Linda McCarthy

The brownfield dual land-use policy challenge: reducing barriers to private redevelopment while connecting reuse to broader community goals

Brownfields are abandoned or under-utilised sites with known or suspected environmental contamination. Public-sector efforts to promote brownfields redevelopment face a dual land-use policy challenge. On the one hand, government agencies must help reduce the barriers to private-sector reuse by addressing the uncertainties created by four major issues: legal liability for contamination; uncertain cleanup standards; availability of funding for redevelopment; and complicated regulatory requirements. On the other hand, brownfields reuse must be connected to wider community efforts to achieve environmental protection, central city revitalisation and reduced suburban sprawl. This involves tackling sustainable development and environmental justice issues: the marketability of brownfields; the social costs and benefits of developing greenfields versus redeveloping brownfields and meaningful community participation. This paper examines the progress by US local, state and federal agencies during the last decade in addressing this dual challenge. It is based on a review of the interdisciplinary brownfields literature, and evidence from Toledo, Ohio, whose experience promoting cleanup and reuse reflects that of many Midwestern and Northeastern cities.

Off the Mark? Efficiency in Targeting the Most Marketable Sites Rather Than Equity in Public Assistance for Brownfield Redevelopment

Targeting public redevelopment funding toward the most marketable brownfields is viewed as an economically efficient use of scarce resources because it may guarantee the greatest likelihood of success. But to what extent does this policy result in spatial and social inequities by neglecting contaminated sites in distressed neighborhoods containing minority and low-income populations? This case study of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, identified that tracts with above-average percentages of African Americans and Hispanics, although containing above-average numbers of brownfields per square mile and higher percentages of brownfields compared to percentage of the citys area, had below-average city-assisted redevelopments as a percentage of all brownfields. A policy implication is that despite difficulties promoting brownfield redevelopment in distressed neighborhoods, in addition to economic efficiencies, more emphasis is needed on the social benefits of public assistance for brownfield redevelopment, including potential spillover benefits, such as crime reduction and health improvements for surrounding neighborhoods.

Urban Management and Regeneration in the United States: State Intervention or Redevelopment at All Costs?

Abstract For some commentators, urban regeneration in the United States is built around a narrowly economistic or neo-liberal model of redevelopment rather than a socially inclusive or participatory ‘new regionalist’ model. In considering whether or not there is a uniformly neo-liberal ‘US model’ of urban regeneration, this paper examines a variety of urban regeneration tools currently used in the US. These include: public–private partnerships; special purpose districts; revenue and general obligation bonds; tax-increment financing of redevelopment; and community activism and engagement. Although we discern a tendency towards ‘redevelopment at all costs’, actual regeneration tools as well as the uses to which they are put vary considerably according to conditions found in specific cities and metropolitan areas. We argue that the new Obama administration heralds a more interventionist federal urban policy regime. This new regime will be constructed out of the challenges posed by the material legacy of neo-liberal forms of urban development and the desire to build sustainable and inclusive metropolitan regions around a range of new federal infrastructural and housing programmes.

Debating Temporary Uses for Vacant Urban Sites: Insights for Practice from a Stakeholder Workshop

Abstract Temporary land uses have become the focus of much debate within academic and policy circles in recent years. Although the international literature contains numerous case studies of temporary interventions, little attention has been paid to the dynamics of the interactions among different stakeholders. This paper reports on a stakeholder workshop that used a participatory research approach to collectively define the issues facing those interested in the potential of vacant urban sites. The paper outlines the goals, design and evaluation of the workshop and concludes with a discussion of suggested lessons for practice that emerged from the workshop sessions.

“Logalization”: local–global processes and the Shiling leather industrial district in Guangzhou, China

Much of the research on industrialization in less developed countries like China focus on top-down globalization processes associated with foreign direct investment from transnational corporations. This paper attempts to augment that literature with greater attention for bottom-up processes, which are also important in China. This case study of the Shiling leather industrial district was chosen because of the importance of bottom-up initiated local processes that began independently of global forces, yet evolved to become tied into larger processes of globalization: a process we term “logalization”. Our conceptual framework is illustrated using our general model of how this kind of industrial district links into the world market; it includes the importance of “regional structure” comprising not just the industrial district itself but also wholesale markets as well as trade fairs that connect industrial production into the global economy. We examine how the Shiling industrial district was initiated by local forces, and how this district and the other components of “regional structure” have evolved and acted as a bridge between the local and the global; the role of the local and provincial governments as part of “logalization” processes; and how the low-skill, low-quality, high-volume industrial production in Shiling, albeit among small companies, does not yet fit into a neo-Marshallian industrial district model.

Cities in Globalization. Peter J. Taylor, Ben Derudder, Pieter Saey, and Frank Witlox, editors.

