Columbia University Press Rainforest Cities – Urbanization, Development, & Globalization of the Brazilian Amazon: Urbanization, Development and Globalization of the Brazilian Amazon

Despite its popular image as a vast and forbidding wilderness at the periphery of civilization, Amazonia has undergone a significant urban transformation since the late 1970s. "Rainforest Cities" explores these recent events, challenging conventional notions of urbanization and regional development to propose a theory of "disarticulated urbanization". Drawing upon innovations in ecological rationality, the New Biology, and neorealism and structuration theory, Browder and Godfrey initiate a pluralistic perspective that allows for multiple explanations of the same phenomenon. The analytical framework defines the Amazon basin as a dynamic continuum of social spaces, where different parties vie for access to precious resources. By drawing upon surveys conducted in Rondonia, a predominantly populist frontier, and Southern Para, a contested corporatist area, the authors attempt to explain the diverse pattens of spatial organization in the rainforests. "Rainforest Cities" will speak to readers interested in urban planning, geography, and Latin American Studies.