Does Neoliberalism cause Displacement in Cities? (original) (raw)
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Neoliberal urban transformations in the arab city
Environnement Urbain, 2013
This research represents a discursive-comparative analysis aiming to understand the current urban neoliberal condition in the Arab world in terms of the circulating patterns of urban transformation. The research introduces and suggests a discursive framework in which various neoliberal projects could be examined and evaluated against one or more of the following indicators: urban lifestyle, emancipatory neoliberal discourse, claims to social sustainability, socio-spatial politics and dynamics, governance and place management, changing role of the state, and circulation of neoliberal practices. The research applies and benefits from a reconciliation between neo-Marxist theories of political economy and poststructuralist approaches related to the art of governance. However, in doing so it relies mostly on one body of theory, namely, neo-Marxist theories considering neoliberalism as a class project of social exclusion. The framework of analysis is applied to the following three case st...
Neoliberal Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings: A View from Amman
Journal of Urban Affairs, 2014
As Kuppinger and I demonstrate in our contributions, what Harvey (2005, 2007) calls "accumulation by dispossession"-with urban processes at its core-has long been central to the production and reproduction of power in the Arab world. Across the region, the call for the downfall of the regime (Al-nizam) targeted long-standing systems marked by "corruption" (fasad), understood not simply as the use of public office for private gain, but rather as regimes of power so arbitrary, unequal, and unjust as to corrupt society itself. As Leitner, Peck, and Sheppard (2007) remind us, however, patterns of resistance and potential avenues of transformation derive from specific historical trajectories. And so the uprisings, from the mildest to the most severe, targeted particular historical complexes, the contours of which transcend imagined boundaries between the political and economic spheres, and the larger politico-economic discourses of which they were a part. A great deal has been written about the Arab uprisings. 1 Much of this has focused upon the dramatic events, the innovative hope, the celebration, and the sacrifice made in the face of gruesome violence that marked the Tunisian, Egyptian, Bahraini, Libyan, and now the Syrian experiences. An examination of less dramatic cases, however, precisely because they are less clouded by smoke and tear gas, may help us to better understand relationships between neoliberalization, the city, and ongoing unrest in the Arab world. In what follows, I draw upon these insights to examine the Jordanian experience and uncover how neoliberalization and its dislocations have animated popular discontent. In so doing, I show that, to a large extent, the "Jordanian Spring" was contoured by ongoing struggles against marginalization born of 20-plus years of "market reform." In important ways, it has been a struggle for a right to the city as a politico-economic space; that is, as a place constituted by politics of power, privilege, and the pursuit of economic opportunity.
NEOLIBERAL URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE ARAB CITY “meta narratives, urban disparities, and the emergence of consumerist Utopias & geographies of inequalities in Amman, 2013
RÉSUMÉ Cette recherche représente une analyse discursive et comparative visant à comprendre l'actuel courant néolibéral urbain dans le monde arabe en termes de modes de circulation de la transformation urbaine. L'article introduit et suggère un cadre discursif dans lequel des projets néolibéraux pourraient être examinés et évalués par l'un ou plusieurs des indicateurs suivants : mode de vie urbain, émancipation du discours néolibéral, revendications à la durabilité sociale, politiques et dynamiques socio-spatiales, gouvernance, gestion des espaces, l'évolution du rôle de l'État, et la circulation des pratiques néolibérales. Cette recherche applique et bénéficie d'un rapprochement entre les théories néo-marxistes de la politique économique et les approches poststructuralistes associées à l'art de gouverner. Toutefois, elle repose essentiellement sur un ensemble de théories, à savoir, les théories néo-marxistes considérant le néolibéralisme comme un projet de classe de l'exclusion sociale. Le cadre d'analyse est appliqué aux trois études de cas suivantes à Amman:les tours d'affaires haut de gamme, les quartiers résidentiels fermés (gatedcommunities) de la classe moyenne-haute, et les projets de logements sociaux. En général, ces projets, de leur rhétorique émancipatrice, ont conduit à une géographie inégale et aux disparités urbaines dans la ville de Amman.
