According to the United Nations, more than one billion people now live in the slums of the cities of the South. In this brilliant and influential book, Mike Davis explores the future of a radically unequal and explosively unstable urban world. From the sprawling barricadas of Lima to the garbage hills of Manila, urbanization has been disconnected from industrialization, even economic growth. Davis portrays a vast humanity warehoused in shantytowns and exiled from the formal world economy. He argues that the rise of this informal urban proletariat is a wholly unforeseen development and asks whether the great slums are, as a terrified Victorian middle class once imagined, volcanoes waiting to erupt.
Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review
Amazing. Terrifying., January 6, 2009
By
Tunnelpet (Forestville, CA, US)
Genius. As important as an Uncle Tom's Cabin was in its time. This is a wake up call to a dire humanitarian disaster. If you cross this text with concerns stated by Paul and Anne Ehrlich in One With Nineveh for example then our future is a rough ride no joke. We have to reverse the trends discussed in this book. This is a tough read and not easy to breathe through. Although I feel like I ought to be made totally miserable by this book for some weird reason I feel upbeat. Perhaps by the effort of writing such a mean little package on the subject, Davis at least has given us one more tool to fight against this mess. The fate of the age to a noticeable degree rides on this story.
The future isn't what it used to be!, December 28, 2008
By
Aphraomega (Michigan)
Mike Davis offers an often overlooked perspective of global poverty. I am researching homelessness/poverty in my hometown and suspected similar global conditions. My question was "why?" Davis' book forces the reader to examine alternatives to common "opinions" as to the existence of slums and the future of the dwellers there. It is an almost apocalyptic book. I do not want to reveal too much information because I want each and every human, particularly those interested in the human condition, to purchase and read "Planet of Slums." Are we, in our quest to ascend the social hierarchy, responsible for the existence of slums? Will slum dwellers challenge the current economic scheme of things? Read It!
Book is interesting, October 8, 2008
By
Anne M. Kopena (Philadelphia, PA)
Well written, definitely some criticisms of Davis's style, but it is accessible and raises a lot of questions about personal responsibility, lifestyle choices, and hazards geography.
important yet flawed, July 30, 2008
By
P. J. Cafaro (Fort Collins, CO USA)
Mike Davis' "Planet of Slums" is an important, eye-opening look at one of the most important global trends of the past fifty years: the explosive growth of third-world slums and the emmiseration of their inhabitants. Davis provides a lucid general overview, thoroughly grounded in recent scholarship across many disciplines. This is a real achievement.
Davis wears his doctrinaire socialism on his sleeve, for better and for worse. There is no problem that cannot be traced to the IMF, the World Bank, and other evil purveyors of "the Washington consensus." That said, his analysis calls these actors to account for genuine crimes against the world's poor. And he does lambaste corrupt governments and bourgeoise indifferent to their fellow citizens' fate.
The major weakness of "Planet of Slums" is a lack of attention to the demographic causes of slum growth and global poverty. Davis occasionally notes in passing the staggering population growth in most of the countries where slum growth has been greatest. He devotes the better part of a chapter to "informal" employment and underemployment in the slums. But he fails to consider whether population growth, itself, needs to be halted, in order to begin to address the problems he brings to our attention.
Could even the best-intentioned governments, NGO's or enlightened entrepreneurs find useful employment for all the unemployed and underemployed in India? Might not India simply have too many people?
filtered, May 17, 2008
By
Collaboration 2009The book gave a one-sided view which blamed the IMF's structural adjustment programs for the exponential growth of slums around some of the richest cities in the world, while completely ignoring the responsibility of local leadership and corruption in national governments.
