Competitive City-Regionalism and the Politics of Scale

2019 ◽  
pp. 206-232
Author(s):  
Neil Brenner
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Scale ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
New Regionalism ◽  
Territorial Development ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Spatial Politics ◽  
Industrial Growth ◽  
Politics Of Scale ◽  
Governance Arrangements

This chapter presents a critical perspective on the “new regionalism” debate that has swept through important streams of urban studies since the 1980s. A scalar analytics is mobilized to question mainstream political metanarratives regarding the prospects for putatively endogenous, bottom-up political strategies to stimulate urban regeneration. New regionalist programs have entailed a scalar recalibration of local financial, institutional, and regulatory failures, but without significantly impacting their underlying macrospatial causes, within or beyond major cities. Consequently, rather than counteracting the crisis tendencies of post-Keynesian capitalism, the market disciplinary spatial politics of the new regionalism have perpetuated or exacerbated the latter. Its enduring consequences have been the further splintering of urban governance arrangements, intensifying territorial polarization, and pervasive regulatory disorder, rather than stable capitalist industrial growth or coherent territorial development at any spatial scale.

What Motivates Local Sustainability Policy Action in China? The Case of Low-Carbon City Pilot Program

2021 ◽  
pp. 107808742199524
Author(s):  
Zhilin Liu ◽  
Jie Wang ◽  
Craig W. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Pilot Program ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Policy Action ◽  
Industrial Growth ◽  
Horizontal Competition ◽  
Local Sustainability ◽  
Low Carbon City ◽  
Sustainability Policy

An increasing volume of literature has sought to identify factors that motivate cities to pursue sustainability and adopt climate policies. However, most empirical studies were done in Western countries, where relatively high local autonomy and low pressure on industrial growth create conditions for spontaneous policy innovations in sustainability. This paper uses China’s Low-Carbon City Pilot Program as a case to investigate motivations for local sustainability actions in an authoritarian context. Our event history analyses confirm the effects of multi-level governance on local sustainability initiatives in China, particularly horizontal competition across jurisdictions, priorities and preferences of upper-level authorities, as well as local determinants including leadership, capacity, politics, and environmental stress. The findings contribute to the comparative urban governance scholarship by highlighting the unique feature of “experimentation under hierarchy” in shaping urban sustainability policymaking in China.

Colonial Ideologies, Narratives, and Popular Perceptions of Ethno-racial Otherness in the Dynamics of Urban Exclusion: Debates and Evidence from Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 48-66
Author(s):  
Javier Ruiz-Tagle ◽  
Carolina Aguilera
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Residential Segregation ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Indigenous Social Movements ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Impact

Although ethnic differentiations began with colonialism, racism was not widely addressed in Latin American social sciences until recently, since class perspectives were predominant. Within this, studies on residential segregation and urban exclusion have ignored race and ethnicity, with the exceptions of Brazil and Colombia. However, these issues have recently become crucial because of the adoption of multiculturalism, the impact of postcolonialism and postmodernism, the emergence of black and indigenous social movements, changes in state policy, and new trends in migration. A review of debates and evidence from Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina shows that persistent colonial ideologies, narratives, and popular perceptions of ethno-racial denial sustain various kinds of urban exclusion in the region. The evidence calls for a new research agenda to decolonize urban studies that adopts a critical perspective on the coloniality of power. Aunque las diferenciaciones étnicas comenzaron con el colonialismo, el racismo no se abordó ampliamente en las ciencias sociales latinoamericanas hasta hace poco, ya que predominaban las perspectivas de clase. Los estudios sobre la segregación residencial y la exclusión urbana han ignorado la raza y el origen étnico, con excepción de Brasil y Colombia. Sin embargo, estas cuestiones se han vuelto cruciales recientemente debido a la adopción del multiculturalismo, el impacto del poscolonialismo y el posmodernismo, la aparición de movimientos sociales negros e indígenas, los cambios en la política estatal y nuevas tendencias en la migración. Una revisión de los debates y evidencia en México, Colombia, Chile y Argentina muestra que las ideologías coloniales persistentes, las narrativas y las percepciones populares de la negación etnoracial sostienen varios tipos de exclusión urbana en la región. La evidencia exige una nueva agenda de investigación para descolonizar los estudios urbanos y adoptar una perspectiva crítica sobre la colonialidad del poder.

