Metropolitan areas worldwide have grown rapidly and are usually surrounded by peri-urban zones that are neither urban nor rural. Despite widespread use of the term ‘peri-urban’, physical determination of these spaces is difficult due to their transient nature and multiple definitions. While many have identified peri-urban areas regionally or globally, questions persist on where exactly the peri-urban is located, and what are the most apt methods to delineate its boundaries. The answers are pertinent towards framing targeted policies for governing the dynamic socio-spatial transformations in these zones. This paper reviews peri-urban research over the last 50-plus years to discern the existing methodologies for its identification/demarcation and their applications. For this, a total of 3124 documents on peri-urban studies were identified through keyword searches in Scopus and Google Scholar databases. Thereafter, 56 documents were examined that explicitly dealt with demarcating peri-urban zones. Results reveal that there is no standout/generalized method for peri-urban demarcation. Rather, these approaches are geographically specific and vary across developed and developing countries, due to differences in land-use patterns, socioeconomic drivers, and political systems. Thus, we recommend developing a ‘pluralistic’ framework for determining peri-urban boundaries at the regional–global scale to enable better framing of relevant policies.

The term peri‐urbanization has been widely used to describe a range of different processes that transform rural areas to a mix of rural and urban spaces. Although there is a burgeoning literature on peri‐urbanization, the conceptual debate about peri‐urbanization's distinction from urbanization is rarely considered. It sometimes seems like whatever occurs at the urban periphery across the global south is labeled peri‐urbanization. This universalizing use of the term risks obscuring the existing diversities of rural‐to‐urban transformations. At the same time, it is empirically clear that the urban periphery of the global south hosts the most dynamic processes of urbanization in the contemporary world. It is also conceptually accepted that to better understand these diverse processes of urbanization, scholars must decenter global urban theory and build new vocabularies and theories from the south. Thus, there is doubt as to whether and to what extent a single concept like peri‐urbanization can capture the great diversity of rural‐to‐urban transformations across the global south. This critical review of the southern geographies of peri‐urbanization first identifies three interrelated conceptual vectors ( territorial , functional , and transitional ) for understanding the peri‐urban concept, and outlines recent developments in the field. Then, peri‐urbanization is reframed as an umbrella concept, which embraces multiple theoretical concepts and avoids the universalization inherent in much current usage. Finally, the paper reviews recent theoretical inquiries and new vocabularies of urbanization processes at the urban periphery, offering scope to theorize the heterogeneity of the geographies of peri‐urbanization in the global south.

In March 2012, a brownfield site in Cologne was transformed into “a green garden on red clay”, when a community garden called NeuLand (new land) was created. This paper investigates in how far NeuLand is typical for a new form of political engagement 2.0, focused on local problems at people's doorstep rather than global critiques of political systems, which finds its expression in direct actions typical for the networked society, e.g. “green flash mobs.” Its potential to provide a blueprint for imagining and enacting alternative futures and new ways for citizens to claim their “right to the city” is being assessed. NeuLand provides an experiment with new forms of (urban) commons and possibly a (re)turn to the “liveable city” to replace the current neoliberal ideal of the “entrepreneurial city” [Harvey, D., 1989. From manageralism to entrepreneuralism: the transformation of urban governance in late capitalism. Geografiska Annaler, Series B, Human Geography, 71 (1), 3–17], developing new solutions to problems of urban management and city development that extend beyond the voluntary engagement of citizens within the logic of the neoliberal “big society.” Extending the scope beyond the analysis of urban gardening projects as examples of sustainable food production, or as vehicles for fostering community cohesion, integration or social capital, the NeuLand experiment is linked to wider debates of alternative and more sustainable socio-ecological futures than those currently practised in the newly “neoliberalizing cities” of Germany.

This research advances our understanding of peri-urban dynamics in the Global South through an innovative comparative socio-spatial analytics approach combining geospatial and qualitative fieldwork-based methods. Drawing on three cases in China, Ghana and India, the comparison is operationalized through two pairs of conceptual lenses developed inductively. We argue that heterogeneous peri-urban morphologies in the Global South, which share several common features, notably fragmentation and bypass, albeit with differing degrees, are shaped by three key processes: (1) market- and speculation-driven property development; (2) state-led development strategies, often expressed through large-scale projects; and (3) fragmented planning and development practices.