00:00:00: This is the Urban Political.
00:00:03: The podcast on urban theory, research and activism.
00:00:10: So hello dear listeners.
00:00:11: so welcome to another episode of Urban Political Podcasts.
00:00:16: And today we are starting a new mini-series On Cities & Geopolitics.
00:00:24: It's going be five part series where We're gonna look at this question geopolitics from very different perspectives.
00:00:33: We're recording this on the seventeenth of April in the midst of a sort of ceasefire, but as the cease fire is happening and it still feels like what Maria Kaikai would call urban uncanny moments in cities across the world.
00:01:01: In this city I am originally from, in Delhi there are riots on the periphery of the city because if the shortage of cooking gas and workers not getting access to cooking gas or being able to cook can go to factories to work?
00:01:20: One department at my university closed down because they don't have helium anymore to do their experiments, all of that helium used come from the Middle East.
00:01:30: The urban uncanny amongst this geopolitical moment is sort-of opening up all kinds of fissures and allowing us see a highly interdependent geopolitical world where conditions are urban everyday realities across the world in an embodied way.
00:01:49: So in today's podcast, we are going to introduce some of the terms and We're going to talk two very interesting speakers who Are working with this topic?
00:02:01: And they're working with The idea.
00:02:04: second cold war and cities and geopolitics.
00:02:08: I was at a workshop organized by them in Manchester last month Which is very stimulating.
00:02:15: so many of the people that he would hear to in this many series did present their work at this workshop.
00:02:24: In Manchester, and our speakers will talk about that workshop later in the episode.
00:02:29: so just you say that This is a collaboration between Urban Political Podcasts and The Second Cold War Observatory and urban geography.
00:02:36: do I know?
00:02:37: So thanks for this collaboration and partnership.
00:02:40: So I'm just going to very quickly introduce our two speakers, which actually need little introduction.
00:02:46: Anyone who is in the field of urban studies and listens to our podcast would know both of our speakers but just... Very quickly!
00:02:53: Our first speaker is Kevin Ward.
00:02:55: he's a professor in and director off The Urban Studies Institute at Georgia State University his editor-in-chief of urban geography.
00:03:05: an editor of the globalization community book series at the University of Minnesota Press He's published widely across issues of combative urbanism, local economic development, municipal finance, policy mobilities and urban and regional governance.
00:03:20: he continues to be interested in local development and growth politics associated with wider geopolitical
00:03:26: processes.
00:03:27: Our second speaker Seth Schindler is professor for Urban Politics & Development at University of Manchester.
00:03:34: He's based in the Global Development Institute and also serves as deputy director of Manchester Urban Institute, a member of the editorial board for the International Journal for Urban and Regional Research.
00:03:47: He co-founded The Second Cold War Observatory in twenty twenty with Jessica DiCarlo.
00:03:53: His current research focuses on the impacts of contemporary geopolitical rivalry between cities.
00:04:01: Thanks for joining us.
00:04:02: Kevin, thanks for joining a set.
00:04:04: before passing you the mic I'm gonna throw in The burning question already.
00:04:10: that has been sort of like on top Of my head since quite some time and i would really Like to listen more about from both of You.
00:04:20: so why do cities matter for geopolitics?
00:04:22: In twenty first century?
00:04:25: Hi nijen great see you thinks it's wonderful To be here.
00:04:28: And how are you kevin?
00:04:29: I guess It's important.
00:04:29: we say We're coming to you from three different places, right?
00:04:34: Yeah.
00:04:34: I'm coming in from downtown Atlanta where something we'll talk about a bit over the next time is.
00:04:41: I got Waymo into work this morning so it's something that will crop up a couple of times.
00:04:46: these driverless cars are all over midtown and downtown Atlanta and come into a city near youth haven't already.
00:04:53: maybe i'll take this first one then and i'll just get us started.
00:04:55: if that's alright why do cities matter for geopolitics?
00:05:01: I think quite simply it's because of the nature of geopolitical rivalry.
00:05:06: Everyone knows great power, rivalry is back.
00:05:08: Kevin and i along with our colleagues at The Second Cold War Observatory we frame this as the second cold war And in this framework the US and China are the primary protagonists.
00:05:19: They're only full spectrum powers.
00:05:21: you can say they compete globally But they also compete across a range of fields or domains what we look at as networks, the transnational networks that underpin globalization.
