Christian Schmid Concentrated and Extended Urbanisation

In order to understand the widespread

Analysing Extended occupation of the Earth’s surface through extended

forms of urbanisation, we have first to address the

Urbanisation question of what urbanisation actually means. Ever

since Catalan architect Ildefonso Cerdá introduced
the term ‘urbanizacíon’ into the debate in 1867 (see
Adams 2014), many theories and approaches have
been developed to grasp and define urbanisation
processes. Urbanisation is often equated with the
population growth of cities. But this is a highly lim-
ited view that relies on just one criterion—population
numbers—and focuses exclusively on the growth
of urban centres and agglomerations (Angelo and
Wachsmuth 2015; Brenner and Schmid 2014; Cairns
forthcoming). In contrast to such simplifying and rei-
Today, urban research is increasingly confronted fying definitions, a different tradition understands
with urbanisation processes that are unfolding far urbanisation as a polymorphic and multidimensional
beyond the realm of agglomerations, urban regions process of transformation. This includes the material
and even mega-city regions. Urbanisation has got a structures and practices of the production of urban
planetary reach: Novel patterns of urbanisation are space as well as the various regulations of the use
crystallising in various environments—in agricultural and transformation of the territory and the modali-
areas, in the space of seeming wilderness and in the ties of everyday interactions (Harvey 1982; Lefebvre
oceans—challenging inherited conceptions of the 1991 [1974]; Schmid 2015).

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urban as a bounded zone and a dense settlement The currently widely debated concept of
type. This process of extended urbanisation includes planetary urbanisation has further put into question
the formation of complex and multiscalar centre-pe- many of the entrenched understandings of the urban
riphery relationships, the blurring and rearticulation (see Brenner and Schmid 2015; Merrifield 2013). It
of the urban fabric, the production of a functionalised starts from the observation that urbanisation has
logistical space, and the progressive enclosure and had a planetary reach in recent decades, and it puts

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operationalisation of landscapes around the world to forward the basic idea that urbanisation entails not

INDICIA 02
fuel the rapid intensification of metropolitan growth. only concentration, but also extension. Any form of
These observations suggest a radical urbanisation not only generates the concentration
rethinking of inherited cartographies of the urban, of people, means of production, goods and informa-

FCL
at all spatial scales, encompassing both built and tion that leads to concentrated urbanisation, but also
unbuilt spaces. This novel topic in urban research inevitably and simultaneously causes a proliferation
urgently needs further empirical as well as theoret- and expansion of the urban fabric, thus resulting in
ical foundational work. The ‘Territories of Extended extended urbanisation. Food, water, energy and raw
Urbanisation’ research project (see note) explores, materials must be brought to urban centres, requir-
analyses and compares a selection of very differ- ing an entire logistical system that ranges from trans-
ent case studies across the globe in order to better port to information networks. Conversely, areas that
understand the basic mechanisms and dynamics are characterised by extended urbanisation can also
of contemporary urbanisation. The core of the pro- evolve into new centralities and urban concentra-
ject is the development and application of an inte- tions. Thus concentrated and extended forms of
grated theoretical and methodological framework urbanisation exist in a dialectical relationship to each
that allows for the analysis of extended urbanisation, other and can, at times, seamlessly merge (Brenner
and for the generation of new concepts and urban and Schmid 2015).
design proposals.

