Planet Of Slums Book Report
Ap Human Geography
Ryan Tillery
August 30, 2016
B2
Planet of Slums essay During my summer vacation I was visiting New York City on one hot, humid day. As I was making my way to my destination I had to get on a train. This being my first time in New York City I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to experience. I was in a jammed packed train, so crowded I couldn’t even lift my arms all the way up without awkwardly touching someone. It felt like it was a hundred plus degrees and it also reeked a distasteful smell. For fifteen minutes I had a taste of what it was like to be in a crowded slum-like area. Famously known American writer, political activist and urban theorist, Mike Davis is famously known for his …show more content…
On the other hand, in one of the many insightful historical comparisons made throughout this book, Davis sees the impact of today's "neoliberal globalization" on Third World cities as very comparable to the ways in which nineteenth-century imperialism shaped rural life through "the forcible incorporation into the world market of the great subsistence peasantries of Asia and Africa … ." Planet of Slums often showed the similarities between past and present realities. Davis used this tool as a way of implying that things are very much similar today to what they used to be in past generations. Although he does this, he does it while emphasizing the scarcely known nature of current global forces. By doing the opposite Davis implies that things are very much different in today's …show more content…
This perspective leaves Planet of Slums fundamentally ambivalent, or having mixed thoughts, about the role of states, and quiet about social movements as forces for addressing and ultimately narrowing the chasm between rich and poor, or even for simply alleviating the most harmful aspects of urban existence, whether lack of access to water, exposure to toxic environments, or subsistence incomes. Davis occasionally mentions urban riots and protests against the growing inequality and reduction of social services in various cities around the globe, but does not address the conditions under which these demonstrations happen or how those who have benefited from the social branches of cities have apparently gotten away with it so
Ryan Tillery
August 30, 2016
B2
Planet of Slums essay During my summer vacation I was visiting New York City on one hot, humid day. As I was making my way to my destination I had to get on a train. This being my first time in New York City I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to experience. I was in a jammed packed train, so crowded I couldn’t even lift my arms all the way up without awkwardly touching someone. It felt like it was a hundred plus degrees and it also reeked a distasteful smell. For fifteen minutes I had a taste of what it was like to be in a crowded slum-like area. Famously known American writer, political activist and urban theorist, Mike Davis is famously known for his …show more content…
On the other hand, in one of the many insightful historical comparisons made throughout this book, Davis sees the impact of today's "neoliberal globalization" on Third World cities as very comparable to the ways in which nineteenth-century imperialism shaped rural life through "the forcible incorporation into the world market of the great subsistence peasantries of Asia and Africa … ." Planet of Slums often showed the similarities between past and present realities. Davis used this tool as a way of implying that things are very much similar today to what they used to be in past generations. Although he does this, he does it while emphasizing the scarcely known nature of current global forces. By doing the opposite Davis implies that things are very much different in today's …show more content…
This perspective leaves Planet of Slums fundamentally ambivalent, or having mixed thoughts, about the role of states, and quiet about social movements as forces for addressing and ultimately narrowing the chasm between rich and poor, or even for simply alleviating the most harmful aspects of urban existence, whether lack of access to water, exposure to toxic environments, or subsistence incomes. Davis occasionally mentions urban riots and protests against the growing inequality and reduction of social services in various cities around the globe, but does not address the conditions under which these demonstrations happen or how those who have benefited from the social branches of cities have apparently gotten away with it so