Planet of SlumsA celebrated urban historian’s bestselling account of the global explosion of slums. According to the united nations, more than one billion people now live in the slums of the cities of the South. In this brilliant and ambitious book, Mike Davis explores the future of a radically unequal and explosively unstable urban world. From the sprawling barricadas of Lima to the garbage hills of Manila, urbanization has been disconnected from industrialization, and even from economic growth. Davis portrays a vast humanity warehoused in shantytowns and exiled from the formal world economy. He argues that the rise of this informal urban proletariat is a wholly unforeseen development, and asks whether the great slums, as a terrified Victorian middle class once imagined, are volcanoes waiting to erupt. |
What people are saying - Write a review
User ratings
| 5 stars |
| ||
| 4 stars |
| ||
| 3 stars |
| ||
| 2 stars |
| ||
| 1 star |
|
Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified
LibraryThing Review
User Review - HadriantheBlind - LibraryThingRead for class. This is utterly terrifying and damning. These slums are the exemplification of hell. I have seen some of these slums myself, and can confirm, if only to a minor degree, some of the ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - paperloverevolution - LibraryThingI'm not going to lie: this is dry. Really, really dry. I like dry, as a general rule, or at least it doesn't bother me - but this? Man. Maybe it's because the things he covers are so wrenchingly ... Read full review
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Africa Alan Gilbert Aldrich and Sandhu areas Asia Asian Bangalore Bank’s barrios Beijing Bombay Breman Cairo capital Caracas China city’s colonial countryside crisis Delhi Developing Countries Devisch Dhaka economic employment Environment and Urbanization Erhard Berner estimated evicted example families favelas forced formal gecekondus global growth homes housing human Ibid illegal income India industrial inequality informal sector infrastructure Jakarta Karachi Kibera Kinshasa Kolkata labor Lagos land Latin America Likewise live London Manila meanwhile megacities Mexico City middle class migrants million Mumbai Nairobi neoliberal NGOs official Paulo peasants People’s percent peri-urban periphery policies political rent rental researchers residents rural sanitation São Paulo SAPs Seabrook settlements shantytowns slum slum-dwellers social South squatters squatting street structural adjustment suburbs tenements tenure Third World Third World Cities UN-Habitat urban poor urban population urban poverty villages Washington D.C. women workers World Bank World urban York
Bibliographic information
| Title | Planet of Slums |
| Author | Mike Davis |
| Edition | reprint |
| Publisher | Verso, 2007 |
| ISBN | 1844671607, 9781844671601 |
| Length | 228 pages |
| Subjects | › › Political Science / Globalization Political Science / Public Policy / City Planning & Urban Development Social Science / Developing & Emerging Countries |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |