Urban Politics Reconsidered Growth Machine To Post-Democratic City MACLEOD 2011

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Urban Politics Reconsidered: Growth Machine to Post-democratic City?

Gordon MacLeod
Urban Stud 2011 48: 2629
DOI: 10.1177/0042098011415715
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48(12) 2629–2660, September 2011
Urban Politics Reconsidered: Growth

Machine to Post-democratic City?
Gordon MacLeod
[Paper first received, February 2011; in final form, June 2011]
Abstract
Over the past three decades, research in urban politics or increasingly urban
governance reveals a landscape powerfully reflecting what might now be defined as a
post-political consensus. Following a waning of the community power, urban man-
agerialist and collective consumption debates, this ‘new urban politics’ has appeared
conspicuously absorbed with analysing a purported consensus around economic
growth alongside a proliferation of entrepreneurially oriented governing regimes.
More recent contributions, acknowledging the role of the state and governmental-
ities of criminal justice, uncover how downtown renaissance is inscribed through
significant land privatisations and associated institutionalised expressions like
Business Improvement Districts and other ‘primary definers’ of ‘public benefit’: all
choreographed around an implicit consensus to ‘police’ the circumspect city, while
presenting as ultra-politics anything that might disturb the strict ethics of consumer-
ist citizenship. Beyond downtown, a range of shadow governments, secessionary
place-makings and privatisms are remaking the political landscape of post-suburbia.
It is contended that the cumulative effect of such metropolitan splintering may well
be overextending our established interpretations of urban landscapes and city poli-
tics, prompting non-trivial questions about the precise manner in which political
representation, democracy and substantive citizenship are being negotiated across
metropolitan regions, from downtown streetscape to suburban doorstep. This paper
suggests that recent theorisations on post-democracy and the post-political may help
to decode the contemporary landscape of urban politics beyond governance, perhaps
in turn facilitating a better investigation of crucial questions over distributional jus-
tice and metropolitan integrity.
We believe that the question of who governs or exceptions ., one issue consistently generates
rules has to be asked in conjunction with the consensus among local élite groups and sepa-
equally central question ‘For what?’ With rare rates them from people who use the city
Gordon MacLeod is in the Department of Geography, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE,
UK. E-mail: gordon.macleod@durham.ac.uk.
0042-0980 Print/1360-063X Online

Ó 2011 Urban Studies Journal Limited
DOI: 10.1177/0042098011415715
2630 GORDON MACLEOD
principally as a place to live and work: the issue 2008). And in mature cities, we see a
of growth. . The desire for growth creates ‘renaissance’ of redundant docklands and
consensus among a wide range of élite groups, former industrial inner-city zones into
no matter how split they might be on other mixed-use creative cultural quarters, buzz-
issues (Logan and Molotch, 1987, pp. 50–51). ing economic districts, heritage and tourism
villages and gentrified apartments exempli-
urban governance at the beginning of the 21st fied by the experiences of Baltimore Harbor
century has shifted profoundly .. It operates Place, London’s Canary Wharf and Lower
through a range of geographical scales, and Manhattan (Boyer, 1993; Harvey, 2000;
mobilizes a wide assortment of social actors. Fainstein, 2004; Porter and Shaw, 2009).
. It is a governance regime concerned with What lies behind these diverse trends?
policing, controlling and accentuating the Well, in many instances, such events and
imperatives of a globally connected neo- projects have been orchestrated by state-led
liberalized market economy for which there is coalitions and special-purpose agencies
ostensibly no alternative, while intensifying whose aim is to boost urban economies
bio-political control and surveillance. This amid a quicksilver globalising capitalism
new ‘polic(y)ing’ order reflects . a post- and, in older industrial regions, to revive
political and post-democratic constitution economic fortunes after the breakdown of
(Swyngedouw, 2011, p. 3). the Fordist accumulation regime (Mayer,
1994). Deluxe landscapes coupled with a
1. Reconsidering Urban Politics and spirited branding of a city’s image will pur-
Governance portedly attract globally mobile investors
alongside a creative class of professionals
The past three decades have witnessed far- and revenue-generating tourists (see
reaching transformations in the economic Peterson, 1981; Florida, 2002). This received
and social ecology of cities alongside specta- wisdom is emblematic of what has been
cular conversions to their built environ- labelled a ‘new urban politics’. It has ushered
ments. Across the global North and South, in an instantly recognisable vocabulary—
a rapidly urbanising but radically uneven ‘local boosterism’, ‘urban revitalisation’,
landscape is reflected in several notable ‘place marketing’, ‘growth coalitions’,
trends. Examples include: a design-intensive ‘entrepreneurialism’—and has assumed
fashioning of downtowns featuring high- considerable influence in academic and
rise corporate plazas and glittering commer- urban planning debates over the past three
cial citadels, hotels and convention centres decades (Harvey, 1989; Leitner, 1990; Cox,
(Connell, 1999; Turner, 2002); a prolifera- 1993, 1995; Paddison, 1993; Boyle and
tion of mega projects of iconic development Hughes, 1995; Cochrane et al., 1996; Hall
and associated infrastructures (Graham and and Hubbard, 1996; Cochrane, 1999;
Marvin, 2001; Douglass and Huang, 2007; DeFilippis, 1999; Jonas and Wilson, 1999;
Young and Keil, 2010); a globally mediated Ward, 2007, 2009; Ribera-Fumaz, 2009).
bidding process to host prestige exhibitions The new urban politics is distinguishable
and magnetic arts, cultural and sporting in several respects from the ‘old’ urban poli-
venues and events (Gold and Gold, 2005); tics of the mid 20th century, most notably the
and a punctuation of metropolitan space US community power debate between élite
with midtown luxury condominiums and theory and pluralism, urban managerialism
suburban master-planned communities in England and Marxian analysis of a politi-
(Dick and Rimmer, 1998; Soja, 2000; Knox, cised collective consumption in European
URBAN POLITICS RECONSIDERED 2631
cities (Saunders, 1986; Savage et al., 2003). encapsulated by the ‘new urban political’
The first concerns the greater diversity of analysis. These include an intensified regula-
actors—private, professional, voluntary, tion of downtown via privatised agencies epi-
non-profit, non-governmental—involved in tomised by the Business Improvement
urban policy and politics beyond the formal District (Ward, 2007); a related securitisation
machinery of government, not least the and revanchist policing of downtowns
enrolment of property developers and busi- (Smith, 1996; MacLeod, 2002; Coleman,
ness leaders into growth coalitions and 2009); a transformation of suburbia vis-à-vis
public–private partnerships, giving rise to an edge city ‘shadow governments’ and an erup-
‘urban privatism’ (Barnekov et al., 1989; tion of territorialising gated ‘communities’
Peck, 1995; Gotham, 2001). Secondly, this eager to secede from the formal urban politi-
has reconfigured the local state, instituting a cal arena (McKenzie, 2005; Knox, 2008).
mode of ‘public entrepreneurialism’ and a Close investigation would also uncover pre-
speculative investment of public funds and mium corporate-consumerist spaces, herme-
risk-taking habitus more readily associated tically insulated and enabled via customised
with the private-sector (Duncan and infrastructures and ‘smart’ travel nodes to
Goodwin, 1988; Leitner, 1990). And, thirdly, network a renascent downtown with affluent
all this is intertwined with a shift in the prio- suburbs while bypassing sedentary ‘marginal’
rities of City Hall as erstwhile Keynesian spaces (Graham and Marvin, 2001); a ‘poli-
managerial commitments to extend social tics of infrastructure’ and related assembling
services and collective consumption to local of inventive city-like spaces ‘in-between’ the
citizens are challenged by the disciplinary urban heartland and suburban hinterland
codes of a seemingly intoxicating neo-liberal (Young and Keil, 2010); an astonishing pro-
consensus to generate economic growth per liferation of informal slums and informality
se (Harvey, 1989; Hubbard and Hall, 1998; per se as a mode of urbanisation in the global
Brenner and Theodore, 2002; Wilson, 2004; South (Roy, 2005; Davis, 2006); and the
Hackworth, 2007): hence customary refer- enrolment of cities as crucial sites in the cir-
ences to the post-Fordist ‘city as a growth culation of capital, culture and mobile policy
machine’ (Logan and Molotch, 1987). In a (Amin, 2004; McCann and Ward, 2010).
highly influential paper, David Harvey (1989) The cumulative effect of such metropoli-
characterised these transformations in urban tan splintering1 may well be overextending
governance as a shift from managerialism to our established interpretations of urban
entrepreneurialism. landscapes and city politics including the
The assorted contributions plausibly new urban politics. For, on the one hand,
encapsulated as part of the new urban politics the unfolding 21st-century urban-regional
have undeniably offered important insights geography—at times resolutely territorialis-
about the institutional agents governing ing yet simultaneously relational, connecting
cities and the strategic dilemmas confronting places, material objects and communities
those charged with planning urban econo- transterritorially—is rendering cities less dis-
mies: what some term ‘the politics of local cernible, prompting a reassessment of the
economic development’ (Cox, 1995; Wood, maps, concepts and theories at our disposal
1996). Nonetheless, a forensic analysis of the to make cities legible (Soja, 2000; Amin and
afore-mentioned landscape conversions Thrift, 2002; Dear and Flusty, 2002; Amin,
would also reveal novel governances that, 2004, 2006; Phelps et al., 2010). And, as out-
while undoubtedly facilitated by the new lined by Vigar et al. (2005) the ways in which
urban political processes are perhaps less well we conceptualise cities profoundly influence
2632 GORDON MACLEOD
policy formulations and outcomes. On the It is in this sense not least that debate
other hand, following Dear and Dahmann within urban politics might benefit from a
(2008), it is important to acknowledge how closer engagement with work pertaining to
the ‘altered geographies’ signalled earlier are an emerging post-political condition
redefining the meaning and practice of (Rancière, 2001; Mouffe, 2005), a supposed
urban politics: perhaps to the point of has- onset of post-democracy in institutional for-
tening a reconsideration of available voca- mulations (Crouch, 2004) and the unravel-
bularies for conceptualising the governance ling of a post-democratic city (Swyngedouw,
of a landscape appearing to surface as an 2009, 2010, 2011). For many of the policies,
archipelago of immaculately conceived pri- programmes and practices unleashed by
vatised ‘public’ spaces, territorial fiefdoms what the OECD (2007) has termed the
and informal reservations and their undulat- ‘entrepreneurial paradigm in spatial develop-
ing but vastly asymmetrical circulations of ment’—itself a product and generator of a
power, privilege and entitlement (Flusty, late neo-liberal accumulation regime that has
2001; AlSayyad and Roy, 2006; Sidaway, restored power to capitalist classes and fun-
2007; Roy, 2009). damentally sanctified private property—have
It thereby behoves analysis of early 21st- been presented by apologists and a benign
century urban governance to be appreciative media as the ‘commonsense’ doxa and the
of the rapid evolution of new settlement pat- only ‘sensible’ or ‘responsible’ mode of ‘good
terns and transforming landscapes (Phelps governance’ (Keil, 2002; Harvey, 2005;
and Wood, 2011). In addition, however, the Paddison, 2009). Arguably, this process of
extraordinary global diffusion of public– polic(y)ing and governing through a stage-
private partnerships, specialised agencies, managed consensus is serving to depoliticise
shadow governments, voluntary non-profits, 21st-century capitalism’s deeply antagonistic
micropolises, secessionary privatopias and social relations, suturing alternative political
localist homeowner associations provokes spaces and neutralising dissenting voices and
non-trivial questions about the precise the agonism viewed to be mandatory for a
manner in which political representation, ‘properly’ political urban landscape (Mouffe,
democracy and substantive citizenship are 2005; Rancière, 1994; Swyngedouw, 2010).
