Benjamin H. Bradlow, "Urban Power: Democracy and Inequality in São Paulo and Johannesburg" (Princeton UP, 2024)

Jan 13, 2025

Benjamin Bradlow, an Associate Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley, dives into urban inequalities and governance in São Paulo and Johannesburg. He discusses why São Paulo outperforms Johannesburg in delivering basic urban services despite similar democratic transitions. Through his fieldwork, he uncovers the conflicts between local governments and social movements that shape urban outcomes. Bradlow emphasizes the significance of effective coordination in urban governance, shedding light on global urbanization challenges and advocating for a more integrated understanding of urban sociology.

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Intro

00:00 • 4min

Understanding Urban Power: Governance and Coordination in Cities

04:07 • 3min

Urban Struggles in Democratic Transitions

07:10 • 7min

Exploring Urban Regimes: From Mobilization to Integration in São Paulo

14:29 • 2min

Urban Governance Challenges in São Paulo and Johannesburg

16:56 • 22min

Global Perspectives in Urban Sociology

39:21 • 9min

Why some cities are more effective than others at reducing inequalities in the built environment.

For the first time in history, most people live in cities. One in seven are living in slums, the most excluded parts of cities, in which the basics of urban life—including adequate housing, accessible sanitation, and reliable transportation—are largely unavailable. Why are some cities more successful than others in reducing inequalities in the built environment?

In Urban Power: Democracy and Inequality in São Paulo and Johannesburg (Princeton UP, 2024), Benjamin Bradlow explores this question, examining the effectiveness of urban governance in two “megacities” in young democracies: São Paulo, Brazil, and Johannesburg, South Africa. Both cities came out of periods of authoritarian rule with similarly high inequalities and similar policy priorities to lower them. And yet São Paulo has been far more successful than Johannesburg in improving access to basic urban goods.

Bradlow examines the relationships between local government bureaucracies and urban social movements that have shaped these outcomes. Drawing on sixteen months of fieldwork in both cities, including interviews with informants from government agencies, political leadership, social movements, private developers, bus companies, and water and sanitation companies, Bradlow details the political and professional conflicts between and within movements, governments, private corporations, and political parties. He proposes a bold theoretical approach for a new global urban sociology that focuses on variations in the coordination of local governing power, arguing that the concepts of “embeddedness” and “cohesion” explain processes of change that bridge external social mobilization and the internal coordinating capacity of local government to implement policy changes.

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