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26

Power, Discourses and City Trajectories

MARK BOYLE AND ROBERT J. ROGERSON

In 1997, the Committee for Sydney, a newlyformed partnership of private sector interestswithin the city, invited tenders to assist in thedevelopment and enhancement of Sydney's roleas a 'world city'. The outline argued that most ofthe other major cities of the world ~ such asBarcelona, Paris, London, Rome and Venice (thecities mentioned by the Sydney Committee) - hadalready developed long-term strategic plansdesigned to ensure their status in the globaleconomy. Recognizing the absence of just such astrategic vision and aware of the impendingopportunities associated with the hosting of the2000 Olympic Games, the Committee called forresearch to be undertaken: to benchmark Sydneyagainst other world cities; to examine its capacityto grow as a centre for global capital; and tosuggest strategies through which the city could berepositioned as a world city.

The research programme defined by the Sydneybrief serves to draw attention to several issueswhich are at the forefront of contemporaryurban studies and around which we wish toconstruct this chapter. First, it highlights themanner in which contemporary cities are definingtheir futures relative to global capital andemerging international divisions of labour.Second, it points to the consciousness withincities of the need to compete with other rivals tosecure a future role and, therefore, of the impor-tance of formulating coherent city trajectories togain competitive advantage. Third, and perhapsmost importantly for the discussion in thischapter, the brief illustrates the way in which,although recognizing the possibility of marginallydifferent strategies, the Sydney partnershipprovides no opportunity to question the under-lying language or logic of the need to be posi-tioned relative to global capital.

Indeed, in the policy literature, it is nowbecoming impossible to read accounts of thefortunes of most Western cities without encoun-

tering such phrases as 'city competition', 'cityimaging', 'benchmarking', 'market niche' and'hallmark events'. So pervasive has been theadoption of this vocabulary that it has given birthto a whole new area of what might be termed'instrumental knowledge'. For instance, urban'handbooks' now adorn book shelves providinglessons and practical instruction on how toorganize local economic development strategies(Blair, 1995; Blakely, 1989; Duffy, 1995) whilstbusiness schools now run courses on the tech-niques of urban regeneration. The rise of suchterminology has given birth to new areas ofexpertise within city councils and universities. Thediscourse of globalization and localization, there-fore, sits at the heart of contemporary ways ofthinking about the city.

Likewise, beyond the policy literature it hasbeen argued that in the past two decades inter-city competition for economic development hasbecome 'the' major activity of urban governance(Cox, 1995). Across advanced capitalist cities, thenet effect has been the creation of what Cox(1993) terms a whole New Urban Politics (NUP).Written around the NUP as a building block, andbreaking down the title of this chapter - power,discourses and city trajectories ~ into itsconstituent concepts, we wish to rework litera-ture on the politics of local economic develop-ment from the vantage of a new perspective.Referred to herein as the discourse perspective,we seek to examine the multiple ways in whichthe notions of 'power' and 'discourse' interweavewith the production and legitimation of citydevelopment trajectories. In so doing, we firstexplore the way orthodox policy literature hasused the NUP to understand the formulation ofcity trajectories. We then seek to move beyondexisting accounts by approaching the NUP as alanguage or vocabulary, or what we will term adiscourse. In charting a path from the orthodoxperspective of the NUP outlined in the first

Power. Discourses and City Trajectories 403

3

5

6

4

Within cities, there are a variety of economicinterests which, as a result of immobility, aredependent upon the health of the urbaneconomy. These include property owners,some businesses - such as banks and newspa,-pers -local governments, and local residents.Taken together, Cox argues, these agentsconstitute 'cities' or 'communities'.Changes in the space econom~. as a wholeprovide threats and opportumtles to theseeconomic interests.These interests work through city govern-ments in order to channel investment intotheir particular city through appropriateinfrastructure, taxation, and regulatory prac-tices.Policies of this sort bring them into competi-tion with corresponding 'cities' or 'communi-ties'.

