Comparative urban global studies: new avenues and debates

Abstract

Comparison is dead, long live comparison! The world of urban studies was classically not very comparative. Welcome, then, to the world of imperfect and innovative urban comparisons, articulated at several scales, taking into account interdependencies and globalization processes, and including attempts at "comparing the incomparable". The paper will present some of the main ideas drawn from the Routledge Handbook of comparative global urban studies edited by P.Le Galès and J.Robinson. This Handbook takes the particular angle of urban comparisons as a major domain of global urban studies in the making. It reflects the current moment of innovation and experimentation in the fleld of urban studies, in which a renewed comparative imagination figures strongly. The debate is quite robust between those who stress the renewed importance of cities and metropolises, including questions of group formation, conflict solving mechanisms, democracy, governance and institutions, and those who think in terms of urbanisation processes, more or less fluid.

About the Speaker

Patrick Le Galès, is CNRS  Research Professor of  Politics, sociology,  and urban studies at Sciences Po Paris, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of Academia Europea. He was the founding Dean of Sciences Po Urban School (2015-2022), the president of SASE (Society for Advanced Socio Economics), the editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. He is the current co editor of the European Journal of Sociology/Archives Européennes de Sociologie.  His work deals with comparative public policy, state restructuring, comparative urban governance of large metropolis, mobility and urban class making, political economy.