Neoliberalism

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Neoliberalism in City Spaces
Neoliberalism in the city spaces can be construed as a shift towards a different order of the economic, social and political life of the urban populations. By definition, neoliberalism refers to an ideological system that advocates for free markets, unrestricted flow of trade and increased globalization. Within the urban spaces, neoliberalism is explained by shifts in global city formations that mostly occurred in the 1980s and 1990s (Brenner and Nik 103). The changes in city formations occurred in areas of reindustrialization, deindustrialization, and urban entrepreneurialism, gentrification of cities, informatization and sociospatial polarization of the urban centers. Contemporary restricting of the cities can be seen in the breakaway of the traditional architectural designs and proliferation of the political, social and economic lives of the urban residents (MacLeod 2631). Ideally, restructuring of the cities implies transition and re-arrangement of urban settlements, defensive and offensive actions of the residents and a mix of continuity of the city culture against the growing need for change (Triece 257). Therefore, it represents a system of breaking away the patterns that characterized urban environments and rebuilds them again, and this arises due to prevalent insufficiencies and incapabilities of the previous regimes (Clarke 499). It is also brought by the increased demand for better ways of dealing with complex urban needs.

Further, neoliberalism within urban spaces can be understood from the increasing partnerships of the local governments with the private agents to promote, develop and set urban policies and strategies. The increased participation of the private agents drives the urban environments towards the neoliberal economy where there is less control by the government (Vives Miró 7). The logic of neoliberalism in urban spaces also helps to build free markets through the flow of financial and non-financial operations that enhances the competitiveness of the cities (Ranci 136). It also increases efficiency and effectiveness through development of policies that support the role of the private agents in urban environments.
Works Cited
Brenner, Neil, and Nik Theodore. “Neoliberalism and the urban condition.” City 9.1 (2005): 101-107.
Clarke, Nick. “In what sense ‘spaces of neoliberalism’? The new localism, the new politics of scale, and town twinning.” Political Geography 28.8 (2009): 496-507.
MacLeod, Gordon. “Urban politics reconsidered: Growth machine to a post-democratic city?” Urban Studies 48.12 (2011): 2629-2660.
Ranci, Costanzo. “6 Neoliberalism and the European city.” Debating the Neoliberal City (2017): 136.
Triece, Mary E. “Whitewashing City Spaces: Personalization and Strategic Forgetting in News Accounts of Urban Crisis and Renewal.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 41.3 (2017): 250-267.Vives Miró, Sònia. “Producing a “successful city”: Neoliberal urbanism and gentrification in the tourist city—the case of Palma (Majorca).” Urban Studies Research 2011 (2011).