As an extension of the NUP thesis, it is worth-while noting that faced with an uncertain futurein the global division of labour, places are notonly competing with each other to c~~ch t~e e~eof global capital. Inter-city competition Ill. ~hlscontext is also extended to include competitIOnfor consumer expenditure (or what Harvey(l989a) calls the 'tourist dollar') and for a role inthe spatial division of labour cr~ated by t~e state(the allocation and reallocation of dlffe:entstate functions to different areas). So precanoushas the economic health of cities become and sopervasive the competition ethos, that whi.lstthere might be an emphasis upon one, every cityis likely to be active on all three of these front~.And, in yet another twist to this evolving story, Itis possible to identify a different and fourth form

.of competition; that involving efforts to secu~ewhat are often termed 'prestige' or 'flagship proJ-ects'. Whether funded by the state or more likelyby international bodies which organize eventssuch as the Olympic Games, CommonwealthHeads of Government meetings, or jazz festivals,the importance of hosting a major leisure,cultural, sporting or political event to a city'sprofile has generated in itself an intense compe-tition between localities to win the right to holdsuch events. What makes this form of competi-tion different from the other three forms is thatfor such prestige events, it would appear thatplaces are competing for the 'raw mater~~ls'themselves needed to facilitate a competitiveedge in their efforts to lure other forms of capitaland expenditure. Whilst. recognizi~g. the~edifferent types of inter-City competitIOn, IIIturning to consider the question of city visionsand trajectories, we focus more narrowly onglobal capital - the first of the four formsoutlined above.

According to Kevin Cox (Cox 1993, 1995; Coxand Mair, 1988; Cox and Wood, 1994), there hasbeen something of a convergence in orthodoxpolicy studies of the city during the past decade.Cast initially in terms of the impact of the newinternational division of labour on the so-called'world cities' (Friedmann, 1986; Friedmann andWolff, 1982), this literature has expanded to a~~ethat the fundamental context in which all cItiesare currently acting is the heightened mobility ofcapital. The capacity of transnational corpora-tions to switch their operations around the worldhas created a truly global economy, in which theworld has become a single location for productionoutlets. Whilst there remains considerable debateover the definition and meaning of the phrase,this globalization of capital is argued to ~ie at theheart of contemporary urban restructunng.

Catapulted into such a context, ~any cities ~ndtheir bargaining position in relatIOn to capitalsubstantiallv weaker. The capacity of capital toswitch locations engenders a competition betweenplaces to secure investment. As such, the task ofurban governance has increasingly become thecreation of urban conditions sufficiently attrac-tive to lure prospective firms. Whether this entailsalterations to the city's image through manipula-tion of its soft infrastructure (cultural and leisureamenities for instance) or a refashioning of thecity's eco~omic attractiveness (through provisionof grants, property, transport facilities, or taxabatements, for instance) localities are nowhaving to offer ever more inducements to capitalto secure development and growth.

It is this self-perpetuating competition betweenlocalities that Cox refers to as constituting a NewUrban Politics (NUP). Cox (1993: 45) summa-rizes conventional wisdom thus:

DISCOURSES AND URBAN GOVERNANCE

The New Urban Politics: The OrthodoxPolicy Perspective

The economic space within which cities aresituated is subject to change.

2 This change is a result of an increased foot-looseness of capital with respect to cities aspossible sites.

section to our alternative, discourse analysis ofthe NUP in the third section of this chapter, wedo so by critically evaluating one of the mo:eseminal examples of the discourse approach IIIurban studies, that provided by Beauregard(1993). We end by offering some tentative conclu-sions regarding issues requiring fu~ure develop-ment within the discourse perspective.

404 Handbook of Urban Studies

The NUp, City Visions and Trajectories

A key tenet of the NUP agenda is that there hasbeen a shift in the position of cities away fromlocal, regional or national roles towards rolesascribed by the global economy. As the Sydneytender with which we started this chapter illus-trates, within the NUP there is a perceived accept-ance that a position of marginality relative to theglobal economy is inappropriate for a thriving,dynamic and visionary city. In other words, cityvisions are fundamentally concerned with thedegree of marginality/centrality of the city inrelation to global capital.

