Global urbanism and mega events planning in Rio de Janeiro amid crisis and austerity

ABSTRACT Putting Milton Santos’ theorisations in conversation with post-colonial conceptualization of global urbanism, the paper discusses the legacy of mega-events planning in Rio de Janeiro in times of austerity, through the prism of the nexus between globalization and urbanism. Three main interrelated dimensions of the Carioca global urbanism and of the clash between global aspirations and local realities are highlighted and discussed in order to challenge dominant conceptualization of both mega-events planning and austerity urbanism: a) the mobilization of an ensemble of high-tech fantasies as globalist imaginaries of urban planning; b) a complex reconfiguration of the core–periphery geographies of knowledge as a key trait of a perverse globalization; (c) a multitude of discourses and practices of insurgent urbanism as a source of radical imagination against the imperatives of austerity.