REVIEWS
‘Doug Saunders, a Canadian journalist skilled in both colourful reportage and sustaining a good argument, provides a badly needed progressive and optimistic narrative about our future… This may be the best popular book on cities since Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities half a century ago. Certainly, it shares the same optimism about human aspiration amid overcrowded buildings and unplanned urban jungles, and the same plea for planners to help rather than stifle those dreams… Few books can make rationalists feel optimistic and empowered for the future. This one does.’
— Fred Pearce, The Guardian
‘Saunders’s approach is through anecdotes and vignettes, but he has done his legwork so they cumulate into a persuasive whole. He integrates two hitherto distinct areas of policy concern: immigration into Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries, and the development of poor countries. Saunders’ practical suggestions for helping immigrants to the OECD are sure to attract attention…[a] highly readable book.’
— Paul Collier, economist and author of The Bottom Billion, Financial Times
‘A provocative new book…Arrival City addresses the great neglected trend of the 21st century: urbanisation. Travelling across the globe, from Rio de Janeiro’s favelas to Nairobi’s slums and Berlin’s Turkish enclave, Saunders weaves the tales of individual migrants through his vast story, that of the current, final great human movement – involving a third of our species – from the countryside to the city….A powerful work.’
— Evening Standard (26.8.10)
‘An important new book…[it] engages while remaining serious. It pulls in the reader by centring its storyline on the fate of its numerous lead characters…Doug Saunders’s greatest strength lies in the global breadth of his reportage, which moves from the alleys of Mumbai to the soulless banlieues of Paris with the urgency of an international spy thriller. His evocative descriptions of open sewers, precarious dwellings, dark, dangerous spaces, noisy slum factories and the indomitable spirit of humanity transform a complex, serious subject into a page-turning read.’
— Eric Kaufmann, Literary Review (September 2010)
‘Arrival City is scarier than a dark urban fantasy and more gritty than the bottom of a demographer’s coffee cup. It’s also highly topical, as population growth and immigration are subjects of heated debate worldwide.’
— Heather Tyler, The Daily Mercury, Queensland, Australia (September 4, 2010)