00:05:33: They competed with the deepest depths of the oceans for laying internet cables and also in outer space—in low-earth orbit.
00:05:43: So it will discuss all these domains momentarily but here It's important to understand how they compete.
00:05:48: And to do so I think We need to recognize The context In which the current moment —the current round Of geopolitical rivalry exploded in about twenty sixteen during Trump first term.
00:05:57: So, this was of course following on an unprecedented era or an era of unprecedented global economic integration.
00:06:08: The US and China are obviously the world's two largest economies.
00:06:11: they truly have a global presence economically also politically but most countries in the world are deeply integrated to both right?
00:06:19: And so it is its inmost country interest remains so.
00:06:23: But that means that in contrast with Cold War when the world was divided into two semi-autarchic blocks and cities where in either the east block or the west block, uh...the US and Chinese actors are present.
00:06:35: In most cities in the world And they're competing.
00:06:39: So um one of my favorite quotes is from Trump's Secretary Of State From his first term Mike Pompeo.
00:06:45: He said toward the end of The First Trump Administration quote, this isn't about containment.
00:06:51: Don't buy that.
00:06:52: it's about a complex new challenge we've never faced before The USSR was closed off from the free world.
00:06:59: Communist China is already within our borders.
00:07:03: So for me That really illustrates the difference between the Cold War and what?
00:07:07: We've called the second cold war.
00:07:08: the cold war began after World War two.
00:07:10: obviously the allies had carved up the world into spheres of influence at the Yalta conference And then the next four-and-a-half decades were essentially a renegotiation of the agreements reached at Yalta, with the US trying to contain communist influence.
00:07:26: The Soviets and then for a time People's Republic Of China trying to establish alliances in the so-called Third World.
00:07:33: And now we're witnessing by contrast a renegotiation of globalization.
00:07:39: So it is really conflict over network centrality rather than territory like the first Cold War.
00:07:46: And so here the context matters, this new geopolitical rivalry has emerged out of the context of neoliberal globalization.
00:07:54: The US and China are competing for the centrality in the transnational networks that constitute its architecture through which power can be projected in the twenty-first century.
00:08:04: So we've identified those in our article in Geopolitics as infrastructure networks.
00:08:09: I guess most listeners will know about the Belt and Road Initiative Very modest efforts from the US to counter that such as low the Lobito corridor in Southwestern Africa.
00:08:20: digital networks is both hardware and software how they're integrated.
00:08:23: Production Networks deemed critical to national security.
00:08:26: So think semiconductors here also EV's And so on and financial network those networks That can be weaponized just keep pressure on adversaries.
00:08:36: Though while not every city has an important node in transnational networks Most of the key nodes in these networks that are contested our cities.
00:08:45: So I would start there.
00:08:46: That's why they're so central to this competition.
00:08:48: Sorry, I just wanted you come in very quickly There.
00:08:51: yeah Just is too contextualize for this for our listeners?
00:08:54: So The argument then Is that in order to think of geopolitics today one has to think a second cold war.
00:09:03: Yeah, i mean we framed it as a second Cold War because You know, that's another I think Another discussion perhaps for a different podcast because it's A bit lengthy.
00:09:12: but you Know we wrote this article in geopolitics.
00:09:15: That was In many ways a response to the debates and Washington Surrounding a new Cold War And you had people arguing.
00:09:22: these are People that Are deeply integrated into The?
00:09:24: u.s security establishment.
00:09:26: Arguing whether or not cold war Was an appropriate analogy For the present moment around.
00:09:31: in the late as of twenty sixteen seventeen eighteen We really were dissatisfied by that Because they were looking at it as an analogy.
00:09:39: So either the present is like or dislike, The Cold War and instead we see more of a process.
00:09:45: so to US hegemony from Eurasia, this time with People's Republic of China as the primary challenger and Russia a subordinate challenger.
00:09:57: And last time it was flipped.
00:09:58: Of course there is a Sino-Soviet split so its quite complex but we see renewed challenge rather than some completely unrelated event.
00:10:05: I think that reason why American scholars who are in security establishment won't refused to see this current moment as a second Cold War is because it undermines their triumphalist narrative that the US won the first Cold War so resoundingly.
00:10:21: So, the minute that you say... You know?
