Kanai, J.M. orcid.org/0000-0002-4347-5175 and Schindler, S. (2019) Peri-urban Promises of Connectivity: Linking project-led polycentrism to the infrastructure scramble. Environment and Planning A: international journal of urban and regional research, 51 (2). pp. 302-322. ISSN 0308-518X
Abstract
This paper offers an interpretive framework linking polycentric urban expansion in emerging/frontier economies to the global extension of infrastructure networks. Drawing from scholarship on state restructuring, we theorize an infrastructure scramble whereby numerous state actors and agencies make massive investments in infrastructure connectivity to secure effective integration to transnational value chains as economic and geopolitical competition intensify. This has manifold territorial implications, and matters for debates on planetary urbanization. Novel urbanization processes include the proliferation of peri-urban nodes. Built in cheaply-available land, these respond to (or anticipate economic gains from) enhanced connective infrastructure. In contrast to city-regional exemplars, project-led polycentrism does not arise from territorially-decentralized governance arrangements, and may deepen peri-urban exclusion. The paper includes an experimental comparison of two peri-urban nodal projects: the Iranduba University City, located in a riparian rainforest of the Brazilian Amazon 17 miles from bustling Manaus, and the Bagamoyo Port and Special Economic Zone, located 35 miles north of the congested port of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s expansive capital. Our findings suggest that: i) techno-entrepreneurial capacity requirements underpin the centralist scalar politics governing the development of peri-urban nodes; as ii) state-led projects rely on ambitious physical planning, with masterplans evincing elite, globalization-oriented objectives that neglect local needs and trigger displacement; and iii) even failing projects spearhead varying trajectories of territorial transformation in erstwhile-stagnant peri-urban peripheries. Concluding, we call for further research on multiple drivers and modalities of polycentrism in the global South, and the infrastructure scramble’s broad implications for hyper-connected and bypassed territories.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2018. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Environment and Planning A. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Geography (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 01 Mar 2018 12:29 |
Last Modified: | 20 Apr 2021 11:04 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/0308518X18763370 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:128040 |