Arising from both the engagement with thewider global setting and from the need to respondto the demands of capital, city visions are beingshaped by the requirement not merely to attractcapital investment in its many forms but also toadopt some of the characteristics of this capital.Not least, as Harvey (l989b) argues and Sassen(1991) exemplifies in relation to London, NewYork and Tokyo, cities have had to struggle tofind a response to the values and virtues of flexi-bility and volatility, of instantaneity and dispos-ability, which have become hallmarks of post-modern society and economy. The acceleratingrate of change in production and consumptionneeds, aided by technological advances, hasmeant that city agencies attempting to engagewith capitalist systems have, too, to respond totheir volatility and dynamism. The extent towhich capital is indeed so spatially mobile (Cox,1995; Gertler, 1988; Schoenberger, 1988) andproduction opportunities so flexible (Allen andMassey, 1988) cannot be assumed unproblemati-cally. Nevertheless, few observers would doubtthat capital is more dynamic and volatile than inpast decades. Equally, other dimensions of thepostmodern condition - such as disposability andinstant obsolescence of commodities - also rein-force the instability of capitalist systems.

As Harvey (l989b: 286) notes in relation to thecorporate sector's response to market conditions,'volatility, of course, makes it extremely difficultto engage in any long-term planning'. And as hecontinues for those attempting to undertake such'designing' - acknowledging that in the post-modern condition there is no planning onlydesigning - 'learning to play the volatility right' isnow crucial for success within the market place.Harvey indicates that 'this means either beinghighly adaptable and fast-moving in response tomarket shifts, or masterminding the volatility'(Harvey, 1989b: 287). The former positionencourages the taking of short-term gains - forexample, in the form of acquisitions, or mergers-with the acceptance that visions and strategieswill have to adjust rapidly and frequently to makemost benefit of the volatility of market needs and

tastes. The latter, masterminding change, is morelong-term and strategic for here the intention is tomanipulate the market's tastes, opinions andneeds to fit into the shape which the organizationhas designed. Such a strategy involves theconstruction of symbols and images as well as theredevelopment of the 'product' it~elf (see alsoZukin, 1995).

Just as such ideas have an immediacy tocompanies developing a blend of long-term andshort-term opportunistic strategies in the marketplace, so too are there parallels in the form oftrajectories adopted by city designers in theirattempts to position their location relative tocapital opportunities. Traditionally, city 'plan-ners' have been more comfortable with the adop-tion of long-term visions. With long-lead timesfor the development and implementation ofinfrastructural projects and the need to gain andhold local political support, most city planninghas been seen to require a long-term vision.However, with the growing volatility of capital,and the rise of city competition, the adoption oflong-term planning can appear to be at odds withthe flexibility and mobility which capitaldemands.

Significantly, therefore, city agencies in anincreasing attempt to offer the characteristics ofplace which capital desires are adopting charac-teristics of this capital - such as its volatility.Employing Harvey's distinction between theshort-term strategy of responding to volatilityand the long-term mastering of volatility, thereare -like the limited number of global corporatesable to master the tastes and opinions of capital-likely to be only a few cities able to have sufficient'power' to fashion or manipulate the desires ofcapital over the long term. With command andcontrol functions, as well as a concentration ofkey producer services, research and developmentfunctions, innovative centres of culture andcrucially the capability to control and shape theinformational economy (Castells, 1989), globalcities are one clear example of locations whichmay have sufficient power to 'mastermind'volatility.

On the other hand, for most other cities, thelack of a pivotal role in mastering capital mayresult in each having to adopt a more short-termand less ambitious vision. For these cities, theremay indeed be no coherent vision as the timescaleinvolved in responding to capital is so short andthe need for flexibility so great that the verynotion of a vision or sense of direction becomesan anathema. Instead, a development path mightbe taken which is constructed around an ability totake short-term gains whenever and whereverthey are available. As such the city's trajectory isshaped more by the imprint of each opportunitythan by an overarching blueprint. In the following

Power, Discourses and City Trajectories 405

section, we explore further some of the possibleconsequences of adopting the distinction betweenvisions based on masterminding and those basedon opportunism via two selected case studies:Atlanta and Glasgow.

