BOOK REVIEWS

Clarissa Rile Hayward and Todd Swanstrom (Eds.), Justice and the American Metropolis(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011).

Justice and the American Metropolis provides a timely exploration of ways of making injusticein our urban areas more visible, and putting justice more squarely in the forefront of deliberationson urban policy and practice in this country. The contributions of the book are theoretical andconceptual, rather than empirical. It will be of interest primarily to political scientists and otherscholars of urban political processes, since the focus of most chapters is on political theory, insti-tutions, and democratic processes shaping urban areas, rather than on political economy. The bookis the result of a 2009 conference at Washington University and related panels at meetings of theAmerican Political Science Association, and thus has a fairly tight and cohesive focus. The con-tributors have clearly benefited from the collaborative and focused discussion of these meetings.The book would be appropriate for graduate level courses, and perhaps advanced undergraduatecourses, which deal with urban politics, political science and theories of social justice.

The book is motivated by a concern that debates about urban development in this countryhave shifted from the 1960s and early 1970s, when concerns of social justice were prominent, torecent decades where the concern has been primarily about economic considerations. The editorsargue in their provocative introduction that this shift is not because there is any less injustice inour urban areas, or even principally because of ideological shifts or changing beliefs that haveoccurred over this time period. Rather, they argue, contemporary urban injustice is rooted in theinterrelations of three distinct factors: historical urban processes of racial and social discriminationand segregation that continue to shape inequality despite the end of formal legal discrimination;contemporary structures of local governance that are decentralized and fragmented; and theembedding of unequal power relationships in physical places. The combination of these threefactors makes injustice more difficult to see and more difficult to assign responsibility for, andthus more difficult to change. Using the term thick injustice, their focus is thus on the ways thatinjustice is generated over time and embedded in the spatial structures and governance systemsof urban areas. By exploring this contemporary condition of thick injustice, the editors hope theycan bring the “product of uncoordinated, sometimes historically remote decisions . . . into therealm of conscious political action” (Kindle Locations 299–300).

Following the introductory essay are three chapters focused on theoretical concepts of jus-tice, with John Rawls’s conceptions of distributive justice and American democracy a commonreference point. Stephen Macedo offers a trenchant critique of the failings of our local politi-cal institutions, particularly those centered around protecting homeownership rights and schoolfunding, which create what he calls a “property owning plutocracy” that defies the requirementsof justice, but is deeply entrenched and supported not only by established interests but by theAmerican dream itself. Loren King explores the importance of generating good reasons forimposing burdens on others in the process of building metropolitan justice. Margaret Kohn’s

JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Volume 35, Number 1, pages 123–129.Copyright C© 2013 Urban Affairs AssociationAll rights of reproduction in any form reserved.ISSN: 0735-2166.

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chapter explores the history of Frederick Law Olmsted’s and Jane Addams’s approaches to publicspace, arguing the importance of public space for building sympathy and mutual understandingacross social classes, emphasizing in particular the ways that socially mixed recreational activityhelps create conditions in which exposure to diversity takes place in the context of shared goals,mutual interdependence, and equal status.

This is followed by two chapters related to rethinking metropolitan inequality, with DouglassRae arguing that promoting greater intermetropolitan equity (which he considers to be particularlyimportant) might contribute to intrametropolitan inequity, and Clarence Stone arguing the needto rethink the relationship between equity and efficiency, suggesting that they can be synergisticrather than working in opposite directions.

Two chapters focus specifically on the role of planning and the state in shaping thick injustice.Susan Fainstein provides an impressive synthetic analysis of the role of urban redevelopmentover the past half century in embedding inequality in urban areas, primarily in the service ofdevelopers, while Thad Williamson argues for ways of relegitimating the activist state throughreconceptualizing public interest and public leaders, using a case study of “new public service”public leadership in Richmond, Virginia to explore the opportunities and challenges in efforts tobuild a vibrant public sector in ways that can curb rampant private interests.

