ABSTRACT

World population has more than doubled in the past fifty years, and is increasingly concentrating in the towns and cities of what is still called the Third World. Many of these have been created in the process of British colonial expansion over the past four hundred years. While the history of planning and the built environment in ‘Western’ cities has been well researched, particularly in Europe and North America, comparable study of these Third World cities is still limited. This book aims to make a contribution to that study. The book’s main focus is upon what is conveniently called the Third World, although that is an increasingly irrelevant term. It is not intended to offer a history of urbanization in the British Empire, but to explore some of the ideas and policies applied to the creation of colonial towns and cities, and the ‘power-knowledge relationships’ at work (to use a Foucaultian term).