Global South

Essays

Planning in the Age of Political Populism: Kolkata’s Tram Debate

Tathagata Chatterji - 10 June 2025

Using the case of Kolkata’s tram system, Tathagata Chatterji shows how two distinct political strategies—populism and...

From the Field

Integration or Chainsaw: Some Reflections on the Policies of Cruelty in Milei’s Argentina Based on the ReNaBaP Case | Integración o motosierra: Reflexiones sobre las políticas de crueldad en la Argentina de Milei a partir del caso ReNaBaP

Facundo A. Corti - 20 May 2025

Policy efforts in Argentina to reduce housing inequality have been met with Milei’s chainsaw. Facundo A. Corti shows...

From the Field

Argentina: The Rental Issue in the Milei Era | Argentina: la problemática del alquiler en la era Milei

Nicolás A. Trivi - 29 April 2025

In Argentina, the reforms promoted by the libertarian government represent an offensive of capital on labor. Nicolás...

From the Field

Massive Evictions and Housing Crisis in Chile

Santiago Castillo Braithwaite - 15 April 2025

In the midst of a deep housing crisis, more than 100,000 families in Chile are currently living in informal...

From the Field

The Uruguayan Housing Cooperatives: The Miracle of the “Commons” | Las cooperativas de vivienda uruguayas. El milagro de los “comunes”

Benjamín Nahoum - 8 April 2025

Benjamín Nahoum presents the case of the Uruguayan cooperative movement that started in the 1960s. Through the years,...

Essays

Using Cross-Class Politics to Challenge Urban Housing Inequality in Islamabad, Pakistan

Hafsah Siddiqui - 1 April 2025

When redevelopment schemes target a city’s poor for removal to provide opportunities for the privileged, how can poor...

From the Field

Large-Scale Farming in the Face of Competing Land Uses in Abidjan District, Côte d’Ivoire

Adjoba Marthe Koffi-Didia & translated by Oliver Waine - 21 March 2025

To the west of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire’s largest city, large farming operations—owned by multinational companies...

From the Field

Power in the Periphery: Waste Conflict and Resistance in Periurban Kerala

Ashish Prabhakar - 6 September 2022

Ashish Prabhakar analyzes one Indian village’s fight against a city waste processing plant in 2011–2012, illustrating...

From the Field

Arrests of People Smugglers in Niger: A Criminalization of Mutual-Aid Practices in Migration Situations

Alizée Dauchy & translated by Oliver Waine - 8 July 2022

From the point of view of the Northern states, international migration from the South now has its designated leaders,...

Reviews

Disposability in the City: A Review of Waste Worlds

Lily Baum Pollans - 5 July 2022

Lily Pollans reviews Jacob Doherty’s Waste Worlds: Inhabiting Kampala’s Infrastructures of Disposability, which shows...

Essays

Fablabs in Africa: Digital Innovation for Sustainable Cities?

Armelle Choplin & Martin Lozivit & translated by Oliver Waine - 16 April 2021

In a context where “smart cities” are being promoted in urban projects in Africa, Armelle Choplin and Martin Lozivit...

Reviews

“Land Is the New Sugar”: A Review of Sai Balakrishnan’s Shareholder Cities

Thomas Crowley - 15 December 2020

Shareholder Cities argues that India’s urban corridors are driven by complex negotiations, transformations, and power...

From the Field

Unlikely Inter-Class Cooperation in Urbanizing Rural Colombia

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría - 25 February 2020

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría examines a case of rural gentrification outside of Bogotá, Colombia, and shows how...

From the Field

Made in China, Sold in West Africa

Anne Bouhali & Nora Mareï & Mamadou Dimé & translated by Oliver Waine - 31 May 2019

From a small border post between Senegal and Mauritania, Anne Bouahli, Nora Mareï and Mamadou Dimé follow the journey...

Interviews

Global Climate Crisis and the City: An Interview with Ashley Dawson

Ashley Dawson & Maura McGee - 3 April 2019

An interview with Ashley Dawson, professor of English at the College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center, CUNY,...

From the Field

Rio de Janeiro: An (Inequitably) Connected City?

Francesca Pilo’ & translated by Oliver Waine - 21 September 2018

The tangled webs of electrical wires, a symbol of the favelas, are also the sign of an electricity service that...

Debates

Can the Commons Pave the Way to Greater Land Security?

Irène Salenson & Claire Simonneau & translated by Oliver Waine - 22 June 2018

Experiences of collective forms of ownership, based on the concept of the commons, have flourished throughout the...

From the Field

Land Regularization on the Fringes of Mexico City: A Recipe for Reducing Inequalities?

Jean-François Valette & translated by Oliver Waine - 8 June 2018

Mexico City’s working-class neighbourhoods are the focus of numerous land-regularization operations. Jean-François...

From the Field

Land Insecurity in Khartoum: When Land Titles Fail to Protect Against Public Predation

Alice Franck & translated by Oliver Waine - 6 June 2018

The unstable economic and political context in Sudan has encouraged people to invest massively in land in urban...

Series

Land Rights in the Urban Global South

Armelle Choplin & Éric Denis (†) & translated by Oliver Waine - 18 May 2018

In choosing to focus on the Global South, Metropolitics turns its attention to a key aspect of contemporary cities:...

From the Field

Urban Desires and Lust for Land

Éric Denis (†) & translated by Oliver Waine - 20 April 2018

In the Global South, vast swathes of periurban and agricultural land are being sold off and converted into financial...

From the Field

Land Titling: A Tool, not a Panacea

Kareem Ibrahim & Deena Khalil - 20 December 2016

The government of Egypt has long relied on land titling to limit the growth of informal urban residential...

From the Field

Struggles over Rights and Representations in the Migrant Metropolis: Reverberations of the Trump Effect in the Global South

María V. Barbero - 7 December 2016

While Latin America figures in US debates about immigration as a source of immigrants, Trump-style anti-immigrant...

From the Field

Securing Land Tenure in Egypt: Who Needs Registered Titles?

David Sims - 14 June 2016

David Sims challenges popular wisdom on property-rights regimes in non-Western nations by questioning the relevance...

Debates

Social housing in Africa: a model to be (re)invented?

Alexandra Biehler & Armelle Choplin & Marie Morelle & translated by Oliver Waine - 16 October 2015

While the question of housing for working-class populations remains a recurrent issue in sub‑Saharan African cities,...

Reviews

Megacities and how to govern them: rethinking urban development in terms of infrastructure networks

Éric Verdeil & translated by Oliver Waine - 25 September 2015

Are colossal megalopolises like Shanghai or Mumbai uncontrollable? This collective work shows that nothing could be...

Essays

A Right to the City in the Global South?

Marianne Morange & Amandine Spire & translated by Oliver Waine - 17 April 2015

The idea of the right to the city has been the subject of strongly renewed interest in academic milieux, activist...

From the Field

Bypassing the city: divisions and divergences in Antananarivo

Catherine Fournet-Guérin & translated by Oliver Waine - 4 December 2014

In a context of global competition, major projects are the order of the day, including in the global South. The new...

Reviews

De-Westernising Urban Theory

Armelle Choplin & translated by Oliver Waine - 5 December 2012

Three recent publications share a common aim: to move beyond the dichotomies of Western vs Third-World cities,...

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