Blackwell Reference Online

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There has been something commonly labeled “urban policy” since the early 1960s in the US and since the late 1960s in most European countries. The starting point of this chapter is a high degree of frustration about the ways in which debates about and around urban policy have generally been conducted. Even the academic literature is increasingly dominated by a “practical” or practice-oriented approach. The brief neo-Marxist fever associated with the writing of Harvey (1973) and Castells (1977) seems to have inoculated more recent writers against the dangers of recurrent infection. Authors generally either see themselves as reporting the ways of the experts to the wider public or as providing advice to the practitioners which will enable them to improve their practice.A great deal of ink has been spilled at various times by people seeking to define what is meant by the “urban” to which one might expect urban policy to apply. An equal amount has probably been spilled on looking for definitions of “policy.” Not so long ago Castells defined the “urban” through public policy – for him the “urban” was where collective consumption took place, and collective consumption was effectively understood to be the consumption services provided through the welfare state (Castells 1977).Unfortunately such a circular definition – however elegant – is not very helpful for our purposes, since many of ... log in or subscribe to read full text