City-Regions

The function and influence of cities has changed throughout history.  The world has transitioned from a collection of city-states to nation-states and now to global cities.  In nation-states economic power was territorialized and rooted in place. Now in global cities economic power has become de-territorialized. Even though capital is mobile and no loner rooted in a specific geographic location, place is still important. The function of place has changed. Cities are no longer dependent on production agglomeration, but serve new functions in the global economy. Global cities today are systemic nodes in the world economy.  In his article Globalization and the Rise of City-regions, Allen J. Scott explores the economic dynamic of city-regions. He writes that in the new economic order agglomerations occur when there are high transactions cost for production causing interconnected firms to converge, where the transaction costs are outputs are low with expanding markets, and where increasing returns leads to more growth(819). Scott questions and explores the challenges of governing these city-regions that are globally interconnected. He raises the concern for marginalized and dispossessed migrants that are a part of this interconnected system.  Scott calls for an alternative definition of citizenship as necessary to protect the rights of these low-wage migrants; “An alternative definition of citizenship, one that is more fully in harmony with the unfolding new world system, would presumably assign basic political entitlements and obligations to individuals not so much as an absolute birthright, but as some function of their changing involvement and practical allegiances in given geographic contexts”(823). 

Uneven Geographies of Capitalism

In her article Extracting Value from the City: Neoliberalism and Urban Redevelopment, Rachel Weber describes how markets and politics inform spatial practice. She argues that spatial policies are reliant on discursive practices that shape opinion about areas slated for redevelopment. The built environment is stigmatized through discursive frames. The power of language shapes our perceptions of space and determines what society’s values and devalues in the built environment. For example the use of the term “blight” to describe spatial areas facing decline is a loaded term implying this is a “sick” place that must be “cured.” This type of intentional narrative framing informs the uneven distribution of capital in cities. Weber writes, “Whereas the Keynesian state framed slum clearance as a government responsibility to aid victim-residents, entrepreneurial urban policies use discursive frames that assign neither blame nor responsibility”(532=533).  The flow of capital is not just determined by markets or politics but by intentional discursive framing.

Municipalities today face even more challenges for development and redevelopment. In order to compete in a global arena while facing fiscal stress and budget constraints, local governments must find new ways to capture capital in the built environment. 

Growth vs. Anti-Growth

In his article The City as Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place, Harvey Molotch makes the argument that towns and cities principle focus is growth and imagines a more utopic anti-growth future. He asserts that a cities sole function is to sustain and promote growth; "the very essence of a locality is its operation as a growth machine." In his opinion, the "we feeling" of a community is the result of a shared future where people join together to pursue opportunities and combat challenges that concern the collective good, which is dependent on growth. In order to promote growth, localities attempt to charm business and industry with promises of favorable taxation and job training. Localities compete with one another to attract businesses in order to sustain growth. Molotch goes as far as to say that community wide events from Major League Baseball games to spelling bees all serve to create an ideological foundation for accepting growth. He criticizes the absurdity of the out-migration from places that already have existing infrastructure and housing stock to other localities that may have more "natural problems of inaccessibility of ugliness or lack of population support resource," or barriers to growth. According to Molotch, this is a result of political economic decisions to concentrate growth in certain localities and not others. Molotch too quickly equates growth with environmental degradation and fails to consider the environmental benefits in terms of mass transportation and decreased sprawl of hyper-dense cities. 

Notes on Massey's Politics and Space/Time

In her essay Politics and Space/Time, Doreen Massey challenges the notion that space and time are separate. Space is a hot topic. In the discussion surrounding space, everyone assumes that we already know the definition of the term space, yet in much of the discussion space is poorly defined. In the current literature, many authors separate space from politics. Massey challenges Laclau’s view of space. In his interpretation, space is static and because it is removed from time, it is also separate from politics. Laclau asserts that space is a closed and self-determining structure. Because the spatial is closed system, all changes are internal and politics are removed from this static spatial realm. Although change can occur within the spatial itself, change cannot happen upon it by larger systems. In Laclau’s view there is no dynamic interaction between space and broader systems. Laclau holds that only in dislocation do we find politics. Dislocation is temporal and the opposite of space—it is the form of possibility and freedom. Massey draws upon three different disciplines to deconstruct Laclau’s assertions—radical geography, feminism, and physics. Massey draws on radical geography to explain that space and society have a reciprocal relationship. Space is socially constructed and society is constructed spatially. Because of this mutual relationship, space cannot be separate from history and time. Laclau’s arguments rely upon a dichotomous dualistic definition of space-time. Feminists critique these oppositional dichotomies as an obstacle to understand the changing world. These oversimplified dichotomies uphold the patriarchal structure of society. This kind of dichotomous, dualistic thinking is responsible for the distinction, characterization, and power relations between men and women in our society. Space is often coded as female in both its chaos and opposition to history and time. Women throughout city have been viewed as a threat to the male dominated city culture. For women the city was a place to more easily escape the patriarchal social controls of smaller towns. Women in the cities have represented disorder, sexual license, and chaos. Massey also argues that Laclau’s assertion that space and time are oppositional does not jive with the laws of physics.