Jean-Paul D. Addie

Metropolitics in Motion: The Dynamics of Transportation and State Reterritorialization in the Chicago and Toronto City-Regions

Abstract The global economic crisis exposed the instability of financialized urban governance at precisely the moment when governing coalitions have launched ambitious, expensive plans to reimagine urban transportation infrastructure, driven by the imperatives of restoring accumulation amid intensifying economic and regional competition. In Chicago and Toronto, processes of urban restructuring and state reterritorialization disclose contradictory tendencies in the city-regions’ modes of urbanization. Tracing the contingent path-dependencies of transportation crises highlights tensions between, and within, preexisting metropolitan dynamics and an ascendant neoliberal city-regionalism. The mobilization of collective regional agency appears necessary to overcome the inertia of divisive metropolitan politics, yet the specific political–economic contexts of the case city-regions significantly condition the structural capacity of actors producing, and the potential articulation of, emergent city-regional governance.

From the urban university to universities in urban society

ABSTRACT From the urban university to universities in urban society. Regional Studies. The impacts of neoliberalization and the global extension of urbanization processes demand a reappraisal of the urban university for the 21st century. The history of the modern urban university, and current calls for universities to assume proactive roles as economic drivers and civic leaders, disclose problematic tendencies, including: normalizing local/global binaries; focusing on a narrow set of university–city connections; and constructing the university and the city as monolithic rational agents. In response, this paper draws on Henri Lefebvre’s theory of urban society to mobilize mediation, centrality and difference as a mode of critique and strategic orientation for a ‘new urban university’.

Constructing Neoliberal Urban Democracy in the American Inner-city

The neoliberalization of urban governance has profoundly problematized issues of ‘local’ and ‘urban’ democracy on both sides of the Atlantic. This paper explores the changing modalities of urban democracy under neoliberalism through a case study of Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati. A historically maligned inner-city neighbourhood, Over-the-Rhine is the locus for a concerted neoliberalizing gentrification drive and site of a coordinated resistance to market-oriented redevelopment. Three key processes of neoliberal restructuring are analyzed to highlight the centrality of contestations over local democracy for local economic development. Governance restructuring and the implementation of key spatial imaginaries are argued to produce a neoliberal articulation of urban democracy that discursively legitimizes development from above via an understanding of the neighbourhood as a physical environment, usurping pre-existing grassroots organizations conceptualizing Over-the-Rhine as a social structure.

‘It's Not Going to be Suburban, It's Going to be All Urban’: Assembling Post-suburbia in the Toronto and Chicago Regions

Urban and suburban politics are increasingly intertwined in regions that aspire to be global. Powerful actors in the Chicago and Toronto regions have mobilized regional space to brand rescaled images of the urban experience, but questions remain as to who constructs and who can access the benefits of these revised spatial identities. Local political interests have tended to be obfuscated in the regional milieu, most problematically in the spaces between the gentrified inner cities, privileged growth nodes, and the glamorized suburban subdivisions and exurban spaces beyond the city limits. This article analyses how socio-spatial changes in post-suburbanizing urban fringes contribute to the way regions are being reconfigured and reimagined. Guided by current debates at the intersection of assemblage theory and critical urban political economy, our analysis demonstrates how socio-technical infrastructures, policy mobilities and political economic relations are spatially aligned, sustained and dissolved in splintering North American agglomerations. Particular attention is paid to issues of urban transportation and connectivity in uncovering multifaceted modes of suburbanism that now underlie the monistic imagery of the globalized region. Emergent regionalized topologies and territoriality blur conventional understandings of city–suburban dichotomies in extended urban areas that are now characterized by polycentric post-suburban constellations. In terms of their substance and functionality, ‘real existing’ regions are currently re-territorialized as complex assemblages that are embedded in a neoliberalizing political economy whose politics and identities are only beginning to be revealed.

