Contradictions of Neoliberal Planning: Cities, Policies, and Politics (GeoJournal Library Book 102)

This book argues that the concepts of ‘neoliberalism’ and ‘neoliberalisation,’ while in common use across the whole range of social sciences, have thus far been generally overlooked in planning theory and the analysis of planning practice. Offering insights from papers presented during a conference session at a meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Boston in 2008 and a number of commissioned chapters, this book fills this significant hiatus in the study of planning. What the case studies from Africa, Asia, North-America and Europe included in this volume have in common is that they all reveal the uneasy cohabitation of ‘planning’ – some kind of state intervention for the betterment of our built and natural environment – and ‘neoliberalism’ – a belief in the superiority of market mechanisms to organize land use and the inferiority of its opposite, state intervention. Planning, if anything, may be seen as being in direct contrast to neoliberalism, as something that should be rolled back or even annihilated through neoliberal practice. To combine ‘neoliberal’ and ‘planning’ in one phrase then seems awkward at best, and an outright oxymoron at worst. To admit to the very existence or epistemological possibility of ‘neoliberal planning’ may appear to be a total surrender of state planning to market superiority, or in other words, the simple acceptance that the management of buildings, transport infrastructure, parks, conservation areas etc. __beyond__ the profit principle has reached its limits in the 21^st^ century. Planning in this case would be reduced to a mere facilitator of ‘market forces’ in the city, be it gentle or authoritarian. Yet in spite of these contradictions and outright impossibilities, planners operate within, contribute to, resist or temper an increasingly neoliberal mode of producing spaces and places, or the revival of profit-driven changes in land use. It is this contradiction between the serving of private profit-seeking interests while actually seeking the public betterment of cities that this volume has sought to describe, explore, analyze and make sense of through a set of case studies covering a wide range of planning issues in various countries. This book lays bare just how spatial planning functions in an age of market triumphalism, how planners respond to the overruling profit principle in land allocation and what is left of non-profit driven developments. This book argues that the concepts of ‘neoliberalism’ and ‘neoliberalisation,’ while in common use across the whole range of social sciences, have thus far been generally overlooked in planning theory and the analysis of planning practice. Offering insights from papers presented during a conference session at a meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Boston in 2008 and a number of commissioned chapters, this book fills this significant hiatus in the study of planning. What the case studies from Africa, Asia, North-America and Europe included in this volume have in common is that they all reveal the uneasy cohabitation of ‘planning’ – some kind of state intervention for the betterment of our built and natural environment – and ‘neoliberalism’ – a belief in the superiority of market mechanisms to organize land use and the inferiority of its opposite, state intervention. Planning, if anything, may be seen as being in direct contrast to neoliberalism, as something that should be rolled back or even annihilated through neoliberal practice. To combine ‘neoliberal’ and ‘planning’ in one phrase then seems awkward at best, and an outright oxymoron at worst. To admit to the very existence or epistemological possibility of ‘neoliberal planning’ may appear to be a total surrender of state planning to market superiority, or in other words, the simple acceptance that the management of buildings, transport infrastructure, parks, conservation areas etc. beyond the profit principle has reached its limits in the 21 st century. Planning in this case would be reduced to a mere facilitator of ‘market forces’ in the city, be it gentle or authoritarian. Yet in spite of these contradictions and outright impossibilities, planners operate within, contribute to, resist or temper an increasingly neoliberal mode of producing spaces and places, or the revival of profit-driven changes in land use. It is this contradiction between the serving of private profit-seeking interests while actually seeking the public betterment of cities that this volume has sought to describe, explore, analyze and make sense of through a set of case studies covering a wide range of planning issues in various countries. This book lays bare just how spatial planning functions in an age of market triumphalism, how planners respond to the overruling profit principle in land allocation and what is left of non-profit driven developments. This book argues that the concepts of 'neoliberalism and 'neoliberalisation, while in common use across the whole range of social sciences, have thus far been generally overlooked in planning theory and the analysis of planning practice. Offering insights from papers presented during a conference session at a meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Boston in 2008 and a number of commissioned chapters, this book fills this significant hiatus in the study of planning. What the case studies from Africa, Asia, North-America and Europe included in this volume have in common is that they all reveal the uneasy cohabitation of 'planning – some kind of state intervention for the betterment of our built and natural environment – and 'neoliberalism – a belief in the superiority of market mechanisms to organize land use and the inferiority of its opposite, state intervention. Planning, if anything, may be seen as being in direct contrast to neoliberalism, as something that should be rolled back or even annihilated through neoliberal practice. To combine 'neoliberal and 'planning in one phrase then seems awkward at best, and an outright oxymoron at worst. To admit to the very existence or epistemological possibility of 'neoliberal planning may appear to be a total surrender of state planning to market superiority, or in other words, the simple acceptance that the management of buildings, transport infrastructure, parks, conservation areas etc. beyond the profit principle has reached its limits in the 21st century. Planning in this case would be reduced to a mere facilitator of 'market forces in the city, be it gentle or authoritarian. Yet in spite of these contradictions and outright impossibilities, planners operate within, contribute to, resist or temper an increasingly neoliberal mode of producing spaces and places, or the revival of profit-driven changes in land use. It is this contradiction between the serving of p rivate profit-seeking interests while actually seeking the public betterment of cities that this volume has sought to describe, explore, analyze and make sense of through a set of case studies covering a wide range of planning issues in various countries. This book lays bare just how spatial planning functions in an age of market triumphalism, how planners respond to the overruling profit principle in land allocation and what is left of non-profit driven developments Front Matter....Pages i-xix Introduction: Contradictions of Neoliberal Urban Plannin....Pages 1-19 Normalising Neoliberal Planning: The Case of Malmö, Sweden....Pages 21-42 Neoliberal Urban Policy, Aspirational Citizenship and the Uses of Cultural Distinction....Pages 43-59 Contradictions in the Neoliberal Policy Instruments: What Is the Stance of the State?....Pages 61-77 Transnational Neoliberalisation and the Role of Supranational Trade Agreements in Local Urban Policy Implementation: The Case of the European Union....Pages 79-97 Neoliberal Urban Movements?: A Geography of Conflict and Mobilisation over Urban Renaissance in Antwerp, Belgium....Pages 99-116 Social Entrepreneurship in Urban Planning and Development in Montreal....Pages 117-132 Washing Their Hands of It? Auckland Cities’ Risk Management of Formerly Horticultural Land as Neoliberal Responsibilisation....Pages 133-150 Accumulation by Dispossession and Neoliberal Urban Planning: ‘Landing’ the Mega-Projects in Taipei....Pages 151-171 Neoliberalism, Shallow Dreaming and the Unyielding Apartheid City....Pages 173-204 Neoliberal Planning: Does It Really Exist?....Pages 205-211 Back Matter....Pages 213-217 The premise of this volume is that the concepts of 'neoliberalism' and 'neoliberalisation' have largely been overlooked in planning theory as well as in the analysis of planning practice, despite the common deployment of these terms in the social sciences. Combining a number of specially commissioned chapters with insights from papers presented to a recent conference session of the Association of American Geographers in Boston, the book is dedicated to filling this significant lacuna in the study of planning. What the case studies explored in these chapters--from Africa, Asia, North America an This volume fills the gap in the field by putting together a variety of approaches to neoliberal planning and to underline the growing diversity within the neoliberal urban policy implementation