Reinventing Detroit: The Politics of Possibility: 11 (Comparative Urban and Community Research) - Softcover

Smith, Michael Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1412856930 ISBN 13: 9781412856935

Publisher: Transaction Publishers, 2015

Synopsis

This book addresses the questions of what went wrong with Detroit and what can be done to reinvent the Motor City. Various answers to the former―deindustrialization, white flight, and a disappearing tax base―are now well understood. Less discussed are potential paths forward, stemming from alternative explanations of Detroit's long-term decline and reconsideration of the challenges the city currently faces.

Urban crisis―socioeconomic, fiscal, and political―has seemingly narrowed the range of possible interventions. Growth-oriented redevelopment strategies have not reversed Detroit's decline, but in the wake of crisis, officials have increasingly funnelled limited public resources into the city's commercial core via an implicit policy of "urban triage." The crisis has also led to the emergency management of the city by extra-democratic entities. As a disruptive historical event, Detroit's crisis is a moment teeming with political possibilities.

The critical rethinking of Detroit's past, present, and future is essential reading for both urban studies scholars and the general public.

About this title

Review:

"Reinventing Detroit informs on a multitude of levels. Besides presenting an interdisciplinary analysis of the causes underlying Detroit's slide into bankruptcy, it builds on its discussion of the structural factors underlying that city's situation to develop a broad critique of conventional approaches to urban problem solving. It further examines the political forces affecting urban governance and offers alternative, progressive possibilities. This is an exceptional book in which a number of well-known urbanists provide a complex, original investigation of the causes and consequences of urban shrinkage.

--Susan S. Fainstein, Harvard Graduate School of Design

"By now a lot of ink has been spilled in the national press about Detroit's fiscal crisis. What we need now is a deeper understanding of how social and political dynamics are shaping the city's attempts to reinvent a better future for itself. The essays in this book offer exactly the kind of nuanced analysis required for this important project."

--Dennis R. Judd, University of Illinois at Chicago

"Reinventing Detroit informs on a multitude of levels. Besides presenting an interdisciplinary analysis of the causes underlying Detroit's slide into bankruptcy, it builds on its discussion of the structural factors underlying that city's situation to develop a broad critique of conventional approaches to urban problem solving. It further examines the political forces affecting urban governance and offers alternative, progressive possibilities. This is an exceptional book in which a number of well-known urbanists provide a complex, original investigation of the causes and consequences of urban shrinkage.

--Susan S. Fainstein, Harvard Graduate School of Design

"By now a lot of ink has been spilled in the national press about Detroit's fiscal crisis. What we need now is a deeper understanding of how social and political dynamics are shaping the city's attempts to reinvent a better future for itself. The essays in this book offer exactly the kind of nuanced analysis required for this important project."

--Dennis R. Judd, University of Illinois at Chicago

-Reinventing Detroit informs on a multitude of levels. Besides presenting an interdisciplinary analysis of the causes underlying Detroit's slide into bankruptcy, it builds on its discussion of the structural factors underlying that city's situation to develop a broad critique of conventional approaches to urban problem solving. It further examines the political forces affecting urban governance and offers alternative, progressive possibilities. This is an exceptional book in which a number of well-known urbanists provide a complex, original investigation of the causes and consequences of urban shrinkage.

--Susan S. Fainstein, Harvard Graduate School of Design

-By now a lot of ink has been spilled in the national press about Detroit's fiscal crisis. What we need now is a deeper understanding of how social and political dynamics are shaping the city's attempts to reinvent a better future for itself. The essays in this book offer exactly the kind of nuanced analysis required for this important project.-

--Dennis R. Judd, University of Illinois at Chicago

About the Author:

Michael Peter Smith is a distinguished research professor in community studies and development at the University of California, Davis. He is the author, co-author, or editor of twenty-two books and is editor of Transaction’s Comparative Urban and Community Research series.

L. Owen Kirkpatrick is assistant professor of sociology at Southern Methodist University, USa. He is the author of Sovereignty and the Fragmented City.

About this edition

• Publisher: Transaction Publishers
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1412856930
• ISBN 13: 9781412856935
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 268