PLSI/URBS 512.01 Urban Politics
Instructor: Margit Mayer
Fall 2005, MW 14-16
Office: HSS 133
Office hours: Tu 16-18
mayer@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Course description:
This class introduces students to the problems, theories and policies relevant to the
American City by comparing and contrasting with urban politics in other western,
particularly European, democracies. This includes an understanding of the importance of
urban politics both on the national and local level, and its major transformations in the
course of the last decades. After an introductory section on national and local politics and
their relationship we turn to the central theoretical approaches currently used for
analyzing urban politics, in order to then test their relevance by looking at a variety of
policy fields in problem areas thrown up by recent restructuring. This will include a focus
on trying to understand the shifts in urban policies towards devolution, partnerships,
privatization, involvement of civil society stakeholders etc. We will also look at urban
social movements and their role in urban politics, both as challengers to the
neoliberalization of urban governance and as collaborators with the local state. Finally,
the emerging forms of regional politics will be looked at as a possible alternative.
Course Requirements:
-
Attendence, active involvement, preparation of weekly readings, and discussion
lead of one session (this participation counts for 25% of your grade)
Exposé/Problematique (3-4 pages) based on any one of the class sessions, with a
comparative focus, due October 10 (25%)
Short Paper (8-10 pages), elaborating on the expose with literature from other
sessions, due December 5 (25%)
Critical Reflection on your work and Presentation of its findings (1 page handout)
on December 7 (25%)
Office Hours are Tuesdays from 4-6 pm. Please sign up for a time slot on my office
door.
Readings have all been placed on e-reserve or Blackboard.
August 24
Introduction to the Course
I. Urban Problems Today – What are Urban Politics?
Aug 29:
Film "boom, the sound of eviction"
Aug 31
Neal Peirce, Britain's Focus on its Cities: Painful Contrast for U.S. Neil Peirce Column,
June 26, 2005, Washington Post Writers Group
Sept 5 (Labor Day)
1. National Urban Politics
Sept 7:
Demetrios Caraley, Washington Abandons the Cities, Political Science Quarterly 107/1
(Spring 1992)
Peter Dreier, Urban Suffering Grew Under Reagan, Commondreams June 10, 2004
Peter Dreier, Bush and the Cities. Progressive Planning Magazine, Fall 2004
Michael A. Stegman, Recent US Urban Change and Policy Initiatives, Urban Studies,
32/10, 1995, 1601-1607.
Sept 12:
Mark Berkey-Gerard, The Urban Agenda of the Presidential Candidates, Gotham
Gazette, Jan 26, 2004
John Mollenkopf, Urban Policy at the Crossroads, Urban News. Newsletter of the Urban
Politics Section 11/2, summer 1997.
Erin Campbell, 2005. Orwell is Alive and Well in the Bush Administration.
Commondreams April 9, 2005.
2. Local Politics
Sept 14 & 19:
Michael Keating, 1991. Systems of Local Government: Culture and Structure. Ch. 2 of
M. Keating, Comparative Urban Politics. Power and the City in the US, Canada,
Britain and France. Aldershot: Edward Alger, 13-35.
Robert Bennet, 1986. Public Finance, public administration and spatial policy. Recent
developments in urban systems and policy responses in the USA, UK and FRG.
Political Geography Quarterly, Suppl. to 5/4, S 119-S 133.
Dennis R. Judd, Todd Swanstrom, 1994. The Politics of American Cities: An
Introduction. Chapter 1 in Judd/Swanstrom, City Politics. Private Power and
Public Policy. Harper Collins, 1-15.
John Nichols, Urban Archipelago, The Nation, June 20, 2005
II. Theories:
Sept 21
Regime theory
Stoker, Gerry (1995): Regime Theory and Urban Politics, in: David Judge, Gerry Stoker,
Harold Wolman, eds., Theories of Urban Politics. London: Sage, pp. 54-70.
Clarence Stone, 2005. Looking back to look forward. Reflections on Urban Regime
Analysis. Urban Affairs Review 40/3 (January), 309-341.
Sept 26
Globalization and global cities
Sassen, Saskia (1994): Cities in a World Economy, Thousand Oaks/London/New Delhi:
Pine Forge Press, Ch.2.
Marcuse, Peter, Ronald van Kempen (2000), Chapter One: Introduction, in: Globalizing
Cities: A New Spatial Order. Ed. by Peter Marcuse and Ronald van Kempen. pp. 1-21.
John Friedman (1986): The World City Hypothesis, in: Deelopment and Change, 17/1
(January), pp. 69-84.