Middle East : Topics & Arguments, 2019
Neoliberalism is a widely used in social science to refer to processes such as privatization, deregulation, commodification, and austerity. Quite often in this interpretative framework, neoliberalism is also associated with the dismantling of the welfare state, the opening up of free trade and investment, and an increased emphasis on the private sector. In the academic discussion, various authors criticize the use of the term because it lacks analytical clarity and/or is used as a political slogan to denounce social and economic change. The aim of the article is neither to question the analytical dimension nor to develop an irrefutable definition, but to provide insight into the strength of a place- and time-sensitive discussion of neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism in Jordan provides the State with a measure of elasticity, and the ability to, under the premise of reform , reinvent its role and responsibility in the project of development and the political economy of urbanism in Amman. In this way, the State is an undiminished actor in development, and through its tenuous collaborations with private investors, has produced a series of failed neoliberal projects. Among them are the Jordan Gate Towers, Limitless Towers and the Royal Village, each in a varied state of incompletion, part of a system of ruination in which incompleteness or failure can actually be financially successful for the State and its oligarchic network. I frame the critique within a political economy of wealth and power wherein the failed projects are made desirable and profitable through the State's appropriation of public and privately held lands as " state domain, " in turn selling the properties to private developers at a premium. My research method will focus more explicitly on the politics and aesthetics of architecture through a place-based, or what I call a site-specific study, where the buildings themselves are critiqued as agents, with the ability to impact a site, community, city or region. In this way, I invert the discursive critique of neoliberalism as a mono-lithic economic actor to rather untangle the complexities of this neoliberal moment in the Middle East and the architectural objects it has produced. My engagement with the built object and the site it occupies shifts the critique to the built environment, recognizing architecture as a significant actor in processes of urban transformation. Regardless of the failed projects, I argue that indeed profit is not in the realization of the various projects, but simply in the funds systematically syphoned away at the speculative stage. I will develop an exploration of the nuances of failure, adding to the discourse of neoliberal development in the Middle East.
The Jordan Gate Towers of Amman: The Surrendering of Public Space to Build a Neoliberal Ruin
Abstract: The Jordan Gate Towers of Amman, a luxury development, provides a case study of forms of planning practice undertaken as part of neoliberal processes in a city aspiring for regional relevance, well timed with the receipt of transnational capital investment. Deregulated planning practice in Amman became a vehicle for the inversion of the process of eminent domain and the subsequent appropriation of public property for private profit. The result is a compromise of public interest in favor of government collaboration with private developers, a conundrum examined in this paper through the case of the Jordan Gate Towers. Findings are based upon data and documents collected from the municipality, and interviews with city officials.
Uneven Geographies and Neoliberal Urban Transformation in Arab Cities
Intellect Books, 2022
Architects, urban planners, and politicians have been observing the transformation of the Arab city over the past two decades vis-à-vis the emergence of a neoliberal urban restructuring and new order. The development of new urban islands that cater to the elite and their propensity for excessive consumption, coupled with the internationalization of commercial real estate companies and construction consulting firms capable of providing high-end services, is the main indicator of the neoliberal urban restructuring that is occurring in places such as downtown Beirut, Abdali in Amman, Dreamland in Cairo, the financial district in Manama, the Bou Regreg River Development in Rabat, Pearl Island in Doha, and even in the heart of the holy city of Mecca through the Jabal Omar Project. Indeed, most cities of the Arab world have been subject to such neoliberal transformations in one way or the other, from Rabat in Morocco to Amman in Jordan. Pierre-Arnaud Barthel recently dubbed these real estate ventures 'Arab mega-projects' in reference to their scale, and considers them to be the main vectors in contemporary Arab town planning. 1 While investors and municipal decision makers are obliged to create a competitive business climate and first-class tourist attractions in order to lure people to live, invest, and entertain themselves, such development efforts are raising questions about their longer-term impact on the spatial landscape and social fabric. Driven mostly by corporatization, these urban transformations are not only creating geographies of inequality in cities, but they are also adversely affecting the nature and quality of public space. 2 This commentary seeks to explain how spatial dynamics reveal forces and transformations that are leading to a widening socioeconomic inequality in various walks of life in Arab and Islamic communities today. With a focus on
Neoliberal Urbanity and the Right to the City: A View from Beirut's Periphery
Development and Change, 2009
Drawing on Lefebvre's theorization of space in order to examine the compatibility of neoliberalism and the right to the city, this study investigates how the formation of informal settlements since the 1950s had provided lowincome dwellers in Beirut (Lebanon) a means to conceive of and engage in city making (neighbourhood production, management, and organization) at a time when state regulations and/or market constraints would have excluded them from the city. It also examines how the prevailing neoliberal ideology of the 1990s, as translated through Lebanon's sectarian-clientelist regime, is curtailing these possibilities. Evidence for the article was drawn from interviews with dwellers, developers and public officials, as well as from archival searches and aerial photographs.