being negotiated across metropolitan regions, Indeed, Swyngedouw contends that
from downtown streetscape to suburban
Late capitalist urban governance and debates
doorstep (Dreier et al., 2001; Coleman, 2004;
over the arrangement of the city are not only
Kohn, 2004; Martin, 2004a; McKenzie, 2005;
perfect expressions of such a post-political
Iveson, 2007; Knox, 2008; Purcell, 2008;
order, but in fact, the making of new creative
Staeheli and Mitchell, 2008; Minton, 2009).
and entrepreneurial cities is one of the key
Again, the perspectives emblematic of the
arenas through which . a postpolitical con-
‘new urban politics’ and its associated nor-
sensus becomes constructed (Swyngedouw,
malised narrative—while admirably instruct-
2010, p. 8).
ing us about the constitutional form of
governing coalitions for urban economic
This paper offers a rudimentary contribution
development—may well be failing to keep
towards reconsidering urban politics and
pace with tectonic shifts in the process and
governance amid the transformations already
practice of everyday urban politics (McCann
outlined. In this sense, it accepts recent invi-
and Ward, 2010; McGuirk and Dowling,
tations to ‘‘encourage researchers to refocus
2009, 2011; Roy, 2009).
on more diverse sites of urban politics’’
(Dear and Dahmann, 2008, p. 278) and to In a critical appraisal penned nearly two
re-evaluate the theoretical frameworks for decades ago, Kevin Cox (1993) viewed the
researching urban politics (Wood, 2004). new urban politics (hereafter NUP) to be
The rudimentary form pertains not least to characterised by two major points.3 First,
its selective geography, in particular the the raison d’être of urban politics in the US
number of examples from the US; although was increasingly about local economic
this in itself serves to illustrate the extent to development, not least the competition
which, since the 1950s, debate on urban poli- between city governments for investments
tics has often been dominated by US-based and infrastructural projects, downtown
perspectives (Harding, 1999; Wood, 2004; commercial revitalisation, and the conflicts
MacLeod and Jones, 2011). To this extent, surrounding development or redevelop-
the paper continually skirts on the precipice ment. The second point refers to the partic-
of analytical synecdoche.2 However, and fol- ular conceptual frameworks available for
lowing Ward (2010), in order to assuage the understanding this ascendant urban poli-
extremities of synecdoche, where appropriate tics. Here Cox noted that certain influential
the geographical referents are widened, argu- analyses underlined how urban political
ments about certain spaces restrained and challenges were ‘situated’ within a ‘wider’
appreciation granted to how any particular context of globalisation, in particular the
site is relationally connected to other terri- increasing mobility of financial and indus-
torial contexts. trial capital relative to city governments
The paper continues with section 2, and communities and the process of inter-
summarising key contributions from the urban competition ensuing as a conse-
new urban politics literature. Section 3 quence. One prominent contribution
then presents examples of the transform- emerged from public choice theorist, Paul
ing metropolitan landscape, revealing an Peterson (1981), whose book, City Limits,
increasingly complex geography punctu- raised the then quite controversial argu-
ated by a range of secessionary places and ment that, in endeavouring to foster a pros-
privatised enclaves, and considers how this perous local economy amid feverish global
appears quietly to be permitting a splinter- competition, city governments must sus-
ing of urban governances throughout the pend egalitarian and redistributive objec-
metropolitan region. Section 4 contends tives and concentrate wholly on investment
that this myriad of splintering privatisms and efficiency. Significantly, the ‘new reali-
appear to be reshaping the possibilities ties’ of globalisation and the limits enforced
and practices of politics and democratic upon urban authorities therein prompted
engagement. The paper concludes with Peterson (1981, p. 4) to contend that city
some openings for researching early 21st- administration should be about selecting
century metropolitical landscapes. the right ‘‘policies which are in the interests
of the city, taken as a whole’’ rather than
about any engagement in politics (see also
2. Revisiting New Urban Politics: Cox, 1993).
A Consensus around ‘Growth’. Cox distinguishes Peterson’s somewhat
‘Entrepreneurialism’ and ‘Privatism’ fatalistic approach from contributions that
variously permit latitude for political choice
Quite clearly, urban development, for many and for analysing the relational processes,
scholars, is now what the study of urban pol- such as land use struggles, which are central
itics is about (Cox, 1993, p. 433). to the unfolding political economic
2634 GORDON MACLEOD
landscape of many US cities (Leitner, 1990; base offers ideological hegemony and politi-
DeFilippis, 1999; Harding, 1999). One of the cal legitimacy to the coalition, helping to
most influential has been the ‘city as growth disarm critics, the key unifying thread being
machine’. It originates from Molotch’s spec- a consensus around ‘value-free develop-
ulation that ment’ and city-wide growth as a public good
(Logan and Molotch, 1987, p. 33; Jonas and
the political and economic essence of virtually Wilson, 1999).
any given locality, in the present American An alternative perspective offering
context, is growth. . a common interest in insights about the institutionalisation of the
growth is the overriding commonality among NUP is urban regime theory. Like Logan
people in a given locale—at least insofar as and Molotch, regime theorists examine the
they have any important local goals at all. alliances that materialise to govern US
Further, this growth imperative is the most cities, although the analytical focus extends
important constraint upon available options beyond property to consider the general
for local initiative in social and economic
reform. It is thus that I argue that the very informal arrangements by which public
essence of a locality is its operation as a growth bodies and private interests function together
machine (Molotch, 1976, pp. 309–310). in order to be able to make and carry out
governing decisions (Stone, 1989, p. 6).
While Molotch’s highlighting of ‘important
constraints’ on local initiative clearly reso- Stone is keen to distance regime theory
nates with Peterson, he treats political from earlier debates on community power:
agency seriously signalling how a city’s oper- contra pluralism, it investigates enduring
ation as a growth machine attracts certain governing coalitions rather than a ‘dis-
actors into its politics, not least rentiers or persed authority’ while it departs from élite
place entrepreneurs and most significantly theory in appreciating how regimes incor-
‘structural speculators’ whose horizons porate diverse sources of community
extend beyond basic land acquisition to empowerment thereby making it unlikely
shape the wider property market and influ- for any one group to exercise absolute con-
ence decisions over the location and shape trol over a complex urban landscape (see
of major developments. In aspiring to also Hunter, 1953; Dahl, 1961; Stoker,
achieve this, place entrepreneurs enlist a 1995). In this sense, ‘governing capacity’ is
range of influential agents: a process serving less about domination and resistance
to form what Logan and Molotch (1987) between community groups—who wages
term a ‘growth coalition’.4 Coalition part- ‘power over’ whom—and more about
ners can range from local and metropolitan enabling a capacity to act; a ‘power to’.
