"The Patchwork City should be considered an achievement for its theoretical innovations, and just as importantly for its documenting—and thereby its recognizing—of voices that are so often omitted from the conventional historical record. It is an arresting rumination on how people on either side of the class divide strategically wield different forms of power—political, economic, moral—in attempts to salvage dignity and assert their worth as citizens under conditions of democratic crisis. This book will be of interest to not only scholars studying the Philippines or the Global South, but also to those interested more broadly in urban sociology, inequality, and contentious politics."

American Journal of Sociology

"Garrido provides a compelling new read based on careful archival and ethnographic research. . . . Patchwork City contributes to urban geography through its political-sociological-ethnographic understandings of space, politics, and urban experiences in a country plagued by persistent urban poverty, stubborn social inequality, and structural unemployment within the Global South. It will interest scholars and general readers, as well as beginner and advanced undergraduate and graduate students in sociology, Southeast Asian studies, political science, political geography, social movement studies, and urban planning studies."

Pacific Affairs

“Making an important contribution to the study of cities and social class, this fascinating account of Manila illuminates how spatial boundaries and social barriers both link and separate the experiences, dispositions, and behavior of the middle class and the urban poor. Beautifully crafted, The Patchwork City incisively connects structure and meaning to illuminate the breakdown of cross-class links and account for the disenchantment with democracy.”

Ira Katznelson, Columbia University

“Deftly combining insights from political and urban sociology with scholarship on symbolic boundaries and morality, The Patchwork City sheds new light on the intersections and interactions between class, space, and politics. The lessons learned in this carefully researched ethnography travel well beyond Philippine politics: those interested in understanding the puzzles and paradoxes of the populist appeal among the dispossessed, and, more generally, the on-the-ground tensions between democracy and exorbitant inequality, should read this book.”

Javier Auyero, University of Texas at Austin

“In what promises to be a milestone in urban ethnography, The Patchwork City provides an illuminating picture of the dynamic relations among the poor, the middle classes, and political elites in a struggling, troubled democracy where political mobilization along populist lines becomes the main avenue for demanding and delivering scarce goods and services. Among the merits of this work is that it reveals the authoritarian temptation latent in populism that may eventually surface in the form of a Rodrigo Duterte or Jair Bolsonaro.”

Walden Bello, University of the Philippines

"The Patchwork City is a major contribution to the field; it is a timely book that enhances sociological understandings of space, politics, and urban experiences in the Global South."

Social Forces

"An essential read for scholars of urban politics, Southern cities, and contemporary populism, and it nicely complements the recent revival of scholarship on political articulation. Garrido's clear writing and careful organization will also make this book of interest to ethnographers, development scholars, and indeed, to sociologists of all stripes."

City and Community

"This is a good book, one which addresses an important topic."

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies