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2023 | Book

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Neoliberal Urban Governance

Spaces, Culture and Discourses in Buenos Aires and Chicago

Author: Carolina Sternberg

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This book examines the dynamics of neoliberal urban governance through a comparative analysis of Buenos Aires and Chicago, with a special focus on gentrification processes in both cities from 2011 to 2021. This work argues that neoliberal principles, rationales and institutions, along with the elaborate rhetoric that has contributed to their success, are forever present in the US and Latin American region, particularly in global cities like Buenos Aires and Chicago. The year of 2011 marks the (almost) simultaneous election of new executive authorities in each city, and finalizes in 2021—a sufficient time span to observe key patterns, narratives and developments of each neoliberal urban governance.

First, this book chronicles the evolving urban neoliberal policies implemented since 2011 in both cities, with special attention to the systematic reduction of affordable housing and privatization of public land that have paved the way for gentrification to advance at a fast pace. Second, it also exposes readers to the prominent rhetoric crafted by local boards, developers, architects, and real estate agents in both cities. Third, this study chronicles how these contemporary neoliberal urban governances currently operate, a critical aspect that remains vastly unexplored. Lastly, until now these governances have been scantly explored from a comparative perspective in Latin American and North American urban settings, and so this book offers a rich new approach.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
This chapter introduces the books’ preliminaries. This chapter also defines neoliberal urban governance as policies, programs, procedures, and an assemblage of institutions that unify around a common vision of city redevelopment and push to make this a reality. It discusses the study’s objectives, theoretical framework and presents its significance. It then provides an overview of the key subject matters of this book: the dynamics of neoliberal urban governance that defines current redevelopment city-wide. This is followed by a brief characterization of Chicago’s and Buenos Aires’s present redevelopment frontier areas, selection criteria of the geographical units, and time frame. Finally, this chapter discusses the methods used in this study. It acquires its data through the use of qualitative techniques: open-ended interviewing and appraising research reports, deconstructing technical documents, and deciphering newspaper articles.
Carolina Sternberg
Chapter 2. Redevelopment Frontiers in Buenos Aires
Abstract
This chapter examines current neoliberal governance in Buenos Aires as its actors operate along the center and south side redevelopment frontier: their motivations, goals, and strategies that define the current redevelopment. In particular, it describes this governance’s core urban agenda in Buenos Aires from 2011 to 2021, through Mauricio Macri and Rodriguez Larreta administrations. Buenos Aires neoliberal urban governance pushes to build a city that celebrates social integration while it deepens and expands spaces and infrastructure for cultural and esthetic consumption as means to attract investment. This is followed by a brief description of the strategies and rhetoric (common understandings, imagined spaces, and sanitary codes) neoliberal actors create and work through to advance their redevelopment plans along the center and south side areas.
Carolina Sternberg
Chapter 3. Becoming a “Socially Integrated City” Through “Creative Districts”
Abstract
This chapter focuses on analyzing the creative districts’ policy unfolded in the south side of Buenos Aires (La Boca and San Telmo), one of the central redevelopment policies oriented to advance a socially-integrated city. It discusses neoliberal governance operations, strategies, and rhetoric of the physical transformation of the south side. The creative districts policy laid down the groundwork for what later became one of the largest and most ambitious urban projects of Mayor Rodríguez Larreta during his second term, the urbanization and integration of Barrio 31.
Carolina Sternberg
Chapter 4. From Villa to Barrio
Abstract
This chapter discusses the urbanization project of Villa 31 located in the center side of the city. It examines Buenos Aires’ neoliberal urban governance in its drive to physically and socially transform Villa 31 into Barrio 31. Since 2016, attention has been steered to urbanizing one the most of deprived and stigmatized areas of the city, Villa 31, recently renamed “Barrio 31”. Neoliberal governance operations, strategies, and common understandings of the physical transformation of Villa 31 into Barrio 31 are discussed in this chapter. These helped rationalize this governance’s projects and provided the frame to understand its current center side redevelopment incursion.
Carolina Sternberg
Chapter 5. Neoliberal Governance and Chicago’s Southwest Side
Abstract
This chapter unearths the current neoliberal governance urban agenda in Chicago vis a vis how neoliberal actors operate along the southwest side of Chicago from 2011 to 2021. In particular, this chapter chronicles this governance, through Emanuel’s and Lightfoot’s administrations, as it has worked all across Chicago, while it briefly describes the strategies and rhetoric these actors create and work through to advance their plans in the current southwest side redevelopment incursion. Chicago’s neoliberal urban governance pushes to build a city that celebrates vibrancy, growth, and globalization efforts while it deepens and expands spaces and infrastructure for cultural and aesthetic consumption as means to attract investment.
Carolina Sternberg
Chapter 6. Chicago’s Southwest Redevelopment Frontier: Pilsen and Little Village
Abstract
This chapter describes Chicago’s principal urban redevelopment projects during the period of analysis, including the Planned Manufacturing Districts (PMD) zoning deregulations, the Paseo rails-to-trails project, and the demolition of Crawford coal-fired power plant. In parallel, this governance has mobilized a powerful rhetoric for the southwest side that has begun to refashion these neighborhoods and nearby blocks to support Chicago’s neoliberal global agenda. Each of these initiatives have exercised significant market pressures on the community of Pilsen and its neighbor to the west, the community of Little Village.
Carolina Sternberg
Chapter 7. An Inclusive and Equitable New Chicago?
Abstract
This chapter examines Chicago’s governance actors’ shifting rhetoric in response to changes of leadership, mounting social and political discontent, and a post-political transition. Since May 2019, Chicago’s governance has begun to frame a neoliberal urban agenda in distinctively different ways compared to previous administrations. “Building an inclusive and equitable Chicago” has been one of the core priorities for this new phase of neoliberal urban redevelopment, yet, neoliberal core policies and practices continue unchallenged.
Carolina Sternberg
Chapter 8. Conclusion: Comparing the Urban Governances of Chicago and Buenos Aires
Abstract
This chapter compares the urban governances of Chicago and Buenos Aires. It answers fundamental questions in this study: How different and similar are neoliberal actors and who advances most prominent redevelopment initiatives in Chicago and Buenos Aires? How are these formations similar and different in their operations (policies and programs), strategies, and the rhetoric mobilized? How differently and similarly do neoliberal urban governances in Chicago and Buenos Aires unfold their urban plans for transformation while responding to changing political realities, contestation, growing inequalities, and obstacles to development and redevelopment? Finally, I discuss public policy implications derived from this study.
Carolina Sternberg
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Neoliberal Urban Governance
Author
Carolina Sternberg
Copyright Year
2023
Electronic ISBN
978-3-031-21718-0
Print ISBN
978-3-031-21717-3
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21718-0