Cities in Globalization is part of Routledge’s “Questioning Cities” series edited by Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson. The aim of this series is to extend current debates by showcasing research that draws on contemporary social, urban, and critical theory to explore different aspects of the city. The publication of Cities in Globalization followed a conference at Ghent University in 2005 on research that has attracted increasing attention recently: inter-city relations within the context of contemporary globalization. The invited contributors came from economics, geography, planning/ architecture, and sociology. This conference was designed to follow a previous world cities conference at Virginia Tech in 1993 that resulted in the 1995 publication of the benchmark World Cities in a World-Economy (Knox and Taylor). Cities in Globalization begins with an interesting Prologue by Peter Taylor. He calls for an alternative process-based way of studying city relations in a globalizing world that improves upon conventional national urban systems research. This new approach would go beyond the traditional social sciences disciplinary divisions of economics, political science, and sociology to produce not merely interdisciplinary but what Taylor calls “uni-disciplinary” research. It will be interesting to see more studies in the future that operationalize this approach. In their brief Introduction, the editors make clear that, although used by the chapter authors, the terms “world cities” (associated with John Friedmann) or “global cities” (associated with Saskia Sassen) were not used in the book’s title. Rather, the use of “cities in globalization” was intended to capture the changing and relational nature of contemporary globalization and how, in the conceptualization of the editors, globalization processes constitute a global social space—a space of flows—through cities. Like the term, “globalizing cities,” the editors’ use of “cities in globalization” is meant to exemplify the pervasiveness of the processes of globalization: all cities are “world” and “global” to some degree despite not making it onto the usual list of global cities or hierarchy of world cities. The book is divided into four parts based on four key themes. The first part—world city networks—comprises chapters that offer different ways of measuring inter-city networks. This part of the book is valuable because, in addition to discussing a number of theories about world/global cities and their interconnectedness, these chapters offer empirical evidence for testing some of these theories. Arthur Alderson and Jason Beckfield use the world cities literature and social network analysis to conceptualize corporate power in order to test the world city hypothesis. Their preliminary empirical results from a longitudinal study of transnational corporations and their subsidiaries are consistent with the world city hypothesis, but indicate that core-periphery differences have intensified. Frank Witlox and Ben Derudder discuss some data-specific problems associated with using airline passenger data, and introduce a new dataset to overcome some of the limitations of past longitudinal studies. Jonathan Beaverstock examines how world city networks are generated “from below” through the continued need for face-to-face contacts that fuels international labor mobility by expert professional staff, including investment bankers. Paul Knox uses Taylor’s interlocking network model of city relations to examine the recent internationalization of design services. He finds a dominance of large architectural practices in world regions that are attracting significant investment in real estate, such as Pacific Asia and the Middle East Gulf States. The second part of the book—inter-city relations in networks and systems—covers recent European advances in studying urban systems (as compared to the Anglo-American city networks approach that was more a feature of World Cities in a World-Economy). Bert van der Knaap uses empirical examples from the Netherlands and Southeast Asia to discuss issues of uncertainty and the role of scale and hierarchies in city networks. Roberto Camagni outlines a city network

Globalization and Its Outcomes

rhetoric (pp. 109, 114, 119). Conservatives and liberals share a common political strategy: to act upon others by getting them to act in their own interest. It is only the content of powerless people’s interests over which the conservatives and liberals disagree. The lesson learned, according to Wilson, is that we need to recognize the politics of language and create ‘‘persuasive alternative truths about issues like ‘black-on-black violence’ that confronts dominant versions’’ (p. 121). Politics needs to be extended beyond the realm of action to the realm of language. Conservative discourse seeks to make race invisible or at least more consumable than the more traditional biological-determinism variety. But the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina exposed and renewed the debate about race and economic inequality in America, making Inventing Black-on-Black Violence a most timely work. According to conservative discourse, it is the market that determines the rules of the game. The ‘‘rising tide’’ of globalization ‘‘lifted all boats.’’ Inner-city spaces compete freely within a deregulated global market and what their residents get out of it is what they deserve. But if those left behind got what they deserved, why were so many Americans outraged by what they saw in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina? Through Wilson’s discourse analysis of black-on-black violence, we learn that conservatives were able to colonize the inner city with black youth of similar behavior and attitude, tying black bodies to inner-city space. Black bodies have always ‘‘been used as potent semiotic cargo’’; post-1980 conservatives more profoundly tied these bodies to ghetto space (p. 55). Within the context of this discourse driven by both conservatives and liberals, many were surprised at what they saw wading through the floodwaters of New Orleans. Black-on-black violence discourse fueled the perception that the black bodies wading through the floodwaters of New Orleans should have been those of dysfunctional black youths. Instead, what we saw were black bodies of babies, mothers, grandmothers, the working poor who (literally) did not have boats to be lifted into, thus they were left behind. For conservatives, racism and economic inequality were not the causal factors for those left behind in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. Those left behind lacked proper conductFthey displayed a ‘‘welfare state mentality’’ that erodes self-reliance, inducing them to wait for government help instead of saving themselves. For Wilson, this is part of a larger discourse that supports major political and economic objectives. Underclass communities, not structural or societal forces, erode America’s inner cities. Discourse can be given greater authority if placed within a larger political and economic framework. Construction of black-on-black violence is a part of a larger construction (neoliberalism) occurring at the global scale. Social and regulatory processes cannot be assigned to a specific scale. There is the power of discourse, but there is also something beyond it. Author David Wilson situates the construction of black-onblack violence beyond the discourse itself into a larger political and economic context, and quite correctly points out that there is a lack of ‘‘contextual richness of discourse.’’ In providing this contextual richness, David Wilson’s Inventing Black-on-Black Violence concludes that ‘‘the U.S. capitalist experience was thus at the heart of producing these understandings about black-on-black violence’’ (pp. 154–55).