Urban Growth Machines—But at What Scale?

2019 ◽  
pp. 233-255
Author(s):  
Neil Brenner
Keyword(s):  
Urban Growth ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Territorial Development ◽  
Growth Machine ◽  
Institutional Frameworks ◽  
Historical Investigation ◽  
Growth Machines ◽  
The City

Theories of the urban growth machine have long been a central analytical tool for contemporary research on urban governance. But in what sense are growth machines, in fact, “urban”? To what degree must “the city” serve as the spatial locus for growth machine strategies? To address such questions, this chapter critically evaluates the influential work of urban sociologists John Logan and Harvey Molotch on US growth machine dynamics. In contrast to an influential line of critique that reproaches these authors for their putative methodological localism, it is argued that their framework is, in fact, explicitly attuned to the role of interscalar politico-institutional relays in the construction of urban growth machines. These considerations lead to a dynamically multiscalar reading of the national institutional frameworks that have facilitated the formation of growth machines at the urban scale during the course of US territorial development. This analysis has broad methodological implications for the comparative-historical investigation of urban governance.

scholarly journals Actually existing managerialism: Planning, politics and property development in post-1945 Britain

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 004209802094903
Author(s):  
Alistair Kefford
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Urban Redevelopment ◽  
Urban Transformation ◽  
Property Development ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Uk

This article engages a long-established paradigm within urban studies: that of the transition from managerialism to entrepreneurialism in late 20th-century urban governance and the associated process of neoliberalisation. It begins from a fundamental intellectual problem; although we are well served with studies of urban entrepreneurialism and neoliberalism, we know surprisingly little of the detailed workings of the ‘pre-neoliberal’, managerial era from the 1940s to the 1970s. In the absence of sustained investigation of this period, many chronologies and critiques of urban transformation rest upon a set of assumptions which – as this article shows – are not always accurate. The article focuses upon Britain, tracing the installation of a modern planning regime in the 1940s and surveying some key features of the UK urban redevelopment regime as it evolved over the ensuing decades. It shows that much of what is held to be paradigmatic of neoliberal urbanism (public–private partnerships, urban entrepreneurialism, financialisation) was already powerfully present within British urbanism in the earlier, managerial era. I highlight in particular the dramatic post-war rise of the UK property development industry, and the new urban forms and norms it generated, as a key product of the era of urban managerialism in Britain. I relate these surprising findings to Britain’s distinctive history and political economy but I also advance arguments that are of wider relevance; around the nature and aims of governance from the 1940s to the 1970s, and how we should best conceptualise and explain processes of neoliberalisation.

Governing urban diversity in Istanbul: Pragmatic and non-discriminatory solutions of governance initiatives in response to politicisation of diversity

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 268-282
Author(s):  
Ozge Yenigun ◽  
Ayda Eraydin
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Rhetorical Device ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Diverse Groups ◽  
The City ◽  
Governance Arrangements ◽  
Urban Diversity

This paper examines the discourses and practices of central and local governments, as related to the issues of urban governance and diversity, and the emergence of new governance arrangements in different fields of Istanbul’s diversity. The paper claims that current diversity discourses and policies in Turkey are being increasingly used as a rhetorical device to promote the economic development of the city, and to circumvent the different demands of people of diverse cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds. In such processes of politicising diversity, governance initiatives undertake an important mission in coming up with pragmatic and non-discriminatory solutions to diversity-related issues. Through an examination of recent changes in the diversity policies of Istanbul and the emerging governance arrangements, this paper uncovers the conflicts and the mismatches that exist between the highly politicised discourses, policies and practices, and explores how different types of governance arrangements bring new arenas of expression to the diverse groups.

