for this label, nor a clear delineation of whose work fits therein). In Murray’s estimation, this “conventional” scholarship has focused on discovering (and measuring) the universal traits that embody, and make possible the development of, successful “global cities.” In this way, “scholars in these paradigmatic frameworks have—perhaps inadvertently—triggered a competitive urge among local growth coalitions that, in the rhetoric of city boosterism, seeks to find ways to advance in the ranked hierarchy of aspiring world-class cities” (p. 26). One such figure who is singled out here is Richard Florida, whose arguments concerning elite- and culture-led urbanization have been both extraordinarily influential and “deeply contentious,” as the author acknowledges (pp. 49–50). However, the fact that Florida’s work has been heavily criticized within urban studies and beyond raises the possibility that such understandings are perhaps not quite so hegemonic among scholars, even if they are heavily influential among urban elites the world over (p. 50).
Nevertheless, it is clear that there are indeed recurring scholarly tendencies “to pigeonhole cities into preestablished [and normatively charged] categories and classification schemes” (p. 26) and, in turn, to judge them vis-à-vis the usual reference points for “successful” global city-making (e.g, New York, London, and Barcelona).
Much of Murray’s discontent relates to the Eurocentric (and thus falsely universal) notions embedded within these understandings, which are made particularly problematic by the fact that most contemporary urban growth is occurring in the global South, especially in Africa and Asia. Though such critiques are certainly not new, Murray compellingly goes a step further by simultaneously problematizing the notion of “Southern theory” itself (p. 60). As he thoughtfully observes, “calls to de-colonize and de-Westernize urban theory have not moved very far beyond a broad-based critique of existing analytic frameworks and dominant ideas,” and as increased attention is shifted to the Global South, “a great deal of care must be taken to avoid positioning cities of the Global South as the new paradigmatic exemplars for understanding twenty-first-century urbanism” (p. 61). One danger, as he correctly identifies, is that thinking in terms of a North-versus-South binary may reinforce a “sloppy reverse essentialism” that glosses over the tremendous diversity of southern cities (p. 61). As he thoughtfully observes, the South—and the southern city—is not a “homogeneous space or a stable ontological category” (p. 63). In turn, Murray usefully problematizes the conventional distinction between northern and southern cities, arguing that the borders that supposedly separate them are “inherently unstable, porous, mutable, and often indecipherable” (p. 62).
In addition to this concern with cities beyond the core, Many Urbanisms also seeks to advance the scope of global-city theorizing by pushing for the incorporation into this framework of oft-overlooked urban spaces with less legitimate “world-class aspirations”: that is, cities that are commonly referred to as “shrinking,” “declining,” and “noncompetitive” (pp. 91–125). As argued, “urban shrinkage” is a widespread (yet undertheorized) phenomenon, and one that affects large numbers of cities not only in postindustrial regions in North America and Europe, but also in Japan, India, South Africa, and beyond—with potentially more than a quarter of all cities around the world fitting into this category during the last decade of the twentieth century (pp. 102–108). In addition to arguing for appreciation of the diverse forces that may cause decline, Murray argues against the scholarly tendency to view declining cities as “aberrations” vis-à-vis their booming and seemingly more global counterparts. Instead, as he notes, “Decline . . . is part of the inherent unevenness of capitalist investment in urban space” (p. 110). It is also a major cause of our current age of illiberal, anti-democratic tumult, a topic that goes unexplored here.
Much of the text is devoted to elaborating this and three other categories of global cities, the latter consisting of the aforementioned “globalizing cities with world-class aspirations” (again, consisting of the usual success cases), “sprawling megacites of hypergrowth” (mostly located in the global South), and recent cases of “instant urbanism” (including Dubai and Doha—which would also seem to fit into the “world-class” category). While the four categories are distinct in numerous ways, Murray also convincingly argues that they are interrelated insofar as they represent, per the subtitle, “divergent trajectories of global city building.”
Whatever one makes of this categorization scheme—and given his attention to nuance, Murray stresses that it is only a “first approximation” (p. 65)—there is clearly value to his effort to situate the particularities of distinct cases and types vis-à-vis a broader, universal story in which all cities must navigate the structural exigencies of our global age (though here, a deeper focus on how, exactly, global capitalism produces “unevenness” in terms of outcomes would be welcome). Readers who seek solutions will not find many here, and there is indeed something deterministic about the argument that “shrinkage” is a “permanent, irreversible condition” (p. 99). One wonders, also, how actors on the ground—perhaps with scholarly assistance—could find a way out of the ceaseless game of jockeying for positions in the global-city hierarchy. Nonetheless, as a context-sensitive work that helpfully reviews and critiques the state of global-city theorizing, and offers a nuanced path forward that both incorporates and shows the interconnections between disparate urban realities, this will be a highly useful text for scholars and advanced students alike.