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  Territorial Approach to the Analysis
A are embedded in diverse urban networks and set-
of Extended Urbanisation tings, linked in many ways to urban centres and, of
course, connected to electronic networks. Everyday
How to research the phenomenon of life in these areas is characterised by a high degree
extended urbanisation? Within traditional forms of of mobility, whilst consumption patterns, lifestyles
urban analysis, extended urbanisation is not visible. and architecture differ only slightly from those in
The analysis of extended urbanisation therefore urban centres, rather than fundamentally, as was
requires, first of all, a fundamental shift in perspec- once the case (see Meili 2014; Schmid 2014).
tive: Urbanisation can no longer be understood as a This analysis paved the way for the devel-
spatially bounded phenomenon; it must instead be opment of a specific territorial approach to the anal-
examined as a comprehensive and extended process ysis of urbanisation, based on a transdisciplinary and
that increasingly moulds more regions and repeat- transductive research procedure. The term ‘territory’
edly overwrites them. assumes a specific meaning in this context: It can
This new perspective ushers in a whole be understood as a socially produced material sup-
range of consequences. The focus shifts away from port for activities and interactions. This definition
the typical questions that have long been central to prepares the ground for a new type of examination,
urban studies, such as to define the borders of urban leading to an analysis that tries to capture the entire
regions or to determine how urban areas are delim- context of urbanisation. This means reversing the
ited from non-urban areas. Instead, it is necessary to dominant perspective. In other words, the main goal
examine the diversity of urban manifestations that is no longer to examine various forms of settlement
are inscribing themselves onto the territories and space, spheres of influence or the catchment areas
turning them into urban landscapes. This means of large urban centres, but to take a comprehensive
decentering the focus of analysis, looking from an look at the urban transformation of the entire terri-
ex-centric position, one that looks from the periphery tory (Schmid 2015, 2016). For a similar approach, see
and asks where to find ‘the urban’. Such a planetary Paba et al. 2017.
orientation enables a researcher to detect a wide ETH Studio Basel developed this approach
variety of expressions of the urban that have tradi- further with the project Territory: On the Develop-
tionally been excluded from analytical consideration ment of Landscape and City (Diener et al. 2016).
because they are located outside large agglomera- Applying a comparative method, it analysed seg-
tions and metropolitan regions and their immediate ments of the Earth’s surface that stretched across
hinterlands (see Schmid 2016, forthcoming). several hundred kilometres. Each segment was char-
In order to examine these extensive and acterised by very different urban conditions: urban
comprehensive urban constellations, it is not pos- centres, peripheral and sparsely populated areas
sible anymore to apply the existing set of concepts as well as areas dominated by agriculture. The six
and methods. New pathways of inquiry are needed, selected territories analysed in this project show that
along with modes of analysis and mapping that are the urban fabric is considerably more densely woven
capable of portraying the multidimensional nature and the urban imprint much more widespread and
and plural determination of urban territories. The advanced than might have been assumed (Schmid
project Switzerland: An Urban Portrait (Diener et 2016).
al. 2006) played a pioneering role for such studies. In the analysed segment of Florida, even
Working with a newly developed method of mapping the areas beyond the settlements have been rad-
and a specific combination of qualitative fieldwork, ically changed as a result of, among other things,
this project didn’t analyse individual cities or urban widespread mining of phosphate for use as fertil-
regions, but the entire territory, including seemingly iser in agriculture. The landscape in the desert area
rural areas that it deciphered as specific urbanised around Muscat has also undergone drastic change:
landscapes. Massive earth movements have moulded the land-
Even peripheral, agricultural or tourism-ori- scape in such a way that the original topography is
ented areas located far away from the catchment no longer identifiable in some places. In a similar
areas of urban regions are nevertheless shaped by way, in the desert area embracing the Nile Valley,
urbanisation processes in many respects, as they a parallel urban structure is being built in order to

158
escape the natural boundaries of the linear oasis mine in the centre of the Brazilian Amazon; the fully
along the Nile. operationalised agricultural belt in the North Ameri-
In other cases, the transformations remain can Midwest; the North Sea, as a complex urbanised
more discrete. A telling example is given by the space of logistics and energy production; the thick-
extended environs of Hanoi, where, in the densely ening and thinning of the Lagos-Abidjan Corridor in
populated and small-scale areas of rice cultivation, West Africa; the extended urbanised zone outside
narrow corridors of settlement are developing along of Kolkata; the rapidly developing industrial zone in
local access roads, with urban forms of land use and Dongguan between Guangzhou and Shenzhen; and
new building typologies that are replacing the tradi- the peripheralised region of Arcadia in Greece.
tional rural structure. The studies also pay attention In order to analyse extended urbanisation, a
to the inconspicuous manifestations that demon- range of aspects have to be considered (Diener et al.
strate, for example, how differences can emerge 2015; Schmid 2015). First, urbanisation is a material
from a supposedly rural situation. They document process of transformation of the territory. Thus, the
the gradual, initially almost unnoticeable, changes entire area has to be systematically scrutinised, and
that are generated by the everyday mobility of local the manifold traces of urbanisation carefully sought
inhabitants. in the terrain. This begins with the appropriation of
In a similar and related project, Milica Top- the territory through human activities, which initially
alovic and her team examined the urbanisation of remain ephemeral but over time increasingly con-
Singapore’s hinterland. In the most radical move of dense and solidify. In this way, a society gradually
decentering the analytical perspective, they engaged inscribes itself into a territory and produces an urban
the metaphor of the ‘eclipse’ by masking the entire fabric that spreads out across the landscape (Bren-
territory of the city-state in order to make visible all ner forthcoming). Every new round of urbanisation
those areas that were concealed so far by the ‘bright adds an additional layer, and thus the land is repeat-
lights’ of this global city. In an amazing analysis, the edly worked and reworked, continually being over-
team showed how a densely woven urban fabric written with a new urban fabric until it resembles a

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came into existence around Singapore, forming an palimpsest—an old, perforated and worn parchment
extended urban region. But beyond this still relatively (Corboz 1983). As a result of extended urbanisation,
compact regional urbanisation, an even larger region the urban fabric spreads to cover increasingly remote
emerges, comprising large parts of Southeast Asia, places, be they desert zones, rainforests or ocean
to supply water, food and sand for the various land- spaces (Couling 2017; Katsikis 2016; Urban Theory
fills, as well as cheap and heavily controlled (and Lab 2015).

