The Two Federal Lands of Berlin-Brandenburg: A European Region on its Way to Sustainable Development

Local decision-makers face a wide range of pressures over questions of urban development. Among these is to pursue urban economic growth, while simultaneously responding to environmental demands to reduce car usage. There is, however, a lack of empirical studies analysing urban entrepreneurialism in conjunction with car-use reduction. This paper focuses on city-centre development and regulation of retail trade in two Norwegian cities. The underlying logic is that while compact city development and concentration of commerce in the urban core are ways to reduce car usage, there are also pressures drawing shopping to the city outskirts. The paper highlights the conflicting spatial interests involved in policies for car-use reduction, as evident in discussions as to how to regulate parking throughout the urban area. The paper also shows how municipal policy for car-use reduction is affected by private actors and neighbouring municipalities. Ultimately, the cases illustrate how local decision-making is influenced by the balance of pressures for and against environmental policy. In this way, analysis of inter-municipal competition over retail trade, inhabitants and investments, provides important insights into urban policy and practice.     

Urban Entrepreneurialism and Sustainable Development: A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Eco-Developments

ABSTRACT

In recent years, state entrepreneurialism and the notion of (urban) sustainability have become ever more closely intertwined in China and there has been a proliferation of eco-/low-carbon and other similar sustainability-themed urban initiatives that have helped local states to achieve a favorable position in city competitions. Nevertheless, existing studies do not explain why Chinese sustainability projects are planned/implemented with divergent emphases and different development trajectories. Through three Chinese flagship projects, the real-estate-centric Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City (SSTEC), the environmental-construction-led Chongming Eco-Islands (CEIs), and the industrial development-focused Shenzhen International Low-Carbon City (ILCC), we argue that the formulation and implementation of urban sustainable developments are subject to local particularities and different extra-local political-economic contexts. We highlight how both vertical administrative governance and horizontal coordination between territorial jurisdictions underlie the Chinese entrepreneurial planning system, which results in different types of urban entrepreneurships: (1) scalable startup urban entrepreneurship (SSTEC); (2) asset-replacement urban entrepreneurship (CEIs); and (3) urban expansion entrepreneurship (ILCC). This study also reveals that all three cases experience a development paradox as they strive to reconcile mutually competing economic and environmental imperatives.     

Investing in the Ground: Reflections on Scarcity,Remediation and Obdurate Form

Douglas Spencer develops David Harvey's notion of the ‘spatial fix’ in which material processes in the built environment and the ground itself are repeatedly used up for the purposes of capital investment. This can be to the detriment of the quality of the land itself, which is often abandoned after a period of time as polluted and unusable brownfield sites; while available resources are bled dry. It is a situation that has been worsened over the last few decades with the emphasis on entrepreneurial and intensive modes of urbanisation. Spencer indicates how this situation can be negated by landscape urbanism through critical interventions, such as those represented here in the work of the Architectural Association Landscape Urbanism (AALU) Masters programme in London and Groundlab, the practice associated with it.     

Neoliberalism as entrepreneurial governmentality: contradictions and dissonance within contemporary English housing associations

Abstract

This paper has two aims: to provide a critical commentary on the value of neoliberalism in explaining contemporary housing policy and to critically examine recent practices that have been shaped by ideas most commonly associated with neoliberalism. It begins by distinguishing different interpretative variants of neoliberalism and some of the criticisms regarding its explanatory capability. Taking the example of housing associations in England, the paper makes use of Dardot and Laval’s notion of ‘entrepreneurial governmentality’ to interpret how contemporary welfare professionals attempt to reconcile the competing tensions of individualism and egalitarianism in practice. Amongst the arguments put forward is that the extension of commercialism, commodification and competition have generated new fissures and dissonance within the sector. The conclusion suggests that contemporary variants of neoliberalism are best understood as a rationality that establishes entrepreneurial governmentality across sectors of government, the economy and social life.     

“跨国商贸主义”下的城市新社会空间生产——对广州非裔经济区的实证

文章采用第一手调研资料、通过长期实地调研,揭示"跨国商贸主义"下广州非洲人族裔经济区的生产机制。实证表明,跨国非裔商人的商业迁移链经由非洲到欧洲、北美、中亚、东南亚而后转入中国;随着广州小北、三元里等地非洲人族裔经济区的成熟发展,其生产链逐步成型,主要包括非裔坐贾和非裔行商两大群体;广州非洲人族裔经济区已具有成型的社会网络结构,分为3个圈层:核心层为非裔商人圈、第二层为非裔社团组织圈、第三层为非裔商人与本地中国居民所组成的外圈层。"跨国商贸主义"下新社会空间的出现,标志着中国"深度全球化"时代的到来,地方城市所面临的机遇与挑战并存。     

都市企业主义视角下工业遗产绿色更新路径及其影响——废弃铁路蜕变高线公园

工业遗产研究自20世纪60年代以来在国际上得到广泛关注,已逐渐超越单一"建筑学"视角,向交叉学科方向发展.为推动这一进程,从城市文化景观与治理的角度探讨存量发展背景下工业遗产实现景观更新和功能转化的路径及其影响.以高线公园为例,通过都市企业主义理论深入剖析其绿色更新路径中增长联盟的协调机制及城市影响.研究发现:高线公园...