City Matters: Shifting Terrains of Ecology, Disparity and Connectivity
The year 2008 dramatically marked an urban turn for humanity: the
majority of the world's
population now lives in cities. Urban transformations have however
been taking place
quite dramatically for the last two decades and have been significant:
the proliferation
of exburbs, in-between cities, satellite cities, gated communities,
and the creation of
new, regionally specific peripheries; the aging of the suburbs; the
morphing of slums,
favelas, and shantytowns into diverse communities; the bypassing by
disaporic communities
of the urban ghettos and gentrifying inner-cities. In this shifting
terrain, deep
anxieties have arisen over the pace and scale of urbanization in
connection to unfolding
disparities, connectivity, and ecology. This session, in an effort to
engage in and
initiate a dialogue over the challenges and possibilities offered by
the urban turn,
invites papers that deal with the question of the urban and reflect on
how the new
geographies of wealth and disparity, health and ecology, and movement
and mobilization,
are reconstituting cities in the twenty first century.
Organizers: Shubhra Gururani and Karl Schmid
If you are interested, please contact us. A 100 word abstract of your
paper will be
required by February 18.
Contact us at: kschmid@yorku.ca or gururani@yorku.ca.
