Urban Neoliberalism

The rise of neoliberalism as the hegemonic art of governing contemporary capitalist cities traces its origins back to the 1980s, being associated with the ascent of conservative governments in the Unites States and the United Kingdom pursuing economic development strategies based on the conventional free market ideas. Since then, urban neoliberalism has spread across the globalizing world through an increasing emphasis being laid on the entrepreneurialization of local government, the privatization of public services, and the commodification of urban space. In this context, urban neoliberalism has taken the form of a highly mobile government technology, giving rise to a tremendous variety of politico-economic regimes across the globe through processes of hybridization and variegation. This article describes the variegated geographies of neoliberalism, ending with an analysis of the recent global recession which is understood as a crisis of (urban) neoliberalism.