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NYU Series in Social and Cultural Analysis
Neoliberal Cities: The Remaking of Postwar Urban America
Traces decades of troubled attempts to find private answers to public urban problems
The American city has long been a laboratory for austerity, governmental decentralization, and market-based solutions to urgent public problems such as affordable housing, criminal justice, and education. Through richly told case studies from Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and New York, Neoliberal Cities provides the necessary context to understand the always intensifying racial and economic inequality in and around the city center.
In this original collection of essays, urban historians and sociologists trace the role that public policies have played in reshaping cities, with particular attention to labor, the privatization of public services, the collapse of welfare, the rise of gentrification, the expansion of the carceral state, and the politics of community control. In so doing, Neoliberal Cities offers a bottom-up approach to social scientific, theoretical, and historical accounts of urban America, exploring the ways that activists and grassroots organizations, as well as ordinary citizens, came to terms with new market-oriented public policies promoted by multinational corporations, financial institutions, and political parties. Neoliberal Cities offers new scaffolding for urban and metropolitan change, with attention to the interaction between policymaking, city planning, social movements, and the market.
The American city has long been a laboratory for austerity, governmental decentralization, and market-based solutions to urgent public problems such as affordable housing, criminal justice, and education. Through richly told case studies from Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and New York, Neoliberal Cities provides the necessary context to understand the always intensifying racial and economic inequality in and around the city center.
In this original collection of essays, urban historians and sociologists trace the role that public policies have played in reshaping cities, with particular attention to labor, the privatization of public services, the collapse of welfare, the rise of gentrification, the expansion of the carceral state, and the politics of community control. In so doing, Neoliberal Cities offers a bottom-up approach to social scientific, theoretical, and historical accounts of urban America, exploring the ways that activists and grassroots organizations, as well as ordinary citizens, came to terms with new market-oriented public policies promoted by multinational corporations, financial institutions, and political parties. Neoliberal Cities offers new scaffolding for urban and metropolitan change, with attention to the interaction between policymaking, city planning, social movements, and the market.
224 pages, Hardcover
Published August 25, 2020
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 27, 2024
"Neoliberal Cities" by Andrew Diamond and Thomas Sugrue critiques neoliberalism, a term denoting faith in market-based solutions to social issues, emerging post-1973 economic shocks. Neoliberal regimes favor unregulated capital, economic austerity, and financialization, contrasting with earlier social democratic policies supporting labor, regulation, and welfare.
The text examines both top-down and bottom-up forces shaping neoliberalism. Urban activists and policymakers influenced neoliberalism, sometimes reinforcing, limiting, or adapting it for goals like school reform or community development. Neoliberalism transcended partisan lines, becoming a dominant rationality. The federal government facilitated neoliberalism by supporting financial markets while cutting public spending, intertwining with institutional racism.
The book discusses Chicago's evolution from the New Deal to neoliberalism, highlighting disparities in federal housing policies favoring white suburbanization and impoverishing urban centers. Post-war policies facilitated suburban growth through subsidies, neglecting public transport and urban housing. Neoliberalism's do-it-yourself ideologies took root in urban black communities, linking housing access to individual work ethic.
In Los Angeles, the development of Bunker Hill and projects like the Weston Bonaventure illustrate state-induced privatization and service-oriented urban renewal. The use of tax increment financing (TIF) promoted commercial over residential development, transforming urban spaces into private service centers. Los Angeles exemplifies failed urbanism, with market-driven policies and militarized policing targeting marginalized communities. The Reagan era's crime control acts intensified punitive measures, rationalizing increased policing and incarceration, diverting resources from welfare to law enforcement. This shift fostered a conservative politics of personal responsibility, blaming black communities for systemic issues of poverty and urban divestment.
This was certainly a new field of interest for me and an interesting lens by which to view the history of neoliberalism in the US. This text does an excellent job discussing the struggles of class and race and how oppression against the poor and against minority groups both predated the rise of neoliberalism and also contributed to its structure.
The text examines both top-down and bottom-up forces shaping neoliberalism. Urban activists and policymakers influenced neoliberalism, sometimes reinforcing, limiting, or adapting it for goals like school reform or community development. Neoliberalism transcended partisan lines, becoming a dominant rationality. The federal government facilitated neoliberalism by supporting financial markets while cutting public spending, intertwining with institutional racism.
The book discusses Chicago's evolution from the New Deal to neoliberalism, highlighting disparities in federal housing policies favoring white suburbanization and impoverishing urban centers. Post-war policies facilitated suburban growth through subsidies, neglecting public transport and urban housing. Neoliberalism's do-it-yourself ideologies took root in urban black communities, linking housing access to individual work ethic.
In Los Angeles, the development of Bunker Hill and projects like the Weston Bonaventure illustrate state-induced privatization and service-oriented urban renewal. The use of tax increment financing (TIF) promoted commercial over residential development, transforming urban spaces into private service centers. Los Angeles exemplifies failed urbanism, with market-driven policies and militarized policing targeting marginalized communities. The Reagan era's crime control acts intensified punitive measures, rationalizing increased policing and incarceration, diverting resources from welfare to law enforcement. This shift fostered a conservative politics of personal responsibility, blaming black communities for systemic issues of poverty and urban divestment.
This was certainly a new field of interest for me and an interesting lens by which to view the history of neoliberalism in the US. This text does an excellent job discussing the struggles of class and race and how oppression against the poor and against minority groups both predated the rise of neoliberalism and also contributed to its structure.
Displaying 1 of 1 review