Asian Cities: Globalization, Urbanization and Nation-building.

• Author: Smith, Anthony
• Position: Book review

ASIAN CITIES: Globalization, Urbanization and Nation-building

Author: Malcolm McKinnon Published by: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen, 2011,258pp, 50 [pounds sterling] (hb), 17.99 [pounds sterling] (pb).

In 1995 Benjamin Barber wrote a book entitled Jihdad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the Worm (although in a post-9/11 world this volume seems to have been re-packaged under a new subtitle, 'Terrorism's Challenge to Democracy'). That book examined the seeming paradox of global commerce, travel and cultural exchange at one level, but the persistence of tribalism and local identity at another, with Barber concluding that globalism was in fact causing rather than erasing localised counter-reactions. Probably many are more familiar with its famous cover, that of a supposedly incongruous image of a woman covered in a niqab (veil or mask) and abaya (cloak) drinking a 'Pepsi'. The image was perhaps designed to convey some sort of globalisation versus local paradox, although many were quick to note that the woman's attire was emblematic of (probably) some deep cultural and religious significance, while the mere consumption of a soft drink was an example of a thin veneer or 'surface culture' that cannot count as having any impact on worldviews. (The consumption of 'Coke' and 'Pepsi' is fairly ubiquitous throughout the Middle East, as it is in many developing countries too.)

Malcolm McKinnon's book Asian Cities takes another look at these kinds of globalisation discussions by examining the development of cities in three Asian countries, China, India and Indonesia. McKinnon then chooses a couplet of cities in each case, one a mega-city and the other of around 1-2 million people; respectively they are, Shanghai and Yangzhou, Bangalore and Mysore, and Jakarta and Semarang. Uthanisation is, of course, of great significance in modern Asia. McKinnon notes that cities of between a quarter of a million to five million people number around 200 in China and 50 in Indonesia. Most of these cities are totally unknown to the wider world.

Noting uthanisation as a phenomenon, McKinnon challenges attempts to equate the growth of cities with globalisation, which count in some circles, according to the author, as academic 'fashion'. He further distinguishes between uthanisation (the 'hardware' of a city's growth and expansion) and urbanism (the 'software' of giving people greater...