capital in construction, finance and banking; Developing this, Stone (1993) contends
professional practices in law, architecture, that, while conflicts can ensue between part-
design and planning; city politicians keen to ners, invariably they coalesce into a regime
acquire sponsorship; other indirect benefici- ‘agenda’, ranging from ‘maintenance
aries of developments like local media and regimes’ undertaking routine service deliv-
utility corporations; and ‘auxiliary players’ ery to ‘middle-class progressive regimes’
with compelling local attachments including motivated around ‘slow-growth’ to growth-
universities, theatres, professional sports oriented ‘development regimes’. This
clubs, small retailers and labour and com- enables researchers to appreciate variation
munity groups. Enlisting this wide social in the patterns of governance between cities
beyond growth (Wood, 2004), although the media are enrolled into the growth coali-
growth machine is echoed in Stone’s (2005, tions and their broadcastings choreograph a
p. 315) acknowledgement that ‘‘in the US ‘loyalty to place’, perhaps ahead of other
especially, business enjoys ready-made identities such as class (Harvey, 1989; Cox,
advantages as a willing and able participant 1993; Ward, 2009). Thirdly, while local gov-
in priority agendas’’. ernments have become more deeply
These two perspectives have enjoyed engaged in urban development beyond tra-
extraordinary influence in urban studies. ditional land use, many significant projects
And while controversies persist about their are increasingly undertaken either by pri-
respective analytical dexterity and applic- vate concerns tendered to ‘the market’ or
ability beyond the US (Lauria, 1997; Jonas special-purpose authorities and quasi-
and Wilson, 1999; Harding, 1999; MacLeod autonomous agencies, often endowed with
and Goodwin, 1999; Wood, 2004), numer- the power of eminent domain (Leitner,
ous case studies reveal the decisive role of 1990; Mayer, 1994; Judd and Swanstrom,
regimes and coalitions in reshaping towns 2006). Oftentimes, these development agen-
and cities and enabling the onset of the cies are governmentally appointed, but ele-
‘entrepreneurial city’ or ‘urban entrepre- gantly safeguarded from the electoral
neurialism’; perhaps the signature concepts process and operating beyond public
in the NUP. The literature on urban entre- accountability; or as Peterson enthused
preneurialism is voluminous (see Harvey, ‘‘free of the usual political constraints’’
1989; Leitner, 1990; Hall and Hubbard, (Peterson, 1981, p. 148). This technocratic
1996; Jessop, 1997; DeFilippis, 1999; Wood, and post-political status renders them sig-
1999; OECD, 2007), but five issues are nificant platforms for growth coalitions
worth noting. First, in a prescient paper on while facilitating considerable freedom for
the wider context around which growth entrepreneurial ventures
coalitions and regimes emerged across the
US, Leitner (1990) reveals how the capital The skills and planning tools developed in
flight and job loss impacting on ‘rustbelt’ some cities to create and negotiate subsidy
cities like Cleveland and Detroit in the late packages for development projects are often
1970s and 1980s threatened their local of a sophistication that corporate accoun-
states’ fiscal capacity and ability to deliver tants would be proud of; public administra-
public services. This struggle to maintain a tors are no longer simply administrators of
managerialist role (Harvey, 1989) thereby public funds but funding brokers. These fea-
placed business élites with access to credit tures strongly suggest a distinctly different,
and finance in a privileged position to exert entrepreneurial approach to urban govern-
influence on local regime agendas, with city ance: an entrepreneurial orientation which
governments often manipulated to relax manifests itself in the attitudes of politicians
planning regulations and offer low-interest as well as public administrators (Leitner,
loans, tax abatements and even direct sub- 1990, pp. 148–149).
sidies to private investors and developers to
ensure a ‘favorable business climate’. The case of Baltimore’s Chief Economic
Secondly, as underlined by Logan and Development Official, quoted in the New
Molotch (1987), the local media can be cru- York Times in 1984, is also suggestive
cial in offering political legitimacy to con-
troversial development and growth agendas, I think corporations appreciate being able to
particularly given how local newspapers and work with us because we’re here to smooth
2636 GORDON MACLEOD
the way. It’s not like trying to deal with a gov- Leitner, 1990; Brenner, 1999; MacLeod and
ernment agency. We’re very entrepreneurial. Goodwin, 1999). It is here that Cox (1993) is
We think government is a business (quoted most critical of the NUP, in particular the
in Levine, 1987, p. 107). assumption that globalisation has reared a
secular tendency towards hyper-mobile capi-
This leads precisely to the fourth issue: tal. Cox’s view is that, far from being a given,
whether urban entrepreneurialism has this demands an appreciation of what he
replaced managerialism. To be sure, compel- terms ‘territorial non-correspondence’: the
ling evidence suggests that business mobilisa- relation in which the geographical mobility
tion around the reform of urban finances has and scalar reach of agents that the state per-
fatally unsettled the municipally collectivised ceives a need to manipulate in order to achieve
provision of social services in some US cities its objectives actually exceeds that of the state’s
following the 1970s crisis (Jonas and Wilson, own territorial scale (Cox, 1993, p. 442). The
1999).8 Evidence was also mounting that geographical unfolding of these interscalar
cities which traditionally exhibited municipal relations means that all agents, even globally
socialism were converting to the ‘new reali- oriented firms, once ‘fixed’ or located in a par-
ties’, with political discourses decoding public ticular territory, encounter non-substitutable
services as ‘‘inefficient and wasteful, and as a spatial relations and become locally dependent
drain on the entrepreneurial economy’’ upon certain services and conditions of repro-
(Goodwin et al., 1993, p. 71; Quilley, 2000). duction, particularly in relation to different
There are, however, counter-arguments territorial levels of the state (city, region,
which suggest that, even allowing for growth nation). And for Cox this relational dialectic
in symbolic flagship developments and urban around fixity and mobility and its expression
arts and cultural projects, municipal expendi- as a ‘local dependence’ ought to be at the heart
ture in some European cities was still com- of urban political analysis (Cox and Mair,
mitted to collective services like health and 1989).
education (Boyle and Hughes, 1995). The Relationality is also central to Neil
final feature concerns the role of the national Brenner’s perspective, which interprets
state in shaping the fiscal health of cities. urban politics as a radically inconstant
Judd and Swanstrom (2006) reveal how US institutional landscape with recent post-
federal aid was crucial in enabling city Fordist Keynesian shifts crystallising at the
authorities to extend welfare services. Yet the multiscalar interface between processes of
decision by President Reagan in 1980 to halve urban economic restructuring and state ter-
nine aid programmes of special importance ritorial reform leading to the formation of
to urban governments can be interpreted as ‘new state spaces’ at the urban and regional
the stick which prompted certain city govern- scales: analytically, this requires an appre-
ments to entreat more avidly an entrepre- ciation of
neurial agenda. It was also the catastrophic
trigger for rising inequality, homelessness and each of the spatial scales on which these inter-
dispossession (Davis, 1990) and the onset of twined processes of reterritorialisation inter-
what Wacquant (2008) terms ‘advanced sect, from the urban-regional to the national
marginality’. and European scales (Brenner, 1999, p. 443).
Important analytical questions are thereby
prompted about the territorial organisation of Such an approach enables a deeper appre-
the state and its role in choreographing an ciation of how urban regimes are orche-
urban-regional terrain (Gottdiener, 1987; strated around and through different levels
of government, including the enrolment of development—which are decoded as on-

community and neighbourhood leaders the-ground ‘commonsense’ while others
(Martin, 2004a), while also enhancing our like socialised redistribution are derided as
understanding of state selectivity in policy, ‘irresponsible’ (Gotham, 2001; Jessop,
both strategic and spatial (Jones, 1997; 2008). Secondly, privatism entails a blurring
McGuirk, 2003; Brenner, 2004): a notable between the public and private, extending
example being how under the Thatcher and beyond the new ‘private interest govern-
Major governments, the UK central state ance’ agencies to punctuate the governmen-
fervently coaxed ‘maverick’ business inter- talisation of urban space more generally.
ests into the sphere of urban politics6 And finally, as outlined by Gotham
(Peck, 1995). While this undoubtedly
helped to reshape the regime ‘agendas’ in the ideology of privatism effectively depoliti-
many towns and cities, the extent to which cizes policy making by systematically exclud-
the bewildering array of partnerships and ing all those voices and interests who reject
quasi-autonomous agencies consequently the sanctity of the ‘free-market’ and the desire
assembled across Britain throughout the to maximize private profits through the use
past two decades can plausibly be analysed of public subsidies. The effect is to insulate
as proper growth coalitions or urban the government policy making process from
regimes remains a moot point (Imrie and public influence and scrutiny, stymie groups
Thomas, 1995; Peck and Tickell, 1995; supporting alternative strategies, and pro-
Wood, 2004). mote policies that favor private actors and
The rise of new agencies and public– corporations rather than the public good
private partnerships has also been inter- (Gotham, 2001, p. 290).
preted as a mode of ‘urban privatism’ that
has in turn reconfigured the social base of The strategic shift towards growth and
the UK state and transformed the sphere of entrepreneurialism has therefore undoubt-
urban policy and politics (Peck, 1995; edly had a profound impact in shaping the
MacLeod, 1999; Hall, 2003). Privatism itself landscape of cities while the shift towards
is deemed to signify ‘‘an underlying confi- ‘privatism’ is significantly reconfiguring the
dence in the capacity of the private sector to institutional landscape of urban politics
create the conditions for personal and com- and policy. The following sections reveal
munity prosperity’’ (Barnekov et al., 1989, how the instillation of privatism is extend-
p. vii). However, many institutions estab- ing beyond the role of businessmen in part-
lished as a result of the feverish entreating nerships and growth coalitions into the
of businessmen are not the agents of market very fabric of everyday urban life, from the
rule replacing a rolled-back state, but part downtown to the neighbourhood.
of a remodelled state apparatus (Peck and
Tickell, 2002). Three consequences ensue.
First, while the renewed representational 3. Assembling Early 21st-century
regime may be politically depicted as a neu- Metropolitan Landscapes:
tral process to shake out lumbering bureau- Cumulative Privatisms,
cratic regulations, its limited social base is Splintering Urban Governance
elbowing in a strategically selective institu-
tional filtering and associated narrowing of
‘acceptable’ policy priorities—invariably urban areas today defy traditional notions of
tax breaks and subsidies for private what a city is. Our old definitions of urban,
2638 GORDON MACLEOD
suburban, and rural fail to capture the com- urban ideal’ towards a ‘splintering urban-
plexity of these vast regions with their super- ism’ which sees urban infrastructures as
highways, sub-divisions, industrial areas, office increasingly significant systematising net-
parks, and resorts pushing far out into the works in shaping the political landscapes of
countryside (Bruegmann, 2006, p. 10). cities.7 Each of these perspectives also offers
crucial insights about a myriad of priva-
The idealised structures of classical urbanism tisms and moments of secession which are
and urban geography—centre and periphery, reconfiguring the geographies of govern-
urban fringe, inside–outside, city–country- ance and politics in contemporary cities
side—are increasingly at odds with the poly- (Dear and Dahmann, 2008; McFarlane and
centric and dispersed forms and landscapes of Rutherford, 2008; Nicholls, 2011). The
most contemporary urban areas. . This, in paper now turns to investigate some of the
turn, challenges the modern tradition of urban signature landscapes that are purportedly
planning and governance that tended to see turning the city ‘inside-out’.
