Cities are seen as essentially ‘good’: innovative, pro-growth, poverty-reducing. In a challenging corrective to this common portrayal, Christof Parnreiter argues that the same urban properties which make cities so extraordinarily proficient at producing the ‘good’ innovations – agglomeration economies, network externalities and a massive built environment – also provides fertile ground for the development of the ‘bad’ ones, on which urban elites have syphoned off wealth from other localities and regions.
The book scrutinises the interconnections between wealth creation and poverty generation by putting cities centre stage as a fundamental explanatory category for understanding how the wealth of nations is produced as well as for grasping how the poverty of nations is created. It seeks to correct the developmentalist enthusiasm, commonplace in urban and regional studies, for cities’ efficiency, which has displaced interest in cities’ role in uneven development.
Parnreiter, C. (2024): The wealth of cities and the poverty of nations. Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing.
Christof Parnreiter is Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Hamburg.
Reviews:
Bassens, D. (2025), ‘The Wealth of Cities and the Poverty of Nations’, The AAG Review of Books.
“[A] timely and refreshing account recalibrating the theoretical debate about cities and (uneven) development… a must read… clearly structured, well argued, not overly long, and well written… [it] deserves praise for its masterful command of the literature on uneven development, and for offering important theoretical advancements about why and how cities can become the preferred sites for the organization of capitalist exploitation of nonelite inhabitants… a great resource for academics, students, and all those interested in urban theory more widely.”
Full review: https://doi.org/10.1080/2325548X.2025.2464794
Belina, B. (2025) ‘The Wealth of Cities and the Poverty of Nations’, Geographica Helvetica, 80, 35-37.
“Warmly recommend[ed]… to anyone interested in a theoretically sound, critical understanding of the role of cities in capitalism… Christof Parnreiter questions the triumphalist claims that cities bring universal prosperity and are the solution to just about every problem… yes, cities generate innovation and wealth. But they only do so because they are, as the command centers of global capitalism, also the places of (the organization of) exploitation and over-exploitation – not only within the city, but also in the urban–rural relationship as well as along the global urban hierarchy.”
Full review: https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-35-2025 (Open access)
Derudder, B. (2024), ‘The Wealth of Cities and the Poverty of Nations’, Regional Studies, 58 (11), 2221-2222.
“The main objective of this book… is to rebalance our understanding of cities… Parnreiter offers a rich, varied and cogent discussion that touches on the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the ideas of Adam Smith and Karl Marx, the world-systems thinking of Fernand Braudel, André Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein, and much more… The book… [is] well-written and well-structured, and [can] be used as both a concise compendium of critical concepts and a standalone contribution to the literature… [it] deserves to be widely read.”
Full review: https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2024.2381950
Endorsements:
“Cities are inherently complex. The development of cities never creates simple outcomes. These truisms are often missing from recent studies of contemporary urbanization. Parnreiter provides a convincing, and very necessary, corrective to laudatory promotions of cities today.”
Peter J. Taylor, Director of the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) research network
“Parnreiter presents an urgent corrective lens to pierce the proliferating facades of urban recreation to reveal the grim state of nations. Whether this is caused by cities is a question Parnreiter explores. This vista should inform the nascent discourse about making new cities that are neither shanty towns nor gleaming bunkers.”
Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University
“Just as the idea of the ‘triumph’ of the city and the driving force of agglomeration economies has become hegemonic, Christof Parnreiter reminds us of the important counterpoint of the city’s dark side. This is required reading for those that want to know what the ‘urban age’ is really about.”
Michiel van Meeteren, Assistant Professor in Human Geography, Utrecht University