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AbstractCity‐regionalism and livability are concepts that feature prominently in recent writings on urban politics and policy. Policy discussions have seen the two concepts fused together in such a way that regional competitiveness is generally understood to entail high levels of 'livability' while urban livability is increasingly discussed, measured and advocated at a city‐regional scale. It is, then, important to understand how these concepts work in tandem and to delineate the often‐elided politics of reproduction through which they operate. This paper begins by elaborating on the politically powerful fusion of city‐regionalist and urban livability discourses, using the example of Richard Florida's creative city argument. It then discusses the politics of city‐regionalism and livability through the case of Austin, Texas, a city that has framed its policy in terms of regionalism and livability but which is also characterized by marked income inequality and a neighborhood‐based political struggle over the city's future. The paper concludes by drawing lessons from the discussion and suggesting that the city‐regional livability agenda can best be understood as a geographically selective, strategic, and highly political project.

This paper examines the relationship between urbanisation and globalisation beyond the so-called global cities that have been the focus of so much contemporary urban research. The paper argues that there is a problematic polarisation in urban studies between research on 'global' cities and work on presumably 'non-global' cities. The existing geographical literature on scale, place and uneven development offers a more complex and process-based view of contemporary urbanism. It allows the globalisation-urbanisation nexus to be studied in and through a diverse range of cities. This argument is developed via a case study of key moments in the economic development of Lexington, Kentucky, a city that, like most others, is forgotten or overlooked by global cities researchers.

This paper explores relationships between the politics of urban competitiveness and popular media discourse about the 'good life' and 'good places'. Specifically, it focuses on the influence of popular 'best places to live' rankings on urban policy in three US cities. It addresses two issues: how and why similar policies are transferred from place to place; and, how 'extra-economic' factors are mobilised in formulating local economic development policy. It argues that the media's role in these processes is understudied and that its normative discourse is powerful and political. This argument is influenced by and illustrative of a recent attempt to locate the study of discursive power much more centrally in political economy approaches to urban studies.

This textbook of essays by leading critical urbanists is a compelling introduction to an important field of study; it interrogates contemporary conflicts and contradictions inherent in the social experience of living in cities that are undergoing neoliberal restructuring, and grapples with profound questions and challenging policy considerations about diversity, equity, and justice. A stimulant to debate in any undergraduate urban studies classroom, this book will inspire a new generation of urban social scholars

"Mobile Urbanism" provides a unique set of perspectives on the current global-urban condition. Drawing on cutting-edge theoretical work, leading geographers reveal that cities are not isolated objects of study; rather, they are dynamic, global-local assemblages of policies, practices, and ideas. The essays in this volume argue for a theorizing of both urban policymaking and place-making that understands them as groups of territorial and relational geographies. It broadens our comprehension of agents of transference, reconceiving how policies are made mobile, and acknowledging the imp

Questions of change and the future have become increasingly salient in Vancouver's Chinatown in the last decade, as gentrification proceeds apace. Various actors have used the neighbourhood's public spaces to express their visions of Chinatown's future. These claims are articulated through attempts to demonstrate and strengthen the vitality of Chinatown in the face of growing narratives of its putative decline and death. By engaging with the contemporary sociological literature on conviviality, where relatively "thin" versus more radical conceptualizations of conviviality are being debated, and putting it into conversation with both the geographical literature on the politics of public space and political theory discussions of agonism, we argue that the uses of public space must be analyzed without romanticizing conviviality or consensus in order to understand the productive possibilities of "political conviviality" and agonistic encounters. Our focus is the "Hot+Noisy Mahjong Socials" held in recent summers in an iconic plaza in Chinatown. These are organized by a community group that builds connections between mostly Chinese Canadian youth and largely Cantonese-speaking seniors. These groups espouse a goal of "place-keeping" in the context of planning trends toward "placemaking." Through this case, we consider how activists from marginalized communities build solidarities through agonistic "place-keeping" in the face of gentrification and threats of cultural erasure.

AbstractThe growing use of the notion of 'policy mobilities' to conceptualize how policy is made and moved across and among cities and urbanized regions has led to worthwhile insights, but has also encouraged some critiques. Many of these address certain dualisms that seem to undergird the policy mobilities approach. This essay engages with three of these apparent dualisms—success/failure, presence/absence and mobilities/immobilities—and argues that while they must be treated with care, they should not be dismissed or expunged a priori. Rather, we argue that there is utility in conceptualizing urban policy mobilities through relational dyads, rather than oppositional dualisms. If studies of policy mobilities, urban or otherwise, are to maintain their momentum, success, failure, presence, absence, mobilities and immobilities should be understood as being intertwined, mutually constituting and reinforcing elements of policymaking.