Atlanta

Atlanta, with its significant role as a centre forglobal capital - 'Atlanta International' as theplace marketeers would like al1 to believe - hascharacteristics more typical of a global city thanGlasgow. As befits the NUP agenda, the city hasmany of the appearances typifying a placesuccessful1y competing with other cities: a longhistory of public-private partnerships; entrepre-neurial form of governance; and an inwardinvestment strategy led by 'urban rentiers' (Loganand Molotch, 1987). Encouraged by the pro-growth leadership of the mayor's office and bysignificant national financial investment,Atlanta's international credentials have blos-somed in the past decade, pul1ing significantinvestment from Canadian, European, Japaneseand Asian firms into the city. The city, too, haslong adopted the need for civic boosterism andplace marketing, contentedly crafting together thenotion of 'the city of dreams' with an ability toenvision the future. Over the decades, Atlanta'shistory has been one of a series of successivevisions of organized promotion and redevelop-ment, using its own distinctive history and loca-tion in the 'South' of the USA to bring the city tothe threshold of 'the next great international city'.As the most recent academic interest in Atlantatestifies (Al1en, 1996; Bayor, 1996; Rutheiser,1996), the spectacle of the Centenary OlympicGames in 1996 represented the'outing' of the cityin terms of its goal of attaining internationalstatus.

In many respects, thus, Atlanta portrays theappearance of a city with along-term vision anda successful engagement with global capital.Rutheiser's detailed chronicling of Atlanta'sdevelopment and place marketing history up toand including the Olympic Games offers,however, an alternative reading. In ImagineeringAtlanta he explodes what he sees as a myth thatthere has been a unified, col1ective vision andcareful1y crafted trajectory for the city. In itsplace, Rutheiser places 'emphasis on the conflictsand contradictions of the different mythologiesthat have been elaborated over the years througha multiplicity of media' (1996: 14). Drawing onlocal accounts and interviews, council records,private papers and media reports, he portrays amore speculative, opportunistic form of urbanregeneration, sparked at times by the public sectorand at other times by individuals in the privatesector, and lacking a coherent vision of the future.

Whilst it may be debatable that al1 elements ofthe redevelopment of Atlanta can be seen ascontested in the way that Rutheiser suggests, hisaccount undoubtedly makes the notion of acoherent, long-term trajectory and vision forAtlanta problematic. In the context of thischapter, we have drawn on Imagineering Atlanta 'less for its detail and more to suggest thatAtlanta, which apparently has the potential tohave a vision based on being more masterful overcapital, can also be interpreted as a city operatingin the same opportunistic manner as thoselocated more marginal1y relative to the worldeconomy.

Glasgow

The Glasgow of the 1970s and early 1980s hasbeen ubiquitously portrayed as a city in decline.With the decline of the traditional pil1ars of ship-building on the Clyde, the steel industry and asso-ciated works inland, and a demographic decline(Darner, 1990; Gibb, 1983; Lever, 1990), Glasgowwas, as Cheshire et al. (1986) indicated, one of theleast economical1y healthy cities in Europe. Assuch, Glasgow had many of the features of a citylocated towards the margins of the new globaleconomy - a location all the more poignant, giventhat its former role as 'The Second City' of theEmpire (Oakley, 1965) remained part of the nottoo distant memories of many of its citizens.Despite the lack of hard evidence, the negativeimage associated with this decline has beenrecognized by those in local government to be asignificant barrier to new investment and to thepath out of the spiral of decline. In an attempt tobreach this perceived barrier, the Labour admin-istration of the local council in the early 1980sadopted a new vision for the city. Under thisvision, the city was to be repositioned as a leading'European city', at the heart of the Europeaneconomy and successfully competing for Euro-pean inward investment (Rogerson and Boyle,1998).