00:10:23: The challenge is back only a few decades later really undermines that triumphalism and that's baked into the DNA of people in Washington
00:10:32: D.C.,
00:10:33: they can see it as like the cold war or not liked at all.
00:10:37: their arguments are rather simplistic.
00:10:39: They'll says things well.. The present is different from the Cold War.
00:10:43: It cannot possibly be a second Cold War.
00:10:45: World War II was different by the way.
00:10:48: Right, you had Blitzkrieg versus trench warfare.
00:10:51: So that's how we get to the second Cold War.
00:10:53: I mean some listeners will agree or disagree but i'd say We would risk going down a rabbit hole if we did too much into history.
00:11:02: But
00:11:03: I think it was very short version.
00:11:06: It is really clear.
00:11:07: Thank You Thanks Seth.
00:11:10: In part of this transformation in global economy over the last four or five decades has set the preconditions for this second Cold War, in the sense of the emphasis that we place in a framework about thinking those kinds of networks.
00:11:27: In the context of attempts to kind with economic nationalism coming out of US which is just impossible politically but also conceptually dissatisfying when one thinks different sites, subjects and spaces are conscripted into those kind of networks.
00:11:47: And the ways in which you know as geographers we think about even development... ...and that seems to be an important thing to acknowledge and build upon when we think.. ..about how we frame what seems going on between these two geopolitical heavy weights.... In a global disorder that we find ourselves in?
00:12:05: Thanks!
00:12:06: I have related question for both view.
00:12:10: So what does it mean to urbanize geopolitics in a context of renewed global rivalries?
00:12:16: I mean, that is a good question and something we've kind have been wrestling about.
00:12:20: On the one hand i think The Second Cold War and the framework We've Been using Is an attempt To reassert the agency And Think About Cities In The Current Context And Clearly We're Not First people to do that on one level.
00:12:36: And I guess for Seth and IN colleagues in the Second World War Observatory, drawing upon previous work has been done...I mean there are two strikes we've drawn up almost heavily i think and they're other most important to us.
00:12:49: One is the kind of strand where it's being done around Stephen Graham's work called military urbanism And the particular take around warfare and ways in which cities became important, thinking about that.
00:13:01: The second is the work of Mikaelian Akuto and others who talked a bit about city's diplomacy and governmental relations.
00:13:10: Again part those seems to have hallmarks on first Cold War aftermath In the sense of thinkin' abit about global governance Diplomacy in international relations and very government centred Both quite important, but when we're thinking about the Second Cold War We kind of use those as jumping off points and think a bit about The ways in which cities city governments In different parts of the world get end up being conscripted into What will see unfolding?
00:13:39: In addition to existing cities being kind of reorganized And brought into conversations.
00:13:44: Will CC new cities being involved in A form of extended urbanization where cities are being constituted through the needs of countries to either lean one way, China or another way to the US.
00:13:57: Or more commonly as Seth and I and others have written about in a sense how that kind of balancing act on the one hand look to satisfy the U S do what they need but also to satisfy China.
00:14:11: both ways those four types are present I
00:14:21: guess, i just want to say first of all how much.
00:14:23: I agree with you and like reading that scholarship on city level diplomacy an urban geopolitics.
00:14:30: the only thing I would add is That oftentimes it comes across To me as though thats a kind particularly the urban geopolitic research.
00:14:37: It's A bit Of a subfield right.
00:14:39: so its these cities are a Bit exceptional.
00:14:41: And then The Kind of context of Context if You will is global capitalism.
00:14:46: And I think we need to rethink that because, increasingly it's difficult to understand almost any city without accounting in some way or another for geopolitical rivalry and the other thing worth mentioning... So our group meets regularly with observatory colleagues And we've done quite a bit of reading on Cold War history.
00:15:12: We take our cue partly from that and cold war historians have, I would say rediscovered the importance of cities in that conflict.
00:15:20: here were talking about kind new Cold War History which maybe some listeners don't know is.
00:15:25: it's quite different probably what you learned at school depending upon your age may be.
00:15:30: So i learned at School That The Cold War I can remember the Cold War Barely experienced by me as a child.
00:15:39: And then I also learned later that it was this epic bipolar rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union, uh...and these are kind of presented as almost omnipotent superpowers.
