Metropolitics

Agrarian Fantasy, Settler Colonial Property, and the Making of Industrial Johannesburg

Renugan Raidoo — 2026-01-20T06:00:00Z

Some of the gated estates in and around Johannesburg and Pretoria sell residents a settler colonial fantasy of a bucolic idyll away from the urban condition. But Renugan Raidoo examines the important role agricultural surplus played in mining industrialization, which tells a much more complex story of urban–rural relations.
---- Series: Provincializing the “Real-Estate Turn” “A piece of the past has found its' [sic] way to the future” in all-white majuscule is the first thing one sees on the

- Essays / Africa, South Africa, Global South, Johannesburg, Pretoria, gated communities, rural, colonial urban planning, agriculture, industry, history, apartheid, real-estate turn, real estate

Immigration in the French Countryside

Julie Fromentin & translated by Oliver Waine — 2024-02-27T06:00:00Z

What place do immigrants occupy in the French countryside? By examining detailed data from the last five decades, Julie Fromentin shows that while there has been moderate growth in their numbers over this period, there has above all been considerable diversification in terms of their countries of origin and the places in which they settle.
Since the 2000s, French society has been marked by growing social and territorial inequalities (Lambert and Cayouette-Remblière 2021; Fleury et al. 2012).

- From the Field / settlement, inequalities, countryside, immigration, segregation, rural

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

Thomas Crowley — 2020-12-15T06:00:00Z

Shareholder Cities argues that India's urban corridors are driven by complex negotiations, transformations, and power struggles, often led by the class and caste groups who control agrarian capital in urbanizing regions.
At the start of her book Shareholder Cities, Sai Balakrishnan quickly and convincingly dismisses popular conceptions of present-day India as a collision of superhighways and bullock carts, “modern, urban, Westernized India, and the primitive, rural, superstitious India” (p.

- Reviews / India, real estate, infrastructure, urbanization, Mumbai, power play, rural, agriculture, farming, Global South

Electoral Organizing in North Carolina: An Interview with Tomás Garduño

Tomás Garduño & Kate Selden — 2020-10-27T06:00:00Z

Kate Selden interviews Tomás Garduño, a social-justice organizer, about his work in Lenoir County, North Carolina, leading up to the 2020 general election and the importance of organizing in rural areas. A lightly edited transcript of their conversation is published below.
Kate Selden: My name is Kate Selden, I'm an urban planner in Brooklyn, and I work in affordable housing development.
I'm here with Tomás, who I will let introduce himself.
Tomás Garduño: My name is Tomás Garduño, I'm

- Interviews / US election, presidential election, elections, vote, social justice, North Carolina, United States, rural, community organizing, video

Unlikely Inter-Class Cooperation in Urbanizing Rural Colombia

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría — 2020-02-25T06:00:00Z

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría examines a case of rural gentrification outside of Bogotá, Colombia, and shows how long-time peasants and former factory workers and upper-middle-class newcomers collaborate across class lines to manage fundamental resources, such as water, and pressure the state to provide necessary infrastructure and services.
“A new neighbor welcomes you; your neighbor, nature,” claims a billboard on the road between La Calera, a small town, and Bogotá, the Colombian

- From the Field / Colombia, Latin America, Global South, South America, rural, Bogotá, gentrification, rural gentrification, urbanization, suburbanization, rururbanization, water, urban public service, urban services, urban technical networks, utilities, infrastructure, social class, networks, water access

How Can Talking Save Trees?

Léo Magnin & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-07-12T05:00:00Z

In rural France, tree exchange systems seek to avoiding the felling that typically accompanies exchanges of parcels between farmers resulting from land-consolidation procedures. Leo Magnin's analysis of how this system operates reveals a means of managing conflicts between environmental protection on the one hand and individual property rights on the other.
On Tuesday, February 6, 2018, the village of La Siouve1 in the Auvergne region of central France wakes to negative temperatures. It' is 9

- From the Field / land consolidation, hedgerows, trees, conflict, farming, agriculture, landscape, environment, environmental protection, ecology, rural, France

Is rurality a thing of the past?

Philippe Dubourg & translated by Oliver Waine — 2015-01-08T05:50:00Z

In the era of globalisation and metropolisation, is rurality an old-fashioned concept, a thing of the past? The arsenal of reforms and laws that have been passed – indeed, often forced through – in recent years in France seems to give weight to this idea, while the economic crisis has proved to be the perfect opportunity to (dis)unite small local authorities under the steamroller of global finance.
Metropolisation means concentrating not only economic life but also collective human existence

- Debates / France, rural, governance, local governance, intercommunality, village, metropolization, territorial equality

Teenage mobility: a socialised and socialising practice

Julian Devaux & Nicolas Oppenchaim & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-03-27T05:55:00Z

The comings and goings of teenagers, while a frequent source of tension in the parent–child relationship, are a crucial experience in the construction of social identities. For this age group, mobility is not just a practice that is socially determined – by social background, residential environment and schooling – but also a specific experience that durably shapes their relationships with the spaces and the social world they encounter.
---- Series: Children in the City Adolescence is a

- Essays / ZUS, public space, Paris region, rural, mobility, transport, children, teenagers, youth

The (mis)measurement of periurbanization

Anne Lambert & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-05-11T05:10:00Z

(Peri)urban sprawl is unanimously decried as a cause for economic, environmental and social concern. And yet defining the phenomenon itself is a complicated undertaking that significantly affects the measurement thereof.
The “periurban” realm, whose rapid expansion since the 1960s has caused widespread concern, is difficult to grasp owing to its ambiguous nature, somewhere between urban and rural. Incidentally, the term “periurbanization” has only latterly gained currency in the French

- Debates / urban sprawl, statistics, periurban, rural