Claiming the university for critical urbanism

urban studies. Alex Schafran’s (2014, 2015) and David Madden’s (2015) recent debate in these pages, in particular, has elevated a concern with the capacity of critical urban theory—and the wider urban academy—to catalyze emancipatory and democratic social change. Both of their interventions seek to leverage the latent potential of critical urbanism beyond narrow academic debates, but they diverge on questions of epistemology and tactics. Schafran argues critical urbanists need to think more concertedly about building power in order to serve as a vanguard for social and political change. Madden, by contrast, posits our energies ought to be focused on empowering community groups, activists and marginalized city dwellers beyond the walls of the ‘ivory tower’. Both positions offer political opportunities and novel modes of engagement, but both also have their blind fields and dangers. Steer too close to the former and power and claims of urban expertise remain cloistered in elitist, exclusionary institutional spaces. Veer towards the latter and the cycle of rigorous critique and piecemeal impact continues as we swim against a vortex of neoliberal tides inside and outside of academia. In the following commentary, I present a twofold response to this debate. First, I argue that we need to pay more attention to the impact that the overarching political economy of higher education and entrenched academic cultures have in perpetuating the limited efficacy of critical urbanism. Rather than engaging in a debate on the practice of critical urbanism per se, my intent is to highlight, and challenge, the institutional infrastructures of the university as a vital context through which the work of critical urban theorists and scholar-activists is operationalized. Not only are universities—and urban academics—under increasing pressure to demonstrate their social utility and relevance in an age of austerity (Christopherson, Gertler, and Gray 2014), but there is also a growing emphasis being placed on their perceived obligation to contribute to their urban locales as strategic partners, economic engines and data factories supporting smart solutions to the problems of the 21stcentury city (Harding et al. 2007; Leydesdorff and Deakin 2011; Pugh et al. 2016). Although experiences vary across national and institutional contexts, many universities are now actively assuming the task of driving knowledge-based growth in the neoliberal city. This has profoundly shaped expectations surrounding what type of urban knowledge universities should be generating and the criteria through which its usefulness is judged. As May and Perry (2011, 353) put it, understanding the politics of urban knowledge ‘is no longer a question of what the city means for the researcher but what research means for the city—and how those concerns are mediated by the university as a site of knowledge production’. Building from this critique, my second argument is that the wealth of critical urban knowledge generated in City and elsewhere should be concretely applied to the task of understanding and reimagining the university as a progressive urban actor and context for more socially just modes of urbanism. In

On the road to the in-between city: Excavating peripheral urbanisation in Chicago’s ‘Crosstown Corridor’

This paper critically engages the uneven distribution of infrastructure provision, connectivity and mobility in contemporary neoliberal urban landscapes by uncovering the path-dependent trajectories and politics of transportation in post-suburbia. Departing from contemporary debates on the evolving geography of urban peripheries, I utilise a relational theorisation of the ‘in-between city’ to empirically unpack the urbanisation processes internalised in the evolution of the ‘Zwischenstadt’ in a North American context. Through a longue durée case study of transportation planning, politics and spatial practice in Chicago’s ‘Crosstown Corridor’, in-between urbanisation is demonstrated to express an on-going multiscalar mediation of co-habiting modes of urbanism and strategic state actions that challenge generalised (sub)urbanisation narratives. Despite continued interest from planners, politicians and business groups, proposals for both a major urban expressway and rapid transit line have proved political lightning rods. Consequently, neighbourhood protests, personal political battles and macro-economic trends have locked-in a neglected development pathway for Chicago’s inner suburbs. I argue that through disclosing key contradictory political-economic imperatives and conflicting scales of mobility, it is possible to identify space for political and planning interventions that can adapt to, and develop, polycentric urban practice in and through in-between urban space.

Urban(izing) University Strategic Planning: An Analysis of London and New York City:

While there is a growing recognition of the mutually beneficial relationships universities and cities can forge around local and regional development, urban and academic leaders have often struggled to harness the diverse capacities of universities as producers and analysts of urban space. This article addresses this challenge by examining the institutional and spatial strategies being prioritized by universities in the context of global urbanization. It details a Lefebvrian-influenced conceptual and methodological approach to evaluate the multifaceted, multiscalar urban(izing) functions of “universities in urban society.” Comparatively assessing the organizational structures, spatial orientations, and ways of operating being pursued by universities in London and New York City reveals the scope—and variation—of university urbanism within and across global urban higher education systems. The empirical analysis points toward the need for adaptive approaches through which urban actors can leverage universities in the analysis and governance of urban processes. Conclusions are drawn for public policy and university outreach.

From the “smart city” to the “smart metropolis”? Building resilience in the urban periphery

The “smart city” has risen to global prominence over the past two decades as an urban planning and development strategy. As a broad but contested toolkit of technological services and policy interventions aimed at improving the efficacy and efficiency of urban systems, the “smart city” is subject to several pressing critiques. This paper acknowledges these concerns, but recognizes the potential of “urban intelligence” to enhance the resiliency of metropolitan areas. As such, we focus on an under-researched dimension of smart city urbanism: its application in peripheral urban areas. The paper introduces a threefold typology of: (a) geographic (spatial); (b) hard (material); and (c) soft (social) urban peripherality. Second, it reviews the concept of urban resilience and considers how its central characteristics can inform the objectives and implementation of “smart city” infrastructures and planning. Six European smart city plans are assessed via a qualitative content analysis, to identify the target of smart city actions; the characteristics of urban resilience mobilized; and the spatial focus of planned interventions. The comparative analysis reveals a variegated set of smart-city approaches. Notably, “smart” actions aimed at enhancing social innovation are the most common type of intervention, while overall there remains a strong tendency for smart urbanism to focus on the urban core. We conclude by calling for a research agenda addressing smartness in, of, and for, peripheral urban spaces and communities.

