BEFORE AND AFTER THE CREATIVE CITY: THE POLITICS OF URBAN CULTURAL POLICY IN AUSTIN,TEXAS

ABSTRACT: This article examines the politics and practice of urban cultural policy in Austin, Texas. I demonstrate how aspects of the local context frame how local government and cultural sector interests strive to initiate the direction of policy. While larger trends—such as Richard Florida's creative city thesis—influence cultural policy and planning, specific contextual factors including prior economic development and growth management policy, departmental organization, the forum for interaction between municipal actors and non‐governmental coalitions, and the character of the city's cultural economy mediate such trends to produce policy outcomes. As this case shows, contemporary urban cultural policy is not simply due to the rise of the creative city discourse, but is an evolving product of past policy structures and shaped by local institutions and actors.     

LISTENING TO THE CITY: CITIZEN SURVEYS

Policymakers are hard pressed to find out what citizens feel and think about their cities and their urban services and costs. During the last decade there has been much advocacy and some application of the use of citizen surveys to capture the “pulse” of the city. This article describes and analyzes a timely and important ten-year effort in one city to use citizen surveys for urban policymaking. Answers are given to questions such as: When were the surveys started? Who requested them? How are they conducted? What did the citizens say? How have the findings been utilized? What has been the impact upon public policy? What are some of the practices which have contributed to important public policy impact? Should other cities utilize citizen surveys for policymaking?     

二元规制环境中城中村发展及其意义的分析

城中村是中国快速城市化过程中,由于二元规制环境作用而产生的一类独特的地域空间。本文对以往许多研究中将城中村简单地视为“毒瘤”并进行过多指责的认识进行了反思,分别从土地、住房、市政管理等各种城市制度环境的二元性方面进行了客观的分析,指出城中村形成与发展的原因与动力并不能全部归因于原住民主动、非法获取城市发展的“外溢效应”,而在相当程度上是由于地方城市政府现行政策的“趋利性”、“二元性”而造成的。城中村在支撑中国快速而“粗放”的城市化过程中承担了重要的作用,具有非常现实的意义。因此,相应对城中村的有效改造必须摈弃简单的“推土机”方式,而是要从制度层面上进行深刻变革,从根本上消除城市政府的“趋利性”和“二元政策”。     

THE “ENTREPRENEURIAL STATE” IN “CREATIVE INDUSTRY CLUSTER” DEVELOPMENT IN SHANGHAI

ABSTRACT: Literature on China's urban development discusses the nature and role of the local state. A set of concepts have been proposed, such as the “entrepreneurial state” (ES) and “local developmental state,” and an ongoing debate attempts to ascertain whether the state is “entrepreneurial” in nature. This article uses a newly emerged urban phenomenon, chuangyi chanye jiju qu (CCJQs) or “creative industry clusters,” in which the central government is not involved, to explore the nature of local governments, their role in urban development, and the ways in which they perform this role. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are used. The findings of this research reveal a strong revenue‐oriented nature of local governments, highlighting the “entrepreneurial state” as an important dimension in their character: they transform spontaneously emerged urban cultural spaces into a new mechanism generating revenues for both urban growth and their own economic benefit. Local governments promote CCJQ development with place promotion strategies, and they are directly involved in CCJQ‐related businesses as market players rather than as independent bodies that effectively control and regulate the CCJQ market through policies and regulations. Further, this article reveals a “public–public” coalition as an important mechanism for local state participation.     

POVERTY,POLITICS, AND A “CIRCLE OF PROMISE”: HOLISTIC EDUCATION POLICY IN BOSTON AND THE CHALLENGE OF INSTITUTIONAL ENTRENCHMENT

ABSTRACT: Cash‐strapped municipalities throughout the United States are increasingly proposing innovative education policies linking school‐based reforms with neighborhood‐level interventions. Boston is one such city. In this paper, we describe, analyze, and critique the City of Boston's “Circle of Promise” initiative, a holistic education policy designed to coordinate school reforms with local community‐based organizational resources. We link our discussion of challenges and critiques with the term “institutional entrenchment,” referring to institutional barriers to successful urban policies and the defense of the status quo. We conclude with suggestions for future policy to overcome the impediments of institutional entrenchment, and by extension, improve educational opportunities for students in underperforming urban schools.     

