Socialist and Post-Socialist Urbanisms

Socialist cities have special qualities which endure in particular, subtle, and often under-theorized ways. This book engages with socialism on a global scale, as well as the variety of socialist urbanisms and post-socialist urbanisms, and the range of ways in which globalization intersects with changes in socialist and post-socialist cities.

Offering a unique international comparative focus, the book’s fourteen case studies from Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Africa are grouped under three main themes: housing experiences and life trajectories, planning and architecture, and governance and social order. Featuring contributors from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and research foci, Socialist and Post-Socialist Urbanisms brings together a collection of essays on cities that are often overlooked in mainstream urban studies.

Considering the endurance of socialist spaces in contemporary, political, and cultural environments, this book investigates key aspects of socialist urbanism.

• Imprint: University of Toronto Press
• Published: February 2020
• Pages: 336

• epub: 9781442632851
• pdf: 9781442632844
• paperback: 9781442632530
• hardcover: 9781442632837

Lisa B.W. Drummond is an associate professor in the Urban Studies Program In the Department of Social Science at York University.

Douglas Young is an associate professor in the Urban Studies Program in the Department of Social Science at York University.

"What this volume does at its best is break the unifying banner of socialist modernity by uncovering how socialist and post-socialist modes of dwelling, planning, and governing unfold through everyday experiences, where "deeply rooted codes rather than formal rules" prevail. And it is exactly that balance between the global reach and at the same time local stories that one should be eager to discover when starting this exciting journey into socialist and post-socialist urbanisms."

Vera Smirnova

Journal of Eurasian Geography and Economics

"Socialist urban legacies are an integral and vital part of the modern world, without which it would look different. Furthermore, these legacies are still in effect and reveal their traces in various spheres, sometimes the most unexpected ones. The authors’ efforts to analyse those influences ‘from around the socialist world’ (p. 3) is thus meaningful, timely, and promising."

Mikhail Ilchenko

Antipode

"This book contributes original research on socialist and post-socialist urbanisms, which is necessary for anyone who strives to understand how past decisions still and very much influence present production of space and of spatial imaginations, within either a socialist or post-socialist context."

Oana-Ramona Ilovan, Babes-Bolyai University

Connections: A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists

"By bringing together a collection of essays on cities that are often overlooked in mainstream urban studies, this volume addresses a timely topic that is under-researched and fills an important gap in the scholarly literature."

Martin J. Murray, Professor Urban Planning, Taubman College, University of Michigan

"The collection’s academic value is compelling: I have not seen a volume of such scope, offering a truly broad global survey relevant to the question of socialist and post-socialist urbanisms."

Heather DeHaan, Department of History, Binghamton University, State University of New York