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Journal article 1326 views 382 downloads

The ordinary city trap

Richard Smith Orcid Logo

Environment and Planning A, Volume: 45, Issue: 10, Pages: 2290 - 2304

Swansea University Author: Richard Smith Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1068/a45516

Abstract

The paper is a critique of a critique, it explains why the most salient and influential critiques of the neo-Marxist world city and global city concepts, made by those arguing to further postcolonialize urban studies through such suppositions that all cities are ‘ordinary’, are misguided. First, it...

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Published in: Environment and Planning A
ISSN: 0308-518X 1472-3409
Published: 2013
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa13248
first_indexed 2013-07-23T12:09:49Z
last_indexed 2018-02-09T04:43:53Z
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spelling 2017-08-03T13:38:43.9183841 v2 13248 2012-11-13 The ordinary city trap c91a932b3bc4c9ab9297b67800c95e08 0000-0003-0318-8494 Richard Smith Richard Smith true false 2012-11-13 BGPS The paper is a critique of a critique, it explains why the most salient and influential critiques of the neo-Marxist world city and global city concepts, made by those arguing to further postcolonialize urban studies through such suppositions that all cities are ‘ordinary’, are misguided. First, it is explained how the charges of economism and ethnocentrism against the world city and global city concepts are ignoratio elenchi: they do not even begin to address or critique their neo-Marxist argument that, across the difference and diversity of the world’s cities, a few major cities have the necessary economic specialization and therefore extraordinary function of commanding and controlling neoliberal globalization. Second, the error made by advocates of ordinary cities of supposing that world-systems analysis and the world city concept are forms of developmentalism is understood as the source for a wider postcolonial mistake of conflating the neo-Marxist world city and global city literatures with the very neoliberal practices toward urban development that they have long attempted to disclose and counter. Finally, the charges against the world city and global city concepts as paradigmatic, peripheralizing, and normative are also rebutted, not only to highlight how those critiques are consequentialist and dependent on the respective charges of economism, ethnocentrism, and developmentalism having veracity, but to demonstrate how an acceptance of the ordinary cities argument for an idiographic, provincial, nominalist, and comparative approach to urban studies, as an alternative to the two neo-Marxist concepts, is only to fall into the trap of making the mistake of confusing evidence of absence for absence of evidence. Journal Article Environment and Planning A 45 10 2290 2304 0308-518X 1472-3409 ordinary city; postcolonial urbanisms; world city; global city 31 12 2013 2013-12-31 10.1068/a45516 COLLEGE NANME Biosciences Geography and Physics School COLLEGE CODE BGPS Swansea University 2017-08-03T13:38:43.9183841 2012-11-13T14:05:48.1775424 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Geography Richard Smith 0000-0003-0318-8494 1 0013248-06122016225705.pdf TheOrdinaryCityTrapVR.pdf 2016-12-06T22:57:05.5030000 Output 265061 application/pdf Version of Record true 2016-12-06T00:00:00.0000000 false
title The ordinary city trap
spellingShingle The ordinary city trap
Richard Smith
title_short The ordinary city trap
title_full The ordinary city trap
title_fullStr The ordinary city trap
title_full_unstemmed The ordinary city trap
title_sort The ordinary city trap
author_id_str_mv c91a932b3bc4c9ab9297b67800c95e08
author_id_fullname_str_mv c91a932b3bc4c9ab9297b67800c95e08_***_Richard Smith
author Richard Smith
author2 Richard Smith
format Journal article
container_title Environment and Planning A
container_volume 45
container_issue 10
container_start_page 2290
publishDate 2013
institution Swansea University
issn 0308-518X
1472-3409
doi_str_mv 10.1068/a45516
college_str Faculty of Science and Engineering
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hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofscienceandengineering
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department_str School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Geography{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Geography
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description The paper is a critique of a critique, it explains why the most salient and influential critiques of the neo-Marxist world city and global city concepts, made by those arguing to further postcolonialize urban studies through such suppositions that all cities are ‘ordinary’, are misguided. First, it is explained how the charges of economism and ethnocentrism against the world city and global city concepts are ignoratio elenchi: they do not even begin to address or critique their neo-Marxist argument that, across the difference and diversity of the world’s cities, a few major cities have the necessary economic specialization and therefore extraordinary function of commanding and controlling neoliberal globalization. Second, the error made by advocates of ordinary cities of supposing that world-systems analysis and the world city concept are forms of developmentalism is understood as the source for a wider postcolonial mistake of conflating the neo-Marxist world city and global city literatures with the very neoliberal practices toward urban development that they have long attempted to disclose and counter. Finally, the charges against the world city and global city concepts as paradigmatic, peripheralizing, and normative are also rebutted, not only to highlight how those critiques are consequentialist and dependent on the respective charges of economism, ethnocentrism, and developmentalism having veracity, but to demonstrate how an acceptance of the ordinary cities argument for an idiographic, provincial, nominalist, and comparative approach to urban studies, as an alternative to the two neo-Marxist concepts, is only to fall into the trap of making the mistake of confusing evidence of absence for absence of evidence.
published_date 2013-12-31T00:28:35Z
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