In the form of construction of new physicalinfrastructure and a variety of cultural projects,the concrete articulation of this vision has notalways been coherent. It has included, forexample, both city centre redevelopment as partof a post-industrial vision focused on office devel-opment and retail consumption, and the provi-sion of arts and cultural infrastructure (Boyle andHughes, 1994). The manifestations in terms ofcultural provision have been mixed - short-term,high profile events such as the 1990 Year ofCulture and the 1999 Year of Architecture,funded primarily from the public purse, alongsidelonger-term provision with private sector fundingin, for example, multi-screen cinemas as the hubof area regeneration. The office and retail


elements in the city centre have been transformedwith new glass-fronted, postmodern architecturein office complexes set alongside the cleanedVictorian facades retained to portray the city'sheritage and vernacular styles. New shoppingmall developments such as those at St Enoch'sand the soon to be completed Buchanan Galleriessit alongside the chainstores of the high street,with high rates of turnover and vacancies. Inaddition, the attempt to change the image -reflected in promotional and marketingcampaigns, the most renowned of which was the'Glasgow's Miles Better' campaign of the 1980s,re-invented in the 1990s - has frequently accom-panied and even led the re-creation of the city'sprofile locally and internationally.

It is not the intention here to debate whethersuch an interpretation is sustainable or to explorefurther the complex articulations by manyobservers of the vision and trajectory adopted byGlasgow (Boyle, 1993; Boyle and Hughes, 1994).As a city striving to find a new, post-industrialform and adopting elements of place marketing,Glasgow has been seen to be archetypal. As a cityaway from the core of the global economy,however, Glasgow would appear to lack thepower required to master the needs of this capitaland thus it could be anticipated that it wouldrequire to have the characteristics of the short-term approach. In some respects, the attraction ofthe spectacles of the Garden Festival and the Yearof Culture, for example, has been viewed as aform of just such short-term, opportunisticregeneration (Keating, 1988).

Alternatively, these events can also be seen tobe part of a long-term vision, one that is built ona re-imaging and re-aestheticizing of the city as acultural centre in the international scene. Thus,for example, in writing in the early 1990s aboutarts events such as Mayfest and the GardenFestival, Boyle and Hughes (1991: 219) noted thatthey were. part of such a strategy and that'Glasgow's role as the European City of Culture1990 represents the latest stage in an intensivecampaign to regenerate the city'. Or as Booth andBoyle (1993: 33--4) note in relation to the biddingfor the 1990 title of Year of Culture, 'the bidemphasized the importance to the city of devel-oping cultural tourism ... the arts would be usedas an additional strand of economic planningdirectly through the attraction of tourists to thebig event ... the mere fact of winning the titleinevitably conferred a comparative advantageupon Glasgow through the recognition of itscultural specialization'. In this reading thereappears, despite the city's marginal ability tofashion capital, a vision and trajectory which hasa greater degree of permanence than would besuggested by a short-termist perspective.

These two examples have been, of course,

highly selective, both in terms of their represen-tation of different types of urban areas, and in theinterpretative readings of the regeneration proj-ects they present. As such we could be accused oftrying to make the 'facts' fit our notions. Whilstdetail is of relevance, what we wish to concludefrom these thumb-nail sketches is more general.First, even within one overarching agenda, that ofthe NUP, it is problematic to assert relativelysimple relations between cities, their trajectoriesand global capital. Second, even within one city,competing interpretations of short- versus long-term strategies are possible, and, as in the case ofGlasgow, the rhetoric employed by key playersmay confuse the issue further. Rutheiser's accountof Atlanta suggests -like Davis's account of LosAngeles (1990) - that with meticulous trawling ofalternative sources, such as media, private papersand council records, it is possible to explore'behind' the public exterior to postulate differentreadings of city visions and regeneration projects.Understanding the way the volatility of capital,city visions and trajectories impinge on eachother, therefore, is problematic, but worthy offurther exploration.

THE DISCOURSE PERSPECTIVE IN URBANSTUDIES: BEAUREGARD'S VOICES OF

DECLINE

The above account provides a mere skeletaloutline of the manner in which the NUP agendais creating a context within which city authoritiesare charting out development trajectories andimagining what their potential futures might belike. For those inspired by what might be termedorthodox policy analysis, and by implicationarguably for most analysts both inside andoutside the academy, the NUP thesis is livedlargely as a given. By this we mean that it istreated as 'the true and accurate' account of theplight cities face, and as an objective evaluation ofthe policy options that need to be considered. Inthis section, we now wish to jolt the reader into adifferent epistemological framework whichprovides an altogether different starting point [orthe interpretation of the NUP agenda. In sodoing, we are not necessarily arguing for a rejec-tion of the NUP agenda but do wish to challengethe apparently accepted wisdom that it is the onlyway of viewing the city. Specifically, we wish toreflect upon what the NUP framework mightlook like if viewed as a discourse.

