The Making and Unmaking of Multicultural Colombo

A History of Urban Development at the (Post-)Colonial Periphery
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-90-485-7187-1
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 334 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Asian Cities

This book historicizes the complex and dynamic relationship between urban development and the multicultural communities that make up the historic center of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

By focusing on the oldest part of Colombo, currently the epicenter for urban regeneration, it succinctly traces how recurring cycles of urban planning and development, spanning over five centuries, have impacted the mosaic of communities who live and work there. The book is organized around the succession of four economic models Colombo has witnessed—mercantilist, colonial capitalist, post-colonial ethnonationalist, and neoliberal—and three continuities—the city’s peripheral relationship with the global economy, persistent colonial power-knowledge structures, and the spatial context of a multicultural port city—that have guided urban change through these transitions. By examining how these continuities and discontinuities have interacted, it reveals how urban development and planning have failed to deliver broad-based improvements to the lives of the people of Colombo.

Exploring the history of urban development in Sri Lanka’s largest city, from its origins as a pluralistic Indian Ocean port to its modern-day efforts to become a world-class city, this will be a valuable resource to students and scholars of urbanization, colonialism and post-colonialism particularly in South Asia.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Zielgruppe

Academic, Postgraduate, and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

DeSilva, Sanjaya

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie
• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Regional- & Raumplanung Stadtplanung, Kommunale Planung
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Regional- und Städtische Wirtschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Part 1: Background  Introduction: Urban development at the (post-)colonial periphery 1. Muslims, Chetties, and the origins of a port city  Part 2: Mercantile capitalism  2. Insiders and outsiders in the Portuguese walled city 3. Dutch planners, urban grids, and an orderly life  Part 3: Plantation capitalism  4. Plantation capitalism and the bourgeois city 5. Port expansion and the invention of slums  Part 4: Post-colonial ethnonationalism  6. Town planners, ethnonationalists and the search for the ‘rural spirit’ 7. A colonial city in a post-colonial nation-state  Part 5: Neoliberal urbanism  8. Building a global city in a time of conflict 9. Making way for the World-Class City  Part 6: Post-script  10. A rising city in a failing economy Conclusions: Connecting threads

Über Autor(innen)

Sanjaya DeSilva is Associate Professor of Economics and Asian Studies at Bard College, New York. His interdisciplinary teaching and research are at the intersection of economic development, urban studies, and Asian economic history. Born and raised in Colombo, DeSilva holds a Ph.D. in Development Economics from Yale University.