Focusing on the experiences of Third-World cities, former EPIIC student Ryan Centner (LA '98) discussed "Neoliberalism and Third World Countries: Structurally Adjusted Urbanism as a Way of Life, from Buenos Aires to Istanbul to Kuala Lumpur."
Centner pointed out that 40 percent of developing countries' populations live in cities, and stressed the necessity of studying Third-World urban centers. These cities are expanding so fast that they will soon be home to over 50 percent of the Third World, ranging from medium-sized cities to mega-cities of over ten million inhabitants.
The advent of neo-liberalism - which emphasizes the freedom of economic markets - is "pervasive in framing what is happening in Third-World countries today," he said. While free markets have brought prosperity to certain factions of the developing world, he added that they have also widened many of the inequities that abound in these societies.
Centner discussed the traditional view of urban sociology, founded by Louis Wirth and the Chicago school of Urban Sociology. Wirth said urban cultures are distinct because they have a large, dense population and cultural heterogeneity. Wirth thought his views were uniform for all cities. However, Centner and others criticize Wirth for writing about a certain place and time - industrial Chicago. Wirth also saw no need for urban planning - a theory long ago rejected by academics and city planners alike.
By placing the market first, Neoliberalism places emphasis on the economy but ignores the political and social aspects of development. Thus, planning is needed to protect those who feel the brunt of economic liberalism, Centner said. "Structural adjustment is very pervasive, even if people don't like it."
Global economic policy is quickly becoming an urban social policy, but no one is sure what or who is shaping the reality of Third-World cities, Centner said. Using the diverse examples of Buenos Aires, Istanbul and Kuala Lumpur, he pointed out that all adopted structural adjustment to deal with the aftermath of loans from international economic institutions.
The problem with letting the market run a society is that, in Third-World countries, it "is only a market for some... the free market is never entirely free," Centner said. He pointed out that laissez-faire markets are planned, but social planning and intervention are unexpected. The consequences of having a free market require planning, he said. With these great inequities, people in the lower classes will revert to the informal economy, by working on the black market or in illegal jobs.
Buenos Aires' economy was opened up in the '90s, due to policies that removed tariffs and controls on financial flows. With economic protections gone, much of the middle class fell into poverty. Shantytowns in the city have grown at an unprecedented rate and immigrants from other parts of Latin America have flown to Buenos Aires. Many of these immigrants, from countries like Peru and Bolivia, have strong ties to their indigenous roots. Argentina, especially Buenos Aires, consists mainly of people of European descent. The city was often compared to its counterparts in Western Europe, rather than to other cities in Latin America. Centner mentioned that this transition is being called the "Latin-Americanization of Buenos Aires."
Istanbul has seen a consolidation of property, especially in the European parts of the city. Centner said this reflects Turkey's push to join the European Union. This prosperity has been accompanied by large slums in the city, mainly from Kurdish internal migrants. These migrants are pushed out of their slums to "beautify the city," without any thought to the human costs, he said.
Kuala Lumpur has become a "multimedia corridor" that Centner compared to a Malaysian Silicon Valley. But, the Malaysians are promoting technology at the cost of other pursuits. Also, a sort of "affirmative action" has been taking place, benefiting Malaysians at the expense of other ethnic groups, like the Chinese. While the Malaysians are making good decisions to reflect their modern Islamic capitalism, they are forgetting their social priorities. Centner also points out that it is not the government's place to make discriminatory decisions- a lot of these policies come from conditions tied to loans from international institutions.
Centner said that "global economic policy is an urban social policy," and pointed out that structural adjustments can benefit societies by affecting the smallest parts of life.
Centner is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. While at Tufts, he majored in International Relations and Sociology, graduating Summa cum Laude. He began researching for his undergraduate thesis by looking at Pacific Islander migration in New Zealand.
