ABSTRACT
The cities of the Global Easts have become mere footnotes to contemporary global urbanism. Literature on global urbanism has one particular place reserved for cities of the postsocialist East: the footnote. Jennifer Robinson’s paper is an early critique of the division between urban theory, associated with cities of the West, and development studies, associated with cities in the Third World. The manifesto for provincializing global urbanism performs an interesting manoeuvre in which it theoretically leaves the door open for cities of the postsocialist East whilst practically closing it. In this footnote urbanism, the postsocialist East is either completely absent in attempts to present a more global picture of urban studies or is confined, often quite literally, to the footnotes.
