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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... Limited); “Local Autonomy, Bond-Rating Agencies and Neoliberal Urbanism in the U.S.,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 26, no. 4 (2002): 707– 25 (© Blackwell Publishing); “Post Recession Gentrification in New York ...
... any conception of a good life. The role of government, therefore, is to protect not merely freedom rights but also welfare rights. (1997, p. 13) Justifiable interventions included but were not limited to public housing,
... limited to public housing, corporate antitrust laws, food stamps, and basic income redistribution. Twentieth-century classical liberals generally loathed this turn in liberal thought and rejected it (see Hayek 1944; 1960; Friedman 1962) ...
... limited to a demandside cover for capitalism. There were also a set of theoretical market failures that justified regulatory and redistributory interventions. Four such theorized failures emerged as justifications for intervention ...
... limited government, personal responsibility, and national security (Gillespie and Schellhas 1994, p. 4). The specific policy agenda entailed a massive rollback of mid–twentieth century social programs and a return of “power” to localities.
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 | |