Politics of the Periphery: Governing Global Suburbia

“Metropolitan areas across the globe are increasingly crucibles within which social, environmental, and economic tensions meld and intensify. Understanding historical and evolving politics of metropolitan spatial dynamics will be crucial for those who hope to negotiate, navigate, and shape urban responses. This collection offers a vital resource for studying the role, and potential, of a multiplexity of suburbanisms that challenges simple, city-focused dichotomies of centre and periphery and grounds metropolitan governance in theories and practices of collective action.” Jen Nelles, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Brookes Business School

“Politics of the Periphery is a valuable collection of essays on the political challenges of suburbanization and the complexities of governance in metropolitan areas across the globe. Eight case studies, written by top scholars in urban studies, offer rich local context and a wealth of insights on topics such as suburban-central city power relations, spatial inequality, the challenges of multiculturalism, and new institutional arrangements for governing cities and suburbs. This collection is a welcome contribution to the literature on the comparative political dynamics of suburbanization.” Marc Levine, Professor Emeritus of History, Economic Development, and Urban Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

“This is the book on suburban governance. Drawing on research on the growing importance of the suburbs in many countries, it examines how the suburbanization of major cities challenges both our understanding of these spaces and operational reality. Taking seriously the social and economic production of spaces, illustrated by global case studies, contributors address challenges of governing cities recomposed into city-regions.” Rob Shields, H.M. Tory Research Chair in Human Geography and Sociology, University of Alberta