Developmentalist Cities? - (Studies in Critical Social Sciences) by Jamie Doucette & Bae-Gyoon Park (Paperback)

About the Book

Bringing together inter-disciplinary research into the subject of urban developmentalism, this indispensable collection fills gaps in research on both East Asian developmentalism and urbanization.

Book Synopsis

Bringing together inter-disciplinary research into the subject of urban developmentalism, this indispensable collection fills gaps in research on both East Asian developmentalism and urbanization.

Review Quotes

"Developmental Cities? is a milestone for those who study East Asian cities or who are interested in the nexus between geopolitics and urban processes..."

-Do Young Oh, Urban Geography

"The chapters in Developmentalist Cities attend to the ways in which "developmentalism" in East Asia is not simply a top-down political imperative, but a geo- political economic process. While it is widely accepted that East Asian states are "developmentalist" due to their particular patterns of economic growth and industrialization under a strong central government, the authors in this edited volume collectively urge us to more carefully consider the interplay between developmentalism and urban space."

-Bonnie Tilland, The Journal of Asian Studies

"This original and provocative collection is the first critically to interrogate the nexus of urbanism and developmentalism in East Asia, mobilizing in the pro- cess the kaleidoscopic lens that is geopolitical economy. Highly recommended, the book inaugurates new ways of thinking about cities, urban theory, and (late) developmental states, both within the region and beyond."

-Jamie Peck Canada Research Chair in Urban & Regional Political Economy and Professor of Geography, University of British Columbia

"Developmental Cities? is a milestone for those who study East Asian cities or who are interested in the nexus between geopolitics and urban processes..."

-Do Young Oh, Urban Geography

"While each chapter shows a distinctive urban process in the individual context of East Asian countries, this collection demonstrates the usefulness of urban developmentalism as a process that cannot be easily unpacked based on existing models of urbanization in Western countries. This book ultimately celebrates the vitality of scholarship that has called for methodological and conceptual innovation in order to understand East Asian cities as form, process, and imaginary."

-Byung-Doo Choi, University of Daegu and Co-Founder of the East Asian Regional Conference on Alternative Geography

"Ranging in topic from the "Gangnam-ization" of Korean urban space to the management of migrant populations in China, each essay in this collection is a fascinating and insightful case study in its own right. Taken as a whole, Developmentalist Cities? breaks important new ground by connecting the af- terlives of Cold War developmentalism to new forms of neoliberal urbanism in East Asia. As these rich, interdisciplinary essays demonstrate, we cannot understand our urban present without understanding the histories, political economies and contested practices of developmentalist cities. This book is a timely and significant intervention into today's critical debates around urban growth and migration, gentrification and globalization, and the cities, zones and regions that mediate them."

-Jini Kim Watson New York University. Author of The New Asian City: Three Dimensional Fictions of Space and Urban Form

About the Author

Jamie Doucette is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Manchester. His research interests concern the geographical political economy of developmentalism and democratization in Korea and East Asia. He publishes widely in geography, political economy, and Asian studies.

Bae-Gyoon Park is a Professor of Geography in the College of Education at Seoul National University. His recent research focuses on border regions and (post) developmental urbanism in East Asia. He co-edited Locating Neoliberalism in East Asia (Blackwell 2012).