The final section of the book brings three chapters together that discuss the role of different in-stitutions in shaping thick injustice. Gerald Frug provides an insightful analysis of local electorallegitimacy, arguing that not only noncitizens and felons but also part-time residents and residentsof neighboring jurisdictions should have local electoral franchise, based on a principle of affectedinterests. Richard Thompson Ford explores the subtle ways that our legal system reinforces racialsegregation, conceptualizing territories as not delimited by jurisdictional boundaries, but charac-terized by complex overlapping jurisdictional practices which fundamentally shape three majorprocesses reinforcing racial segregation: differential taxation and institutional funding systems;land-use planning; and residency rules for voting and access to local services. Margaret Weir’sconcluding chapter explores strategies for promoting justice for the poor in the context of today’smore spatially complex metropolitan areas, with less highly contained concentrations of the poor,emphasizing the intersection between processes of political and spatial exclusion/inclusion and ar-guing for greater attention to institutional reform and changes in federal policy over regional equitypolicies and individual move-to-opportunity efforts that she argues have been largely ineffective.

Overall, there is little that is path-breaking in this book—no new empirical findings or concep-tual breakthroughs that are likely to transform approaches to achieving justice in the Americanmetropolis. But that is undoubtedly too high a bar for an edited volume. What the book does do isbring together many provocative and thoughtful contributions in a focused discussion on why thevast inequities in our urban areas continue to be so invisible and underemphasized in debates onurban policy and practice, and how reconceptualizing justice and its relationship to our politicalinstitutions and processes might help contribute to building more just cities.

Chris BennerUniversity of California Davis

ccbenner@ucdavis.edu

Marie Huchzermeyer, Cities With ‘Slums’: From Informal Settlement Eradication to aRight to the City in Africa (Claremont, South Africa: UCT Press, 2011).

In Marie Huchzermeyer’s Cities With ‘Slums’: From Informal Settlement Eradication to a Right tothe City in Africa (2011), the author grapples with some of the most challenging and pressing issues

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facing urban planners and policymakers in the world today: globalization, urbanization, affordablehousing, and the question of “slums.” Based on extensive research and long-term professionaland intellectual engagement with the cases about which she writes, Huchzermeyer chronicles thepolitical, discursive, and material implications that a global development discourse promoting“cities without slums” has had for Africa’s urban poor and for their neighborhoods. Drawing oncases from South Africa (but also exploring parallel dynamics operative in Kenya, Zimbabwe, andNigeria), Huchzermeyer’s book explores how an international development paradigm—emergingat the turn of the millennium and propagated by global governance actors such as the UnitedNations, the World Bank, and various NGOs—has urged cities to compete with one another forforeign investment by enacting urban policies and producing cityscapes that will be attractiveto corporate capital. Borrowing legitimacy from UN Habitat’s endorsement in its “MillenniumDevelopment Goals” of the slogan “Cities Without ‘Slums’,” the municipal authorities featuringin Huchzermeyer’s cases have pursued policies to eradicate the “embarrassment” of slums (par-ticularly those that are most visible) from central urban locations in an effort to produce attractive“world-class” cities (p. 161). Detailing how these dynamics have unfolded in Africa, the bookdraws particular attention to the various forms of resistance that “neoliberal order” encountersas it pursues its “cities without slums” agenda—resistance efforts that Huchzermeyer seeks totheorize through the Lefebvrian lens of a “right to the city.”

Cities With ‘Slums’ is at its best when detailing case studies of how a homogenizing globallylegitimated political discourse promoting slum eradication is subverted and resisted by moreheterogeneous social and legal realities operative in various African cities. Indeed, the book’sstrongest contribution lies in the wonderfully, sometimes overwhelmingly detailed narratives ofhow state-led efforts to clear “slums” in pursuit of a “competitive cities” agenda have been resisted,stalled, or derailed by various activist-led rights-based initiatives. Huchzermeyer describes, forexample, how FIFA’s 2004 announcement that Johannesburg would host the 2010 World Cupfootball tournament fueled a “high-level government obsession” with the project of removingthe city’s informal settlements from places where they might be seen by international footballtourists. Indeed, shortly after FIFA’s announcement, the settlement of Harry Gawla (situated,the author notes, along the route to a major tourist destination) was served an eviction notice—notwithstanding the fact that residents had earlier been granted permission by the town councilto develop the plot of land for residential purpose. Huchzermeyer details how the residents ofHarry Gawla, with the help of voluntary legal council and the support of an activist NGO, foughtthe relocation plans all the way to the Constitutional Court by appealing to a forgotten piece ofprogressive legislation that eschews eviction/relocation as a policy of “last resort” while callinginstead for in situ upgrading of settlements. The details of the legal challenge as presented byHuchzermeyer provide a useful case study in how a rights-based initiative has been able to counterthe internationally legitimated anti-“slum” policy paradigm by stalling state efforts to evict thecommunity for over seven years (the case is still pending).

