Urbanization in a Global Context

Urbanization in a Global Context is a contributed text that helps Canadian students understand the process of urbanization by examining cities outside Canada across the Global North and South. Truly international in its approach, it emphasizes the interconnectedness of urban places and fosters analysis that identifies the similarities and differences between cities in different world regions. Each chapter focuses on different contemporary urban issues - ranging from urban policy, climate change, and gender to transportation and water governance - and introduces current urban scholarly debates, grounding them in international case studies. How these issues resonate with the Canadian urban context is discussed in text boxes, which employ descriptive accounts, drawing on examples from a selection of small-, mid-, and large-sized Canadian cities. Activities and questions at the end of each chapter prompt students to collaborate with peers to further critically reflect upon how these urban issues could relate to their lived experience in Canadian cities.

1 - Introduction: Global Urbanization and Urban Futures, Alison L. Bain and Linda Peake
2 - Shifting Urban Contours: Understanding a World of Growing and Shrinking Cities, Kenneth Cardenas and Philip Kelly
3 - Suburbanization Worldwide, Richard Harris and Roger Keil
4 - The Right to the City: "The Slum" and Informal Urbanisms, Katharine Rankin, Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin, and Sabin Ninglehku
5 - "Instant" Cities? Rapid Urbanization and Spectacular Urbanisms, Penn Tsz Ting Ip and Michelle Buckley
6 - Spaces of Division: Gentrification, Gated Communities, and Social Mixing, Nicholas Lynch and Yolande Pottie-Sherman
7 - Urban Planning, Indigenous Peoples, and Settler States, Ryan Walker and Sarem Nejad
8 - Inequality, Austerity, and Volatile Housing Markets, Alan Walks and Dylan Simone
9 - Cultural Governance in Post-Industrial Cities, Alison L. Bain and Friederike Landau
10 - Urban Policy and Planning for the Climate Crisis, Daniel Aldana Cohen
11 - Smart Cities: Big Data and Surveillance, Brandon Hillier and Teresa Abbruzzese
12 - Refugees, Immigration, and Urban Citizenship, Pablo Bose
13 - Women in Cities, Linda Peake and Geraldine Pratt
14 - Urban Governance, Ethnicity, Race, and Youth, Beverley Mullings and Abdul Alim Habib
15 - Healthy Cities, Godwin Arku, Richard Sadler, Laurence Simard-Gagnon, and Vera Chouinard
16 - LGBTQ+ Urban Social Worlds, Julie A. Podmore, Alison L. Bain, and Chan Arun-Pina
17 - More-Than-Human-Cities, Lauren Van Patter, Laura Shillington, and Alice Hovorka
18 - Water, Waste, and Sanitation in Cities, Rebecca McMillan, Carrie L. Mitchell, and Kate Parizeau
19 - Urban Transportation Infrastructure, Craig Townsend and Govind Gopakumar
20 - Urban Public Spaces, Ebru Ustundag and Gökbörü Sarp Tanyildiz

Alison L. Bain is an Associate Professor of Geography at York University. Linda Peake is a Professor of Social Science who teaches in the Urban Studies program and the Graduate Program in Geography and is the Director of the CITY Institute at York University.