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gendered) labour. Finally, the planet emerges as hin- The production of the urban fabric supports

INDICIA 02
terland, supplying all sorts of raw materials as well and enables urban practices, which are connecting
as highly qualified labour (Topalovic forthcoming; people and places. This necessitates the analysis
Topalovic et al. 2015). of all kinds of movements of people that crisscross

FCL
Meanwhile, there is a wide range of stud- the territory and, at the same time, bind it together
ies that are engaged in researching, examining and and define it. While commuting is important to an
revealing various aspects and territories of extended understanding of the reach of agglomerations, and
urbanisation (see Balducci et al. 2017; Brenner 2014; thus of concentrated urbanisation, territories of
Horn et al. 2018; McGee 1991; Monte-Mór 2004, extended urbanisation are usually characterised by
2014). longer, more sporadic and varied forms of mobil-
ity. This includes various forms of circular or tem-
porary migration, where people only migrate for a
Territories of Extended Urbanisation certain time or follow a recurrent pattern, return-
ing regularly to their places of departure. Concomi-
Our current research on territories of tantly, there are also movements of people search-
extended urbanisation is based on a comparison of ing for all sorts of opportunities, trying to do small
very different urban constellations, offering an explo- businesses, crossing borders to take advantage of
ration of the various conditions and characteristics small fluctuations in prices and currency exchange
of extended urbanisation: the world’s largest copper rates, connecting widely ramified social networks

159 Analysing Extended Urbanisation

and maintaining extended family ties. With these juxtaposition of disparate realities. Urban space can
movements and related activities, people create thus be defined as a place where differences discern,
a multiscalar social reality and produce large and recognise and explore each other.
extended urban territories that transgress all kinds Differences can be defined twofold. On the
of borders (Bertuzzo 2018). one hand, they characterise the totality of actions,
The superimposition and interpenetra- material elements and relationships that come
tion of borders in such territories represent a ‘grid together in a specific space, and especially the
of power’ (Raffestin 1980) that is incorporated into different people, with their social wealth, history,
the territory. Borders mark and identify a territory and knowledge, abilities and needs. On the other hand,
constitute the basis for territorial regulation (Schmid differences can also be generated by various net-
2015). They are accompanied by orders and rules, works that link up different territories. Urbanisation
from traffic ordinances right up to complex planning in this sense means the connection and articulation
systems. At the same time, however, they are con- of different places (near and far) and situations, thus
tinually challenged by the process of urbanisation enabling and facilitating different urban experiences
itself, because it follows the inherent tendency to (Merrifield 2013; Schmid 2005, 2015).
transcend borders and to undermine boundaries, Another crucial question, then, is precisely
thus disbanding existing territorial entities and rede- how such urban experiences unfold and develop,
fining them. In this process, borders are overwritten and how people adapt to or resist processes of
but still remain effective—often hidden below the extended urbanisation. This question has already
surface—and are thus able to gain new meaning. been studied by analysing the effects (or non-effects)
An urban territory is therefore ultimately an area in of: urbanisation in the outskirts of Kolkata (Roy 2016);
which borders are transformed and rendered perme- indigenous and allied resistance in the province of
able, and become part of new and complex power Alberta to the construction of pipelines across Can-
constellations. ada connecting a tar-sand extraction site to global
In this sense, territories of extended urban- markets (Kipfer forthcoming); the urbanisation of the
isation are strongly shaped and enforced by a wide Brazilian Amazon (Castriota and Tonucci forthcom-
range of specific state strategies that are preparing ing; Kanai 2014; Monte-Mór 2004); the emergence
the ground for urbanisation in many different ways: of agro-industrial hinterlands of palm oil production
homogenising the legal framework for urbanisation, (Topalovic 2017); and the struggle of a small agricul-
opening up a territory for capital accumulation and tural village at the edge of the Atacama Desert in
creating the conditions of further urban expansion northern Chile against massive new infrastructure
(Brenner 2004). Of special importance in this con- investments and in support of the nearby mining
text are strategic infrastructural projects, such as industry (Arboleda 2016).
large-scale, high-speed train and highway systems, What then are the specific characteristics
and complex infrastructural initiatives that impose an of extended urbanisation? As our first explorations
overarching logic on the territory. The latter include clearly show, extended urbanisation is very dynamic
the Plan Puebla Panamá, a cross-border infrastruc- and variegated. In proceeding with the Territories of
ture project for southern Mexico and Central Amer- Extended Urbanisation project, we have already iden-
ica that was ultimately abandoned (Wilson 2014), tified several phenomena and processes of extended
and more recently China’s huge One Belt, One Road urbanisation in our case studies (see also Brenner
project (Sidaway and Woon 2017). and Schmid 2012, 2015). One of the most important
A crucial question of extended urbanisation processes is the formation of ‘complex and multi-
is related to its effect on everyday life: What is the scalar centre-periphery relationships’. New central-
urban under the conditions of extended urbanisa- ities are emerging in very diverse places, not only in
tion? Following the urban theory of Henri Lefebvre erstwhile suburbanised spaces and hinterlands (Soja
(2003 [1970]), urban space can be understood as a 2000), but also in peri-urban and exurban areas, in
differential space, in which differences come to light the surroundings of small- and medium-sized towns
and interact with each other. It is a space in which and along major transportation corridors, generat-
separations and space-time distances are replaced ing polycentric territorial structures with varied and
by oppositions, contrasts, superimpositions and the overlapping catchment areas.