cities effectively as unitary objects, coincident
with specific administrative jurisdictions and 3.1 Secessionary Place-making and
amenable to physical intervention at the local Cumulative Privatisms in a Splintering
level (Vigar et al., 2005, p. 1393). Post-metropolis
These quotations help evoke how early

21st-century urban landscapes are, var- Theories of urban politics cannot be expected
iously, exhibiting processes of such to hold for all times and places . Yet exist-
bewildering complexity that traditional ing theories tend to be limited to addressing
20th-century models of urbanism may be a single settlement type—usually the city
redundant. While some are openly candid ‘proper’ or the ‘urban’ as an undifferentiated
about the difficulties in making cities ‘legi- and unchanging unit of analysis (Phelps and
ble’ (Pile, 1999; Amin and Thrift, 2002), Wood, 2011, pp. 2592–2593).
others are keen to venture mappings and
an urban lexicon beyond the concentric Picking up on Phelps and Wood’s argument,
rings of the Chicago School. The self-styled there is a case to be made that much research
Los Angeles School draws much inspiration in the NUP has perhaps focused dispropor-
from its home city to define a post-modern tionately on signature downtown transfor-
urbanisation—one whose hinterlands mation (discussed in 3.2) and in turn
increasingly organise the centre—as repre- representing this as the ‘urban politics’. This
senting the definitive urban landscape would be short-sighted, especially when
(Dear and Flusty, 2002; Beauregard, 2003). acknowledging that many of the classic
Also taking his cue from Los Angeles, Soja growth machines of US Fordism were actu-
(2000) views the mid-20th-century ally suburban (Logan and Molotch, 1987;
‘modern metropolis’, featuring a definitive Phelps et al., 2010). The formation of a
centre surrounded by a sprawling suburban potent suburban politics was facilitated not
periphery, to be usurped by a ‘postmetro- least by several processes of state spatial
polis’ whose landscapes are being stretched selectivity and the politicised assembling of
out to form a polycentric urban geography. infrastructures (Brenner, 2004; Young and
Drawing on a more general range of urba- Keil, 2010). These included: the 1934 New
nisations, Graham and Marvin (2001) chart Deal federal housing administration’s reform
a departure from the ‘modern integrated of mortgage finance in favour of suburban
housing tracts; the construction of the fed- as well as hospitals, schools and housing.
eral interstate highway (44 000 miles) often The technoburb also
at the expense of stagnant or declining rail-
roads designed to serve the centralised city; lacks any definable borders, a center or
and the remarkable expansion of defence periphery, or clear distinctions between resi-
sectors. On top of this, local government law dential, industrial, and commercial zones
came to prevent central cities from annexing (Fishman, 1990, p. 25).
their surrounding suburbs, enabling the
incorporation of suburban jurisdictions with These are features which Teaford (1997)
local tax powers (Jackson, 1985; Fishman, views to be emblematic of a ‘post-suburbia’
1990). It led to a process of political frag- (Phelps et al., 2010). Garreau (1991) simi-
mentation that divided urban scholars as larly locates ‘curious’ sprawling composites
much as the cities themselves: advocates like Irvine, south of Los Angeles, and
envisaging it to enable consumer choice in Tyson’s Corner, near Washington’s Dulles
balancing desired services with locality, while Airport, and considers them archetypes of
critics derided growing inequality in ame- the 200 edge cities containing two-thirds of
nities across the metropolitan landscape US office space, which differentiates them
alongside the interlocal competition for from the domiciliary suburb and renders
affluent residents which compromised them a city at least functionally, albeit with
metropolitan-wide planning and ultimately political bodies lagging in providing public
encouraged unplanned sprawl (see Peterson, infrastructures and services (Beauregard,
1981; Gottdiener, 1987; Dreier et al., 2001; 1995).
Bruegmann, 2006). A more recent categorisation of this buc-
This unfolding landscape, allied to the caneering pro-growth ‘urbanisation of the
expansion of electricity, telecommunica- suburbs’ is the boomburb. As with edge
tions and other infrastructural networks cities and technoburbs, boomburbs have
(Graham and Marvin, 2001), enabled spec- typically been unravelling along interstate
tacular decentralisation and new opportuni- freeways and are defined as having more
ties for place-making (Walker, 1981; Phelps than 100 000 residents, maintaining double-
et al., 2010). Between 1950 and 1970, as digit rates of population growth for each
American central cities grew by 10 million census since 1970 but without being the core
people, their suburbs grew by 85 million, regional city (Lang and LeFurgy, 2007). The
accounting for three-quarters of new manu- largest of the US’s fifty plus boomburbs,
facturing and retail jobs and helping to con- Mesa, Arizona, is a suburban city 20 miles
struct the ‘malling of America’ (Kowinski, east of Phoenix whose population (esti-
1985). And since the 1970s, the ‘peripheries’ mated at 427 000) now exceeds ‘traditional’
have outpaced downtown cores in office cities like Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and
employment and high technology (Fishman, Miami. Described as ‘accidental cities’,
1990). Suburbia was being transformed not boomburbs are relatively large or medium-
just in scale but scope, prompting Fishman sized but governed like small towns, with
to define a new kind of city: the technoburb. some of the crucial gaps in services and
Conceptually and spiritually far removed infrastructure often filled by homeowner
from the centralised metropolis of the rail- associations and various shadow govern-
road era, the technoburb is assembled ments such as special improvement districts
around superhighways that network malls, (Lang and LeFurgy, 2007). Indeed, Lang and
industrial parks, campus-like officescapes, Nelson (2007, p. 632) identify how
2640 GORDON MACLEOD
homeowner associations (HOAs) are critical environmental amenities (paid for with steep
in enabling boomburbs to maintain their fees) without sharing them with the public
part-time mayors and minimum municipal because they own everything, even the streets
staff by providing free private government: and the sewers. Bear Creek’s citizens like
they cite the case of Mayor Dunn in their private government and are not inclined
Chandler, Arizona, who concluded that if to tax themselves to help solve Seattle’s prob-
HOAs disappeared ‘‘it would be disastrous lems. As one resident put it: ‘‘The citizens
for the city’’. have moved ahead of government. The gov-
Homeowner Associations (HOAs) them- ernment has not kept up with what people
selves (sometimes referred to as common want’’ (Dreier et al., 2001, p. 30).
interest developments, CIDs) are contrac-
tually formed non-profit organisations McKenzie contends that the proclivity for
established to manage residential sub-divi- these lines of flight, far from being an
sions, condominium developments and a ephemeral fashion, is indeed an institu-
growing proliferation of master-planned tional expression redolent of the ideological
gated communities (Blakely and Snyder, shift towards privatism outlined earlier;
1999; Low, 2003). They are increasingly and it is certainly not exclusive to the US
influential in shaping local politics. Through (Caldiera, 2000; Robins, 2002; Webster
boards of directors elected by homeowners, et al., 2002; Douglass and Huang, 2007).
they regulate the physical environment via a He interprets the HOA/CID revolution to
set of covenants, controls and restrictions be driven by three main forces. The first
and impose statutory levies to maintain concerns demand from many middle- and
commonly owned amenities like roads, side- upper-class homebuyers disenchanted with
walks and parks and deliver services like ‘big government’ and fearful of crime who
refuse collection, neighbourhood security, yearn for security and exclusion with like-
recreation and entertainment (McKenzie, minded others (Low, 2003). This pursuit of
1994). The US is estimated to have 286 000 a putatively utopian lifestyle through a pri-
HOAs (less than 500 existed in 1965) cover- vatised life in an exclusive neighbourhood
ing over 20 per cent of households or 57 prompts McKenzie (1994) to coin the term
million people. And with four out of five ‘privatopia’: it enables a ‘civic secession’ or
homes built since 2000 located within HOA ‘secession from responsibility’—with con-
sub-divisions (Knox, 2008), concerns are siderable implications for political
mounting that this common interest hous- secession—where the well-off isolate them-
ing revolution represents the ‘forced obso- selves from those of lesser means while in
lescence’ of traditional neighbourhoods turn eschewing any commitment to collec-
featuring individually owned homes on tive consumption and thereby reconfigur-
public streets with public services in favour ing their territorial dependencies (see Cox,
of privately governed common interest com- 1993; Boudreau and Keil, 2001; Purcell,
munities with private streets, services and 2001). Such landscapes also signal a mode
governments (McKenzie, 2006, p. 17). The of spatial governmentality, sanitising and
following example is truly revealing pacifying space and creating hermetic ‘lib-
erated zones’ for the security-conscious
East of Seattle, across beautiful Lake middle class (Davis, 1990; Robins, 2002).
Washington, lies the gated community of AlSayyad and Roy (2006) interpret gated
Bear Creek. An exclusive community . CIDs to exhibit a territorialisation of citi-
[whose] . residents . enjoy their zenship more akin to medieval fiefdoms;
HOAs inscribing citizenship rights within and Nelson, 2007). In the North Las Vegas
post-urban enclaves are often directly anti- boomburb, the fastest-growing city in the US
thetical to ‘big city’ governments while in the 2000s, government mandates new
imposing truths, norms and freedoms at housing to be in CIDs with gated develop-
times contrary to national law,8 thus ments most popular. One lived-in neigh-
enabling such ‘communities’ to realise their bourhood, Bonanza Village, was literally
aspirations ‘‘below the radar of formal poli- refashioned into a walled community by city
tics’’ (Dear and Dahmann, 2008, p. 276). authorities—in the face of dissenting pro-
They go on to argue that tests from residents—to make it resemble the
newer fashionable gated enclaves and inte-
Today, property matters in the way occupa- grate it more in accordance with glitzy down-
tion mattered in the middle ages. In both town redevelopment (McKenzie, 2005).