Sept 28
LA school
Soja, Edward (1989): It all comes together in Los Angeles, Chapter 8 in: Soja,
Postmodern Geographies, London: Verso, 1989.
Soja, Edward, Allen J. Scott (1996): Introduction to Los Angeles: City and Region, in:
Scott/Soja, eds., The City. Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth
Century, Berkeley: U of California Press, pp. 1-21.
Dear, Michael, Steven Flusty (2002): The Resistable Rise of the L.A. School, in: Michael
J. Dear, ed., From Chicago to L.A. Making Sense of Urban Theory. Thousand Oaks:
Sage, pp. 3-16.
Scott, Allen J. (2002): Industrial Urbanism in Late-Twentieth-Century Southern
California, in: Michael J. Dear, ed., From Chicago to L.A., Thousand Oaks: Sage, pp.
161-181.
Oct 3 & Oct 5
Regulation theory
Margit Mayer, "Post-Fordist City Politics," in: Ash Amin, ed., Post-Fordism: A Reader.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994, pp. 316-337. Reprinted in: Richard T. LeGates and
Frederic Stout, eds., The City Reader: 2nd edition. London and New York:
Routledge, 2000, pp. 229-239.
Joe Painter, 1995. Regulation Theory, Post-Fordism and Urban Politics, in: David
Judge, Gerry Stoker, Harold Wolman, eds., Theories of Urban Politics. London:
Sage, 276-296.
Neil Brenner, 2003. Glocalization as State Spatial Strategy. The new politics of uneven
development in Western Europe, in: Jamie Peck, Henry Yeung, eds., Remaking the
Global Economy. London: Sage.
Neil Brenner, Urban Governance and the production of new state spaces in western
Europe, 1960-2000. Review of International Political Economy 11/3, August 2004,
447-488.
Oct 10 Your expose is due!
Oct 12
Neoliberalism
Neil Brenner, Nik Theodore, 2005. Neoliberalism and the Urban Conditions. City, 9/1
(April), 101-107.
Neil Brenner, Nik Theodore, 2002. Cities and the Geographies of "Actually Existing
Neoliberalism." Antipode 34/3, June 2002, 349-379.
Bob Jessop, 2000. Good Governance and the Urban Questions: On Managing the
Contradictions of Neo-Liberalism (on the World Report on the Urban Future
prepared for the Urban21 World Conference). Mieterecho June.
Jamie Gough, 2002. Neoliberalism and Socialisation in the Contemporary City:
Opposites, Complements and Instabilities. Antipode 34/3, 405-426.
Bob Jessop, 2002. Liberalism, Neoliberalism and Urban Governance: A State-Theoretical
Perspective. Antipode 34/3, 452-472.
III. Contemporary Trends, Problems, Policies
Oct 17
Entrepreneurializing City Politics
Susan E. Clarke, Gary L. Gaile, 1998. The Era of Entrepreneurial Cities. Chapter 5 in:
Clarke/Gaile, The Work of Cities. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press, 55-88.
Bob Jessop, 1998. The Narrative of Enterprise and the Enterprise of Narrative: Place
Marketing and the Entrepreneurial City. In: Tim Hall, Phil Hubbard, eds., The
Entrepreneurial City. Chichester: John Wiley, 77-102. or
Bob Jessop, 1997. The Entrepreneurial City: Re-Imaging Localities, Redesigning
Economic Governance, or Restructuring Capital? in: Nick Jewson, Susanne
MacGregor, eds., Transforming Cities: Contested Governance and New Spatial
Divisions. London: Routledge, 28-41.
Margit Mayer, 1995. Urban Governance in the Post-Fordist City, in: Patsy Healey et al.,
eds., Managing Cities: The New Urban Context. Chichester: John Wiley, 1995, pp.
231-249.
HUD, 1995. Urban Entrepreneurialism and National Economic Growth. Washington, D.C.:
HUD.
Oct 19
Segregation and ghetto
Marcuse, Peter. "The Enclave, the Citadel, and the Ghetto: What Has Changed in the
Post-Fordist U.S. City." Urban Affairs Review, vol. 33, No. 2, November 1997,
pp. 228-264
Sassen, Saskia (1998). Chapter 7 "Service Employment Regimes and the New
Inequality." Globalization and its Discontents. Pp. 137-151.
