Maria Taylor’s examination of greenspace in Soviet urban planning is especially timely in its discussion of unequal access to parks and open space, and awareness of the political resonance of that inequality. Expressive of Soviet ideals of socialist modernity, the “garden-factories” were intended to signal support for industrial productivity, worker dignity, as well as the aesthetic, social, and hygienic mediation between industrial hazards (environmental and otherwise) and workers’ health. Conceived and designed to convey “care for workers,” factory green sites had an important political role to play in the Soviet Union—“greenwashing” rapid industrialization, but also offering up a distinctly Soviet urban theory and practice that nurtured a certain relationship between nature, the built environment, politicization, and mass protest.

Sheetal Chhabria’s contribution to “Layered Metropolis” illuminates the purposeful work that has been part of city-making in India—from colonial Bombay to present-day Mumbai. For over a century, distinctions of dwelling types, categories of laborers, and delineations of economic activity have been used to codify and recodify the political standing of space, in particular what is considered “urban.” Chhabria’s example of Bombay/Mumbai illustrates how language and official (and unofficial) categorizations have served the interests of certain institutions and groups within India’s spatial governance and that supposed “crises of urbanism” are part of a much larger context of racial capitalism across the cities of the world.

What is the relationship between the built environment, social interaction, crime, policing, and resident experience? Patience Adzande seeks to answer these connected questions through an examination of Makurdi, Nigeria, by showing the limits of urban planning and insufficient infrastructure—including lapses in formal policing. These shortcomings have left many residents to create their own “territorial markers”—including constructing walls and fences—which have had significant impact on social interaction with and experience of the urban space, often not achieving the deterrence in crime residents sought. Adzande’s contribution to the “Layered Metropolis” series offers sobering analysis of the limits of formal urban intervention at the same time that it offers some prescription for policy for an improved future in the lives of city residents.