Does the City Air Really Makes Free?
In medieval Europe, moving to the city to settle for a year and a day was one way for peasants to rid themselves of their feudal bonds. As a result, most cities would tend to grow over time as more people moved in and became permanent residents. It seems this is no longer the case: urbanisation causes poverty, inequality and economic slavery.
The UN-Habitat report mentions a billion people currently homeless or living in poor housing conditions, a figure which could double by the year 2030, with over 374 million people amassed in 23 megalopolises by 2015.
But what lies behind these statistics? What is really going on in the globalised cities? What are the real social dynamics and the true stories unfolding in the areas of the city affected by globalisation in the form of real estate investment, transformations in the urban environment and functional differentiation in human mobility?