While Huchzermeyer’s case narratives make for fascinating reading, her cases do not alwaysdo precisely the job that the author wants them to do. Huchzermeyer devotes the entire firstthird of her book to introducing a neoliberal protagonist: Chapter 1 details the profiteeringcapitalist agenda implicit in UN Habitat’s Cities Without Slums campaign; Chapter 2 unpacksthe “urban competitiveness” paradigm touted by global governance actors urging city managersto think of their cities like firms; Chapter 3 explores the discourse of “slum”/“informality” thatcasts poor neighborhoods as the self-evident counterpart to the aspired-to, globally-competitive“planned and orderly modern city” (p. 10). Her cases, in turn, are intended to “provide context”(p. 91) for these neoliberal themes. Yet when the author (finally) delves into her cases, the storythat emerges is much more complex—and infinitely more interesting. The battles she describesare less illustrative of the inexorably creeping tentacles of UN-sponsored neoliberalism, thanof ways in which local political realities invariably exceed the control of any particular set of

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actors—global, political, or activist. UN Habitat, for one, comes off as less like a neoliberalMordor than as somewhat bumbling, contradictory, and misguided. In the Zimbabwe case outlinedin Chapter 4, for example, the UN is shown to somewhat unwittingly lend legitimacy to the slumeviction campaign—a campaign that appears to have been motivated at least as much by theruling party’s realization that informal settlements tended to support the opposition party asby a desire to render the city more competitive. Next, the UN Special Envoy’s report on theZimbabwe evictions simultaneously recognizes that a human rights catastrophe has resulted—estimating that 700,000 people lost “either their homes, their sources of livelihood or both”(p. 102)—but in response issues only bland recommendations (“the international communityshould then continue to be engaged with human rights concerns in Zimbabwe in consensusbuilding political forums”) in order to avoid alienating Zimbabwean political leaders. Finally, theUN is cast as completely toothless when the Zimbabwe government resumes evictions in spite ofthe UN Special Envoy report’s express disapproval.

Given the rich complexity of the narratives, one is left wondering whether the author’s effort totheorize the cases normatively using Lefebvre’s concept of a “right to the city” is either necessaryor fitting. Huchzermeyer’s narratives detailing the extremely heterogeneous habitation historiesand claims-making practices of Africa’s urban poor do not clearly demonstrate (as the authorsuggests they do) Lefebvre’s notion of oeuvre—characterized by the author as “the unproductiveuse of public space in the city as a celebration” (p. 254). Rather, her accounts of rights-basedchallenges to state-led evictions evidence the much more interesting and complex political realitiesin which these political dramas unfold: in her Kenyan example, for instance, a slum relocationproject was successfully challenged in the courts by nonresident Sudanese landlords staking theirclaims not on any right to “celebrate the unproductive use of public space,” but rather by provingthat they held valid property rights over so-called “slum” structures in question—structures thatthey had given out on rent (p. 162).

Yet, notwithstanding these points about the book’s theoretical framework, Cities With ‘Slums’—particularly the case narratives—will be well-worth reading not only for students, but also forurban planners and policy experts worldwide. Indeed, by this measure Huchzermeyer’s booksucceeds admirably, as the author expresses not only intellectual but unambiguously politicalaims: to “inspire a wider understanding of, sympathy for, and solidarity with struggles againstinformal settlement eradication” (p. 15) among global policymakers. The painstakingly detailedaccounts narrated in Cities With ‘Slums’ signal the dangers in advocating one-size-fits-all policy“solutions” to complex urban challenges, demand sensitivity to context, and—perhaps mostimportantly—call for modesty on the part of policymakers.

