Urban Violence, Resilience and Security: Governance Responses in the Global South

Written in a comprehensive yet accessible style, Urban Violence, Resilience and Security investigates the diverse nature of urban violence within Latin America, Asia and Africa. It further analyzes how regular and irregular governing mechanisms can provide human security, despite the presence of chronic violence.   The empirically rich and conceptually grounded contributions of established and emerging scholars evaluate the current state and future trajectory of urban development. They also question common explanations of the drivers of violence in urban areas and also provide measured recommendations for improved policy and future governance. Chapters thoroughly examine the opportunities and hazards of focusing on resilience as the only method to improve security and identify governance and policy practices that can move beyond the rhetoric of resilience to evaluate diverse approaches to attaining human security in urban areas of the Global South. This invigorating book will be an excellent resource for academic researchers interested in urban dynamics in the Global South as well as scholars embarking on geography, human security, political science and policy studies. Based on a set of original case studies, policymakers will also benefit from the questions and challenges to the conventional approaches to urban planning and governance that it raises.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Foreword xi Ariel C. Armony Acknowledgments xiii 1 Introduction to Urban Violence, Resilience and Security 1 Michael R. Glass, Taylor B. Seybolt and Phil Williams PART I CONCEPTUAL APPROACHES TO URBAN VIOLENCE, RESILIENCE AND SECURITY 2 Urban violence in the Global South: drug traffickers, gangs, and organized crime 21 Phil Williams 3 Urban resilience for the 21st century 39 Savannah Cox 4 Urban governance in conflict zones: contentious politics, not “resilience” 53 Daniel E. Esser 5 Building effective and acceptable security-driven urban resilience 72 Jon Coaffee 6 Fragility and pernicious resilience in urban Latin America and the Caribbean 88 Enrique Desmond Arias PART II DIMENSIONS OF URBAN VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH 7 Feral cities and the normative dimension of violence: Caracas and the Latin American city 101 Roberto Briceño-León 8 Xenophobic violence, displacement, and reintegration: a case study of female migrants in Isipingo, Durban, South Africa 120 Kim Gounder and Brij Maharaj 9 Shoot first, ask later: violence and anti-crime policies in Mexico’s Cuidad Juárez and Pakistan’s Karachi 138 Vanda Felbab-Brown 10 Strain between two worlds: a sociological approach to the rise and fall of crime and violence in Guatemala City 160 Daniel Núñez 11 Criminal victimization and social resilience in Latin America 177 Eduardo Moncada Index 193