Inequalities and the City. Gender, Ethnicity, and Class
The question of urban inequalities relates to two interconnected processes of change.
These involve: (i) the increase and transformation of inequalities on global and local
scales and (ii) the urbanisation at a time when the majority of the world’s population
lives in cities and the growth of gigantic conurbations in both the Global North and
South. Today, the traditional historical divide between urban and rural contexts is
not so significant – also the case in the lesser developed countries and regions – with
the social tensions produced by the new forms of inequalities being highly concentrated in the cities.
In this chapter, we focus on the transformations of the urban systems of inequalities
produced by modernisation, industrialisation, and urbanisation in different urban
contexts of the Global North and South. An urban system of inequalities is here
understood as the different mix and level of gender, ethnicity, class, and demographic
inequalities that characterise cities in different historical and development contexts