00:15:51: Melvin Leffler published a book for The Soul Of Mankind.
00:15:54: It came out in two thousand seven already!
00:15:57: It feels very anachronistic even at that time.
00:15:59: so i just want to read one brief passage.
00:16:02: he says My focus is on leaders, since I'm interested in human agency as well as contingency and history.
00:16:10: Sounds good but then he goes on to say this book than it's about men... ...and their ideas.. ..and their fears.... ....and their hopes.
00:16:17: It very much a great man make history kind of narrative And each chapter its about different man you know?
00:16:25: Khrushchev, Eisenhower & so on.
00:16:27: That same year Audarn Westad published his book that now well-known, the global Cold War.
00:16:33: This was part of that turn in world history or global history.
00:16:37: so scholars in this new cold war scholarship that followed uh In The Footsteps of Westad they see the Cold War as more an era Or a context or period That structures events but the US and Soviet Union can't determine them.
00:16:52: And So this then plays out very differently in different cities.
00:16:54: I would just point there are three books alone titled Cold War Cities.
00:16:58: There're many articles Many Books particular books about Algiers, Pittsburgh New York Berlin obviously a classic Cold War city Southeast Asian cities.
00:17:07: But I would draw attention to one book in particular which i think illustrates the difference between that period and the present And That's A Book By George Roberts About Dar Salaam.
00:17:16: It's Called Revolutionary Statemaking In Dar Salam.
00:17:19: So He Describes Dar As A Contact Zone Because Many Different Groups Were There.
00:17:23: so Eastern West Germans The ANC and Freilimo were there as well as the US and Israeli Actors.
00:17:29: So for the Cold War, this was rather unique.
00:17:33: But I think one of the differences between The Cold War and The Second Cold War now is the norm – US and Chinese actors as well.
00:17:42: many other actors so perhaps Russian, Israeli, Brazilian Indian and other protagonists' middle powers are present in most cities that are exclusively aligned to the U.S or China.
00:17:56: And so I think now when we talk about second Cold War cities, We would probably say the same.
00:18:01: It's a kind of context era period but very different from the one that is described by historians.
00:18:07: Sorry i have A Very simple question just to contextualize again for our listeners?
00:18:11: I really liked how you talked About global history coming into first cold war and this sort Of like Global Cold War book That You Talked About.
00:18:21: But there were also books written.
00:18:24: And how does that literature on the first Cold War cities differ from this push towards a more global urban studies, both you and Kevin are engaging with in relation to the Second Cold War?
00:18:37: The First One That Comes To Mind is exactly that book on Dar es Salaam.
00:18:40: So it's a revolutionary moment.
00:18:42: in Dar es salaam.
00:18:43: Julius Nevere is walking a fine line between the US and Soviet Union.
00:18:47: he deeply aligned In many ways With China.
00:18:52: everyone is there, right?
00:18:53: So you have these revolutionary movements that are there.
00:18:56: You can see...you take a tour of Cold War Dar Salaam which was great fun and this quite unique.
00:19:01: most other places are aligned one way or another.
00:19:04: if it's the kind of city associated with East then Americans had to operate surreptitiously.
00:19:09: so some cities like Vienna or Kathmandu were associated with spy craft but for the most part cities where in block all their networks Were oriented one way or another right.
00:19:23: so you couldn't imagine the Soviets would do your telecoms and The Americans with wood build.
00:19:28: I don't know.
00:19:28: You're your transportation infrastructure And you pretty much had to be aligned one where another.
00:19:34: Another book that comes to mind is the book on I think it's Geoffrey Byrne on Algiers, Mecca of Revolution.
00:19:40: He talks about how this is... It was a great meeting place, contact zone but for East Bloc revolutionary actors.
00:19:46: Wonderful book!
00:19:47: My favourite part is Timothy Leary showing up with the suitcase full of acid and hanging around with Black Panthers supported by North Vietnamese revolutionaries.
00:19:58: so it's a great read very worthwhile But again you know that's very particular to that revolutionary moment.
00:20:04: Yeah many other things though You know, clearly people were writing about all kinds of cities during the First Cold War and in some cases it just doesn't get mentioned.
00:20:14: Right?
00:20:14: It's just context.
