Waste and the City: The Crisis of Sanitation and the Right to Citylife

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

In an age of pandemics the relationship between the health of the city and good sanitation has never been more important. Waste in the City is a call to action on one of modern urban lifes most neglected issues: sanitation infrastructure. The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the devastating consequences of unequal access to sanitation in cities across the globe. At this critical moment in global public health, Colin McFarlane makes the urgent case for Sanitation for All. The book outlines the worldwide sanitation crisis and offers a vision for a renewed, equitable investment in sanitation that democratises and socialises the modern city. Adopting Henri Lefebvres concept of the right to the city, it uses the notion of citylife to reframe the discourse on sanitation from a narrowly-defined policy discussion to a question of democratic right to public life and health. In doing so, the book shows that sanitation is an urbanizing force whose importance extends beyond hygiene to the very foundation of urban social life.

Reviews

In this brilliant book bristling with ideas and evidence from around the Global South, Colin McFarlane maps the world's sanitation crisis as well as a way out of it through a manifesto of rights to the city that connects up vernacular strategies of making infrastructure, a public right to wellbeing, and city efforts to improve systems. The book is full of hope and possibility without ever losing sight of the sanitation catastrophe we face.' -- Ash Amin, Emeritus 1931 Chair of Geography, Cambridge University
Interesting, insightful, sometimes surprising, beautifully written, challenges us to look at sanitation (and lack of it) in new ways. -- David Satterthwaite, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
Praise for Learning the City * : *
McFarlane's work stands out in that it tells us how residents from various walks of life actually learn to operate in heterogeneous and often volatile urban environments. Instead of assuming that urban dwellers walk around with preconceived maps in their heads, this book provides a comprehensive account of the various practices, mobilizations and tools they use over time so that the city becomes a staging area for new capacities and potentials -- AbdouMaliq Simone
In a world where the usual North-South dichotomies are being disturbed, McFarlane's emphasis on a postcolonial approach to practices of learning is a valuable framework. -- Ananya Roy
Praise for Fragments of the City * : *
One of the most original urban scholars of his generation...Richly layered and generous in its propositions, it shows us what an innovative grammar for grasping the complexity of our city worlds could look like. -- Filip De Boeck
McFarlane crafts a vital experiment, working with a composition of fragments to suggest alternative forms for researching, writing, and imagining life in the urban margins. -- Suzanne Hall
Praise for Global Urbanism * : *
Will serve as a guidepost for how we reflect about and act upon urbanization for the foreseeable future. -- Professor Roger Keil

Author Bio

Colin McFarlane is a Professor of Geography at the University of Durham. His research focuses mainly on the global sanitation crisis in cities across the world. Hes previously written and co-authored three books on sanitation and urban life.