[reblogged from URB-GEOG-FORUM]

Call for Papers: AAG Annual Meeting, 9-13 April 2013

Session Title: Consumption, Demand, Global Urbanization

Organizer: William Kutz, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University

Since the publication of the World City Hypothesis (1986), research into the relationship between urbanization and globalization has prioritized the role of production. The transnational capitalist class commanding and controlling producer service industries and their splintered infrastructures under neoliberalized, entrepreneurial regimes highlight the production of space in global cities today. The other side of the coin – consumer demand – remains lacking. Specifically, under what conditions does urban consumption of the built form actively shape urban processes on a global scale? The session aims to present detailed case studies to examine and explain how local consumption shapes the patterns of global urbanization through