Responses from Urban Democratization to Global Neoliberalism

Abstract

Walking, feeling, breathing in, and getting lost in the streets are the best ways to get to know a city. When moving through a city in this way, we can see social imbalances, segregated spaces and neighborhoods, and changes in the landscape. Beneath what lies in plain sight lie mechanisms and regulatory apparatus. These include norms and socio-institutional structures that operate at different scales, from the local to the supranational. As we describe in this chapter, these influence urban dynamics beyond what our senses perceive directly. While we must take into account relationships between social agents, we must not overlook interactions between the agency itself and broader local, national, and international structures. Processes of capitalist globalization, until 1970, unfolded mainly within the framework of nationally organized state territorialities. More recently, these dynamics have changed and increased the importance of sub-national and supranational forms of territorial organization. This in turn has produced a process of rescaling and reterritorialization of capital and power. This is clearly reflected in the transfer of economic-policy authority and jurisdiction from states to the scales mentioned above. In this chapter, we show that both state territoriality and national governance are being redefined and deemphasized toward both wider and narrower scales. This makes up part of a neoliberal strategy to confront crises and be able to regulate capital accumulation more directly. We read the new role of local agency, as already signaled, on the basis of this diagnosis, and in a context of neoliberal rescaling. We recognize the value of forms of collective action, as well as that of the actors who, with a will toward transformation, have managed to reinvent their activity and delve into different forms of urban democratization.