23-25/06/18 - State Transformations, Spatial Austerity and the Globalization of Urban Decline In Search of Alternative Urban Policies

lundi 25 juin 2018

Conférence organisée par la Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) dans le cadre de son congrès annuel, du 23 au 25 juin 2018.

"Since the 2000s, there has been a significant increase in studies about shrinking cities : i.e., formerly thriving cities or densely occupied regions that experience decline of their economic and social bases, with negative effects on their landscapes and prospects for maintenance of infrastructures. Once seemingly confined to industrial cities undergoing shifts from manufacturing to a service oriented economy, a phenomenon of deprivation seems ever present in nonmetropolitan regions that have difficulties to resist to inter-urban competition and the concentration of wealth in a selective network of global cities, in both developed and developing countries.

Moreover, the usual symptoms of urban decline (job losses, housing vacancy…) have been strengthened by the enforcement of a neoliberal rationale among the actors of urban policy making, especially since the Wall Street crash of 2008. According to this rationale, it is necessary, for instance, to respond to market conditions with urban entrepreneurialism, austerity budgeting in the public sector or reduced central-local transfers towards unattractive territories.

In this context, more and more municipalities are trying to replace growth-oriented planning paradigms with “rightsizing”, “downsizing” or “compact city” measures, whose main goal is to achieve greater environmental efficiency and social equity by restructuring urban fabrics around mixed-use clusters. However, it seems that actual rightsizing can produce outcomes that contradict the progressive ideals of rightsizing theories, like disinvestment from poor neighborhoods and attempts at rekindling growth through gentrification. In this respect, is the propagation of rightsizing initiatives a way to accommodate and even legitimize an “austerity urbanism” ? Or how
can it pave the way to alternative, more progressive urban policies despite regimes of austerity ?"

OBJET

"The aim of this conference, within the larger frame of the SASE 2018 congress, is to help illuminate current shifts in planning practices and discourses, as well as in local politics under an age of austerity, with a focus on economically depleted cities and regions."

Cette conférence s’organisera autour de quatre grandes thématiques, objet de deux sessions chacune :

  • Fresh Insights on the Geography of Urban Growth and Decline in Mature Industrial Regions
  • Urban Decline, Austerity and Housing Policies
  • Thinking Globally, Acting Locally. Multi-scalar approaches to the implementation of austerity policies
  • Alternative Urban Responses to Austerity

INFORMATIONS PRATIQUES

Dates : 23, 24 et 25 juin 2018

Lieu : Doshisha University - Imadegawa campus, Ryoshinkan Building, Room 432 〒602-8580 Kyoto, Kamigyo Ward

Contact : sophie.buhnik@gmail.com

Programme complet des conférences

Voir en ligne : la présentation de la conférence sur le site de la SASE