cases, urban citizenship is premised on the This wider relational geography of gated
management of a secessionary space of inter- communities and HOAs and the networked
nal regulations and codes (AlSayyad and Roy, city more generally is offered some concep-
2006, p. 7). tual traction through Graham and Marvin’s
(2001) ‘splintering urbanism’. Their analy-
Secondly, McKenzie identifies the powerful sis identifies that, just as the gated territor-
role of developers and their sophisticated ial fiefdoms are sequestered from their
marketing techniques in shaping the demo- immediate environs via gates and high-
graphy of entirely new ‘master-planned technology surveillance, many private
communities’ as they search for higher den- special-purpose agencies assemble the cus-
sities to maintain profits (Low, 2003; tomised water, energy and other infrastruc-
McGuirk and Dowling, 2011). For Knox, tures that connect them to the wider
this is indicative of how metropolitan universe. Further, and partic-
ularly as geographical distances between
people’s sense of ‘community’ and ‘neigh- rich and poor are shrinking as new
borhood’ have become commodified: ready- developments squeeze tightly within post-
made accessories furnished by the real estate suburban spaces and gentrification punctu-
industry (Knox, 2008, pp. 1–2). ates the rehabilitated inner city, Graham
and Marvin reveal the crucial role of seces-
It also reveals how developers remain pivotal sionary network spaces: these enrol urban
in post-suburban growth machines (Phelps design, infrastructures, security, financial
and Wood, 2011), even assuming a role as and state networks intimately to combine
‘primary definers’ over which ‘publics’ inha- premium built spaces by trafficking the
bit which communities (see section 4; and affluent via private toll roads from their
Coleman, 2004). And thirdly, pressure to gated compounds to the business parks as
foster entrepreneurial growth sees municipal well as post-suburban lifestyle centres and
authorities actively encouraging the local pri- malls and downtown premium corporate-
vatism of HOAs, not least to relieve them consumer spaces replete with ‘analogous’
from providing services and infrastructure pedestrian walkways (Boddy, 1992), urban
while still securing property taxes from new mega project sites, airports, entertainment
residents (McKenzie, 2006). Indeed, some and cultural attractions, and all serving to
boomburbs allow no new development out- accentuate the civic secession mentioned
side HOAs, while others retrofit HOA insti- earlier; only now choreographed through-
tutions over existing neighbourhoods (Lang out the post-suburban and downtown
2642 GORDON MACLEOD
landscape (Graham and Marvin, 2001; and spaces. They cite the case of Toronto, where,
section 3.2). While perhaps acutely familiar in line with Graham and Marvin’s thesis, just
to many Americans, secessionary networked as highways connect a necklace of booming
spaces are especially prevalent in East Asian ‘smart centres’ circulating urban and post-
cities (Dick and Rimmer, 1998; Douglass suburban spaces, a process of ‘glocal bypass’
and Huang, 2007), although their ubiquity sees blue-collar workers in the downbeat
in smartly zoning the time-geography of industrial malls of the sprawling metropol-
creative classes and a ‘neo-bourgeoisie’ itan production-scape rely on irregular
stretches across global urban space (Bonomi, buses to get them to and from work. This
2004, cited in González, 2009). To this echoes Hutchinson’s (2000) evocative
extent account of how ‘riding the bus’ in Los
Angeles represents a ‘parallel city’ largely
The experience of urban life for the socioeco- inhabited by poor and low-income people
nomically affluent increasingly becomes an of colour. It is in this context, too, that we
interlinked, cosseted choreography where the can appreciate a ‘new suburban gothic’:
networked interconnections of mobile phone, distressed mid 20th-century suburbs, liter-
Internet, satellite television, electronic high- ally in-between the prosperous McMansion
way, air-conditioned car, parking garage, air- estates and the revitalised glamour of
port, airliner and glocal bypass rail link midtown, and confronting enormous chal-
become ever more seamlessly fused into the lenges in maintaining essential infrastruc-
rebundled plazas, atria, malls, resorts, gated tures and services (Dreier et al., 2001; Short
communities and business parks that they et al., 2007).
increasingly orient towards. Overseeing all is All the examples in this section highlight
an increasingly interlinked array of social and the challenge confronting researchers in
technological practices supporting surveil- mapping the territorial lines of political
lance, control, social purification, and allaying influence and agency, not least in concep-
the ambient fear that pervades contemporary tually locating the ways in which the unra-
cities (Graham and Marvin, 2001, p. 302). velling politics of suburbia fosters a
variegated geography of place-making vis-
By definition, these secessionary spaces, often à-vis gated enclaves and HOAs, and orche-
assembled around and through private strated around economic webs, secessionary
authority networks, disconnect or bypass topological connections and ‘in-between’
‘redundant’ users and territories to the extent public–private associations oftentimes
that entrenched inequality and a sociopoliti- stretching beyond, or at least only loosely
cal ecology of evasion work alongside mobile coupled with, territorial polities (Dear and
circuits and topologies of exclusion and the Dahmann, 2008; Knox, 2008; Phelps et al.,
less-than-smooth links of a fragmented 2010). It should be stressed that, while
metropolis (Douglass and Huang, 2007; much of the focus here has been on the US
Atkinson, 2008). This emerging landscape experience, these new topographies and
demands a critical geopolitics of urban infra- topologies of metropolitan restructuring
structure (McFarlane and Rutherford, 2008). are prevalent throughout Asia, Latin
Young and Keil (2010), for example, under- America and African and European city-
line how, in the late neo-liberalising age, poli- regions (Dick and Rimmer, 1998; Caldeira,
ticians and planners are significantly less 2000; Murray, 2008; González, 2009): it is a
inclined to champion mega projects if inhab- landscape calling for a relational urban pol-
ited by less powerful groups in non-premium itics that can appreciate how such
topological political networks work with, into recreational riversides, cultural quar-
alongside or perhaps against territorial and ters, gentrified districts, ‘festival market-
jurisdictional lines of political authority places’ and vivacious shopping and
(see Amin, 2004; Young and Keil, 2010; tourism districts (Goss, 1996; Hannigan,
Phelps and Wood, 2011). This is revisited 1998; Turner, 2002). As part of this, over
in the final section. 200 American cities have witnessed their
downtown streets converted into pedes-
3.2 Downtown Renaissance? Privatising trian malls, many enclosed via skywalk
Space, Redefining ‘Public Benefit’ systems and extricated from streetscapes
(Boddy, 1992) and, like their classic subur-
ban counterparts, often overseen by a cen-
The downtown belongs to everyone. People tralised corporate management and hosting
need it. They need the eye contact, the a carefully planned retail mix and a clean,
human exchange that occurs in the down- secure, attractive and climate-controlled
towns of our cities. The downtown is the environment (Robertson, 1995).
quintessence of the public realm. You cannot The construction of such consumerist
replicate this anywhere else (Mayor Joe ‘bubbles’ (Judd, 1999) has become a truly
Riley, Charleston, South Carolina, early global phenomenon, from São Paulo to
1990s; quoted in Isenberg, 2004, p. 400). Johannesburg to Manila (Connell, 1999;
Caldeira, 2000; Murray, 2008). England’s
The mid to late-20th-century burgeoning cities are discussed in an insightful book by
of post-suburban spaces has undoubtedly Anna Minton (2009). She identifies that,
impacted on the fortunes of many central while the national Labour government of
cities and downtowns. This is perhaps 1997–2010 might have curtailed the
most visibly discernible in the US, where Thatcherite penchant for building privately
the afore-mentioned flight of people and owned post-suburban shopping centres
capital to the ‘peripheries’ precipitated a such as Metrocentre and Meadowhall on
relative decline of downtown’s share in the edges of Gateshead and Sheffield
local banking, light industry, corporate respectively (Lowe, 2000), since the late
headquarters and major department 1990s, as part of a political aspiration to sti-
stores, thereby tarnishing their signature mulate an ‘urban renaissance’ (Colomb,
Main Street frontage (Ford, 2003; 2007; MacLeod and Johnstone, 2011), a
Isenberg, 2004). Since the 1960s, however, design-enriched open-air counterpart has
city governors and mayors—many pre- been parachuted into many centres. An
sumably sharing Mayor Riley’s exemplar is Liverpool One. At a cost of £1
convictions—have worked assiduously to billion and in 2008 the largest retail-led
make downtowns significant projection development in Europe, Liverpool One is a
spaces of growth coalition activity. 45-acre site covering 34 streets acquired
Numerous redevelopment projects have from Liverpool City Council by Grosvenor,
centred on ‘place marketing’ downtowns the global property group owned by the
as culture, entertainment, consumption, Duke of Westminster; with anchor stores
leisure and tourism destinations (Leitner, like John Lewis and Harvey Nichols it is
1990; Strom, 2008). This has seen erst- designed to lure shoppers back to the city
while ‘dead spaces’, obsolete waterfronts, centre (Carter, 2008; Coleman, 2009).
derelict ex-industrial zones and dilapi- Many towns and cities host these new
dated warehouses variously transformed places, built on erstwhile public
2644 GORDON MACLEOD
‘brownfield’ sites but now owned and con- the US where significant protests have
trolled by major-league property compa- ensued (Kohn, 2004; Staeheli and Mitchell,
nies, prompting Minton to consider how 2008), compulsory purchase remains under
the radar for most citizens.
