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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... industrial base was eroding, its coffers empty, and, for a brief while, its river ablaze. Kucinich took the fall for most of it. The local press deemed him a “vain, yappy, little demagogue,” and a panel of historians later rated him the ...
... industries, if left alone, would actually tend toward a limited number of firms, a pure monopoly being the most extreme case. Without adequate competition, output would be lower and prices higher than under “perfect competition.” The ...
... industry produced jobs; the freeway system allowed for suburban living; suburban living required automobile usage. In the process, real estate capital was revived via a transfer to the urban fringe, but the inner city was left to ...
... industry)—use a similar rating nomenclature (see table 2.1) to summarize their research. Though there are several gradations, the meaningful threshold that rating agencies police is whether a bond is rated as “speculative-grade” (a ...
... industry began humbly, it has evolved into a highly consolidated, transnational handful of companies that now serve as the primary gatekeepers for corporate and municipal debt markets. The. Growing. Influence. of. Bond-Rating. Agencies.
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 | |