The Neoliberal City: Governance, Ideology, and Development in American UrbanismCornell University Press, 2014 M01 15 - 248 pages The shift in the ideological winds toward a "free-market" economy has brought profound effects in urban areas. The Neoliberal City presents an overview of the effect of these changes on today's cities. The term "neoliberalism" was originally used in reference to a set of practices that first-world institutions like the IMF and World Bank impose on third-world countries and cities. The support of unimpeded trade and individual freedoms and the discouragement of state regulation and social spending are the putative centerpieces of this vision. More and more, though, people have come to recognize that first-world cities are undergoing the same processes. In The Neoliberal City, Jason Hackworth argues that neoliberal policies are in fact having a profound effect on the nature and direction of urbanization in the United States and other wealthy countries, and that much can be learned from studying its effect. He explores the impact that neoliberalism has had on three aspects of urbanization in the United States: governance, urban form, and social movements. The American inner city is seen as a crucial battle zone for the wider neoliberal transition primarily because it embodies neoliberalism's antithesis, Keynesian egalitarian liberalism. Focusing on issues such as gentrification in New York City; public-housing policy in New York, Chicago, and Seattle; downtown redevelopment in Phoenix; and urban-landscape change in New Brunswick, N.J., Hackworth shows us how material and symbolic changes to institutions, neighborhoods, and entire urban regions can be traced in part to the rise of neoliberalism. |
From inside the book
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... financial crisis that threatened to bankrupt the city. Banks were willing to continue extending credit to the beleaguered city on the important condition that Kucinich privatize the city's electricity provider, Muni Light. When he ...
... financial interests that threaten to leave or penalize the locality has become so unquestioned that it is considered common sense by public ad-ministrators and the popular press. Though the collectivization of public resources was once ...
... finance such areas themselves or to abandon them entirely. Swyngedouw (1997) has deemed this larger process “glocalization,” as it involves a simultaneous upward (to the global economy and its institutions) and downward (to the locality ...
... finance capital. For cities in the “developing world” (and for many that are not), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank serve as policing institutions in this regard, rewarding cities that adhere to a particular ...
... financial statement from the issuing city and combine this information with its own databases and independent research to arrive at a rating. The ratings are based on the municipality's financial history (past and current debt),
Contents
The Glocalization of Governance | |
The PublicPrivate Partnership | |
The Acceleration of Uneven Development | |
The Neoliberal Spatial | |
The Reinvested Urban Core | |
Neoliberal Gentrification | |
Bread or Circus? | |
Contesting the Neoliberal City | |
Social Struggle in a Neoliberal Policy Landscape | |
Alternative Futures at the End of History | |
References | |