This is a rather late submission for the urbanization class inquiry.
I would recommend the work of photojournalist and multimedia artist Matthew Niederhauser. His career has primarily been focused on Beijing (see his first book on the Beijing underground music scene from about a decade ago, “Sound Kapital,”) although he has some other great work, including a series on Brazilian cities during the World Cup for The New Republic. (Full disclosure, we went to college together.)
Conrad Bauer <bauerc@tas.tw>