Lisa BjorkmanMax Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity

Gottingen, GermanyLbjorkman6@gmail.com

Emily Talen, City Rules: How Regulations Affect Urban Form (Washington, DC: IslandPress, 2012).

Many planners look down on zoning and think of it more as limiting rather than enabling.While the initial intentions behind zoning were noble and egalitarian, zoning became a hugedisappointment in many cities, failing to either protect the public good, promote public health,

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or keep nuisances away from people. These discrepancies between zoning intentions and itsoutcomes have become subjects of heated debate among planners and policymakers. For example,how does top-down zoning stack up against the virtues of self-regulating voluntary cities? DoesHouston’s model of land development, regulation based solely on the inner workings of the privatemarket, exemplify a more efficient, democratic, and egalitarian planning mechanism compared tothe growth boundaries and zoning laws of Portland, Oregon? How has zoning affected residents’quality of life? And, can we conclude that zoning regulations have become instruments forsnobbism and exclusion? Against the backdrop of these questions and debates, City Rules: HowRegulations Affect Urban Form critically examines zoning and explores why it has sometimesharmed more than helped cities.

Emily Talen explores the nexus between zoning and urban form in seven chapters. Seekingthe direct, rather than indirect, effects of zoning on urban form, Chapter 1 provides the researchframework and methodology, Chapters 2–5 examine the evolution of zoning and its impacts oncities, and Chapter 6 discusses zoning reform, followed by Conclusions.

In Chapters 2–5, the core of the book, Talen highlights the nexus between regulations and urbanform. She argues that zoning transforms the spatial structure of the city by affecting “pattern,”“use,” and “form,” three key urban characteristics. That is, zoning controls the “arrangement”and “proximity” of land uses to ensure both “compatibility” and “predictability” in their spatialcomposition.

While at first blush, these three goals for zoning ordinances seem plausible, the reality is muchmore complex and nuanced. Rules can be relaxed or intensified, respected or broken, and canyield intended or unintended consequences. Even though governments have used zoning andother regulatory mechanism with good intentions (at least on paper) for almost a century, Talenreminds us that good intentions alone are not enough to produce equitable results.

Over time, zoning has often become an instrument for social exclusion rather than inclusion,promoting social injustice and homogenous enclaves and ghettos. Platting regulations based onminimum lot size have undercut the creation of higher-density affordable housing and mixed-income neighborhoods. Thus, the seemingly technical and innocent minimum lot-size rules,subdivision regulations, and zoning ordinances have, over time, provided the means for institu-tionalizing social segregation.

Of the three attributes of pattern, use, and form, the latter is perhaps more interesting becauseit involves the shift of intentions from direct to indirect impacts. The direct intentions of zoningcodes embrace the “visible and unambiguous” (p. 128) characteristics of urban form such asbuilding height or form. Gradually, however, other intentions such as controlling public health,traffic, or aesthetics have given rise to codes such as the floor area ratios, which have impactedurban form indirectly. For example, rather than “hard and fast rules” (p. 178) tying form to zoning,new urban forms emerged from negotiations for providing plazas in dense urban areas with lightand air. With the rise of such complex negotiations for getting bonus densities and building tallerbuildings since the 1950s and 60s, the direct linkage between urban form and code has becomerather irrelevant.

Even though Talen’s book mainly concerns the direct and tangible consequences of zoning(p. 14), she demonstrates how zoning regulations have given rise to an unintended type ofurban form in twenty-first century America. That is, the enforcement of strict parking provisionshas gradually wiped out courtyard housing, which promotes walkability and access to greenspace.