As the 21st-century corporate estates take Minton offers further disclosures about
over large parts of the city, the last decade the transformation of another great north-
has seen a huge shift in landownership, away ern English city. Shortly after one of
from streets, public places and buildings in Manchester’s ‘emblems of democracy’, the
public ownership and towards the creation Free Trade Hall, was sold to property devel-
of new private estates, primarily given over opers, she cites how a
to shopping and office complexes, which,
while not actually gated, feel very much like
separate enclaves. At the same time, control more profound change in the city’s demo-
of the streets is being handed back to the cratic life was just beginning, as the city coun-
estates, reversing the democratic achieve- cil handed control over central Manchester to
ments of the Victorians. . This is a very sig- a private company funded by local businesses
nificant shift. Land or property which has and chaired by the main property developers
been in public hands for 150 years or more is in the city (Minton, 2009, p. 40).
moving back into private hands (Minton,
2009, pp. 20–21). Since 2000, Manchester centre has been run
by Cityco: a private company and pioneer-
At the core of this shift in land privatisa- ing forerunner to the Business Improvement
tion has been the legal planning term Districts (BIDs) that have mushroomed
‘compulsory purchase’, the UK equivalent across the UK following legislation in 2004
of ‘eminent domain’. It has enabled pow- (Cook, 2008).9 Originating in Canada and
erful private land-holders to purchase proliferating across the US in the 1990s—
sizeable plots of urban land and property: largely amid a perceived failure of local
a process strengthened by a 2004 Act of states to maintain the post-industrial down-
Parliament altering the definition of town (Mallet, 1994)—and now globalising
‘public benefit’ to favour economic via ‘mobile policies’ (Ward, 2007),10 BIDs
impacts over community interests. It also are delimited areas where property owners
permits the new landholder to force exist- (business ratepayers in UK) pay an imposed
ing businesses to sell if they ‘prove’ any fee for services like landscaping, security,
new development to be of ‘significant public space management and marketing.
benefit’ to a local economy. Indeed, such Venerated by advocates as apolitical
a struggle ensued between Grosvenor and organisations liberated from government
the long-established Quiggins indoor red tape and interference from politicians
market, which contained 50 independent (MacDonald, 1996), revenue collected
shops and boutiques and was eventually through a BID is spent exclusively in their
demolished to make way for Liverpool delimited district. Effectively ‘sub-local
One. Of course, downtown privatisation fiscal enclaves’ (Weber, 2002)—down-
is well documented in other countries, not town’s equivalent of common interest
least the US (Turner, 2002). Yet Minton developments—their status as a mode of
reveals the really interesting thing: the UK is publicly regulated private government is
going further than the US in the rush to pri- extending to policing their delimited zone,
vatise city centres, and that, in contrast to leading some to label them ‘micropolises’ or
‘cities within cities’ (Vallone and Berman, rules and regulations apply11 (Minton,
1995). In practical terms, BID street-level 2009). Indeed, such concerns are provoking
‘rangers’ or ‘ambassadors’ guide the orien- political controversy, with the local MP
tations of shoppers and tourists while also offering a statement to the Liverpool One
monitoring informal traders and vetting development inquiry
licences to street entertainers (Coleman,
2009). It is a role proudly advertised as We view with very real misgiving the associ-
keeping the city centre ‘clean and safe’, part ated proposals to privatize the thoroughfares
of a wider biopolitical endeavour to instil a of the new area and police them with so-
‘civilised’ atmosphere with ‘planned creativ- called security-guard ‘quartermasters’ in what
ity’ to enhance the ‘quality of life’ and ‘live- appears to be a bid to sanitize the area (Claire
ability’ for urban residents, employees, Curtis Thomas, MP for Crosby; quoted in
strollers, shoppers and visitors (Ward, 2007; Minton, 2009, p. 24).
Bannister et al., 2006). It is assumed that
most urban citizens would concur with Related to this is the contention that the
such affectations. Indeed, in his assessment increasingly privatised style of downtown
of US downtown revitalisation strategies, development, now going beyond NUP-style
Larry Ford avers that, while much academic privatism to a private ownership of and
research has denigrated the post-modern control over urban space, may be precipitat-
city of consumption and display and whilst ing a ‘steady withering of the public realm’
even allowing for the odd instance of (Banerjee, 2001); or, quoting New Yorker
‘Disneyfied’ vulgarity architecture critic Paul Goldberger (1996, p.
138), the ‘‘truly defining characteristic of
Of much greater importance is the fact that our time may be this privatization of the
downtowns are now beginning to offer public realm’’. Section 4 examines this fur-
opportunities for pleasant strolls along a ther, exploring some implications for urban
waterfront, shady places to eat lunch, inter- governance, politics and democracy.
esting streets to walk, and inviting settings to
meet friends or have coffee. [And that] Such
urban settings fulfill some very basic human 4. Deepening Urban Privatism,
needs, needs that were often ignored during Redefining ‘the Public’: Towards
. the heydays of rapid industrialization and a Post-democratic City?
automobile-infatuated modernism (Ford,
2003, p. 2).
[Regarding] the metropolis, my idea is that we
While this may be the experience for many are not facing a process of development and
citizens and visitors (and leaving aside ques- growth of the old city, but the institution of a
tions relating to ‘of much greater impor- new paradigm whose character needs to be
tance’ for whom), the initiatives discussed analysed. Undoubtedly one of its main traits is
in this section do raise some non-trivial that there is a shift from the model of the polis
questions about downtown governance. Not founded on a centre, that is, a public centre or
least among these is how the contemporary agora, to a new metropolitan spatialisation
‘malls without walls’ like Liverpool One— that is certainly invested in a process of de-
just like the 19th-century estates—are de politicisation, which results in a strange zone
facto private property, with landlords hold- where it is impossible to decide what is private
ing discretionary power to decide on which and what is public (Agamben, 2006, p. 2).
2646 GORDON MACLEOD
We need free speech and public places not ‘ambassadorial’ role: validating homeless Big
because they help us, as a society, reach a Issue sellers, prohibiting where the homeless
rational consensus but because they disrupt can eat and sleep, and banning photogra-
the consensus that we have already reached phers and political protestors. His analysis
too easily (Kohn, 2004, p. 81). provokes three key questions about urban
politics. First, participants in organisations
Discourses pertaining to ‘compulsory pur- like BIDs appear to be extending beyond
chase’ and ‘eminent domain’ reveal how NUP privatism and entrepreneurialism to
interterritorial competition alongside a fun- become ‘new primary definers’ of down-
damentalist faith in market-generated town governance, facilitating a renovation
growth and fiscal discipline propels urban of the built environment and controlling
governments increasingly to place a pre- urban spaces (Coleman, 2004). Secondly,
mium on the exchange value of space, per- while city governors and economic élites
haps ahead of any use value acquired by may envisage BIDs as apolitical agencies
people inhabiting it (Purcell, 2008). Such accomplishing growth, their ‘clean and safe’
land use issues surfaced around Liverpool’s initiatives increasingly render downtowns as
designation to be European Capital of ‘interdictory spaces’, designed to exclude
Culture 2008. Coleman (2004) reveals how, those adjudged to be ‘out of place’ and
within hours of the announcement in June whose class and cultural habitus may
2003, city-centre property prices jumped by diverge from developers and their target
20 per cent and the local media heralded consumers (Flusty, 2001). It is a regime
Liverpool a coming ‘boom town’ vis-à-vis which risks compromising the diversity
future investment, tourism and property often cherished about city downtowns,
development. The Chief of Police moved while in turn licensing a ‘culture of authori-
swiftly to promise a safe city while support- tarianism and control’ and a punitive or
ing a City Council law deeming it an revanchist city (see Smith, 1996; Turner,
offence for unlicensed people to solicit 2002; MacLeod, 2002; Herbert and Brown,
business or hand out leaflets in the streets 2006; DeVerteuil et al., 2009; Minton, 2009;
or other public places, and prohibiting MacLeod and Johnstone, 2011). Kohn
individuals to ‘mind’ cars and charities (2004) identifies the case of the Grand
stopping people in the street. For Coleman, Central Partnership BID in Manhattan
this legislation was designed to enable the during the mid 1990s, where outreach work-
city’s élites—neurotic about presenting ers were instructed to ‘use all means neces-
Liverpool’s image favourably to potential sary in order to remove homeless people
investors—to attack a range of perceived from the district’, eventually leading to
‘nuisances’ associated with the ‘secondary’ revanchist beatings of homeless people.
economy. However, this effectively dispar- Thirdly, this mode of intensified social
aged the city’s working-class people, failing control and penal polic(y)ing—a ‘roll-out’
to respect the extraordinarily creative of neo-liberal political rationalities, institu-
endeavour performed by many families tions and governmentalities designed to
surviving on this less glamorous ‘bargain contain and discipline those groups and
basement economy’ and, of course, contri- spaces marginalised and dispossessed
buting to the city economy (see Wilson and through the social catastrophes of urban
Keil, 2008; Zimmerman, 2008). neo-liberalisation (Peck and Tickell, 2002;
More recently, Coleman (2009) identifies Dikecx, 2007; Keil, 2009)—also appears to
how BIDs in UK cities are extending their be choreographing an urban landscape ‘in
denial of politics’ (Coleman, 2004). For ‘excessive staring’. Staeheli and Mitchell
instance, the afore-mentioned Liverpool (2008) discuss the interesting case of the
law curtailed a succession of grass-roots Carousel Center mall in Syracuse, owned
marches and street protests which had been by Pyramid Companies, whose rules do not
critical of the ‘Capital of Culture’ approach, limit all political activities but are designed
prompting Coleman to contend that to ensure they do not disrupt pedestrian
traffic or the mall’s commercial operation.
The surveillance of neoliberal spaces reflect an This relative openness saw Carousel hosting
intolerance to politics that is bound up with debates in 2000 between Republican and
an attempt to deny overt political expression Democratic Congressional candidates in an
by local citizenry, particularly if critical of ‘Old Fashioned Political Rally’ which
the neoliberal agenda itself (Coleman, 2004, included scope for citizens to speak from
pp. 31–32). a ‘real soapbox’. For Staeheli and
Mitchell, however, the act of naming the
Minton also identifies how the rapid prolif- rally ‘old-fashioned’ served to position
eration of BIDs across the UK’s political political debate as outdated, in the past
landscape is serving to form Agamben’s rather than the contentious present and ‘a
‘strange zone’: as the lines between public simulacra of political community’. Equally
and private blur, the frontier of account- tellingly, a local organisation endeavouring
ability is freighted towards property inter- to campaign for enhanced public access to
ests rather than elected representation, and the mall, Accountability Project, was
consumer sovereignty reigns supreme. In denied permission to campaign and set up
the words of one manager of a UK BID for voter registration. Clearly, Project’s
aims disturbed Pyramid’s notion of ‘com-
You can get things done without getting monsense’ and the strict ethics of consu-
bogged down in the competing needs of dif- merist citizenship (see Christopherson,
ferent groups . Bugger Democracy. 1994). However
Customer focus is not democratic. You ask
the customer what they want and you deliver If malls are to function as the new town
it. The citizen is a customer and the aim is to square or a new civic space, then the political
respond best to the needs of the customer. activities allowed in public space should be
The second it becomes involved with poli- allowed in malls. If they are not, then allowing
tics, it becomes diluted down and the pure only certain kinds of community functions
vision of the customer is lost (quoted in and certain community members into the
Minton, 2009, pp. 55–56). mall makes it possible for these members to
be shielded from dialogue, confrontation with
Knox (2008) similarly identifies how US competing ideas, and dissent—confrontations
post-suburban ‘lifestyle centres’, ostensibly that are the hallmark of the spaces in which a
aiming to replicate old fashioned Main democratically constituted public can operate
Streets, are privately owned spaces carefully (Staeheli and Mitchell, 2008, p. 87).