MANAGING COMPETITION IN CITY SERVICES: THE CASE OF BARCELONA

ABSTRACT: “Clean and safe” strategies are part of urban regeneration in the entrepreneurial city. These strategies are often characterized by privatization and public–private partnerships that enhance investment and create a city space more amenable to tourists and consumers. While such approaches promote increased investment, and differentiate services by district, they raise challenges of competition, cost escalation, and public participation. Barcelona's solid waste management strategy is presented to show the importance of a strong public coordination role when using competition to promote technological innovation and improved quality in city service delivery.     

IS THE PRICE RIGHT? GAUGING THE MARKETPLACE FOR LOCAL SUSTAINABLE POLICY TOOLS

Local government sustainability has become a cause célèbre in urban policy. Extant research has attempted to construct narratives of sustainable environmental, economic, and social equity motivations by grouping together multifaceted types of policies adopted to deal with multidimensional problems of land use, transportation, energy, solid waste, carbon emissions, and other functional areas of local government. Yet, decades of policy adoption and implementation research suggest some policies or policy tools require a far greater commitment of resources and administrative and political buy‐in than others. We explore whether the degree of such commitment reflects different motivations at play and test for distinct political economies for specific categories of energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction policy tools. We find evidence that the determinants for the two types of policies are distinct, and subsequent research requires refocusing theoretical and empirical efforts at differentiating “win‐win” tools from more “altruistic” commitments to sustainable action by governments.     

THE CREATIVE UNDERCLASS IN THE PRODUCTION OF PLACE: EXAMPLE OF CAMDEN TOWN IN LONDON

ABSTRACT: Camden Town in London is a mature cultural quarter with a contradictory mix of affluent middle class and homeless; Starbucks and street markets; counter‐cultural groups and tourists; participants in the night time economy and shopkeepers; media corporations and the “creative underclass.” There is a tension between the various stakeholders with their different powers. The patterns of cultural production and consumption in the area are complicated and have deep historical roots. The creative underclass has contributed to the Camden Town scene, which is gradually transforming from a liminal city fringe to a gentrified part of London's center. This paper provides insights into the process of this transformation. Decision making related to urban renewal also contributed to the complexity of the place and its contested nature, added to the existing tensions, and accelerated the transgression of the place from “authentic” to “spectacular.”     

The lost history of urban renewal

Contrary to common understanding, the US government's policy of “urban renewal” was conceived as an alternative policy to slum clearance. Bitterly opposed to public housing, conservative housing‐industry trade associations sought a way to reform the urban redevelopment formula of clearance and public housing established in the Housing Act of 1949. In the early 1950s, the industry groups seized on citizens' neighborhood fix‐up efforts, particularly the Baltimore Plan, to conduct a national campaign to popularize code enforcement, rehabilitation, and private low‐cost housing development as methods to restore and stabilize city neighborhoods. At conferences organized by House and Home magazine and in the President's Advisory Committee on Government Housing Policies and Programs, the housing industry associations fashioned policies, now named “urban renewal,” which were codified in the Housing Act of 1954. But private industry's venture in urban policymaking failed in implementation. Home builders proved reluctant to participate in the new programs, public housing hung on, and hundreds of thousands of homes fell to the wrecking ball. As urban renewal became synonymous with slum clearance, neighborhoods continued to decline. In the end, ironically, housing rehabilitation reemerged as a populist tool for reviving the inner city.     

区域中心城市交通网络的构建

进入21世纪以来,随着我国城市化进程的加快,城市行政区划的调整,给城市空间的拓展和城市功能的完善提供了机遇,区域中心城市的综合竞争力和影响力将得到有力提升。本文以广州为例,基于“山水城田海”为特色的多中心组团式网络型城市结构,结合新一轮的广州城市发展战略,探讨构建一个良好的交通运输系统。重点体现在构筑以机场、港口、铁路为龙头的现代化对外交通枢纽,以及建立高快速路和快速轨道的“双快”交通体系,缩小城市时空距离,满足大众出行需求和适应小汽车发展,促进城市空间拓展,进一步提升中心城市地位,保持城市活力和可持续发展,实现“适宜生活居住和适宜创业发展”的城市发展目标。     

THE ROLE OF HISTORY IN REDISTRIBUTIONAL POLICY DISCOURSE: EVIDENCE FROM LIVING WAGE CAMPAIGNS IN CHICAGO AND SAN FRANCISCO

