Inequalities and the City. Gender, Ethnicity, and Class

This chapter discusses the decline of rural poverty in the Global South has been counterbalanced by the rise of social fragmentation and new forms of social exclusion and poverty in both the Global South and the Global North. It focuses 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 understood as the different mix and level of gender, ethnicity, class, and demographic inequalities that characterise cities in different historical and development contexts. The chapter examines in the more developed cities the migration flow provokes a feeling of insecurity and competition in the native population that may turn into discrimination, expulsion, and repression, thus fomenting inequalities. Social coalitions, urban mobilisations, and protests are part of a variegated ecosystem of practices that are changing the nature and content of urban mobilisation.