insulated from the uncertainties of public
life and keen to dissuade any scent of social These examples, where the scope for mean-
or political friction: Desert Ridge on the ingful critique and dissent appears neutra-
edge of Phoenix, for example, boasts a rig- lised and insurgent political energy and
orous code of conduct forbidding ‘non- participation sutured and defused by con-
commercial expressive activity’ and even sensual policy assemblages, are illustrative
2648 GORDON MACLEOD
of what Erik Swyngedouw (2005, 2009, insecurity (Uitermark and Duyvendak,

2010, 2011) labels a post-political and post- 2008; Coleman, 2009). In this context, pleas
democratic city. Drawing on a range of to preserve genuinely democratic public
writings from recent European political places open to all citizens run against the
philosophy (Rancière, 1994, 2001; Žižek, market disciplinary ‘system of sensible evi-
1999) and political theory (Crouch, 2004; dences’ (Rancière, 1994) which decrees an
Mouffe, 2005), Swyngedouw contends that, extension of privatised revenue-generating
amid conditions of late neo-liberalisation, spaces for consumption (Turner, 2002).
urban governance is predicated upon a And here the relationship between property
plethora of formal and informal institu- ownership and institutional control over
tional configurations characterised by an ‘public’ space becomes critical in redefining
extension of the sphere of governing while who ‘the public’ is, as well as ascertaining
narrowing the space of the ‘properly politi- who exactly might have a legitimate claim to
cal’. He then explains how a be part of the public and, in turn, a right to
the city (Mitchell, 2003; Staeheli and
Proper urban politics fosters dissent, creates Mitchell, 2008; Purcell, 2008).
disagreement and triggers the debating of and Swyngedouw (2005, 2011) further con-
experimentation with [for example] more tends that such post-political endeavours
egalitarian and inclusive urban futures, a pro- are parallelled by the rise of a post-
cess that is wrought with all kinds of tensions democratic institutional configuration
and contradictions but also opens up spaces (Crouch, 2004). Here, while formal liberal
of possibilities (Swyngedouw, 2010, pp. 2–3). democracy may remain intact, the act of
governing is reconfigured around a ‘stake-
For Swyngedouw, however, such grand holder’ arrangement with traditional state
designs for equality and spaces of disso- spaces (national, regional, urban) sharing
nance are placated in large part by the con- power with ‘sensibly partitioned’ and
struction of what Rancière referred to as a ‘responsible’ partners. As Purcell puts it
‘policed order’: ‘the police’ in this context
stretching to include ‘‘all the activities which
create order by distributing places, names, Oligarchic institutions like public–private
functions’’ (Rancière, 1994, p. 173) and partnerships and quasi-public agencies are
implying ‘‘an established order of govern- increasingly making decisions that were for-
ance with everyone in their ‘proper’ place in merly made by officials directly elected by
the seemingly natural order of things’’ the public . [with] . citizens and their
(Dikecx, 2005, p. 174). Not least among the representatives . increasingly replaced in
institutions active in constructing this ‘par- decision-making by panels of business lead-
tition of the sensible’ (Rancière, 1994) are ers and economic experts who are perceived
‘new primary definers’ like BIDs and mall to know how best to respond to the competi-
management companies, whose endeavours tive global market (Purcell, 2008, p. 27).
to construct a moral and political hegemony
of neo-liberal commonsense and ‘tech- González (2009) offers the interesting exam-
niques of consensual persuasion’ (Paddison, ple of Milan where, in 1997, the Berlusconi-
2009) help to neutralise dissent just as backed mayor, Gabriele Albertini, signalled
populist calls for a ‘clean and safe’ down- his intention to run his city like ‘a condomi-
town and ‘zero tolerance’ of the homeless nium’: his administration undertaking effi-
resonate with a festering ecology of urban cient management while eschewing the
‘local political struggles’ thought to bedevil rather than making the oppressed conscious
previous regimes. The chief planning coun- of their rights. As a matter of fact these agen-
cillor, while recalling the ideological battles cies and organizations systematically inter-
of the 1970s, stated ‘‘at that time there was a vene to oppose the agitational path people
lot of discussion but little action; today we take to win their demands. Their effort is to
discuss less but we do much more’’ (personal constantly divert people’s attention from the
interview, 24 May 2005). This represents an larger political evils of imperialism to merely
interesting case of ‘management without local issues and so confuse people in differ-
politics’, whereby city politicians aim to entiating enemies from friends (veteran
defuse dissenting voices while positioning Mumbai housing activist, P. K. Das; quoted
their cities in the competitive global econ- in Davis, 2006, p. 78).
omy and where traditional left and right
politics is displaced by a ‘neutral’ business- Examples like these prompt Swyngedouw
like coalition (González, 2009, pp. 42–43). (2010) to contend that, amid the post-political
In this sense, urban governing institutions consensus, there is no contestation over the
increasingly appear to be ‘streamlined’ to partition of the sensible, only debate over
foreclose cumbersome debate and respond the technologies of good governance and the
nimbly to market opportunities, but in doing ‘arrangements of policing’, which either elimi-
so have become less accountable to the public, nates fundamental conflict or elevates it to
leading perhaps to a failure of democratic rep- antithetical ultra-politics. We have already seen
resentation (Purcell, 2008). This oligarchic how the local politics of suburbia and post-
politically consensual ‘good governance’, one suburbia are being radically transformed in a
evacuated from dissonant possibilities, can country like the US: so the cases of developer-
also be identified in the plethora of neigh- led growth machines in alliance with home-
bourhood community partnerships which, by owner associations endeavouring to fabricate
their design, are encouraged to facilitate local neighbourhoods that fit a particular image
participatory channels (Purcell, 2008). Critics, through advertising copy and strictly enforced
however, contend that, far from giving mean- neighbourhood restrictions can also be inter-
ingful power to local citizens, many ‘commu- preted as a post-political form of institutional
nity-led’ partnerships foreclose dissonant suturing and cultural anaesthetising (Knox,
political discourse and silence any dissident 2008). Further, the growing proliferation of
voices who might challenge the neo-liberal gated suburban communities has, as discussed
‘order of things’ (Geddes, 2006; Glynn, 2009; in section 3.1, increased the private provision
although see Durose and Lowndes, 2010). of services and community facilities over
Analogous experiences, albeit amid contrast- municipal oversight, whereby voting rights
ing socio-ecological conditions, appear in increasingly become associated with and deter-
Mike Davis’ critique of World Bank and mined by property ownership in particular
United Nations led consensual approaches to sites as opposed to ‘old-fashioned’ electoral
institute ‘self-help’ in the planet of slums. For citizenship (Low, 2003). Blakely and Snyder
one activist (1999) reveal the post-democratic disposition
of residents in one gated community in Plano,
Their [NGOs] constant effort is to subvert, Texas
dis-inform and de-idealize people so as to
keep them away from class struggles. They I took care of my responsibility, I’m safe in
adopt and propagate the practice of begging here, I’ve got my guard gate; I’ve paid my
favours on sympathetic and humane grounds [homeowner association] dues, and I’m
2650 GORDON MACLEOD
responsible for my streets. Therefore, I have efficient public service provision in the hyper-
no responsibility for the commonweal, extended metropolis? (Dear and Dahmann,
because you take care of your own (Blakely 2008, p. 273).
and Snyder, 1999: 140).
This represents the primary issue confront-
Knox (2008) aptly defines this as the onset of ing those campaigning for a ‘new regional-
an ‘uncivil society’. ism’ to consolidate the fragments of US
urban governance. There are compelling
reasons to champion this political geogra-
5. Urban Politics-beyond- phy, not least in its aims to arrest sprawl
governance and cultivate smart ecologically responsible
spaces (Duany et al., 2010), although some
With the majority of the world’s population key advocates do acknowledge how
now living in urban regions and virtually all
additional population growth between 2010 the growing political distance between cen-
and 2040 projected to concentrate in such tral cities and the surrounding middle- and
regions (UN-Habitat, 2008), metropolitan upper-class suburbs has made it increasingly
life is undoubtedly becoming a ‘‘general difficult to assemble political support for
planetary condition’’ (Hardt and Negri, policies designed to address rising inequality
2009, p. 252). Such tectonic urbanisation is (Dreier et al., 2001, p. 23).
intertwined with rapid changes in the eco-
nomic, social and ecological landscapes of In this context and given the preceding
cities: ones that could conceivably render discussion on secessionary place makings,
the early 21st-century city almost unrecog- splintering privatisms, in-between cities
nisable from its mid 20th-century expres- and a decollectivisation of service provi-
sion (Soja, 2000; Knox, 2008). Taking sion, perhaps there are limits to prescrib-
inspiration from a range of literatures in ing a particular territorial jurisdiction—
planning, geography and urban studies, this presumably ‘metropolitan’ or ‘city-
paper has sought to relate a rudimentary regional’—to conjure a new scalar fix (see
account of these transformations to some Allen, 2004) as the definitive solution to
associated shifts underway in the govern- the city’s problems. Indeed, Dear and
ance and politics of metropolitan regions. Dahmann’s own
In drawing the paper to a close, it discusses
three key issues confronting planners and central proposition is that geography has
scholars aiming to interpret the urban gov- trumped government; that the altered geo-
ernmental landscape. graphies of postmodern urbanism are rede-
The first relates to the territory of metro- fining the meaning and practice of urban
politan space. Dear and Dahmann (2008, p. politics. This is because the extension of cities
273) are justified in their claim that the central beyond conventional political jurisdictions
normative question in contemporary urban negates the notion of representative democ-
political geography relates to the ‘‘appropriate racy, compromises the ability of the local
scales of re-territorialization of local govern- state to serve the collective interests of its
ance’’ and also to pose the question constituents, and may even intensify the sub-
ordination of the local state to plutocratic
What is the optimal scale of regionalization to privatism (Dear and Dahmann, 2008, pp.
ensure effective representative democracy and 272–273).
