Globalization, Development and Ordinary Cities: A Review Essay

What are the underlying spatial assumptions about the world that renders some cities exemplars of modernity and innovation, while others are cast as being behind, and worse yet, forgotten places? This is a key question that has emerged in geography and sociology, and is addressed in Jennifer Robinsons book Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development. The purpose of this essay is two-fold in that it provides a review of Robinsons book and it also uses her text as a vehicle to interrogate the geo-politics of urban theory development. In particular, scholars have voiced concern over the manner in which world cities and then global cities have the power/knowledge e?ect of reifying the idea that there is one world system that can be measured objectively.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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