1. WHAT IS URBAN THEORY?
Urban Studies and Urban Theory
What is Urban?
What is Theory?
And So What on Earth is Urban Theory?
2. URBAN THEORIES UNDER CONDITIONS OF MODERNITY
The Chicago School and Urban Ecology
Urban Geography and Spatial Analysis
The Community Power Debate
Humanistic (Urban) Geography
‘Radical′ Approaches
The Legacy of Previous Theories and Their Challenges
3. FROM THE URBAN CRISIS TO THE ‘TRIUMPH OF THE CITY’
Cities as Actors in a Globalising Economy
Urban Decline and Obsolescence
Urban Economic Renaissance
Discussion
4. CAN CITIES ACT? URBAN POLITICAL ECONOMY AND THE QUESTION OF
AGENCY
The Rediscovery of Agency Within Urban Theory
Introducing American Urban Political Economy
Urban Regimes and Growth Machines
The Normative Dimension
Critiques and Applications
5. SPATIAL EXPRESSIONS OF INTRA-URBAN INEQUALITIES
Inequalities Versus Differentiations: Vertical and Horizontal
Paradigms
Cities as Sites of Resources: Space and Inequalities
Segregation
Suburbanization
Gentrification
Ghettoization as a Spatial Process of Marginalization
Neighbourhood Effects: Spatial Profit and Disadvantage
6. SPATIAL EXPRESSION OF DIFFERENTIATION
The Cultural Turn
The City as a Realm of Community and Lifestyle
The Subcultural Thesis
The Representational City: Public Space
Cultural Diversity: Identities in Public Space
Conclusion: Cities as Matrix of Resources
7. URBAN THEORY RECONSIDERED
The ′Crisis′ in Urban Theory Revisited
The Performance of Theories
The Commensurability of Theories
Theory, Politics and Practice
A New Urban Agenda?
Alan Harding is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the
Heseltine Institute for Public Policy and Practice at the
University of Liverpool Management School in the UK. Previously, he
held posts at Manchester, Salford and Liverpool John Moores
universities. His research interests are in urban and regional
development, governance and policy and he has acted as an advisor
on these issues for a wide range of leading agencies with interests
in this field.
Talja Blokland (1971) is an urban sociologist who has worked
at Yale University, the University of Manchester and various Dutch
universities. Since 2009, she has held the
chair of Urban and Regional Sociology at Humboldt University in
Berlin. Her publications include Urban Bonds (Polity 2003),
Networked Urbanism (edited with Mike Savage, Ashgate 2008) and
various articles on race and ethnicity in the city, poor
neighbourhoods, urban violence, gentrification, urban middle
classes and neighbourhood relations and everyday interactions.
Just when we need it most, urban theory seems to be failing us.
This book explains why we need it.
*Jamie Peck*
Harding and Blokland address the vaunted "crisis" in urban theory
with a thoughtful assessment of extant theories in terms of
performance, commensurability, and critical engagement. In a
conversational and lively tone, they view theories of inequality,
public space, identity, power, agency, and culture through the lens
of "relaxed urban theory." Excellent overview for scholars and
engaging classroom material.
*Susan E. Clarke*
Inspired by Peter Saunders’s non-spatial urban thinking, Harding
and Blokland’s book provides a provocative, wide-ranging and
comprehensive treatment of concepts geared to understand cities,
and is a compulsory addition to any urban student’s intellectual
arsenal in a period of renewed interest in urban theory.
*Roger Keil*
Urban theory is said to be in a mess. Proceeding with great
analytical clarity, this book introduces a relaxed definition
of urban theory that enables the reader to make sense of the
non-linear, variegated world of urban theory as it has developed
over time and through the application of different disciplines,
methods and epistemologies. In reviewing all the major
conceptualisations of urban theory, Harding and Blokland provide
clear insights into recent developments and the controversies and
critiques they have provoked. The book is a pedagogical tour de
force for students and scholars alike.
*Patrick Le Galès*
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