Transforming Cities: Contested Governance and New Spatial Divisions

Abstract

Transforming Cities examines the profound changes that have characterised cities of the advanced capitalist societies in the final decades of the twentieth century.It analyses ways in which relationships of contest, conflict and co-operation are realised in and through the social and spatial forms of contemporary urban life.In particular, this book focuses on the impact of economic restructuring and changing forms of urban governance on patterns of urban deprivation and social exclusion.It contends that these processes are creating new patterns of social division and new forms of regulation and control.Contributors analyse innovative strategies of urban regeneration, the shift from Fordist to post-Fordist cities, new patterns of possession and dispossession in urban spaces, the production of cultural representations and city images, the evolution of novel forms of political power, emerging patterns of policing and surveillance, the development of partnerships between public and private agencies, the mobilisation of resistance by urban residents and implications for the empowerment of communities and individuals.