Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Global cities
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Urbanisation And Globalisation

Carlo Bordoni 21st March 2014

Carlo Bordoni

Carlo Bordoni

The phenomenon we have been witnessing for some time now looks more and more like an industrial revolution overturned. Vast masses of migrants converge on the city, in the anonymous constellations of shopping centres in the suburbs, between the intersections of the major routes of communication (motorways, railways, airports), but also in the degraded historical centres.

They come not only from neighbouring countries or from the developing ones, but also from within the same country: they leave the countryside, the villages and small towns where there is no work to be found and seek refuge in the big cities, in the hope of finding new opportunities to enable them to start over. Donald Kaberuka, president of the African Development Bank, in his article in Social Europe Journal estimated that by 2030 over 27 billion people will have migrated from their country of origin to settle elsewhere, thus helping to fuel the social differences within the same country.

In the cities it is easier to find food, sustenance, some sort of makeshift accommodation, and a minimum of solidarity that naturally arises amongst those who share the same fate. Two migratory flows from the inside and from the outside, two different backgrounds settling in the same places and with the same basic motivations in common: to change in order to survive. Driven by the desire for liberation from need, by the hope for improvement, but as a result of their voluntary transfer, both end up becoming social outcasts. People who, in their own community, had an identity, led a dignified existence, albeit poor, and who were recognised and respected, suddenly find themselves stripped of their humanity, made ​​anonymous and viewed with suspicion, distrust, and, at best, with compassion. Marginalisation is the price to pay for a choice that has become necessary.

In contrast to the urbanisation of the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century, migration to the big cities today is not a choice made out of the need to find work, but out of desperation. Industrial centres used to be hungry for a general labour force: now there is no call for it, there are no offers of work or, if there are, they mainly for highly skilled workers. Those who arrive without any financial resources and marketable skills have to adapt to a disadvantaged state of poverty. The cities now take on the function of shelters offering basic necessities to those who no longer have anything to lose; real lifelines in the desert created by globalisation, by the economic crisis, by profound changes that disrupt the social order and exacerbate differences, opening chasms of inequality which are unprecedented in human history.

The alarm comes mainly from Africa and Asia: Kaberuka still points out that populated centres like Mumbai, Nairobi and Kinshasa are actually small towns surrounded by vast slums – “pockets of wealth in a sea of ​​despair” – where a growing number of people amass in search of hope. This trend is not limited only to the cities that Kaberuka stated, but is more closely concerned with the world metropolises, without sparing New York, Tokyo, London, Paris or Rome, and no longer making any distinction between internal and external migration.

There is no integration because there is no work. The outcasts of industrialised society were tolerated because they represented a labour reserve ready to use when the need arose. Now, in the post-industrial society, there is no longer the need for an extra labour force; if anything, the problem is how to get rid of an excess of workers and replace them with numerical control machines which are becoming more and more sophisticated. Globalisation is a process of desertification that burns the ground on which it passes, and wipes out any anthropological traces. For now, and as long as there are potential differences between different nations – not yet globalised – the multinationals will continue to relocate and move elsewhere in search of tax benefits, moderate regulations and lower costs.

But when the planet is entirely levelled, a reversal will take place: something like that is already happening in the USA. François Lenglet is certain of this (La Fin de la Mondialisation, Fayard, 2013): the phenomenon is still sporadic and limited, but it is an indicator of a turnaround. This, however, does not mean that globalisation is finished or has failed, but simply that it is completing its task. A planet that is uniform and perfectly undifferentiated, where the goal of equality can be reached, at least from certain points of view.

Cities, therefore, represent the last stand for uniformity, a sort of “Fort Apache” where people fight so as not to succumb, a safe place where there is still a guarantee of difference, where tradition is cultivated, where the idea of ​​community is transferred, with all the difficulties that this move entails, and where all these diversities are allowed to coexist, concentrated into a very limited space, with reciprocal respect.

Their walls are of stone and have no doors or drawbridges, but multi-coloured belts of refugees, migrants and marginalised people who surround them in ever-widening circles and make them into megalopolises built on destitution and despair and comfort. This will be the face of the great cities of tomorrow: places for wounded humanity to stop off, in anticipation of returning to the path of hope.

Carlo Bordoni

Carlo Bordoni is an Italian sociologist and journalist writing for "Il Corriere della Sera".

You are here: Home / Politics / Urbanisation And Globalisation

Most Popular Posts

Belarus,Lithuania A tale of two countries: Belarus and LithuaniaThorvaldur Gylfason and Eduard Hochreiter
dissent,social critique,identity,politics,gender Delegitimising social critique and dissent on the leftEszter Kováts
retirement,Finland,ageing,pension,reform Late retirement: possible for many, not for allKati Kuitto
Credit Suisse,CS,UBS,regulation The failure of Credit Suisse—not just a one-offPeter Bofinger
Europe,transition,climate For a just and democratic climate transitionJulia Cagé, Lucas Chancel, Anne-Laure Delatte and 8 more

Most Recent Posts

Barcelona,feminist,feminism Barcelona: a feminist municipalism now at riskLaura Pérez Castaño
Spain,elections,Sánchez Is Spain on the right track?Bettina Luise Rürup
CBI,Confederation of British Industry,harassment Crisis at Britain’s CBI holds lessons for othersMarianna Fotaki
central and eastern Europe,CEE,renewable Central and eastern Europe: a renewable-energy win-winPaweł Czyżak
Cape Town,inequality Tackling inequality in the city—Cape TownWarren Smit

Other Social Europe Publications

Bildschirmfoto 2023 05 08 um 21.36.25 scaled 1 RE No. 13: Failed Market Approaches to Long-Term Care
front cover Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis

ETUI advertisement

The four transitions and the missing one

Europe is at a crossroads, painfully navigating four transitions (green, digital, economic and geopolitical) at once but missing the transformative and ambitious social transition it needs. In other words, if the EU is to withstand the storm, we do not have the luxury of abstaining from reflecting on its social foundations, of which intermittent democratic discontent is only one expression. It is against this background that the ETUI/ETUC publishes its annual flagship publication Benchmarking Working Europe 2023, with the support of more than 70 graphs and a special contribution from two guest editors, Professors Kalypso Nikolaidïs and Albena Azmanova.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Unaffordable and inadequate housing in Europe

Unaffordable housing is a matter of great concern in the European Union. It leads to homelessness, housing insecurity, financial strain and inadequate housing. It also prevents young people from leaving their family home. These problems affect people’s health and wellbeing, embody unequal living conditions and opportunities, and result in healthcare costs, reduced productivity and environmental damage.

This new report maps housing problems in the EU and the policies that address them, drawing on Eurofound’s Living, working and Covid-19 e-survey, EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions and input from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The spring issue of the Progressive Post magazine from FEPS is out!

The Special Coverage of this new edition is dedicated to Feminist Foreign Policy, to try to gauge its potential but also the risk that it could be perceived as another attempt by the west to impose its vision on the global south.

In this issue, we also look at the human cost of the war in Ukraine, analyse the increasing connection between the centre right and the far right, and explore the difficulties, particularly for women, of finding a good work-life balance and living good working lives.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube