The Coming Anarchy: Urbanization & The Developing World

The Coming Anarchy:Urbanization &The Developing World World Urban Patterns Ambler Campus Fall 2004 Semester

Main Themes • The world in the 21st century will be a more dangerous place • Political ideology no longer the main conflict • Ethnic, religious, tribal conflict will predominate • Less adherence to the notion of the nation-state – more ID with ethnicity, religion, and tribal association • Still a world of haves & have-nots: some healthy, well-fed and pampered by technology and others living a poor, brutish, short life

“The Coming Anarchy” • Major threats for the 21st century • Environmental degradation • Rampant, unchecked, urban crime and drugs • Continuing erosion of nation-states and international borders • Empowerment of private armies (Friedman’s “super-empowered angry men”) • Environmental distress may be the cause of future wars and civil violence

Kaplan and Environmental Distress • The threat of disease • Scarcity of resources • Refugee migrations (carrying with them the threat of disease and increased use of resources) • HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa and Russia • Maybe the African continent is the best prism for where this is currently taking place

The Urban Milieu • Kaplan argues that urban areas provide an excellent view of the Third World and its problems • Describes a country’s innate cultural strengths and weaknesses • Urban poverty - -socially destabilizing • Islam appeals to the poor and will only continue to fester

“The Lies of Mapmakers” • Doesn’t really show the real story of what’s happening in countries & cities • Doesn’t show proximity, strength of tribal groups, guerrilla groups, and shantytowns (informal cities) • Distorts demographic trends • Cultural groups cross borders – witness the Kurds in Turkey and Northern Iraq

Sierra LeoneA Case Study Still Underway • Kaplan’s article, while ten years old, still holds for events in Sierra Leone • Ongoing civil war –rebels advancing on capital of Freetown • UN troops threatened • No substantive UN relief • Former colonial ruler, Britain, to pull out • Massive env degradation • Some cities are simply large displaced persons camps

Urbanization & The Developing World • See statistical tables in UN Report, page 271 • MDEs: 76% urbanized • LDEs: 40% urbanized • Global: 47% urbanized • Projected trends show growth towards urbanization across the board – growth rates larger in LDEs

Latin America & Caribbean • 75% urbanized • Historical antecedents: conquest and colonialism • Some megacities: • Mexico City, Mexico • Sao Paulo, Brazil

Somalia in the 1990s • “Black Hawk Down” • A very good description of an urban area governed essentially by anarchy • The city divided, literally, and governed accordingly • Cell Phones – communicating troop movements

Africa • 30% urbanized • Historical antecedents: • Colonialism • Tribalism • Dictatorships • Apartheid (South Africa)

Asia

Asia • Focal point for urban growth in 21st century • By 2015, 153 of the world’s 358 cities with 1 million or more • Of 27 megacities, 15 in this continent • Expansion of megacities • Extreme population density, environmental stresses

Additional Delimitations • Breakdown of law and order • Ethnic Cleansing • Civil wars; tribal wars • Intensification of religious fundamentalism

Kaplan and West African cities • “The cities of West Africa are some of the unsafest places in the world. Streets are unlit; the police often lack gasoline for their vehicles; armed burglars, carjackers and muggers proliferate”.

Rural-Urban Migration/Culture Clash • “In the villages of Africa it is perfectly natural to feed at any table and lodge in any hut. But in the cities this communal existence no longer holds. You must pay for lodging and be invited for food. When young men find out that their relations cannot put them up, they become lost. They join other migrants and slip gradually into the criminal process”.

Consider “Chicago” • A slum district in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) • A slum in the bush • A “checkerwork of corrugated zinc roofs and walls made of cardboard and black plastic wrap. It is located ib a gully teeming with coconut palms and oil palms and is ravaged by flooding. Few residents have access to electricity, a sewage system, or a clean water supply…Children defecate in a stream filled with garbage and pigs, droning with malarial mosquitoes. In this stream, women do the washing”.

Ecological Timebombs • Malaria is easy to catch • “Defending oneself against malaria in Africa is becoming more and more like defending oneself against violent crime. You engage in “behavior modification”; not going out after dark, wearing mosquito repellent all the time”. • Delhi, Calcutta, Beijing – some of the worst air quality in the world

Poverty • Urban poverty is socially destabilizing. “As Iran has shown, Islamic extremism is the psychological defence mechanism of many urbanized peasants threatened by the loss of traditions in pseudo-modern cities where their values are under attack, where basis services like water and electricity are unavailable, and where they are assaulted by a physically unhealthy environment” • But in Iran, the cities are the focal point for internal “reform”.

Religion Becoming More Important • Everywhere in the developing world at the turn of the 21st Century these new men and women, rushing into the cities, are remaking civilizations and redefining their identities in terms of religion and tribal ethnicity which do not coincide with the borders of existing states” • Growth of Christianity in the global South; in some senses debunking the idea of the triumph of Islam

Religion in the Global, Urban South • A focal point for migrants • A provider of social welfare services, in the absence of a social welfare infrastructure • Rio de Janiero, Sao Paulo Brazil • Lima, Peru • Santiago, Chile • Lagos, Nigeria • See The New York Times articles posted on Blackboard • Philip Jenkins. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford U Press)

“The Clash of Civilizations” • A controversial piece • Huntingdon argues that we are moving from conflict between nation-states to conflict between “civilizations” • This may make national boundaries irrelevant • The real borders relate to culture and tribal adherence

Issues for Urbanization in the Developing World • Legacies of colonialism and conquest • Primacy • Health & Environment • Unchecked fertility rates • Higher mortality rates • Weaker Globalization Infrastructure • Less rule of law • Less stable financial systems • Less “wired”

Assumptions at the End of the Cold War • The world would coalesce into a “universal civilization” • Dominated by western democratic political notions • Dominated by capitalistic economics

Why Civilizations Will Clash • Differences between civilizations are real and basic: language, history, culture, tradition, history • Globalization -- The world is becoming a smaller place • Economic modernization and social change are exporting people for long-standing local identities – also over nation-states (religion transcends borders; diasporas)

Universal Civilization Values? • Some sense of similar, basic values (right v. wrong, a moral sense) • Civilized societies have cities and literacy • Could refer to assumptions, values, and doctrines held in Western civilization • Could also refer to pop culture: McDonald’s, Coke, consumer goods

Different Directions • Democracy and capitalism, while dominant, have not totally triumphed • Neo-communism and neo-fascism have reemerged • A conservative climate has dominated western democratic states

More Reasons • The Dual Role of the West – the triumph of the West (democracy, capitalism, pop culture) and the reaction against it • Cultural characteristics – the question, “what are you?”(ethnicity, religion, etc.) – is exacerbated with the end of the Cold war and the battle over political ideology • Economic regionalism is increasing

Quote from Huntingdon “The end of ideologically defined states permits traditional ethnic identities and communities to come to the fore” (p. 29)

The New Paradigm for War • The concept of national defence may change • Wars may be fought to establish control over environmental resources • Peacekeeping may have to be redefined • May be fought more in urban areas

The Middle East (Israel-Syria-Palestinians-Syria and Iranian-backed Islamic fundamentalists) Indian Peninsula (India-Pakistan – i.e., Kashmir) China (China-Taiwan-Tibet) The Central Asian Republics of the former USSR (the “stans”) Central America – historically was a major focal point of the Cold War The Balkans (the former Yugoslavia) – “a powder keg for cultural war between Orthodox Christianity (Serbs), Greeks, Russians, Romanians, and the House of Islam” Other Global Flash-Points

The Coming Anarchy: Urbanization & The Developing World