Third World Cities in Global Perspective: The Political Economy of the Uneven Urbanization
Author(s)
Appold, Stephen J.
Abstract
The degree of penetration by organizations based in the more dominant centers now possible implies that Third World urbanization is heavily influenced by external factors. The rapidity of growth insures that that penetration has a significant effect. By examining past and present social forces, David Smith offers a stimulating addition to the debate on Third World urbanization. He argues that a synthetic urban theory, building on the complementarities between human ecology and world-system theory, offers the most promise for understanding how the global organization of economic production, urbanization patterns, and social stratification systems are linked in the Third World. According to Smith, human ecology fails to provide an adequate explanation of urban patterns because it does not recognize the role of elites. While that contention is plausible, he ends up making a stronger case for the sufficiency of human ecology.