scholarly journals Process Tracing in Evaluating Innovation in Sub-Regional Governance. Case Study of Selected Integrated Territorial Investments in Poland

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-42
Author(s):  
Aldona Wiktorska-Święcka
Keyword(s):  
Urban Policy ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Regional Governance ◽  
Territorial Development ◽  
Development Processes ◽  
Contemporary Development ◽  
Institutional Actors ◽  
Modes Of Governance ◽  
Functional Areas ◽  
Governance Arrangements

Abstract Integrated Territorial Investments (ITIs) are a new integration tool that binds the thematic objectives defined operational programmes with the territorial dimension. Due to their formula, ITIs may be seen as a kind of innovation in sub-regional governance. The European Commission considers them as an opportunity to introduce solutions that can be effective in facing the challenges of contemporary development on a supra-local scale. Accordingly, they should be regarded as a possibility for Member States to activate innovative governance arrangements that will allow for the implementation of projects, which - depending on the country - more or less reflect issues indicated by the Commission as a priority. In Poland, the Integrated Territorial Investments are implemented in 24 functional areas. Due to a new approach to cities and their role in development processes in the country, they can mean a new opening for the urban policy and urban development. Concentrating on innovative governance arrangements, the aim of this paper is to analyze selected case studies of 4 ITIs implemented by large (more than 500,000 inhabitants) provincial cities: Wrocław, Łódź, Gdańsk, Katowice, which are capitals of regions in which one defined a different development potential. Th e analysis will allow the formulation of answers to the following research questions: • Are there any innovative governance arrangements indicated during ITIs implementation? • What are the implemented modes of sub-regional governance? • What is the role and importance of institutional actors in the process of ITIs governance? • What are their new competences linked to the ITIs implementation? • Are there any new products/services related to innovation in sub-regional governance? • Do ITIs consider principles of “good governance” a one of key factors of innovation in governance? Th e paper contains key definitions and points out processes related to the transition of modes of governance at the sub-regional level. It also indicates further challenges in Polish territorial development upon Europeanisation.

The gifted city: Setting a research agenda for philanthropy and urban governance

Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802110241
Author(s):  
Pablo Fuentenebro ◽  
Michele Acuto
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Net Worth ◽  
Investment Dynamics ◽  
Wealth Redistribution ◽  
The World ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Impact

With billions worth of funding to city-based projects, urban dwellers and city leaders the world over, philanthropy is no small matter. It might shape the form, politics and direction of urban development worldwide, yet little discussion of its role is present in urban studies. In this commentary, we call for urban scholars and practitioners to become more explicitly conversant in its investment dynamics in cities and their impact on urban governance. We highlight a two-pronged research agenda focused on institutions and individuals. First, we argue that we need to understand the impact of philanthropic institutions not just generally on cities but specifically on urban governance. Second, we call for nuanced attention to the philanthropy of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and its relationship to urban policymaking and wealth redistribution in cities. Third, we highlight the value of a more ‘global urban’ outlook onto the landscape of philanthropic funding in cities, starting with greater attention to philanthropic practices beyond the Global North. We conclude by sketching possible empirical steps towards an action research agenda, whilst underlining the necessary reflexivity that urban scholars should have in their positioning vis-a-vis philanthropy and its engagement in urban academia.

scholarly journals Engaging with global urban governance in the midst of a crisis

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Acuto
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Urban Imagination ◽  
Political Realm

The COVID-19 pandemic crisis offers a chance for urban scholars to play an even more explicit role in shaping ‘global urban governance’. Recognizing this international political realm, and the fundamental role that information exchange plays within it, urban studies can help drive a more progressive and inclusive global urban imagination.

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