Celebrated urban theorist lifts the lid on the effects of a global explosion of disenfranchised slum-dwellers
Mike Davis is the author of several books including Planet of Slums, City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, Late Victorian Holocausts, and Magical Urbanism. He was recently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
In this trenchantly argued book, Mike Davis quantifies the
nightmarish mass production of slums that marks the contemporary
city. With cool indignation, Davis argues that the exponential
growth of slums is no accident but the result of a perfect storm of
corrupt leadership, institutional failure, and IMF-imposed
Structural Adjustment Programs leading to a massive transfer of
wealth from poor to rich. Scourge of neo-liberal nostrums, Davis
debunks the irresponsible myth of self-help salvation, showing
exactly who gets the boot from 'bootstrap capitalism.' Like the
work of Jacob Riis, Ida Tarbell, and Lincoln Steffans over a
century ago, this searing indictment makes the shame of our cities
urgently clear.
*Michael Sorkin*
A profound enquiry into an urgent subject ... a brilliant book.
*Arundhati Roy*
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