What's in a Name?: Talking about Urban Peripheries

by Richard Harris (Editor), Charles Vorms (Editor)

Overview

‘Borgata’, ‘favela’, ‘périurbain’, and ‘suburb’ are but a few of the different terms used throughout the world that refer specifically to communities that develop on the periphery of urban centres.

In What’s in a Name? editors Richard Harris and Charlotte Vorms have gathered together experts from around the world in order to provide a truly global framework for the study of the urban periphery. Rather than view these distinct communities through the lens of the western notion of urban sprawl, the contributors focus on the variety of everyday terms that are used, together with their connotations. This volume explores the local terminology used in cities such as Beijing, Bucharest, Montreal, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Sofia, as well as more broadly across North America, Australia, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere. What’s in a Name? is the first book in English to pay serious and sustained attention to the naming of the urban periphery worldwide. By exploring the ways in which local individuals speak about the urban periphery Harris and Vorms bridge the assumed divide between the global North and the global South.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442626966
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	07/18/2017
Series:	Global Suburbanisms
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.85(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Richard Harris is a professor in the School of Geography and Earth Sciences at McMaster University. Charlotte Vorms is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Paris 1–Panthéon Sorbonne.

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface, and acknowledgements

1. Introduction – Richard Harris and Charlotte Vorms

2. The Naming Process – Christian Topalov

3. ‘Suburb’ is not a rude word in Australia’. A lexical history of Australian suburbs – Graeme Davison

4. Doubts about ‘suburbs’ in Canada – Amy Shanks, V. Coates and R. Harris

5. Defining peripheral places in Quebec. A review of key planning reports and media (1960-2012) – Claire Poitras

6. Bombay’s Urban Edge: Villages, Suburbs, Slums, and the expanding city – N. Rao

7. Kampungs, Buitenwijken and Kota Mandiri. Naming the urban fringe on Java, Indonesia – Freek Colombijn and Abidin Kusno

8. From favela to communidade, and beyond. The taming of Rio de Janeiro – Rafael S. Gonçalves and Francesca Pilo'

9. Naming Rome’s Edge. Cultural and Political Representations of the Borgata – Francesco Bartolini

10. Naming Madrid’s working-class periphery, 1860-1970. The construction of urban illegitimacy – Charlotte Vorms

11. To name or not to name. Contradictions in naming processes of one Bucharest district – Ioana Florea

12. Some reflections on comparing (post-)suburbs in U.S. and France – R. Le Goix

13. Périurbain, from woes to words. Political and social uses of a new administrative category – Anne Lambert

14. The new neighbourhoods. The discursive (and other) transformation of South Sofia’s modest beginnings – Sonia Hirt

15. Lost in Translation: Names, Meanings, and Development Strategies of Beijing’s Periphery – Xuefei Ren

16. Concluding suggestions – Richard Harris

Contributors

What People are Saying About This

Sanjeev Vidyarthi

"What's in a Name? does an outstanding job of assembling a conceptual framework that bridges the ostensible divide between the studies of the so-called developed North and global South. By unraveling and explaining the different usages, meanings, connotations, interpretations, and substitutes for the simple word 'suburb,' the book shows not only how and why local settings matter in particular ways but also how people across different contexts aspire for similar social goods and civic amenities."

Editorial Reviews

" What’s in a Name? does an outstanding job of assembling a conceptual framework that bridges the ostensible divide between the studies of the so-called developed North and global South. By unraveling and explaining the different usages, meanings, connotations, interpretations, and substitutes for the simple word ‘suburb,’ the book shows not only how and why local settings matter in particular ways but also how people across different contexts aspire for similar social goods and civic amenities."

—Sanjeev Vidyarthi, Department of Urban Planning and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago

From the Publisher