The existing urban politics literature is insufficient in explaining why redistributional policymaking flourishes in some contexts and not in others. This article attempts to move beyond the structure versus agency dichotomy and uses a close comparison of the living wage movements in Chicago and San Francisco, not only to argue that “history matters,” but to illustrate how historical narratives are actively (re)constructed by social actors to further their agenda(s). Although each city started with similar campaigns to enact basic “contractor‐only” forms of living wage laws, by the end of a 10‐year period the resulting level of change in San Francisco stood in stark contrast to Chicago, where advocates failed to extend the living wage to “big box” retailers. Using a brief history of economic restructuring and an empirical assessment of the business climate valence of each city's political regime, this article finds that economic and political factors jointly structure the depth and pace of policy change by setting the terms of debate within redistributional policy discourses. This joint determination occurs because “problem frames” are path‐dependent and because inherited political structures, such as the availability of binding referendum, allocate agenda‐setting power and opportunities to challenge entrenched interests.     

Government Policy,the Local State,and Gentrification: The Case of Prenzlauer Berg (Berlin), Germany

Abstract: Since reunification, Berlin planners have sought to find a niche for a post‐industrial New Berlin integrated into Europe. While great scholarly attention has focused on the grand projects that have dominated the reconstruction of the city's government and downtown commercial districts, only lesser attention has been paid to the city's housing and social policies. This article seeks to identify the extent to which Berlin planners have permitted unabated market‐led redevelopment to proceed and to what extent local policy has sought more balanced redevelopment and the “European city” ideal. The article looks at gentrifying Prenzlauer Berg, in eastern Berlin, to assess the extent to which public policy measures can be expected to constrain and temper, and not just promote, gentrification. The role played by community development organizations in mediating development is observed. The impact of the city's fiscal crisis and slack housing market are also noted.     

THE ROLES OF INTELLIGENCE SYSTEMS IN URBAN-SYSTEMS PLANNING

Our new understandings of urban systems and our changing concepts of urban problems have not yet been matched by satisfactory urban planning processes. In response to the growing demand for good information that might support rational developmental decisions, “intelligence centers” are proposed, operating with an interim programming strategy. These centers would serve the multiplicity of groups in the urban areas, supplying improved inventories and forecasts; and they would serve governmental investors by designing targets, programs, and strategics for public action. They would inevitably be engaged in politics and action, but they would bring the scientific morality into urban affairs—a new ingredient in the urban political scene. They are proposed as the effective city planning agencies for this era of flux.     

GENTRIFICATION AND THE RIGHT TO THE CITY: COMMUNITY CONFLICT AND CASINOS

Henri Lefebvre's right to the city concept is increasingly used to challenge the development prerogatives associated with neoliberal development. These challenges are more common as gentrification becomes a global urban strategy. This article is an empirical investigation that examines competing claims to community legitimacy and authenticity in a conflict over gentrification in a Philadelphia neighborhood. This conflict emerged in Fishtown when long‐time established residents went head to head with upper‐income gentrifiers over the location of a casino in the neighborhood. Place‐based identities and the temporal connection individuals had to Fishtown contributed to the differences in perspectives on the costs and benefits of the casino and on the legitimacy of long‐time residents versus newcomers to be representative voices on behalf of Fishtown. The findings illuminate problems in applying the right to the city to neighborhood struggles when communities are divided over what constitutes a benefit to the community. The right to the city may not be a universal claim, particularly within a neoliberal urban context.     

VANCOUVER: THE SUSTAINABLE CITY

ABSTRACT: Vancouver exemplifies the richness of the many processes that set the civic culture of large contemporary cities. This paper focuses on what drives the social and economic construction of Vancouver, pointing to the complex linkages that tie agents to their environment. It shows that, in Vancouver, power arises from strong popular control and local democratic and participatory values, where group interactions produce and co‐produce community development. The Vancouver regime is open yet stable, socially progressive yet fiscally conservative and pro‐development. It is a regime that upholds an activist, tolerant and entrepreneurial civic culture. It emerges from an on‐going process where the openness of the regime is re‐negotiated in each neighbourhood and around each policy arena leading to the emergence of a culture of ongoing participation where civic, neighbourhood, ethnic and business groups constantly re‐invent the city.     

