American cities are increasingly turning to revitalization strategies that embrace the ideas of new urbanism and the so-called creative class in an attempt to boost economic growth and prosperity to downtown areas. These efforts stir controversy over residential and commercial gentrification of working class, ethnic areas. Spanning forty years, Latino City provides an in-depth case study of the new urbanism, creative class, and transit-oriented models of planning and their implementation in Santa Ana, California, one of the United States’ most Mexican communities. It provides an intimate analysis of how revitalization plans re-imagine and alienate a place, and how community-based participation approaches address the needs and aspirations of lower-income Latino urban areas undergoing revitalization. The book provides a critical introduction to the main theoretical debates and key thinkers related to the new urbanism, transit-oriented, and creative class models of urban revitalization. It is the first book to examine contemporary models of choice for revitalization of US cities from the point of view of a Latina/o-majority central city, and thus initiates new lines of analysis and critique of models for Latino inner city neighborhood and downtown revitalization in the current period of socio-economic and cultural change. Latino City will appeal to students and scholars in urban planning, urban studies, urban history, urban policy, neighborhood and community development, central city development, urban politics, urban sociology, geography, and ethnic/Latino Studies, as well as practitioners, community organizations, and grassroots leaders immersed in these fields.

This is an insightful study of spatial planning and housing strategy in London, focusing on the period 2000-2008 and the Mayoralty of Ken Livingstone. Duncan Bowie presents a detailed analysis of the development of Livingstone’s policies and their consequences. Examining the theory and practice of spatial planning at a metropolitan level, Bowie examines the relationships between: planning, the residential development market and affordable housing environmental, economic and equity objectives national, regional and local planning agencies and their policies. It places Livingstone’s Mayoralty within its historical context and looks forward to the different challenges faced by Livingstone’s successors in a radically changed political and economic climate. Clear and engaging, this critical analysis provides a valuable resource for academics and their students as well as planning, housing and development professionals. It is essential reading for anyone interested in politics and social change in a leading ‘world city’ and provides a base for parallel studies of other major metropolitan regions.

"Activists use space to advance political causes, a dynamic this book explores through stories of quotidian street life in Amsterdam. Residents there saw many changes in the late 20th and early 21st century. The rise of neoliberal governance, creative class economies, and quality-of-life boosterism brought new concerns about social justice, neighborhood character, and environmental responsibility"--

The second edition of this internationally comparative text on urban planning covers both the global and regional context in which it takes place and the different combinations of issues confronting different types of cities. Thoroughly updated throughout, this edition includes a new chapter on "the world city hypothesis."

This volume discusses some of the factors determining the political impact of the city planner on community decision-making. Rabinovitz bases her book on case studies of planning decisions in six New Jersey communities that were chosen for reputations of both effective and ineffective planning. She also uses a reanalysis of an attitude survey of U.S. planning directors, as well as a synthesis of previous studies. The materials are presented comparatively, thus enabling the reader to identify major themes in the broad and, until now, largely uncharted area of the interrelationship of politics and planning.The author first discusses the variables that influence the effectiveness of planning. She then develops a typology of community political systems in the six cities, based on such factors as power distribution, values, style, participation, conflict and cohesion, and potential for program output. The typology of urban political systems is matched by a typology of roles for the planner; this leads to a careful examination of the usefulness of different roles in different urban political situations. Other variables on which the success of particular roles depends--such as the ability to command resources for desired actions, the norms of the planning community, and the needs of the planner--are included. Finally, the author raises three important questions central to the planner's effectiveness: Can success spoil the planner? What does the planner contribute to decision-making? To what extent does political utility determine the planner's benefits or reverses?City Politics and Planning not only explores some crucial aspects of the city power structure but also shows the importance of who governs and, in addition, assesses the impact of community values on the types of policies that the community is likely to adopt. As such, this volume is invaluable to the students of city planning, local government, political science, and urban sociology; as well as, of course, to th

Steve McGovern’s Urban Politics: A Reader examines the changing structure of political power in cities through the lens of historical development, accompanied with brief explorations of pertinent public policy issues. Having studied and taught urban politics for over 20 years, McGovern (Haverford College) foregrounds his approach with a discussion of cities in a global era, and then divides the material into five parts, or themes: the formation of city politics; city politics under stress; the politics of urban revitalization; the changing dynamics of urban politics; and visions of contemporary urban politics. He expands the scope of his exploration by integrating literature that is not commonly observed in urban politics texts, i.e. works by journalists as well as scholars, and by including debates about political power in both big and smaller cities.

Between 1999 and 2002 the National Endowment for the Arts's New Public Works program sponsored design competitions in cities across the United States. The forward-thinking designs that emerged have influenced the physical form of major public works projects nationwide. New Public Works presents a history of the program, along with interviews with participants. Special attention is paid to the key role played by private, municipal, and other public funding sources. Case studies of three built projects by Allied Works Architecture, Koning Eizenberg, and Weiss/Manfredi Architecture describe the path of each from competition through construction.