Planet of Slums

By: Mike Davis

Narrated by: Mike Lenz

The classic, brilliant, best-selling account of the rise of the world's slums, where, according to the United Nations, one billion people now live.

From the sprawling barricadas of Lima to the garbage hills of Manila, urbanization has been disconnected from industrialization, even economic growth. Davis portrays a vast humanity warehoused in shantytowns and exiled from the formal world economy. He argues that the rise of this informal urban proletariat is a wholly original development unforeseen by either classical Marxism or neoliberal theory.

Are the great slums, as a terrified Victorian middle class once imagined, volcanoes waiting to erupt? Davis provides the first global overview of the diverse religious, ethnic, and political movements competing for the souls of the new urban poor. He surveys Hindu fundamentalism in Bombay, the Islamist resistance in Casablanca and Cairo, street gangs in Cape Town and San Salvador, Pentecostalism in Kinshasa and Rio de Janeiro, and revolutionary populism in Caracas and La Paz. Planet of Slums ends with a provocative meditation on the "war on terrorism" as an incipient world war between the American empire and the new slum poor.

©2006 Mike Davis (P)2020 Tantor

scary

good info about poverty and the future of cities. shows how the poor are multiplying and the rich are getting richer at the cost to all of us

10/10

Interesting, well written & well read. Knowledge for all to hear to even begin understanding where we are in humanity

Worth an audible credit!!

This book was really good and progressively gets better throughout. I particularly loved the sections on slum ecology, structural adjustment programs and the role of NGOs and international organizations like the IMF in slums. The book does a great job of highlighting the global structures that produce and reproduce slum conditions all around the world, while also spotlighting unique situations peoples living in different slums face. My only issue with the book and it’s a minor issue is that sometimes it was difficult retain information from some of the denser sections. But 8.8/10 would read again, would recommend to a friend.

Very informative

Learned a lot, I highly recommend this to anyone interested in political economy. Had high hopes for this book after hearing the author in interviews, and they were exceeded

A Brilliant Synopsis of How the World Merited Poverty!

Mike Evans gives us a review of the urban poor for the ages. it's as if Orwell became a professor at UC Davis and, instead of writing fiction, wrote what actually happened: how we permitted deplorable living conditions for many so that a few could live in luxury. Also check out City of Quartz, a similar manifestation on LA.

Narrator Mike Kenz does a good job here, but the Narrator of City of Quartz does a superior job and really makes you feel like your listening to a treatise from Ender's Game.

The future is now!

A little dated ring when was originally published

A good tour of the slum systems or expressions that have evolved in response to manipulation by others (as it was originally published in 2005, it reflects mostly on the neo liberal fantasies ) almost all of which evolved into a kleptocracy, trying to apply Rosling I say the bottom 1 Billion are not going to be cooperating with the world bank or the IMF. Adding serious climate change coupled with interruption of grain deliveries and the phenomena of Kinshasa will just spread.

fascinating, grim, digestible

Planet of Slums gives a very comprehensive examination of the causes, historical development and social "function" of slums in the 20th century and so-called "end of history" period (1991-2000s). The book is well written and very digestible for a lay audience. The audiobook is well produced and the narrator has a clear voice, though he is absolutely fighting for his life with pronunciation of any non-English words or foreign placenames (a minor, kind of funny detail that doesn't damage the overall quality of the audiobook).