GENTRIFICATION AND THE GRASSROOTS: POPULAR SUPPORT IN THE REVANCHIST SUBURB

Abstract: Most existing research on neighborhoods facing gentrification has portrayed residents as resistant or politically quiescent. Drawing from a year of fieldwork in Dundalk, MD, I argue that developers and the neoliberal state will probably find popular support for gentrification as they reinvest in the politically divided industrial suburbs of the United States. Local homeowners and community associations have emerged as gentrification supporters for three interrelated reasons. First, many of them have drawn from a resurgent national conservatism to explain decline as an effect of government subsidies and “people from the city;” their desire to reclaim suburban space—a “suburban revanchism”—although avoiding accusations of racism makes gentrification‐induced displacement appealing. Second, the rebirth of urban neighborhoods and other industrial suburbs provides visual evidence of gentrification's success. Third, the neoliberal state's retreat from social programs and its emphasis on private‐sector redevelopment allay suspicion of government and enable collaboration between the local state, developers, and homeowners. The redevelopment efforts of two local organizations illustrate how residents have become indispensable partners in Dundalk's emergent pro‐gentrification coalition.     

Emerging Workplaces in Post-Functionalist Cities

ABSTRACT

This paper explores new types of workplaces that are emerging due to the growing flexibility in work arrangements and the use of information and communication technologies. In addition to home and office, third places, such as libraries and coffee shops, are increasingly used as temporary workplaces. Moreover, there is a proliferation of co-working spaces that are designed as temporary working locations. Thus, the boundaries between traditional urban functions have become blurred; different functions co-exist in the same spaces, and new functionalities emerge as people take spaces into new uses. We may call our cities “post-functionalist,” ones that are no longer based only on predetermined and designed functions. However, there has been little research on the spatial characteristics of these new workplaces as well as on the social features within these places. These phenomena have been empirically studied through observational studies, interviews, and spatial analyses of three such sites: Café Köket, Meetingpoint, and Helsinki Think Company in the city center of Helsinki. The results reveal new forms of appropriation of public and semi-public spaces for working purposes that have not yet been analyzed in the context of existing urban policies and practices. The findings provide input for future visions and the planning of new workplaces.     

ALTERNATIVES TO CELEBRITY IN THE RESCUE OF THE CITY,a Reply to Robert A. Beau regard

ABSTRACT: Books by urban academics that spark interest in the fate of cities are important but only one of the critical functions of urban scholars. Privileging the role of “public intellectual” in creating passionate popular involvement with the city is based on the assumption that the celebrity of a few academics in the 1960s/1970s was a major factor in the public urban concerns of that period. The author argues that calling for new public intellectuals to use media-driven celebrity to rekindle interest in cities does not preclude the media's function as a filter that may distort or appropriate ideas in their own interests. He urges teaching students a critical perspective, working with people as colleagues rather than as tutors, building urban affairs as a field of study, using interactive communication channels such as the Internet, and examining the urban insights of nonacademic writers and artists.     

GRAFFITI OR STREET ART? NEGOTIATING THE MORAL GEOGRAPHIES OF THE CREATIVE CITY

ABSTRACT: In cities such as Sydney, a succession of wars on graffiti has produced a moral geography of artistic practice. At the same time, the rise to prominence of creative cities discourses and the subsequent revaluation of creativity as a postindustrial salve unsettles the dominance of the normative criminalization of graffiti. The profusion of cultural plans and public art policies, along with metropolitan initiatives promoting the creative city, provide opportunities to resignify graffiti as productive creative practice. Set in a discursive world of murals, street art, and “legal graffiti,” some graffiti writers are grasping these opportunities, deploying multiple subjectivities in order to negotiate the moral geographies of the creative city. This article looks at contemporary state responses to graffiti in Sydney and the ways graffiti writers and street artists work within and beyond the various attempts to capture, enclose, and engage graffiti and graffiti writers.     

探索适合国情的城市化道路——城市规模问题的再认识

在对城市规模及其影响因素进行科学分析的基础上 ,提出不同规模的城市在城市化进程中发挥着不同的作用 ,不存在某种最佳规模的观点 ;从而对建国以来我国城市发展方针进行了重新检讨 ,认为适合国情的城市化道路是 :实事求是、因地制宜 ,促进大、中、小城市协调、合理、健康、有序地发展 ,形成结构良好的城镇体系。