The Urban Problematic: A Response to Ryan Bishop and John WP Phillips

Abstract

In dialogue with Bishop and Phillips’ (2013) concern to establish what the category of the urban might mean in the context of megacities, this piece offers four provocations in the spirit of developing their analysis. The first is the need to attend to the specifics of megacities; the second insists on the importance of including those who navigate them in the analysis; the third is a concern to unwind different forms of urban traction, and the fourth is a need to be mindful of the intersecting logics of translocality. Drawing on my own empirical research into the urban translocalities drawn by the flip-flop trail, it concludes that globalization is less solid and more fragile and shifting than many of its theorists suggest.