“Casinos, prisons, incinerators, and other fragments of neoliberal urban development”: From social science history (2011)

Los Angeles is often cited as the exemplar of “fragmented urbanism” but older, former industrial cities have similarly participated in enclave-oriented Neoliberal urban development, as a set of governance practices and regulations intended to valorize cities as sites for capital accumulation, brings about increasing social polarization and uneven spatial development at a number of scales within metropolitan areas, often producing “a patchwork quilt of islands of relative affluence struggling to secure themselves in a sea of spreading decay.” The Neoliberalism is a sociopolitical ideology that advocates strict adherence to principles of private, “free” markets and entrepreneurialism to guide social and economic solutions to longstanding social problems. In cities, neoliberal social policy has led to either the elimination or dramatic transformation of urban governance over public housing, urban renewal, and federal assistance to cities and the introduction of market-based solutions, such as public-private partnerships in urban development. In this selection, Christopher Mele examines the emergence of neoliberal governance strategies around urban fragmentation within the city of Chester, an older, former industrial city in southeastern Pennsylvania. Chester is a poor city by any measure. Its current population is half of what it was in 1950, it ranks high in state levels of street gang activity, assaults, and homicides, bad schools, and poor community health. Yet Chester’s recent past reveals some rather peculiar efforts to “turn the city around.” Chester’s waterfront landscape now includes empty, overgrown lots, a few factories, a state prison, office space in a renovated power plant, a municipal trash incinerator, a gambling casino, and a major league soccer stadium. Mele explains how this odd assortment of enclaves reflects two waves of neoliberal urban development: “roll-back neoliberalism,” defined as a period of “chasing smokestacks,” and “roll-out neoliberalism,” in which governments use public resources and governance powers to promote privatesector-initiated development, such as stadiums and casinos. Both waves have had little or no positive impact upon the lives of the city’s marginalized residents. Based on the case of Chester, Mele suggests that neoliberal urban development is not only incapable of resolving the extreme racial and class disparities within older industrial cities, but it furthers the development of exclusionary spaces that, in turn, enhance urban inequalities.