As urban development in Asia has accelerated, cities in the region have become central to skateboarding culture, livelihoods, and consumption. Asia's urban landscapes are desired for their endless supply of 'spots'. A spot is assemblage of objects, surfaces and obstacles holding the possibilities to perform skateboarding manoeuvres (tricks). Spots are not built for skateboarding; they are accidents of urban planning and commercial activity; glitches in the urban machine. Skateboarders and filmers chase these glitches searching for spots to make skate video, the currency of the industry and skateboarding's primary cultural artefact. Once captured, performances at Asia's spots circulate rapidly through digital platforms to millions of skateboarders, enrolling spots from Shenzhen, Dubai and Ramallah into an alternative cartography of the region. By focusing on this alternative way of desiring and consuming urban Asia, this book explores the ways skateboarding resets relational and comparative hierarchies of urban development within Asia and between Asia and the West.

Prof. McDuie-Ra is Professor of Urban Sociology at University of Newcastle. His most recent books are: Borderland City in New India (Amsterdam Univ. Press, 2016), Debating Race in Contemporary India (Palgrave/Springer, 2015), Northeast Migrants in Delhi: Race, Refuge and Retail (Amsterdam Univ. Press, 2012).

This book pushes the understanding of urban space in fascinating new ways by emphasizing the unique view upon the city that skaters develop through their peculiar spatial practice. It presents a huge number of rich insights that have been needed but never put to writing.- Max D. Woodworth, Ohio State University, Department of Geography

This empirically-rich, conceptually-thorough, and geographically-focused narrative opens up a whole new world of skateboarding to the academy. McDuie-Ra vividly explores how skateboarding has mutated from the West to the East, and in the process highlights the broadening cosmopolitanism of skateboarding across different cultural backgrounds from all over the world. - Dr Oli Mould, Lecturer in Human Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London

A remarkable reconceptualization of skateboarding geography and landscapes. Redrawing skateboarding's world to encompass the likes of China, Dubai, India, Kazakhstan, India and Palestine, McDuie-Ra rethinks skateboarding's global mobilities. At once insightful and highly readable, this is essential reading for any academic study of skateboarding. -Iain Borden, Professor of Architecture & Urban Culture, University College London

Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. Urban Asia: Endless Spots
Escaping the California Gridlock
(Re)Mapping Asia Through Spots
Structure of the Book
Chapter 2. Shredding the Urban Fabric
Spots: Urban Landscapes Below the Knees
Infrastructure's Adjacent Publics
Splicing the Map
Life on Video, Life Online
Conclusion
Chapter 3. Chasing the Concrete Dragon
From Chinese Consumers to Consuming China
Skateboarding at Shenzhen Speed
Endless Spots, New Cartographies
Communist Wonderland
Conclusion
Chapter 4. Spectacle Cities: The Luxury Of Emptiness
Central Asian Spectacles
Emptying Dubai
Dubai Unreal
Spectacle And Its Others
Conclusion
Chapter 5. For the Love of Soviet Planning
Post-Soviet Urban Space From Below (the Knees)
Independence Square (Tashkent)
Ala-Too Square (Bishkek)
The Outer Grid
Haunted Spots
Conclusion
Chapter 6. Skateboarding's New Frontiers
Iran: Revolutionary Modernity
India: Rough Cut Modern
Shredding the Architecture of Occupation
Conclusion
Chapter 7. Conclusion: Another 'Next China'
Real-Time Blues
Endless Spots, Endless Search
Bibliography
Skate Videos And Media Files
Published Sources
Index