University-led innovation in and for peripheral urban areas: new approaches in Naples, Italy and Newark, NJ, US

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the spatial development problem of university-led innovation in peripheral urban areas. Highlighting issues of proximity, uneven geographic development, and multi-scalar urban governance as weaknesses of the regional innovation systems literature, we provide a novel synthesis of regional economics, innovation policy, and critical urban studies to assess the development roles of universities in concrete contexts. A comparative investigation of Naples and Newark, NJ captures the functional operation of regional innovation and urban development as a contested product of discourses, technologies (material and governance), and territorial arrangements. Our analysis demonstrates the significance of multi-scalar relationships in structuring innovation policy and practice in peripheral urban areas. The architecture of innovation is not simply rolled out into pre-determined spatial containers in places lacking established ‘institutional thickness’ or urban centrality. The spatial development of university-led innovation is a social product: material and governance infrastructures are essential components of the urban fabric and are essential to its co-constitution. Universities are shown to contribute differing resources dependent on their institutional strategic goals and the capacities and spatial imaginaries afforded to them by their situation in broader territorial governance regimes. We conclude by drawing comparative lessons and identifying directions for future research.

Recapturing Democracy: Neoliberalization and the Struggle for Alternative Urban Futures. Mark Purcell

An expanding body of critical geographic literature now documents the impacts of neoliberalism on cities in advanced capitalist societies. Incisive critiques have detailed how the paradoxical operational logics of neoliberal urban policy, the disparity between ideological discourse and material outcomes, and the disenfranchisement engendered by ever more commodification and privatization have made cities increasingly undemocratic, revanchist, and driven by the requirements of capital accumulation. While this research has done much to expose the internal contradictions of the neoliberal project, particularly surrounding the rescaling and re-regulation of the state, in Recapturing Democracy, Mark Purcell suggests “there is a danger that as we develop a robust critique of the various injustices of neoliberalization, we will focus only on the doors it is closing. If we highlight instead the contradictions of, and the emerging resistance to, neoliberalization, we can clearly see the countless opportunities it is leaving open” (p. 3). Purcell aims to illuminate such fissures in neoliberalism’s hegemony through developing a workable, politicized theorization of radical democracy. This, he suggests, can open the space to resist the neoliberalization of urban life and enable us to envision more progressive urban futures. Purcell expands his thesis through four chapters. Chapter 1 presents a summary of critical geographical engagements with neoliberalism. Through it, Purcell lays out how such research has explored processes of rescaling and restructuring in the global economy, and the hegemonic ascension of neoliberal political-economic thought and policy implementation. Purcell’s own theorization of neoliberalism draws on two key suppositions: firstly, despite its rhetoric, the political goal of neoliberalization is not the beneficent extension of open, competitive markets and the retraction of the state, but rather the transformation of state policy to better meet the needs of capital. Secondly, neoliberalism is understood as a process, neoliberalization, which is never complete, instead occupying a position of (albeit temporary) hegemonic dominance. Chapter 2 provides an illuminating review of existing democratic theory. Through unpacking the ideological and operational complexities of liberal, deliberative, participatory, and revolutionary democracy, as well as radical pluralism, Purcell expertly decouples dominant hegemonic linkages between neoliberalism and (liberal) democracy. Influenced by the anti-essentialism of Mouffe and Laclau, he draws on particular elements of each democratic school to expound on the ways in which democratization might be used to challenge neoliberalization. These two chapters serve to frame the innovative argument that constitutes Recapturing Democracy’s substantive contribution, yet they also act as a solid introduction to existing literature and debates on neoliberalism and democracy for those wishing to get a handle on these complex, important concepts. In Chapter 3, Purcell develops his theorization of “radical democratization and radical equalization” through elaborating a set of “oppositional democratic attitudes.” These “attitudes” are embedded within a social movement model of agonistic (as opposed to antagonistic) leftist politics and alternate from rejecting hegemonic and “common-sense” understandings of democracy (p. 77) to developing “a clear commitment to oppose neoliberalization” (p. 83). Purcell initially frames the argument abstractly, but moves to mobilize his construction of radical democratization, in a manner that is both spatial and urban, through an interpretation of Lefebvre’s “right to the city.” This critical engagement is one of the book’s main strengths. Acknowledging the latent power of the term, but also its increasingly empty populist rhetoric (pp. 90–92), Purcell systematically develops an interpretation of the “right to the city” which remains open and flexible enough to avoid dogmatism, yet becomes grounded in an applied political framework. In premising his interpretation upon (1) the construction of a “right” as a claim, rather than a formalized privilege codified in law, thus continually struggled for; and (2) the development of a trio of such rights to “appropriation,”