00:20:15: is bank drop because he's either completely Russian in quotes or completely American Or as Seth alluded to was its bracket offers a strand of work where The only thing that's going on Is there at first cold war city In a particularly kind of compartmentalized way As opposed apart from one or two exceptions, the kind of very messy co-presences that we then see play out.
00:20:41: Both co-presences in terms of their kind of geographies are there as in who's present.
00:20:46: but as Seth Luke said with those sort of networks... The fact they're actually the norm now is both China and US are present In both those kinds of global cities That might think about But all kinds have other cities.
00:20:59: I mean work done by us.
00:21:02: Both China and the US are literally there or, being sought after with consequences politically.
00:21:08: And that does I think distinguish the current era from previous ones.
00:21:13: Hard to imagine studying a city frankly without engaging this in some way.
00:21:19: Whether you want it's going be present In those places where you end up doing full work?
00:21:24: I just wanted... I mean i'm pre-empting my final question but perhaps allow me that.
00:21:31: I wanted to pick up on another term you threw in earlier, Kevin which was extended organization and uh...that's also sort of a parallel scholarship that emerged at the recent times.
00:21:47: one sees it as collaborating with the second Cold War observatory but working with geopolitics which is that they're working with infrastructures, they are working with eccentric urban formations outside the city.
00:22:06: My question to you and feel free to expand also on extended urbanization if you like how does this shift change?
00:22:15: How do we understand power territory and their urban expression?
00:22:19: so or acts alongside extended urbanization, how does that change?
00:22:29: Maybe I'll start.
00:22:30: We have a bit to say here.
00:22:32: so i see three things in the question something about power, territory and then the urban expression.
00:22:39: That's what would break it down when we can speak with reference to scholarship on Extended or Planetary Urbanization as well.
00:22:47: but I'd start with Power.
00:22:49: The current moment Geopolitics is waged quite differently.
00:22:55: It's a contest for centrality in transnational networks, through which power can be exercised rather than controlling territory and the way that it was during the Cold War.
00:23:04: Then we have to interrogate how network centrality is secured?
00:23:08: I come back constantly to Susan Strange.
00:23:11: she wrote into the nineteen eighties uh um into the nineties but The concept for what she's most famous as structural power.
00:23:17: She was writing at a time when you know the cold war there was a period of detente And then when Reagan came to power the Cold War intensified in the nineteen eighties and at that moment there were people in the west, then
00:23:32: U.S.,
00:23:33: who feared that the US had lost its edge to the Soviet Union right?
00:23:37: It was militarily weaker!
00:23:39: And they would just look at things like I don't know force posture... That's something you hear a lot about today if you listen to podcasts and so on.. So this size of the US military is smaller.
00:23:49: therefore it must be weaker.
00:23:51: And she said, no hold on a second.
00:23:53: The US is much stronger because it has structural power.
00:23:56: that's much more important than the kind of relational power you might get with a large military right?
00:24:01: That...the power you'd get with the military forcing your adversary to do something.
00:24:04: well having structural power Is Much More Important and this is Kind Of the underlying architecture of the global economy.
00:24:11: but how the world works Right!
00:24:13: For her Structural Power was had multiple dimensions so security production finance & knowledge And I think she was vindicated because a few years later the Soviet Union collapsed, obviously.
00:24:24: The nature of structural power however... Structural power is still important but it's different now.
00:24:29: so its very much networked Because in an intervening period from mid-eighties to present The global economy has exploded.
00:24:37: We've seen an explosion of all sorts of different networks, and the four that we have identified are the ones that...that we think then are them most significant but they're not the only one's important.
00:24:47: They might be just kind essence core structural power.
00:24:51: would those four network?
00:24:52: so again infrastructure finance digital production.
00:24:56: these are important because underpin globalization.
00:24:59: it is really a renegotiation to do through their establishment of centrality in these networks.
00:25:08: So for me, I would start with how power works and that allows you to see why cities are important because they're the key nodes In these networks.
00:25:16: And so if you want to possess structural power That is kind underlying architecture globalization.
00:25:22: You have to control these networks and often times they're in cities, right?
00:25:26: So that could be anything from where an internet cable lands at a particular city – an undersea cable or you'd want to control the edge.
00:25:34: That is the cable itself… Or the node... I don't know if it's a financial index or Johannes Petrie has written about Chinese investment in stock exchange in Kazakhstan—that's an actual place!
