Civic City Cahier 4: Afterlives of Neoliberalism

For urban designers, planners and activists working to promote more socially just and democratic forms of urbanism, Brenner, Peck and Theodore insist on the need to radically restructure the macroinstitutional ‘rules of the game’ that variously encourage and disallow localities, cities and regions to adapt to market-based approaches to (re)investment, collective-goods provisioning, and social reproduction. ‘Absent this’, they argue, ‘the potential of progressive postneoliberal projects will continue to be frustrated by the dead hand of market rule’.

The Civic City Cahier series intends to provide material for a critical discussion about the role of design for a new social city. It publishes short monographic texts by authors who specialise in urban and design theory and practice.