Urban Political Geographies

Ugo Rossi is Professor of Economic and Political Geography at the Gran Sasso Science Institute university in L'Aquila, Italy

Foreword: The Athenian Symptom by Ola Soederstroem Foreword: The Nine Lives of Neoliberalism by Jamie Peck Foreword: Politics Between the Lines by AbdouMaliq Simone Introduction Globalization and the Urban Experience The Triad of Urban Politics Overview of the Book's Structure PART ONE: POLITICS AS REPRESENTATION Urban Development and the Politics of Representation Introduction: towards a political economy of representation Governing the image of the city From Fordism to post-Fordism: reinventing cities in a context of economic transition Postmodernizing the capitalist city Celebrating the global city The environmentalization of the urban experience Concluding reflections: the Eurocentrism of urban scholarship Making Culture Work: The Rise of the Creative City Introduction: urban development in a knowledge-based capitalism Creative cities: economies of diversity and discursive strategies in North America Governmentalizing the cultural city in Europe and Asia Conclusion: culture beyond representation PART TWO: POLITICS AS GOVERNMENT Urban Neoliberalism: Ascent and Crisis Introduction: the irresistible rise of neoliberalism At the origins of neoliberalism: the urban question in the 1970s The 'new urban politics' The practice of urban neoliberalism Neoliberalizing urban economic spaces The expected unforeseen: the housing bubble and the global recession Urban Geopolitics: Legitimate Violence, Terrorism and Militarization Introduction: the governmentalization of the urban experience The politics of fear From fear to communitarian self-defence The use of force as a threat: terrorism, urban marginality and the politics of pre-emption Cities at war/the war against cities Conclusions: the visible and the invisible in urban geopolitics PART THREE: POLITICS AS CONTESTATION Urban Justice: Struggles and Movements Introduction: the ethical turn in democratic politics Social justice in question: equality, recognition, domination Rights to the city Justice movements: limits and potentialities Justice, globalization and the environment Conclusion: the encounter between institutionalist and Marxist perspectives Urban Citizenship: Insurgencies and the Politics of Presence Introduction: the crisis of national citizenship The promises of urban citizenship The globalization of migration and the multiple geographies of belonging Dissidence or normalization: the quandaries of sexual citizenship Conclusion: the 'common place' of citizenship Conclusion: Beyond Post-Neoliberal Melancholia Glossary

Ugo Rossi and Alberto Vanolo take us on a journey around the ascent and crisis of urban liberalism, providing a clear and highly readable analysis of key issues and debates in the field of urban political geography. -- Ola Soederstroem It is in the city trenches that the crises, contradictions, and counterpolitics of neoliberalization are finding some of their most vivid and consequential expressions, where new worlds are being imagined, made, and unmade. This has yet to be mapped. But in Urban Political Geographies, we have a timely and astute field guide to this unfolding process. -- Jamie Peck An incisive and lucid account of contemporary urban politics. -- AbdouMaliq Simone