Beyond the City Limits: Urban Policy and Economics Restructuring in Comparative Perspective

by John Logan

Overview

This book challenges the notion that there is a single, global process of economic restructuring to which cities must submit. The studies in this volume compare urban development in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan, demonstrating that there is significant variety in urban economic restructuring. The contributors emphasize that the economic forces transforming cities from industrial concentrations to postindustrial service centers do not exist apart from politics: all nation-states are heavily involved in the restructuring process.

Contributors: Pierre Clavel, Susan Fainstein, Richard Child Hill, Nancy Kleniewski, Harvey L. Molotch, Michael Parkinson, Edmond Preteceille, Saskia Sassen, H. V. Savitch, John Walton, and the editors.

In the series Conflicts in Urban and Regional Development, edited by John R. Logan and Todd Swanstrom.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439901632
Publisher:	Temple University Press
Publication date:	04/16/2009
Series:	Conflicts In Urban & Regional
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	954 KB

About the Author

John R. Logan is Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Albany.

Todd Swanstrom is Associate Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York at Albany and the author of The Crisis of Growth Politics: Cleveland, Kucinich, and the Challenge of Urban Populism (Temple).

Table of Contents

Preface

Part I: Introduction
1. Urban Restructuring: A Critical View – John R. Logan and Todd Swanstrom

Part II. Urban Policy: National and International Comparisons
2. Political Paradoxes of Urban Restructuring: Globalization of the Economy and Localization of Politics? – Edmond Preteceille
3. Industrial Restructuring, State Intervention, and Uneven Development in the United States and Japan – Richard C. Hill
4. Political Responses to Urban Restructuring: The British Experience under Thatcherism – Michael Parkinson

Part III. The Limits and Possibilities of Local Policy
5. Economics, Politics, and Development Policy: The Convergence of New York and London – Susan Fainstein
6. Postindustrialism with a Difference: Global Capitalism in World Class Cities – H. V. Savitch
7. Urban Deals in Comparative Perspective – Harvey L. Molotch
8. Space for Progressive Local Policy: Examples from the U.S. and the U.K. – Pierre Clavel and Nancy Kleniewski

Part IV. Reflections
9. Beyond the City Limits: A Commentary – Saskia Sassen
10. Theoretical Methods in Comparative Urban Politics – John Walton

About the Contributors
Subject Index
Author Index

Editorial Reviews

"In their introduction to Beyond the City Limits, Logan and Swanstrom directly challenge the notion of economic restructuring processes as single, uniform, monolithic global processes. They stress not only the variability of these global processes and the consequent potential for political discretion and choice but the need to link more systematically the changes in production processes with changes in 'broader social and political processes.'"
—Urban Affairs Quarterly

"This book [makes] a positive contribution to the growing literature on the urban role in economic growth and regeneration."
—Choice

From the Publisher