The session recording will be archived on the site until June 25th, 2023

This session was streamed but not recorded

Curated Track: 

Description:

States are major actors in the over 150 new city projects underway in more than 45 countries worldwide. While the private sector has a growing role in conceiving, constructing, and governing new cities being built from scratch, states are still the main drivers behind most new city projects and are instrumental in securing land and permissions, soliciting architecture and planning firms, providing financing and seeking private financing, and promoting and normalizing particular visions of the future and development strategies. This session examines the variety of ways in which states are engaged in the creation of new cities from scratch in East and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. These papers demonstrate that far from diminishing in importance due to the rise of neoliberalism and globalization, states are in many contexts becoming more powerful actors in highly speculative and entrepreneurial urban mega-developments. This session investigates how state actors are facilitating and encouraging audacious luxury urban projects of unprecedented scale and ambition by collaborating with and outsourcing city-building activities to the private sector, particularly foreign property development companies. Other themes explored in this session include the transnational circulation of urban policy and how states are exporting particular versions of ‘smart’ urban development beyond their borders, and how states are actively supporting the construction of multiple new cities as a strategy to support national economic diversification goals, particularly in petroleum states.

Non-Presenting Participants