RC21 CONFERENCE 2013
Resourceful cities
Berlin (Germany), 29-31 August 2013
Humboldt-University Berlin, Institute for Social Science, Dept. for Urban and Regional Sociology
The Global Alpha Territory: The Super-Rich and their place in contemporary Urbanism
Inequality and austerity have come to mark cities globally. Urban unrest, aggressive policing and the rise of new levels of poverty and segregation are the visible manifestation of these shifts. Yet in the background the presence and growth of wealth remains largely unexplored by urbanists. This session seeks to profile and learn more about the ‘alpha territory’, the space in which the super-rich live. We seek theoretical, empirical and political engagements with questions of wealth and its impact on cities across the globe, on the social presence and economic impact of the super-rich (as distinct from social elites more generally), and on methodological/conceptual treatments dealing with the constitution or urban impacts of the super-rich more generally.
Session Organizers
Dr. Rowland Atkinson, Reader in Urban Studies and Criminology, CURB (Centre for Urban Research), Department of Sociology, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK, T: +44 (0) 1904 324 742, E: rowland.atkinson@york.ac.uk
Prof. Roger Burrows, Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London New Cross, London, SE14 6NW, UK, T: +44 (0)20 7919 7719, E: sos02rb@gold.ac.uk
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