Phoenix cities: The fall and rise of great industrial cities

by Anne Power, Jörg Plöger, Astrid Winkler

'Weak market cities' across European and America, or 'core cities' as they were in their heyday, went from being 'industrial giants' dominating their national, and eventually the global, economy, to being 'devastation zones'. In a single generation three quarters of all manufacturing jobs disappeared, leaving dislocated, impoverished communities, run down city centres and a massive population exodus. So how did Europeans react? And how different was their response from America's? This book looks closely at the recovery trajectories of seven European cities from very different regions of the EU. Their dramatic decline, intense recovery efforts and actual progress on the ground underline the significance of public underpinning in times of crisis. Innovative enterprises, new-style city leadership, special neighbourhood programmes and skills development are all explored. The American experience, where cities were largely left 'to their own devices', produced a slower, more uncertain recovery trajectory. This book will provide much that is original and promising to all those wanting to understand the ground-level realities of urban change and progress.

432 pages, Paperback

First published March 16, 2010

Reviews

[Jill · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the third book I've read that's been either written or co-written by Anne Power and like Cities For a Small Country, I found it to be a disappointment. Power's point of view is this: many cities are facing myriad and interlinked challenges ranging from environmental degradation, economic decline, depopulation and social inequalities and segregation. To tackle these challenges, we need a multifaceted approach that looks into skills training, job creation, community building, affordable housing and the reclamation of environmentally degraded land. Only then can we rescue declining cities. Demolition for new build is bad; we should instead focus on upgrading existing infrastructure and selective demolition to cull the buildings that are unsalvageable. And she hammers these points home in each and every single book she writes, it appears. Sure, the books may feature different cities as case studies, but the arguments/observations are the same. In this respect, one could say that Powers is at the very least, consistent. But one wonders what the point of publishing multiple books that offer very little by way of new insights or analysis is. By book three, it becomes a little tedious.

On the back cover of the book, Bruce Katz, VP of the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, is quoted as saying that the "European lessons offered in Phoenix Cities are timely, practical, doable and inspiring". My own sense was that the case studies did very little. Inspiring? Certainly, since they show that once failing cities such as Leipzig, Belfast, Bilbao, St Etienne and Torino have been making slow and steady progress. But what lessons can we learn from these cities? That we need a multi pronged approach that looks into jobs, skills, community building, housing, investment, upgrading, etc to succeed? That's an observation that is so broad it is best described as safe and non contestable, rather than helpful. In Phoenix Cities, Power and her co-authors discuss the experiences of 7 cities - the other 2 being Bremen and Sheffield - to pull themselves out of the doldrums. The book tries to classify the cities' efforts under several broad prongs/themes. It's a heroic task that ultimately falls short of its lofty aims. Each city's efforts/strategies are necessarily contextualised for their particular situation and history. So it is hard to find common threads that pull all 7 cases together. Meanwhile, the themes that the book identifies - like community, housing, jobs, skills etc - as I mentioned are so broad and all encompassing that it ultimately means very little.

This book illustrates Power's prejudices more than anything else. Like her (well known) prejudice against tower blocks. In this book, she criticises the blocks as being "usually separate, monolithic, mono-functional, poorly connected, imposing structures with many distinctive unattractive features". Instead, she is a strong proponent of revitalising the city centre, encouraging people to reside there by upgrading existing (low rise) housing and through infill developments. But her criticisms seem to me to be less about the building typology of tower blocks per se, than about how these tower blocks have been designed. It is a design choice to have tower blocks "built in concrete and steel", with "stern-looking" facades. Likewise, it is a design choice to make tower blocks mono functional, instead of placing recreational, commercial and other facilities within the estates. Similarly, to build these estates without adequate connections to the city. Power's issues with tower blocks are not against the housing typology per se, than about the way in which such estates have been designed but she does not articulate it in those terms. All in all, a disappointing book unless you'd like a backgrounder on one or more of the cities covered. And even then, there are probably more insightful books out for that purpose.