Cities, at their best, are cradles of diversity, opportunity, and citizenship. Why, then, do so many cities today seem scarred by divisions separating the powerful and privileged from the victims of deprivation and injustice? What is it like to live on the wrong side of the divide in Paris, London, New York, Sao Paolo, and other cities all over the world?
In this book, based on the internationally renowned Oxford Amnesty Lectures, eight leading urban thinkers argue about why divisions arise in cities and about what could and should be done to bring those divisions to an end. The book features essays by Patrick Declerck, Stuart Hall, David Harvey, Richard Rogers, Patricia Williams, and James Wolfensohn, with commentaries from Peter Hall, Michael Likosky, and others. The many contemporary issues that the book addresses include the impact of globalization and migration on the urban environment, the consequences of the 'war on terror' for those living in cities, the new development paradigm being adopted by international institutions in the developing world, the need for a genuine urban renaissance in Britain and elsewhere, and the suffering of the homeless.
These controversial and sometimes conflicting essays, linked by Richard Scholar's incisive introduction, aim to encourage and inform debate about the challenges to human rights in our increasingly urban world.
Richard Scholar: Introduction Part I: Lectures 1: Stuart Hall (introduced by Stephen Howe): Cosmopolitan Promises, Multicultural Realities 2: Patricia J. Williams (introduced by Jane Shaw): Theatres of War 3: David Harvey (introduced by Erik Swyngedouw): The Right to the City 4: James D. Wolfensohn (introduced by Sebastian Mallaby): The Undivided City 5: Richard Rogers (introduced by James Attlee): An Urban Renaissance 6: Patrick Declerck (introduced by Maria Kaika): On the Necessary Suffering of the Homeless Part II: Responses 7: Michael B. Likosky: 'Who Should Foot the Bill?' 8: Peter Hall: 'Looking on the Bright Side'
Richard Scholar is a Director of Oxford Amnesty Lectures, Lecturer in French at Durham University, and the author of The Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi in Early Modern Europe: Encounters with a Certain Something (OUP, 2005).