Mike Davis, "Fortress LA...," in:M.Sorkin (ed), Variations on a Theme Park. The New
American City and the End of Public Space (New York: Noonday Press, 1992)
Peter Marcuse, 1996. Space and race in the Post-Fordist City: The Outcast Ghetto and
Advanced Homelessness in the US Today. In: Enzo Mingione, ed., Urban Poverty
and the Underclass. Oxford: Blackwell,176-216.
Loic Wacquant, 1996. Red Belt, Black Belt: Racial Division, Class Inequality and the
State in the French Urban Periphery and the American Ghetto. In: Enzo
Mingione, ed., Urban Poverty and the Underclass. Oxford: Blackwell, 234-274.
Peter Dreier, John Mollenkopf, Todd Swanstrom (2001), Place Matters. Lawrence,
Kansas: UP of Kansas, chapters 2-4, pp. 30-132.
Oct 24
Gentrification
Smith, Neil (1987): Of yuppies and housing: gentrification, social restructuring, and the
urban dream, in: Environment and Planning D:Society and Space vol. 5, pp. 151172.
Matthias Bernt, Andrej Holm, Gentrification of a particular type: the case of Prenzlauer
Berg, in: Rowland Atkinson, Gary Bridge, eds., The New Urban Colonialism.
Gentrification in a Global Context. London: Blackwell 2004.
Atkinson, Rowland (2003): Introduction: Misunderstood Saviour or Vengeful Wrecker?
The Many Meanings and Problems of Gentrification, in: Urban Studies 40 (12),
pp. 2343-2350.
Jason Hackworth, Neil Smith, 2001. The Changing State of Gentrification. Tijdschrift
voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 92/4, 464-477.
Myron Levine, 2004. Government Policy, the Local State, and Gentrification: the Case of
Prenzlauer Berg (Berlin), Germany, Journal of Urban Affairs, 26/1, 89-108
Oct 26
Security and zero tolerance
Davis, Mike. (1996): "Fortress L.A." (From the City of Quartz 1990) in The City Reader.
Edited by Richard T. LeGates and Frederic Stout. London and New
York:Routledge. Pp.158-163.
Davis, Mike (1992): Fortress Los Angeles: The Militarization of Urban Space, in:
Michael Sorkin (Ed.) Variations on a Theme Park. New York: Hill and Wang
(=shortened version of the above)
Neil Smith, “Which New Urbanism? New York City and the Revanchist 1990s,” in:
Robert Beauregard, Sophie Body-Gendrot (Eds.) The Urban Moment. Thousand
Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage, 1999.
Oct 31 (2-page outline of paper due)
Nov 2
Combating Social Exclusion, building social cohesion
Mike Geddes, Tackling Social Exclusion in the European Union? The Limits of the New
Orthodoxy of Local Partnership, IJURR 24/4 (December 2004), 782-800.
Eick, Volker, Margit Mayer, Jens Sambale, eds. (2003): “From welfare to work,”
Nonprofits and the welfare state in Berlin and Los Angeles, WP 1, Dept of
Politics, JFKI (Intro; Mayer; Theodore; Sambale)
Michael Harloe, 20.., Social Justice and the City: the New Liberal Formulation, IJURR
(as quoted in MM, Social Capital)
DeVerteuil, Geoffrey, Woobai Lee, Jennifer Wolch (2002): Two Decades of Local
Welfare State Restructuring: Lessons from Late 20th-Century Los Angeles, in:
Social and Cultural Geography, 3, pp. 229-246.
Hilary Silver, 1998. Policies to Reinforce Social Cohesion in Europe. In: Arjan de Haan,
Jose Burle Figueiredo, eds., Social Exclusion: An ILO Perspective. Geneva: ILO.
Hilary Silver, 1993. National conceptions of the new urban poverty: social structural
change in Britain, France and the United States. International Journal of Urban
and Regional Research 17/3, 336-45.
Towards greater role for sub-national gov't, local partnerships, and civil society
organizations
Nov 7: Europe:
Rob Atkinson, The White Paper on European Governance: Implications for Urban
Policy. European Planning Studies 10/6, 2002, 781-792
Mike Geddes,
Michael J. Rich, Micheal W. Giles, Emily Stern, 2001. Collaborating to Reduce Poverty:
Views from City Hall and Community-Based Organizations. Urban Affairs Review 37/2
(November), 184-204.
Nov 9: US
John J. DiIulio, 1997. In America's Cities. The Church and the "Civil Society Sector".
Brookings 15/4, 27-35
John J. DiIulio, 2002. The Future of Compassion: President Bush's Social Program hasn't
yet gotten a chance. Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec 4, 2002.
