This project examines how inequality is inscribed in the urban spaces of world cities. It focuses on the following interrelated topics: the decline of old centers of cities and their replacement by new business and residential districts; urban fortification and the proliferation of gated communities and shopping malls; the role of the automobile in the process of spatial fortification and class differentiation; the results of recent economic crises in public spaces; and the effects of transnational (and local) crime in cities and their communities. Most of the cities included in the project are located in the Americas.
Cover of the journal City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action. In this photograph (taken in 2005) one can see two cartoneras at work in Barrio Norte, an affluent neighborhood in northern Buenos Aires. Cartoneros and cartoneras in Argentina are people who collect and sell paper products and other recyclables in order to survive. Although people who engaged in this activity have existed for many decades in Argentina, their number increased substantially after the economic crisis of 2001/2002. An article about cartoneros published in the same issue of this journal is available here.