00:25:49: So yeah, I think that explains why cities are important to nature of power.
00:25:53: Kevin do you want to come in on the urban expression or shall we talk about territory first?
00:25:58: You go back to Territory and then i'll come out with an explanation.
00:26:00: Yeah
00:26:01: okay so I would say something about this scholarship on extended and planetary urbanization And how it relates too To The Second Cold War.
00:26:10: for me I see This as one Of the main Contributions Or It epitomizes One of the Main Assumptions About In Urban Studies One of The Schools Have Thought for the last few decades.
00:26:20: And that is, urbanization and cities reflect global
00:26:24: capitalism.".
00:26:25: Then there was another school of thought who said no-no... There are local particularisms that are resilient in the face of capital's attempt to commodify everything but they were not too much.
00:26:34: on geopolitics this made sense at the time.
00:26:37: I think it still makes sense to an extent But i think we need make room for geopolitics as well.
00:26:41: The scholars writing about extended and planetary urbanization, most of them come from a Lefebrian-drawn Lefebs or the Lefevrian background.
00:26:51: And so this is first and foremost theory of capitalist urbanization.
00:26:55: again it was well suited to an integrated world market The likes which we saw kind expand in deep throughout the period of neoliberal globalization.
00:27:05: but now geopolitical rivalry is shaping the geography of urbanization.
00:27:09: I do view the Second Cold War as an intercapitalist rivalry But market forces are less present, or less evident in shaping the geography.
00:27:22: In some instances I think about two thousand.
00:27:25: it was fair to say that states were weak comparatively.
00:27:28: urbanization perhaps more than ever before a reflection of Footloose.
00:27:33: multinationals could roam around the world, look for cheap factors of production and locate in places with favorable cost capability ratios.
00:27:41: But now there's a significant amount of urbanization an economic activity taking place that is fueled by geopolitical rivalry.
00:27:48: so things you can't explain as expressions or reflections on market forces.
00:27:53: So The Lobito Corridor.
00:27:55: US is trying to very explicitly counter China's Belt & Road Initiative by funding the Lobito Corridor.
00:28:02: And this is a kind of transportation network that links the Zambian Copper Belt and mines in Southeast Congo, DRC to a port in northern Angola... In Angola!
00:28:12: It would be almost impossible to get private sector capital to do this right?
00:28:17: I mean Daniela Gabor's work on de-risking shows it simply doesn't work.
00:28:20: its just too risky for private capitol.
00:28:22: so you can de risk all your want.
00:28:24: Private Capital will not invest in that corridor.
00:28:28: simply a geopolitical logic to it.
00:28:30: And so we're seeing, you know urbanization along this corridor as you would expect.
00:28:35: that's just one example of many that we could name where extended urbanization is not directly reflecting market forces.
00:28:43: It's instead caught up in the geopolitical rivalry which And on one hand certainly is an intercapitalist rivalry.
00:28:50: and yet we see a lot of things going on that can't be explained by By kind of direct expression of market forces if that makes sense.
00:28:59: Yeah, absolutely Seth agree.
00:29:01: and either you are knitting about the urban expression.
00:29:04: I mean this takes a mirror to forms I think Seth and I would argue big and small.
00:29:10: so some other ways that it You find expressed is the kind of signature headline grabbing things you read about in a newspaper, new cities being built issues around extraction and where resources come from their location which are as Seth has said it doesn't always seem to gel with economic reductionism sometimes seeing some of the arguments.
00:29:33: It's not just economy.
00:29:34: there's geopolitical rationale for why these cities have been built who's being involved in their building and where the capital is coming from, how quickly they're being built.
00:29:45: The ways in which infrastructure digital infrastructure hard infrastructure water sanitation these things are being built or not been built And whose driving them Is sometimes being driven by geopolitics again.
00:29:58: so you see both new cities emerging.
00:30:01: then you also see existing cities and the kind of landscapes of activity being reconfigured.
00:30:06: And, of course they are interconnected.
00:30:08: Lansing is hard to walk around here without seeing or at least been told a bit about data centres if he went through various conferences amongst academic circuitless new day no end people working on on data centers, including the conference which you started this podcast talking about a little bit clearly.
00:30:25: Data centers are big issue again because of the sorts of debates we're seeing played around.
00:30:30: autonomous vehicles and other kinds of very energy intensive activity that's being organized in these cities.
