City of Desire

The arguments presented in the book, using a lucid narrative style, illuminate an understanding of Korali beyond the usual binaries and categories constructed through the normative taxonomies. Instead, Shafique provides a unique kaleidoscopic view of the adjustments, tactics, strategies, resistances, protocols, and maneuvered process by which the settlement is made as well as remade every day. This is a reading that does not privileges any one disciplinary lens and instead collapses, intersects, folds, interrogates hybridizes and synthesizes multiple perspectives to present a convincing way of seeing a form of urbanism in which half the urban population on the planet will possibly settle in the coming three decades. * Rahul Mehrotra, John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization, Harvard University, USA *
This ‘biography‘ of Korail is a welcome addition to the relatively few in-depth studies of informal settlements. It challenges readers to see not only these settlements but also cities differently, “at least enough to imagine alternative futures for them.” That better serve their needs and concerns within the huge risks brought by climate change * David Satterthwaite, Senior Associate, IIED and Visiting Professor, University College London, UK *
After all this time in urban studies, we still know very little about cities such as Dhaka, which are home to a significant portion of the world’s population. This lively and thoughtful book gives us insight into the collective lives being forged in such cities and does so by providing a complex political analysis of community and state. * Ananya Roy, Professor of Urban Planning, Social Welfare and Geography and Director of the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin, USA *
A fine and nuanced reading of a place so particular yet so familiar across cities of the Global South, this is an invaluable addition to a growing body of urban work that insists on rooting itself in place before it travels conceptually to offer us new ways to think of all cities. A wonderful, layered, and engaging read, where the writer's love of place gets equal place as their rigorous analysis of its urban condition. * Gautam Bhan, Associate Dean, Indian Institute of Human Settlements *
City of Desire presents informality not as a rarity but as the condition of living in contemporary cities. The biography of the large settlement Korail in Dhaka situates the lived experience of informality in space and time. And what is Korail? Korail is a laboratory for understanding the works of power and its hold on people's lives. Korail is a critical perspective that reconnects critical theory to the lived experience of the city. Korail is also a metaphor standing for the inhabitation practices that sustain life in a precarious world. Shafique shows that amidst attempts to appropriate urban space, social life does not always follow the designs of power; instead, it is assembled from multiple desires. City of Desire strikes a hopeful note when it maps immanent solidarities that translate into political propositions, however ephemeral, and into collectives with the capacity to transform the fabric of Korail and its relation to the World through its multiple fragments. * Vanesa Castan Broto, Professor of Climate Urbanism, University of Sheffield, UK *
Behind the caricatures of planetary slum life,the logics of another city – braver, smarter and more interesting – are revealed in this brilliant engagement with one of the most important sites of the emergent urbanisms that will shape the 21st century. Replete with detailed and extended engagement with Bangladesh, Dhaka and Korail the text moves beyond thick description, configuring a kaleidoscopic analytic that artfully synthesises skills of ethnography, architecture and political economy to make visible detailed landscapes of the present alongside other worlds that might be possible. * Michael Keith, Professor, University of Oxford and Director of the PEAK Urban Research programme *
Shafique's book offers a profound and immersive exploration of everyday life in in informal settlements. Through a series of seemingly disconnected essays, he vividly shows how both formal and informal are entangled in the creation of places. Writing with genuine involvement and without moralising, Shafique underscores the urgent need for a shift in architectural thinking and emphasises the importance of critical theory development to gain better insights into informal structures. He astutely describes how traditional architectural practices often fail to grasp the reality of life for billions of people in such places. It's a compelling and necessary read, offering an invaluable resource for future architects and urbanists who are seeking new meanings and challenges that better meet today's urgencies. * Rob Breed, Co-founder, Architecture-in-Development *
Drawing on rich ethnographic encounters in one of Dhaka's largest informal settlements and rooted in deep affection for settlers, this book vividly conveys a complex web of socio-economic life entangled with variegated desires, struggles, and customary rights and practices. It's essential reading for those interested in southern urbanisms and the decolonisation of urban scholarship. * Professor Hyun Bang Shin, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK *