Speculative Cities : Vancouver, Panama City and Dubai

Speculative Cities furthers an international dialogue on the contemporary city, focusing on port cities and cities that have reinvented themselves over the past 40 years. Dubai, Panama City, and Vancouver share striking similarities: all are important gateways within their specific geographic and economic contexts and all have the reputation of developing innovative, at times controversial, experiments in urban planning. These "new world cities", "gateway port cities", and "terminal cities" have evolved or reinvented themselves through strategies that catalyse shifts from historical economies and civic functions towards other processes of exchange that signal a transition into globalisation.

Bringing together architects, urban planners, artists, curators, and scholars from Dubai, Panama City and Vancouver, the book documents an in-depth exchange of research on the intersections of urban studies, contemporary art, and public engagement that is relevant to all gateway cities.With contributions from artists and writers together with urban planners and architects, the book presents discussions focusing on creativity and its transformational potential, bringing new dimensions to our perception and understanding of the city. In helping to understand the conditions that have produced various affinities across these three cities, Speculative Cities provides timely new knowledge on global urbanisation, diasporic mobilities, indigeneity and the after-effects of late twentieth-century nationalisms.