Editorial Urbane Ungleichheit in vergleichender Perspektive – Konzeptionelle Überlegungen und empirische Befunde aus den Americas

Abstract

Abstract. Research on urban inequality has a long tradition in human geography as well as sociology. This special issue seeks to amplify the discussion by introducing some new theoretical approaches to the analysis. The first is to open up a research setting for comparative urbanism. By looking at urban life-worlds of marginalized neighbourhoods in the two Americas, the contributors do not want to search for similarities or disparities between different countries, but try to shed light on societal contexts and their spatial settings. The idea is to develop a reconstructive perspective to understand the uneven place-making within cities. With this, a second task is circumscribed: by describing and interpreting every-day life practices in Brazilian favelas and US ghettos, we want to contribute to a better understanding of patterns and spaces of urban inequality. Despite the wide array of (mostly quantitative) studies on urban inequality and segregation we declare a lack of understanding how these marginalized localities are experienced and reproduced. How do unprivileged inhabitants cope with everyday negligence and discrimination? Further concepts of urban citizenship, governmentality and the role of the penal state are introduced to enhance the conceptual as well as empirical analysis of inequality in cities.