ABSTRACT

In recent years, planning history has broadened its range from Europe, North America, and Australia/New Zealand to include the Global South, where most population and urban growth is now occurring (Parnell and Oldfield 2014). The term has evolved from previous formulations as the Third World and developing countries. While the metropolitan impact of colonialism has been researched (Driver and Gilbert 1999; Rabinow 1989; Ross 1995), many great cities of the Global South have their origins in European colonial expansion, and they have grown far beyond their colonial past, while the former colonial masters have now largely departed. For two centuries, it was the British colonial empire that had the most global reach, with an interconnected colonial urban system: some 60 cities of the Global South originated or expanded under British political and cultural control. Among them (traversing the oceans southwards and then eastwards from Britain) one can mention Lagos, Cape Town, Durban, Mombasa, Colombo, Madras, Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore, and Hong Kong; one can also add the smaller ports of the Caribbean islands. As European colonialism expanded from the ports and penetrated the interiors of India and Africa, other colonial city forms emerged, often as appendages to indigenous cities.