Contemporary processes of urbanisation present major challenges for urban research and theory as urban areas expand and interweave. In this process, urban forms are constantly changing and new urban configurations are frequently evolving. An adequate understanding of urbanisation must derive its empirical and theoretical inspirations from the multitude of urban experiences across the various divides that shape the contemporary world. New concepts and terms are urgently required that would help, both analytically and cartographically, to decipher the differentiated and rapidly mutating landscapes of urbanisation that are being produced today. One of the key procedures to address these challenges is the application of comparative strategies. Based on postcolonial critiques of urban theory and on the epistemologies of planetary urbanisation, this paper introduces and discusses the theoretical and methodological framework of a collaborative comparative study of urbanisation processes in eight large metropolitan territories across the world: Tokyo, Hong Kong/Shenzhen/Dongguan, Kolkata, Istanbul, Lagos, Paris, Mexico City and Los Angeles. In order to approach these large territories, a specific methodological design is applied mainly based on qualitative methods and a newly developed method of mapping. After the presentation of the main lines of our theoretical and methodological approach we discuss some of the new comparative concepts that we developed through this process: popular urbanisation, plotting urbanism, multilayered patchwork urbanisation and the incorporation of urban differences.

This paper discusses the changing urban policy framework in Turkey through a detailed analysis of a unique coupling of neoliberalism and Islamism. In this, rather than political projects with clear ultimate ends, both neoliberalism and Islamism are approached as distinct political rationalities aiming to reconfigure all aspects of social life. Turkey's Justice and Development Party has successfully established networks of economic and political interdependence (or has tapped into existing networks) by appeasing both the emergent Islamic capitalist class through lucrative contracts and business-friendly reforms, and the urban poor through gracious gestures ingrained in traditional Islamic community values and morality. The working of this co-articulation is examined in the case of an urban renewal project in a peripheral neighbourhood in Istanbul.

International audienceThe article discusses Turkey's property-led residential redevelopment model. This entails the demolition of an existing settlement, replacing it with blocks of apartments (usually constructed on the exact same site and at a higher density), some of which are then made available to displaced residents for purchase via mortgage loans with long maturities. While the authorities promote this model of urban renewal as an innovative public housing policy, I argue that, far from being an exception to market-rate housing, the model is in fact a market-disciplinary tool. It seeks to incorporate into the formal market not just spontaneously developed and only partially regulated spaces, but also the conduct of residents living in these informal neighborhoods. The article contributes to the immense literature on urban renewal and organized struggles around the right to housing by showing that urban renewal is not simply about dispossession and displacement. In the Turkish case, urban renewal does not necessarily seek to displace poor residents (even though it often ends up doing so), rather to incorporate them into a nascent mortgage origination market. The second half of the article introduces and elaborates on a case study in Istanbul

Singapore (FCL) and the Chair of Sociology, Department of Architecture at ETH Zürich. We thank all our colleagues from the Future Cities Laboratory for their support, advice and inspiration. We express our special thanks to the project team members Naomi Hanakata, Pascal Kallenberger, Anne Kockelkorn, Kit Ping Wong and Rob Sullivan who contributed substantially to the development of the concepts of urbanization presented here. We would like to thank Jennifer Robinson and AbdouMaliq Simone for insightful and valuable comments. Many thanks as well to all the interlocutors and researchers in Mexico City, Lagos and Istanbul who shared their knowledge with us. Furthermore, we thank Fabio Duarte and Nicole Weiss for revising the translations from Spanish and French into English, the IJURR handling editor and three anonymous referees for their careful reading and constructive suggestions. All errors and omissions remain the responsibility of the authors.

With this paper, we analyse an ordinary urban process, which has received little attention so far, and propose a new concept to take account of it: plotting urbanism. It is usually subsumed under terms like "urban informality" or "incremental urbanism" and not studied as a distinct process. In comparing Lagos, Istanbul and Shenzhen we captured four defining features of plotting urbanism: first, it unfolds in a piecemeal fashion with limited comprehensive planning. Second, it emerges from specific territorial compromises often resulting from conflicts between overlapping modes of territorial regulation, land tenure and property rights. Third, plotting is based on commodification of housing and land, which might accentuate socio-economic differentiations between property-owners, who often live in the same area, and their tenants. The term "plotting" highlights the key role of the plot in the process. It also alludes to strategic acts of collaboration for individual and collective benefit.