Introduction: Bringing the Less Familiar Cities In and Together; PART I Urban Present and Past: How Culture, History, and Politics Shape Global and Local Cityscapes; 1 Competitive Globalization and Urban Change: The Allure of Cultural Strategies; 2 The Trajectories of Two "Asian Tigers": The Imperial Roots of Capitalism in Dubai and Singapore. 3 Shaping Politics in Chinatown: The Intersection of Global Politics and Community Politics in Wartime and Cold War SanFranciscoPART II Urban Contraction and Expansion: Economic Restructuring and Governance in De-Globalizing and GlobalizingSecondary Cities; 4 Staggering Job Loss, a Shrinking Revenue Base, and Grinding Decline: Springfi eld, Massachusetts, in a Globalized Economy; 5 From Cars to Casinos: Global Pasts and Local Futures in the Detroit-Windsor Transnational Metropolitan Area. 6 From a Fishing Village via an Instant City to a Secondary Global City: The "Miracle" and Growth Pains of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in China7 The Third Coming of China's Special Economic Zones: The Rise and Regional Dimensions of Tianjin Binhai New Area; 8 Social Accountability in African Cities: Comparing Participatory Budgeting in Johannesburg and Harare; PART III The Contested Urban Arena: Identity and Exclusion in Secondary Cities; 9 Globalization and the Construction of Identity in Two New Southeast Asian Capitals: Putrajaya and Dompak. 10 Off Limits and Out of Bounds: Taxi Driver Perceptions of Dangerous People and Places in Kunming, China11 Seats of Diff erences: Coff eehouses and the Geo-Economics of Gender in Contemporary Inner-City Tunis; 12 From the "Margin of the Margins" in Brazil: Black Women Confront the Racial Logic of Spatial Exclusion; Epilogue: Second May Be Best-Theorizing the Global Urban from the Middle.