Metropolitics

Reimagining Skill

Nichola Lowe — 2021-10-12T05:00:00Z

Nichola Lowe argues that skill needs to be reimagined, not erased from efforts to strengthen the institutional infrastructure that is needed to deliver better-quality jobs to more workers. Drawing on claims outlined in her recent book, Putting Skill to Work, she presents uncertainty around skill as a generative material for shaping business recovery and growth, allowing worker-supporting institutions to promote changes that result in much better workplaces.
With urban economies rebounding and

- Debates / work, skills, labor markets, employment, jobs, businesses, urban economy

Can Cannabis Be Legalized in France Without Inflaming the Banlieues?

Christian Ben Lakhdar & Aymeric Reyre & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-07-05T05:00:00Z

France is a place of paradoxes: cannabis is widely consumed, and yet legalization does not seem to be on the cards, despite successful measures implemented elsewhere. This reluctance is linked in particular to a fear of destabilizing local economies in working-class neighborhoods. Aymeric Reyre and Christian Ben Lakhdar highlight the unfounded nature of this argument, and use evidence from other countries to underline the potential benefits of such reforms.
While the wind of legalization has

- Debates / drugs, drug dealing, legalization of cannabis, urban economy, banlieue, housing estates, housing projects, social housing

Bargain hunting in the “small-commodity city” of Yiwu, China

Alison Hulme — 2015-11-10T06:00:00Z

China's rise in the global economy has been largely based on the manufacturing of both cheap and expensive goods. Focusing on the growth of “function spaces” of mass production in Yiwu, Alison Hulme explores this “other” city and its challenge to the rise of the spectacular “image spaces” provided by established world cities.
Approximately three hours by train inland from Shanghai lies the “small-commodity city” of Yiwu—a promised land for the international wholesale buyer of low-end

- Essays / consumption, urban economy, China, new town, industry, economic development, global supply chain, function spaces, image spaces, manufacturing, specialization, commodity city

Arab Cities in Revolution: Some Observations

Éric Verdeil & translated by Oliver Waine — 2011-02-25T08:04:37Z

Are the revolutions we are currently witnessing in Tunisia and Egypt essentially urban revolutions? Éric Verdeil examines the problems facing the economies and public services of Arab cities, which have, in part, given rise to these movements.
Like many observers, I have been keenly watching and left somewhat dumbfounded by the extraordinary events that have unfolded since 14 January in Tunisia and which, over the last week, have also spread to Egypt (a country I know very little about, I

- Essays / Arab city, revolution, urban economy, collective action, Arab Spring, Egypt, Tunisia