Talen gleans examples of different zoning practices from a wide variety of cities and demystifiesthese processes. For example, did you know that Germany used zoning laws before the UnitedStates or Britain? That New York City was the first American city to adopt a comprehensivezoning ordinance (in 1916) even though Los Angeles used zoning first? Or that an architect and

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a statistician devised the first zoning law in New York City even though two influential lawyersplayed key roles in “advancing the idea publicly” (p. 24)?

Furthermore, as Talen notes, the simplicity and clarity of earlier zoning codes have beenreplaced by codes best characterized as overly complex and chaotic. Increased complexity hasled to a more opaque and indecipherable legal apparatus than existed a century ago. Whetherregulations alone constitute the main force in positively shaping the city or not is a highly relevantquestion the book attempts to address.

Many believe that rigidity and unpredictability characterize zoning regulations today. Grantingzoning variance and overlay, performance, or floating zones, for example, increases designpredictability, but reduces flexibility due to requiring additional layers of discretion, review,and costs. As the latest innovation in zoning reform, form-based codes seek to remedy theseproblems. That is, they seek to increase flexibility by including potent three-dimensional graphicrepresentations of desirable forms and patterns. While minimizing the need for lengthy arcanenarratives, architects lament that they are still rigid and stifle design creativity. So, is there hopefor zoning after all?

According to Talen, sustainable city-building in twenty-first century America will requireachieving a balance between greater predictability and greater flexibility. Reformed codes shouldhelp create buildings, which “define rather than occupy space” (p. 184). Windows at street leveland main entrances facing the street rather than allowing blank walls represent common senseexamples of searching for such a balance. An interdisciplinary audience whose research interestsfocus on the regulatory, physical, and historical attributes of cities should find Talen’s criticalanalysis of zoning useful.

Mahyar ArefiUniversity of CincinnatiMahyar. Arefi@uc.edu

Afaf Ibrahim Meleis, Eugenie L. Birch, and Susan M. Wachter. Women’s Health and theWorld’s Cities. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).

In Women’s Health and the World’s Cities, Alaf Meleis, Eugenie Birch, and Susan Wachterpresent us with a well written and thorough book on mostly ignored challenges related toachieving satisfactory health for women in urban settings. The edited book, structured in threemajor parts and 14 chapters, points out historical failures and demonstrates today’s urgent needto better address women’s health in world cities.

The first part of the book focuses on the health of women in urban areas and describes theissues women and adolescent girls face. Part Two documents women’s health problems and causesrelated to design, urbanization, space, and geography. Part Three offers models of excellence andexamples from around the world. Meleis, Birch, and Wachter, as well as the contributors, arguethat demanding better women’s health is a necessity at all levels; local, state, and international.The global perspective (including examples from Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Bangladesh, India,Israel, the Philippines, and Latin American countries) makes clear that women’s health is an acuteand borderless concern of increasing magnitude in both developing and developed societies.

The individual chapters cover such detailed topics as lack of clean water, inadequate accessto health care, the United Nations’ millennium development goals, the influences of religion

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on health, programs for children and young women, gender-based transportation issues, healthconflicts based on age and social status, health stressors such as poverty, the life of women withdisabilities, health issues associated with rape and violent abuse, and threats posed by sexuallytransferable diseases (STDs) and HIV/AIDS.

The book benefits from the interdisciplinarily background of the contributors (medicine, arts,city and regional planning, nursing, clinical psychology, real estate and finance, and public health)and diverse writing styles (ranging from data-driven, based on health records, to ethnographicnarratives). Women’s Health and the World’s Cities will hopefully spur a paradigm shift—political,economic, and social—on how we view women’s rights to well-being. As Wachter points outin the afterword (p. 273), cities are overwhelmed with “rural-to-urban migration” and fail inproviding basic services to new migrants. Reading this book convinced the reader that “womenare the center of change” and that “the leadership of women is pivotal for the welfare of poorercommunities” (p. 206).

Women’s Health and the World’s Cities constitutes an outstanding addition to the existingliterature on urban and public health. I am planning on adopting the book in my upcominggraduate course on community planning and urban health to establish a well-rounded global aswell as gender-focused perspective on health issues.

Thomas WuerzerBoise State University

ThomasWuerzer@boisestate.edu