The politics of splintering: research notes on immigrants and urban developments in Rome, Kolkata and Buenos Aires

At the core of the urban experience is the practice of people living in contexts of physical proximity. Clearly, proximity is at danger in all cities of the world. Current planned developments run the risk of splintering the city, and keeping people and social classes in different zones and housing conditions. This process of fragmentation happens in a context of consistent demographic change. Despite the growing literature, the process of change of world cities due to the process of globalization has still not been fully explored. On the one hand, immigration and poverty are responsible for creating congestion in cities of Europe, making them insecure, overcrowded and dangerous. On the other hand there is a growing middle class that is striving to emerge as a potential political actor, pressing for urban issues so that different policies can come about (Cremaschi 2012a). The emergence of a strong middle class affects metropolises such as Buenos Aires and Kolkata, where for the first time policy options are being forced to be redefined, as a third voice surfaces in the traditional political polarisation. This paper seeks to make a comparison of urban change in three distant cities, presenting a preliminary review of current planning practices that deny or erase proximity in the wake of waves of immigrants that are flooding these cities. The three cases are studied from the point of view of urban development policies. These policies reflect local issues but are also heavily affected by political expectations, the neoliberal turn and evolving technical mind-sets. All these components are more intertwined than one expects and only direct inquiries and rigorous comparisons can advance the understanding of the combinations presented by each case. However, a general point arises concerning the nature of urban citizenship in the twenty-first century.