ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines different variants of urbanism in the Global North and the Global South produced by a new economic order characterized by the mobility of labor, capital, information, and technology. It discusses the emerging urbanisms and spatial relations in different regions of the world as influenced by the forces of globalization. The book also discusses some of the contemporary challenges that cities of the Global North and the Global South have to face. It considers some normative goals that urban design interventions aspire to bring about in cities of the Global North and the Global South. The book argues that some ordinary practices of urban design – informality, incrementalism, improvisation, impermanence, and insurgency – common in low-income cities can be transferred and translated to high-income cities.
