The Secret Life of Cities

Contemporary urbanisation has two faces: global flows of people, money and information, and localised social and economic disparities. Recent research has focused on the headlines of global cities as control centres of the world economy, and social and economic shockwaves that have raged through cities and regions. Less attention has been paid to the secret life of cities, the changing nature of everyday life in the wake of global changes.The Secret Life of Cities challenges current research and policy agendas recommending spatial concentration and relocation as a solution to the problems of environmental sustainability and social dislocation. Instead, it highlights the key linkages between social and environmental problems and argues that neither are likely to be resolved with a simple spatial fix. The book draws attention to local contexts of contemporary urbanisation, emphasising consideration of policy making from the perspective of the household, a key unit of analysis in identifying links between labour and housing markets, transport and leisure.The Secret Life of Cities draws upon detailed household interviews about the daily experiences of life in a global city and illustrates the solutions that people routinely find in order to overcome daily dilemmas. It shows that these local fixes, managed at the level of the household, work in spite of, and sometimes against, existing policies aimed at sustainability. It concludes that policy making needs to be radically overhauled in order to address the integrated nature of people's everyday lives.Andy Pratt is Senior Lecturer in Geography at the London School of Economics. Helen Jarvis is Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Peter Cheng-Chong Wu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Studies Education at the National Taipei Teachers College.