The tourist: A new theory of the leisure class.

Attention to global and world cities has directed the field of urban studies to the significance of international and transnational processes in shaping city economies. This article evaluates these approaches, from a position off their maps. I argue that the circulation of these approaches in academic and policy realms adversely impacts on cities which do not fall into these categories by setting up the idea of the global city as a ‘regulating fiction’, a standard towards which they aspire. It establishes a small sector of the global economy as most desirable in planning the future of cities. By contrast, mega–cities function as the dramatic ‘other’ of world and global cities, and highlight the developmentalist discourse through which most cities in poor countries are assessed as fundamentally lacking in qualities of city–ness. I argue that the long–standing categories of western/third–world cities have been translated into the apparently transnational accounts of global and world cities. Western cities continue to be the primary site of production of apparently unlocated urban theory; so–called third–world cities (and other cities off the map of the world cities cartography) are interpreted through a developmentalist lens and, where they are referred to at all, are framed in terms of ‘difference’ or irrelevance. This article draws attention to the emergence of an alternative set of theoretical approaches, which are more inclusive in their geographical reach and which are concerned with the diverse dynamics of ordinary cities. These approaches have not yet realized that they have the potential to broaden the base for theorizing about cities and, with this in mind, the article explores the potential for a more cosmopolitan urban theory. The policy stakes in this are high, and the article notes that there are important political reasons to promote the analysis of ordinary cities in the face of the persistence of ambitions in many cities to become ‘world cities‘.

L’attention accordee aux villes planetaires et mondiales a oriente le champ des etudes urbaines vers l’importance des processus internationaux et transnationaux dans la configuration economique des villes. Partant d’un point situe hors de leur cartographie, l’article evalue ces approches. La circulation de celles–ci dans les spheres politiques et intellectuelles a une incidence nefaste sur les villes qui n’appartiennent pas a ces categories, car elle instaure l’idee d’une ville planetaire en tant que ‘fiction regulatrice’, norme a laquelle aspirent les villes. Un secteur restreint de l’economie mondiale est ainsi etabli comme le plus recherche dans la planification urbaine. Par contraste, les megacities fonctionnent comme l’impressionnant ‘autre’ des villes mondiales et planetaires, valorisant le discours developpementaliste selon lequel l’evaluation des villes des pays pauvres indique le plus souvent des lacunes fondamentales dans les qualites propres a une ville. Les anciennes categories de villes (Occident/tiers–monde) ont ete converties en justifications apparemment transnationales des villes planetaires et mondiales. Les villes occidentales restent le site de production principal d’une theorie urbaine manifestement non–localisee; les villes dites du tiers monde (et autres villes ignorees de la cartographie des villes mondiales) sont interpretees a travers une optique developpementaliste et, si on en parle, sont depeintes en termes de ‘difference‘ ou d’inadequation. Cet article souligne l’emergence d’un autre ensemble d’approches theoriques, plus inclusives dans leur geographie et soucieuses des diverses dynamiques des villes ordinaires. Sachant que ces demarches ne sont pas encore conscientes de pouvoir etendre la base theorique sur les villes, l’article explore la possibilite d’une theorie urbaine plus cosmopolite. Les enjeux strategiques sont serieux et il existe des raisons politiques importantes d’encourager l’analyse des villes ordinaires face aux ambitions persistantes dans de nombreuses villes de devenir les ‘villes mondiales’.

Global and world cities: a view from off the map

The Creative City is now a classic and has been republished many times. It is an ambitious book and a clarion call for imaginative action in running urban life. It seeks to inspire people to think, plan and act imaginatively in the city and to get an ideas factory going that turns urban innovations into reality. Its aim is to make readers feel: ‘I can do that too’ and to spread confidence that creative and innovative solutions to urban problems are feasible however bad they may seem at first sight.

The creative city: A toolkit for urban innovators

Cities exist in a world of cities and thus routinely invite a comparative gesture in urban theorizing. However, for some decades urban studies have analytically divided the world of cities into, for example, wealthier and poorer, capitalist and socialist, or into different regional groupings of cities, with subsequently very little comparative research across these divides. Interest in drawing comparisons among different cities has escalated in an era of ‘globalization’, as economic and social activities as well as governance structures link cities together through spatially extensive flows of various kinds and intense networks of communication. Nonetheless, scholars of urban studies have been relatively reluctant to pursue the potential for international comparative research that stands at the heart of the field. Where an interest in globalization has drawn authors to explicit exercises in comparison, both the methodological resources and the prevalent intellectual and theoretical landscape have tended to limit and even undermine these initiatives. This article seeks, first, to understand why it is that in an intrinsically comparative field with an urgent contemporary need for thinking across different urban experiences, there has been relatively little comparative research, especially comparisons that stretch across the global North–South divide, or across contexts of wealthier and poorer cities. Secondly, through a review of existing strategies for comparing cities, the article considers the potential for comparative methodologies to overcome their limitations to meet growing demands for international and properly post-colonial urban studies. Finally, it proposes a new phase of comparative urban research that is experimental, but with theoretically rigorous foundations.

