Metropolitics

The Politics of Urban Heritage-Making in the Yongqingfang Redevelopment Project in Guangzhou, China

Yimeng Yang — 2022-03-29T05:00:00Z

Yimeng Yang uses the case of a redevelopment project in Guangzhou, China, to interrogate heritage-led urban development, pointing to the conflicts such development strategies provoke among local residents, government actors, and developers.
China has been experiencing a dramatic “heritage boom” in recent years. As China's global aspirations grow, the government has become increasingly adept at using heritage to consolidate political legitimacy, construct national identity, and demonstrate

- From the Field / China, heritage, urban heritage, redevelopment, Guangzhou

(Re)Constructing Inequality: Community Development in Public and Private

Claire Dunning — 2021-12-14T06:00:00Z

Claire Dunning reviews Jeremy R. Levine's new book, Constructing Community, an ethnographic study of community development projects in Boston.
For a book about urban poverty and redevelopment, Constructing Community recounts few protests or headline-grabbing incidents. Instead, the drama unfolds slowly over the course of a decade in poorly lit community rooms, downtown board rooms, and the backseats of cars. This is a book about the banalities of bureaucracy and governance—a fact that author

- Reviews / Boston, Massachusetts, United States, mass transit, rapid transit, transport, public transportation, community-based organizations, urban poverty, redevelopment, poverty, governance, local governance, urban governance, ethnography

The Brazilian Experience of Financialization Through Urban Redevelopment: The Case of “Urban Operations”

Laisa Eleonora Marostica Stroher — 2020-12-01T06:00:00Z

Laisa Stroher examines the history of large-scale urban regeneration projects in Brazil and shows how a policy instrument initially designed to respond to a lack of public funding has morphed into a tool that has helped transform urban land into a financial asset, leading ultimately to the displacement of populations without delivering on the initial social promises.
---- Series: Cities in the Age of Financialization Large-scale urban development projects and their contradictions feature

- From the Field / financialization, urban regeneration, urban development, Urban Operations (Brazil), Brazil, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, redevelopment, urban planning, real estate, Latin America, South America, displacement

Regeneration and the Legacy of Thatcherism

Juliet Carpenter — 2014-10-15T04:55:00Z

What was Margaret Thatcher's legacy in terms of the way inner-city areas are regenerated in the UK? Juliet Carpenter shows that while the highly market-driven approach of 1980s “urban development corporations” was later officially abandoned in favour of more community-led action, certain elements of the Thatcherite philosophy survived under New Labour, resulting in the “state-led gentrification” of Britain's cities.
Much has been written about Margaret Thatcher's legacy since her death in

- Essays / urban renewal, inequalities, liberalism, deindustrialization, urban development, United Kingdom, territorial development, urban regeneration, redevelopment, Thatcher, centralism

The new banks of the Seine: all for the best, or just another Woody Allen set?

Mathieu Flonneau & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-05-21T04:50:00Z

June 2013 saw the completion of a project to transform the riverside expressway on the Left Bank of the Seine in Paris into a pedestrian promenade, accompanied by a series of leisure and recreation features. Historian Mathieu Flonneau delivers a scathing critique of what he sees as a purely cosmetic measure for the prestigious city centre, decrying both its underlying ideology and its unintended consequences.
If the great film-maker Woody Allen were to shoot Midnight in Paris (2011) again,

- Debates / gentrification, public space, Paris, cars, redevelopment, pedestrian, Seine, riverbanks

Renovation and consultation: Parisian approaches to redeveloping public spaces

Bruno Gouyette & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-02-06T08:59:41Z

When renovating its public spaces, how does the city of Paris implement consultation processes required by French law and requested by certain residents? Bruno Gouyette, an urban planner who has worked for the city council, considers two recent projects – Place de la République and Boulevard Diderot – in order to show how the city's technical departments and councillors have found new ways to redevelop urban spaces.
Bertrand Delanoë's first term as mayor of Paris (2001–08) was marked by the

- From the Field / participation, public space, urban planning, Paris, mobility, consultation, redevelopment, renovation