00:30:39: is changing the landscape to change into kind of economic activity has changed in the way the city look feel.
00:30:46: it's changing what can and can't get organize planning, zoning.
00:30:51: you're leading to a kind of governmental restructuring all or partly driven by the need to allowing what takes place locally these wider geopolitical impulses.
00:31:01: What economic consequences are in my own work thinking about growth coalitions locally?
00:31:07: Or does it actually mean for trying to oversee an economic development strategy and city when part?
00:31:14: Haha, and what you're being asked to do is not necessarily going to kind of deliver the traditional kind of economic outlook.
00:31:20: Do my want so existing cities kind of be reconfigured landscapes a new city's been organized And then those kinds things are.
00:31:29: John Silver and others have written about the corridors, urbanisation of space around those corridors or zones.
00:31:36: Other kinds of spacely demarcated initiatives that are also driving the urbanization of chunks in the world again driven by the need to respond to other countries attempts at doing similar things.
00:31:50: So hard to understand it without some sort of almost kind of economic game theory that's going on, where someone makes a move and then someone else makes the counter-move.
00:31:58: And sometimes you're looking at one part of the world when you think the story is taking place in actually its' going somewhere
00:32:04: else."
00:32:05: In a sense also challenges us to think methodologically about how we research these initiatives but definitely once sees the expression of geopolitics as we talk about into the Second World War taken places across cities.
00:32:20: Great answer.
00:32:21: I just come back on the corridors because it's a wonderful example, obviously people have heard about The Belt and Road Initiative but then one answer initially was announced at the G-twenty meeting that actually held in Nitin's hometown in Delhi.
00:32:33: What year?
00:32:34: Was that...was that twenty twenty one?
00:32:35: I can't quite remember.
00:32:36: Twenty twenty maybe?
00:32:38: No this is month later twenty three i think.
00:32:41: Okay.
00:32:41: So India Middle East Economic Corridor.
00:32:44: so the idea is you relocate production from China to India make iPhones there ship them through the Persian Gulf and then on to Europe, through Greece.
00:32:54: Of course Turkey's regip type.
00:32:56: Erdogan didn't appreciate this because this would bypass Turkey right?
00:33:00: And Turkey has signed a formal agreement with China to align its spatial plan with the Belt and Road Initiative.
00:33:07: so he didn't even land in Ankara before he was talking to reporters on the plane and said there will be no corridor without Turkey Right?
00:33:15: And so then Turkey starts funding its own corridors and it's funded a couple about the envisions.
00:33:20: One, The Iraq Development Road... ...and another one that wasn't sure where I was going to go whether or not through Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, Azerbaijan.... Now it has been renamed Trump Road for International Peace & Prosperity.
00:33:33: All this is to say these corridors and geography in ways Eurasia integrated and competing visions.
00:33:41: This is intensely geopolitical And there is an urban geography to it.
00:33:45: once you start to see these corridors emerge in real life and fits, starts the interconnections and disconnection.
00:33:52: So I think its undeniable that this are extended landscapes That come with an Urban Geography.
00:34:00: Thanks Kevin said.
00:34:01: This is such a eliminating conversation...I
00:34:03: have
00:34:04: quite few questions but i'm so glad the only episode in this mini-series, and that we have a lineup of really excellent speakers who are going to contextualize different aspects of The Second Cold War or geopolitics in cities.
00:34:21: And urban geography for The Second cold war.
00:34:25: So In next episode which will be on Interstructures Of Power We'll have Simon Marvin Justin Kohler Emily Conrad talking about infrastructure and power, so do tune in for that episode as well.
00:34:40: Thanks for listening to the episode today And if you like us Do share it with your friends.
00:34:46: Think of getting involved with us Riders emails.
00:34:51: we love receiving fan mail.
00:34:53: thanks a lot for listening today.
00:34:55: Kevin said If you have any final words for our listeners?
00:34:58: Well
00:34:58: no thank you.
00:34:59: Thank you for having us Nitin.
00:35:00: It's been a joy.
00:35:02: Yeah, thanks a lot.
00:35:03: It was very fun.
00:35:04: I appreciate it.
00:35:07: Thanks to you for listening.
00:35:09: For more information visit our website
00:35:14: urbanpolitical.polyg.io.