Resume
Les villes existent dans un monde de villes et invitent donc normalement a un mouvement comparatif au sein de la recherche urbaine. Toutefois, depuis quelques decennies, les demarches analytiques des etudes urbaines ont scinde le monde des villes en, par exemple, riches et pauvres, capitalistes et socialistes, ou en d’autres regroupements par regions, ce qui s’est traduit par de rares comparaisons entre ces grandes divisions. L’interet pour les travaux comparatifs entre villes s’est accentue au fil de la ‘mondialisation’, les activites economiques et sociales ainsi que les structures de gouvernance reliant les villes par des flux de plusieurs types et de grande envergure spatiale, et par d’actifs reseaux de communication. Pourtant, les auteurs d’etudes urbaines se sont montres peu enclins a approfondir le potentiel de recherches comparatives internationales qu’offre ce domaine. Lorsqu’un interet pour la mondialisation a pousse certains a des exercices comparatifs detailles, tant les ressources methodologiques que le contexte theorique et intellectuel dominant ont plutot limite, voire aneanti, ces initiatives. Dans un premier temps, cet article cherche a comprendre pourquoi, dans un domaine comparatif par nature ou un besoin urgent appelle a une reflexion associant differentes experiences urbaines, les etudes comparatives sont relativement rares, notamment les comparaisons qui depassent la division entre Nord et Sud, ou entre les villes les plus riches et les plus pauvres. Ensuite, faisant le bilan des strategies de comparaison existantes, il envisage les methodologies comparatives qui pourraient repousser leurs limites pour repondre aux demandes croissantes en etudes urbaines internationales et reellement postcoloniales. Pour finir, l’article propose une nouvelle phase experimentale d’etudes urbaines comparatives, egalement dotee de fondements rigoureux sur le plan theorique.

Cities in a World of Cities: The Comparative Gesture

We review and synthesize recent South African work that examines the role and importance of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in the daily lives of rural people in South Africa. The most commonly used such products are wild spinaches, fuelwood, wooden utensils edible fruits, grass hand-brushes, and twig hand-brushes, used by 85% or more of households. More than half the households investi- gated also make use of edible insects, wood for construction, bushmeat, wild honey and reeds for weaving. Individual households may exploit dozens of animal and plant species. The range in annual, direct-use values is large, from less than R1000 per house- hold per year to over R12 000. The value to rural households is manifest through a daily net function which represents a cost saving to the families involved and to the state, as well as through an emergency net, which serves as an insurance in times of misfor- tune, such as drought, disease, and unexpected economic hard- ship. The emergency net function has hardly been quantified in South Africa and internationally. Ad hoc trade in NTFPs is a common emergency net, which in some instances evolves into a permanent way of life. Financial returns from trade are variable, depending on resource type and hours worked, but are typically low. Despite the small cash incomes from trade, they provide an important contribution that complement the diverse livelihood strategies within a household, especially for the poorer sectors of rural society. Moreover, there are non-financial benefits of NTFP trade that are commonly overlooked.

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The importance of non-timber forest products in rural livelihood security and as safety nets: a review of evidence from South Africa

Professor C M Rogerson, of the Department of Geography, University of the Witwatersrand, examines the changing condition and contemporary plight of the formal economy of the Central Witwatersrand region, South Africa's economic heartland.

South Africa's economic heartland : crisis, decline or restructuring?

In southern Africa, there is growing interest in the potential for establishing tourism routes as vehicles for tourism expansion and the promotion of local economic development. This article contributes towards understanding the potential and importance of organising routes for local tourism promotion and economic development. The history and unfolding evolution of one South African tourism route initiative – the Crocodile Ramble – is examined. This case study is distinguished by a shift of local route planning from an exclusive pro-growth focus, to incorporating elements of planning for pro-poor tourism.

Christian M. Rogerson

Papers

South Africa's economic heartland : crisis, decline or restructuring?

Tourism Routes, Local Economic Promotion and Pro-Poor Development: The Case of the Crocodile Ramble

The application of local economic development in East London, South Africa, 1927–1955

Ten years of changing development planning in a democratic South Africa

Small enterprise development in South Africa’s lagging regions: The case of Mpumalanga province