Glenn C. Loury, Linda Datcher Loury, 1997. The Role of the Afro-American Church in
Inner City Development. Brookings 15/1, 10-13.
Georgia A. Persons, 2004. National Politics and Charitable Choice as Urban Policy for
Community Development. Annals, AAPSS 594 (July), 65-78.
Nov 14
IV. Urban Politics 'from below'?
Mayer, M., “Urban Social Movements in an Era of Globalization,” in: Hamel, P. et al.,
eds., Urban Movements in a Globalizing World. London: Routledge, 2000, pp.141157.
Walter J. Nicholls, Justin R. Beaumont, 2004. Guest Editorial: The Urbanisation of
Justice Movements? Space and Polity 8/2 (August), 107-117.
Walter J. Nicholls, Justin R. Beaumont, 2004. The Urbanisation of Justice Movements?
Possibilities and Constraints for the City as a Space for Contentious Struggle.
Space and Polity 8/2 (August), 119-135.
Castells, Manuel (1983): The Resurgence of Urban Populism: the Alinsky model of
Community Organization. Chapter from Castells, The City and the Grassroots,
London: Edward Arnold.
Kelly Candaele / Peter Dreier, „LA’s Progressive Mosaic,“ The Nation, August 21, 2000.
Nov 16
Collaborations between USMs and the Local State
Sarah Ellwood, 2002. Neighborhood Revitalization through 'collaboration': Assessing the
Implications of neoliberal urban policy at the grassroots. GeoJournal 0, 1-10.
Mayer, M., “The Onward Sweep of Social Capital: Causes and Consequences for
Understanding Cities, Communities and Urban Movements,” International Journal
of Urban and Regional Research, 27/1, March 2003, pp. 110-132.
Jessop, Bob (2000): Good Governance and the Urban Question: On Managing the
Contradictions of Neoliberalism, Mieterecho June 2000.
Ann Withorn, 2002. "Let's Pretend:" Continuing Worries about the Role of CommunityBased Agencies in the Post Welfare Reform Era. A Report to the Kellog
Foundation.
Nov 21 6-page paper outline due plus annotated biblio
Nov 23 RESEARCH DAY
Nov 28:
Regional Politics and Regional Organizing:
Myron Orfield, 1997. Coalitions for Regional Reforms. Brookings 15/1, 6-9.
Rich Stolz, Lisa Rangeli, 2002. Community Organizing: A Populist Base for Social
Equity and Smart Growth. Liveable Communities @ Work, 1/1, November 2002
Manuel Pastor, Jr., “Common Ground at Ground Zero? The New Economy and the New
Organizing in Los Angeles,” Antipode 33/2 (2001): 260-289 (Muesste schon
digital vorhanden sein)
Manuel Pastro, Jr., et al., 2004. Community Building, Community Bridging. Linking
Neighborhood Improvement Initiatives and the New Regionalism in the San
Francisco Bay Area. Center for Justice, Tolerance and Community, UCSC
Nov 30 (no class)
Dec 5: Your paper is due!
Toward a New Urban Agenda
Bruce Katz, Enough of the Small Stuff! Toward a New Urban Agenda. The Brookings
Institution 18/3, summer 2000
HUD, 2001. Strategies for Success: Reinventing Cities for the 21st Century. Washington,
D.C.: HUD
Dec 7: “Symposium”: Presentation of your findings!
For those who want to read more:
Amin, ed., Post-Fordism: A Reader. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994
Bernard H. Ross, Myron A. Levine, Urban Politics. Power in Metropolitan
America. Itasca, Ill.: F.E.Peacock Publ. 2001
Peter Dreier, John Mollenkopf, Todd Swanstrom, Place Matters. Metropolitics for
the 21st Century. Lawrence, Kansas: UP of Kansas 2001
Bob Gottlieb, Peter Dreier, Marc Vallianatos, Regina M. Freer, The Next LA. The
Struggle for a Livable City. UC Press 2004.
Bernard H. Ross, Myron A. Levine, Urban Politics. Power in Metropolitan America. Itasca,
Ill.: F.E.Peacock Publ. 2001
Chris Pickvance, Edmond Preteceille, eds., 1991. State Restructuring and Local
Power. London: Pinter Publisher.
Neil Smith & Peter Williams, eds., 1986. Gentrification of the City. Boston: Allen
& Unwin
John Logan, Todd Swanstrom, "A Tiger by the Tail: Economic Restructuring and Urban
Policy in Comparative Perspective," Albany, 1989.