160
This restructuring of centre-periphery relationships Today, a multitude of processes of extended urban-
goes hand in hand with the blurring and rearticula- isation are transforming urban territories in unprec-
tion of the urban fabric, leading to the juxtaposition edented and unpredictable ways at the same time,
of disjointed urban elements and the disintegration often positioning dynamic and depleting areas side
of hinterlands. As a result, very different urban frag- by side. Territories of extended urbanisation are thus
ments might be located side by side without being much more variegated and complex than might be
functionally linked; instead, they are oriented towards expected, and they are growing quickly. It is urgent
different nodes and centralities. One of the main to get a more comprehensive picture and a more
drivers of this deterritorialisation and reterritoriali- systematic understanding of these processes.
sation is the production of a functionalised logistical
space that leads to a complex and multilayered sys-
tem of hubs and spokes (Veltz 1996). In this process, Note
a whole range of infrastructure arrangements are
produced in order to connect various parts of the The Territories of Extended Urbanisation
planet, generating a logistical space that forms the research project is based at FCL and led by Milica
physical support of activities and is thus strongly Topalovic and Christian Schmid. The research team
structuring urban space. Typical effects are the well- includes Elisa Bertuzzo, Rodrigo Castriota, Nancy
known urban corridors evolving along major axes of Couling, Alice Hertzog-Fraser, Hans Hortig, Nikos
transportation. Katsikis, Markaki Metaxia, Philippe Rekacewicz,
A similar phenomenon is the operational- AbdouMaliq Simone and Tammy Kit Ping Wong.
isation of landscapes (Brenner and Schmid 2015). This chapter is inspired by several workshops and
This term designates the subsumption of entire land- discussions involving the entire team. I thank all
scapes under the logic of capital accumulation for members of the team for their valuable suggestions
the production of raw material and agricultural prod- and critiques.
ucts. This process goes hand in hand with massive

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rationalisation and automation, dramatically reduc-
ing the necessary labour power for the production
process. Operationalisation of landscapes applies
not only to the large-scale automation of resource
extraction (such as tar sands or huge mining com-
plexes), but also to agriculture and to places for

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waste disposal.

INDICIA 02
At the same time, a wide range of territories
are bypassed, left behind or have become depleted
and abandoned as a result of the ongoing urbani- Bibliography networks and the politi-

FCL
cal ecology of planetary
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urbanata: Ecological
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-------- (ed) (2014). Implo- and Milica Topalovic Towards a Study of Plane- et al., 287–307. Zürich: Lars Architecture, eds. Łukasz
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162 Analysing Extended Urbanisation

Scenes of extended urbanisation:
Excerpts from a photographic diary

These photographs were taken during field trips in

the context of several research projects. I would like to
thank Nitin Bathla, Alice Hertzog-Fraser, Hans Hortig,
Miya Irawati, Zheng Wang and Tammy Kit Ping Wong
for sharing their research experiences with me.

Christian Schmid

163
 Sand for sale at the beach, Togo

 onstruction site Route des Pêches

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(coastal bypass), near Cotonou

Pulau Belakangpadang, Singapore Strait

Migrant labourers returning from work,

Kasan (Manesar), south of Delhi

Desakota landscape, near Jakarta

Xiaoyang Island, Yangshan deep-water port,

south of Shanghai

Extended industrial urbanization,

Shenzhen

Eco Park construction site,

Dongguan

180 Analysing Extended Urbanisation