Feral cities - The New Strategic Environment

Naval War College Review, Autumn, 2003 by Richard J. Norton

NOTES

(1.) I am indebted to my colleague Dr. James Miskel for the "petri dish" analogy.

(2.) Thomas Stern Eliot, "The Wasteland," in The New Oxford Book of English Verses: 1250-1950, ed. Helen Gardner (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 881.

(3.) See, for example, James F. Miskel and Richard J. Norton, "Spotting Trouble: Identifying Faltering and Failing States," Naval War College Review 50, no. 2 (Spring 1997), pp. 79-91.

(4.) Perhaps the most arbitrary component of this definition is the selection of a million inhabitants as a defining characteristic of a feral city. An earlier approach to this issue focused on megacities, cities with more than ten million inhabitants. However, subsequent research indicated that much smaller cities could also become feral, and so the population threshold was reduced. For more information on concepts of urbanization see Stanley D. Brunn, Jack P. Williams, and Donald J. Zeigler, Cities of the World: World Regional Urban Development (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), pp. 5-14.

(5.) Such a pattern is already visible today. See Brunn, Williams, and Zeigler, chap. 1.

(6.) "China Criticized for Dragging Feet on Outbreak," News in Science, 7 April 2003, p. 1.

(7.) The issue of pollution stemming from coastal cities is well documented. For example, see chapter two of United Nations Environmental Program, Global Environmental Outlook--2000 (London: Earthscan, 2001).

(8.) The profits involved in such enterprises can be staggering. For example, the profits from smuggled cigarettes in 1997 were estimated to be as high as sixteen billion dollars a year. Among the identified major smuggling centers were Naples, Italy; Hong Kong; and Bogota, Colombia. Raymond Bonner and Christopher Drew, "Cigarette Makers Are Seen as Aiding Rise in Smuggling," New York Times, 26 August 1997, C1.

(9.) A similar approach was used in Miskel and Norton, cited above, for developing a taxonomy for identifying failing states.

(10.) This is not to imply that such a city would be 100 percent law-abiding or that incidents of government failure could not be found. But these conditions would be the exception and not the rule.

(11.) Not that this would present no complications. It is likely that states containing a feral city would not acknowledge a loss of sovereignty over the metropolis, even if this were patently the case. Such claims could pose a significant obstacle to collective international action.

(12.) Transcript, PBS Newshour, "Taming Mexico City," 12 January 1999, available at www.Pbs .org/newshour/bb/latin_American/jan-jun99/ mexico [accessed 15 June 2003].

(13.) Compiled from a variety of sources, most notably "Taming Mexico City," News Hour with Jim Lehrer, transcript, 12 January 1999.

(14.) Compiled from a variety of sources, including BBC reports.

(15.) Brunn, Williams, and Zeigler, p. 37.

(16.) Interview, Dr. Peter Liotta, with the author, Newport, R.I., 14 April 2003.

(17.) While the recent successful rescue of Army Private First Class Jessica Lynch during the 2003 Iraq War demonstrates that success in such operations is not impossible, U.S. experiences with hostages in Iran, Lebanon, and Somalia would suggest failure is a more likely outcome.