Governance: Beyond the Neoliberal City

This chapter explores the limits and limitations of the concept of “the neoliberal city” for our understanding of contemporary urban governance. It begins with a brief historical account of the neoliberalization of the city. It then presents three ways of conceptualizing urban neoliberalism: as a global class project; as an articulation of “actually existing” metropolitan political and governmental forces and arrangements; and as an unstable metropolitan political and governmental project that seeks, but often fails, to achieve hegemonic status. The third part of this chapter reviews ethnographic case material that illustrates the necessity of using the concept of neoliberalism in a careful and nuanced manner when analyzing urban governance. The chapter concludes by discussing the limits and limitations of the neoliberal city paradigm, and argues that it is critical to theorize the neoliberal city without suggesting that its proponents have advanced their projects in stable, unitary or uncontested contexts, or that there is a singular, overarching view or account of what it is.