Cities of Difference

How can contemporary theories of difference enhance our understanding of traditional urban studies concerns such as housing, labor markets, and structures of state entitlement? What are the connections between urban space and identity politics? This provocative text provides fresh perspectives on the fragmented city within a cultural political economy framework. Contributors explore the role of race, ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality, able-bodiedness, and other axes of difference in the geography of postmodern cities. Using a range of cutting-edge theoretical and methodological approaches, the book probes the relationship of the broader realities of urban life--economic polarization, gentrification, and the proliferation of sites of consumption to the everyday life and political power of different communities.

Ruth Fincher is Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where she has lectured since 1986. She received her doctorate in Geography from Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, and has been on the faculty at McGill University and McMaster University in Canada. Her research, teaching, and publications focus primarily on critical urban studies, feminist theories of the state, multiculturalism and immigration, and sociospatial polarization.

Jane M. Jacobs is Senior Lecturer in Geography at the University of Melbourne. Since earning her PhD from University College London, she has published widely in the area of cultural geography. Her specific interests include racialized identity politics, urban studies, and postcolonialism. She is author of Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City and coauthor of Uncanny Australia: Sacredness and Identity in a Postcolonial Nation.