Maybe this process calls for a nimble urban The second issue relates to how the New
politics capable of working with and mobi- Urban Politics focus on growth and entre-
lising relational connections and democra- preneurialism might have dealt lasting
tising their design and governance (Young damage to an appreciation of collective con-
and Keil, 2010; Amin, 2004). As indicated sumption (see Cox, 1993; Harding, 1999;
in the conclusion to section 3.1, this relates Jonas et al., 2010)—not least in that, while
to recent considerations around relational some cities whose political regimes are
and topological readings of urban politics shaped by social democratic interests may
and, in particular, ways of encapsulating remain richly provided in collective service
the ‘overlapping networked political rela- provision, research on these ordinary spaces
tions’, the ‘relational reality of the in- appears overshadowed by the downtown
between city’, ‘translocal assemblages of glitz and mega projects. Some have demon-
urban social movements’ and the distance- strated how questions of ‘collective con-
stretching assembling of certain ‘mobile sumption’ still prevail, but are increasingly
urban policies’ (Allen and Cochrane, 2007; tied into a localist politics of ‘fairness’ rather
McFarlane, 2009; Young and Keil, 2010; than the principles of equality and redistri-
McCann and Ward, 2010). In this sense, bution associated with egalitarian liberalism
while a focus on territorial and jurisdic- (Hackworth, 2007; Purcell, 2008). And, of
tional boundaries might help to uncover course, clearly the privatist and secessionary
the institutions ‘responsible’ for a certain modes of service and infrastructure provi-
territorially demarcated neighbourhood, an sion underlined earlier demand more earn-
ontological focus on mobile networks or est analytical inquiry. Perhaps, here, Cox’s
secessionary networking infrastructures will (1993, 1998) work on territorial non-
help to trace the sources of disconnection correspondence can be deployed to interpret
that render some neighbourhoods discon- the communities in homeowner associations,
nected or bypassed. The privatopia is an so eager to disentangle their dependence at
interesting case: a very definite expression of the scale of the local state by opening up new
a new territorial form, albeit perhaps one spaces of engagement via a privatised provi-
that resonates with the enclavisation of a sion of services and consumption: and per-
medieval city (AlSayyad and Roy, 2006). haps with profound consequences for the
However, to consider the formation of such local state itself.12 Indeed, the mayors of cer-
privatopias as a topological arrangement tain boomburbs are content for such a recon-
enables a consideration of how the subjects figuration of scalar dependencies: for the
in and of privatopias are constituted by the HOAs performing labour-intensive neigh-
spacing and timing of their activities as much bourhood-level service provision and manage-
as they are by those of others who seek to ment thereby free the city-wide government
influence their behaviour (Allen, 2004). to concentrate on big infrastructure, eco-
Nonetheless, there is the danger of twisting nomic development and long-range master
too swiftly and indeed some have cautioned planning (Lang and Nelson, 2007). This is a
about how, for all its insights into the circula- folding of the ‘growth first’ consensus with
tions of power and privilege undulating the practice of ‘privatism’, in turn enabling the
around and through the city of the informa- assemblages of the post-democratic urban
tional age, a relational spatial grammar also landscape.
has blind spots in locating disempowering The final concern relates to the argu-
geographies of urban injustice (MacLeod and ments pertaining to a post-political and
Jones, 2007; González, 2009). post-democratic city. The paper’s sub-title
2652 GORDON MACLEOD
of ‘‘growth machine to post-democratic strategies of dissensus and alternative

city?’’ is not intended to imply a linear shift. scripts (Swyngedouw, 2010, 2011).
Yet if an appreciation is made of path Indeed, it would be absurd to imply that
dependency and how inherited institutional contemporary cities are no longer sites for a
landscapes are reconfigured, some consid- whole maelstrom of spatial struggles, many
eration is thereby made of how the pro- of which, as Blomley (2004) and Staeheli
cesses that were unleashed under roll-back, and Mitchell (2008) highlight, turn on the
roll-out and roll-with-it neo-liberalisation geography of property relations, not least
(see Peck and Tickell, 2002; Keil, 2009) attempts by local states and ‘new primary
serve to institute a gradual depoliticisation definers’ to regulate struggles over use value
and de-democratisation of significant and exchange value waged around home-
institutional forms as outlined in section 4. lessness and a variety of development-
Of course, advance copy of the post- driven gentrifications and displacements.
political urban vernacular was revealed in The flipside, nonetheless, is that such devel-
Peterson’s (1981, p. 134) early claim that opments are sustained by an increasingly
the special-purpose agencies, public– revanchist approach to marginalised urban
private partnerships and development dwellers and ideologically augmented by
agencies have ‘‘no place for . contentious post-political ‘common-sense’ assumptions
group conflict’’. It would be easy just to tick about property ‘‘such as the ‘naturalness’ of
the box and signal how such processes of displacement, or the beneficial effects of
advanced neo-liberalisation, institutional middle-class ownership in poor neighbour-
closure, privatism and outright privatisa- hoods’’ (Blomley, 2004, p. xix). While there
tion have done much to propel the Paul is clearly a danger that the post-political city
Peterson view of the world probably perspective undervalues agency and resis-
beyond the dreams of any public choice tance (Paddison, 2009), perhaps its key con-
theorist writing in 1980. tribution is actually to raise awareness of the
Nonetheless, as is being acknowledged in ways in which the strategic selectivities of
recent conference proceedings and papers urban government are being redrafted and
in press, the post-political and post- in directing us to how and why significant
democratic are deeply contestable terms: institutional struggles are being foreclosed.
post-political? If so, when and where was it
the case that cities were (properly) ‘politi-
cal’? If cities are now post-democratic,
again, when and where were they demo- Notes
cratic? In this sense then, perhaps the term 1. While this emerging urban geography
‘depoliticised’ offers a more appropriate might be most expressive in cities in the
term with which to interpret the present- US, South Africa, Asia and Latin America,
day consensual ‘police’ and order; it may there is reason to believe that these shifts
also be less of a red rag to those quick to are taking place world-wide.
claim that ‘of course politics is taking place 2. Amin and Graham refer to this as
in cities’ and that ‘cities are deeply politi- the methodological dangers of over-
cal’. And here, I think it is worth underlin- generalizing from one or a few examples
ing that Swyngedouw himself is at pains to and the danger of overemphasizing particu-
point towards ways in which insurgent lar spaces, senses of time and partial repre-
groups are currently engaged in reclaiming sentations within the city (Amin and
the polis and redrafting the design Graham, 1997, p. 416; see also Ward, 2010).
3. It is worth noting that the idea of an emer- 12. Cox’s critical conceptualisations offer the
ging ‘new urban politics’ was muted by basis for a relational urban metropolitics
Masotti and Lineberry in 1976. (MacLeod and Jones, 2011); and here, it
4. It is also important to stress that Logan and would also be beneficial to revisit some con-
Molotch’s uncovering of growth coalitions tributions on urban politics that, in contrast
does not commence in the fiscally con- to the growth machine and regime theory,
strained 1970s; rather, the US has a long permitted latitude to appreciate the agency
history of private involvement in urban and everyday life politics of those non-élites
politics, as revealed in élite theory (see or on the ‘margins’ of power and influence
Hunter, 1953) and detailed empirical work in cities (see Little et al., 1988; Clarke et al.,
(Strom, 2008). 1995; Peake, 1997; Staeheli and Nagel, 1997).
5. See Levine (1987) for a detailed discussion
of Baltimore and the impact of new urban
priorities on the poor and dispossessed.
Funding Statement
6. Three generations include Urban Develop- Support from The British Academy (grant no.
ment Corporations, Regional Development SG-50235) is gratefully acknowledged.
Agencies and Local Enterprise Partnerships.
7. It is worth mentioning at the outset here
that not all cities are viewed to fit the ‘inte-
Acknowledgements
grated urban ideal’: rather than the infra- A version of this paper was presented in a session
structure ‘collapse’ around the onset of entitled The Politics of a Different City at the
neo-liberalism, which itself was uneven Annual Conference of the Association of American
(Sweden and the UK being different; Geographers, Seattle, WA, during 13–18 April. The
Coutard, 2008), many cities in lower- author would like to thank the session conveners,
income countries have long been splin- Mark Davidson and Deb Martin, and the session
tered along ethnic or socioeconomic lines participants for interesting feedback and discussion.
(see Kooy and Bakker, 2008, on Jakarta; Thanks also to Danny MacKinnon and the two
also McFarlane and Rutherford, 2008). referees for very helpful and supportive feedback,
8. The scope of HOA activities permits the and to Ash Amin, Ben Anderson, Roger Keil, Colin
regulation of a much wider range of beha- McFarlane, and Kevin Ward for their thoughtful
viour than any public local government, comments on the earlier version. Conversations
presiding over interior furnishings, house with Harriet Bulkeley, Nicholas Dahmann, Geoff
guests, pets, and garden furniture alongside DeVerteuil, Adam Holden, Martin Jones, Margit
overt discrimination by age (for example, Mayer, Eugene McCann, Byron Miller, Joe Painter,
not allowing younger households to live in Lynn Staeheli, Erik Swyngedouw and Justus
‘active adult’ communities) (Low, 2003; Uitermark were also instructive in helping the
Knox, 2008). author formulate certain arguments. Responsibility
9. At the time of writing, Great Britain had for the paper’s numerous flaws and limitations
seen the establishment of 117 BIDs. must of course remain with the author.
10. BIDs assume different names in different
countries, being called City Improvement
Districts in South Africa (see Murray, 2008).
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Urban Politics Reconsidered: Growth

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of government, including the enrolment of development—which are decoded as on-

These quotations help evoke how early

of what Erik Swyngedouw (2005, 2009, insecurity (Uitermark and Duyvendak,

of ‘‘growth machine to post-democratic strategies of dissensus and alternative

Coleman, R. (2009) ‘They just look wrong’: geographies of homelessness in a ‘punitive’

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