“Governing the informal in globalizing cities: comparing China, India and Brazil”

This chapter illustrates how large-scale comparisons can be carried out to explain globally induced urban restructuring in relation to local-specific, historical-institutional developments. It analyses Jennifer Robinson’s call for a comparative imagination in global urban studies, and it believes that the area scholarship on Chinese, Indian, and Brazilian cities can all benefit from a comparative sensibility. Urban restructuring in the global South today is often interpreted through David Harvey’s concept of “urban entrepreneurialism”. If China presents a case where “urban entrepreneurialism” fails to capture the deep reach of the local state in running urban affairs, then India presents the opposite case in which “urban entrepreneurialism” overstates the capacity of the weak local state. In the global city literature, housing inequality in the global South is often read through the lens of urban entrepreneurialism and neoliberalism.