Debating the Neoliberal City

The “neoliberal city†thesis emanates from Anglo-American radical geographers and political economists who draw their inspiration from Neo-Marxist literature and the French Regulation School. It has become a key structuring analytical framework in the field of urban studies. It helps to explain both the ongoing transformation of urban policies and the socio-spatial effects of these policies within cities and highlights the prominent role of cities in the new geography of capitalism. It also provides a theory of the transformation of urban policies from an orientation towards “demand†and the reproduction of the workforce to support for capital investment, the creation of a “good business climate†and the attraction of the so-called creative classes. Bringing together a team of leading scholars from across the social sciences, this book challenges the “neoliberal city†framework on several fronts. It argues that the definition of neo-liberalization may be hazier than it seems, because the notion is both an essential tool of political contention and an analytical instrument. There are also methodological problems due to the thesis appearing much too general, too wide and too closed, resulting in over-simplified explanations of some processes such as the rise of metropolitan governments or the importance taken by urban economic development policies or gentrification. As a structuralist and macro-level theory, the “neoliberal city†thesis does not appear to shed light upon micro-level processes or to identify and analyze actors’ logics and practices. Finally, the neoliberal city thesis is profoundly influenced by UK and US historical trajectories. It is nourished by the traumatic experiences associated with the implementation of neoliberal policies by the Reagan and Thatcher governments of the 1980s. The generalization of this experience to other contexts often leads to a kind of academic ethnocentrism. These reservations do not represent a rejection of the potential scientific value of the neoliberal city thesis. Most of the authors who contribute to this volume acknowledge merit in the neoliberalization thesis and some clearly adopt insights from the neo-liberalization framework. Others are more sceptical, question the analytical added-value of this notion and try to refine it by articulating it with analytical frameworks more sensitive to diversity and agency, such as neo-institutionalist approaches.

Gilles Pinson is Professor of Political Science at the Sciences Po Bordeaux, Centre Emile Durkheim, France.

Christelle Morel Journel is Senior Lecturer in Geography at the Universite Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, France.