Whilst the discourse approach is now wellestablished in many sub-areas within the socialsciences, it seems that the boundaries around thefield of urban studies have been somewhat imper-meable to its infiltration. One notable exception


to this observation has been the work of RobertBeauregard. In his ground-breaking book Voicesof Decline, Beauregard (1993) indeed argued thathe was prompted to write the work because of'the failure or urban theory to confront in anymeaningful way the issue of representation'(Beauregard, 1993: xi). He continues: "If urbantheory were to be advanced, and our under-standing of cities improved, theorists would haveto confront the tension between interpretivestrategies and objective analyses' (p. xi). In thissection, we will use Voices of Decline to introducethe basic tenets of the discourse approach in thesphere of urban studies. Whilst Beauregard'sanalysis is exceedingly rich and full of nuances, wewill isolate four aspects which help to define thefoundations of the discourse perspective to thestudy of cities.

In Voices of Decline, Beauregard's empiricalfocus is upon North American cities generally,and the larger conurbations specifically. Althoughthe book has the sub-title 'the postwar fate of UScities', Beauregard's reflections extend back to thelate nineteenth century. When reviewing a mass ofwritings and discussions on North Americancities, including those by city officials, civilservants, newspapers and magazines, Beauregardwas struck by the manner in which one coulddiscern major sea changes in the way cities werebeing 'understood' through time. For the mostpart, the emphasis was firmly upon 'decline'.More particularly, cities were being understood interms of the manner in which they were disinte-grating and failing to reproduce themselvessuccessfully. However, across time, the concept ofdecline being deployed appeared to vary. As heinvestigated these various concepts of decline inmore detail, Beauregard became convinced thatinstead of approaching writings and discussionson the fate of cities as if they reflected someunderlying reality, a better approach would be toreflect upon the manner in which they wereactively representing cities in certain types ofways. More forcefully, Beauregard (1993: 6)became concerned with the manner in which themass of texts he examined were actually creatinga reality for urban populations:

[my] interpretive reading is premised on the notionthat the discourse is not simply an objective reportingof an incontestable reality but a collection ofunstable and contentious interpretations. The waysinwhich urban decline is represented are always prob-lematic, and although a commentator might claimprivileged access to a 'self evidently solid ground ofmeaning', no commentator can successfully defendthat exalted position.

The claim that 'language' (textbooks, politicalmanifestos, political speeches, newspaper andmagazine articles etc.) should be understood as

actively constructing cities provides the firstcornerstone notion of the discourse perspective.As Parker (1992: 4-5) notes, more generally,'discourses do not simply describe the socialworld, but categorize it, they bring phenomenainto sight. A strong form of the argument wouldbe that discourses allow us to see things that arenot "really" there, and that once an object hasbeen elaborated in a discourse, it is difficult not torefer to it as if it were real.'

Second, on the basis of this point of departure,Beauregard then attempted to delineate andreflect upon the various discourses which haveunderpinned policy approaches to the NorthAmerican city. Throughout the book, Beauregardadopts a consistent perspective on the role ofdiscourses of urban decline in framing the policyprocess. According to Beauregard (1993: 5), 'themeaning of the discourse ... can be found in theways that it conveys practical advice about howwe should respond to urban decline and mediatesamong the choices made available to us, thevalues we collectively espouse, and our ability toact.' Discourses on urban decline, therefore, bothrecognize different ideas about precisely what isdeclining and why, and produce as a result param-eters within which 'sensible' remedial measuresmight be undertaken. By way of illustration,Figure 26.1 attempts to summarize the maindiscourses recognized by Beauregard: includingdiscourses that functioned as a prelude to the fulldevelopment on the notion of decline thatmarked the post-war era; the turns and twiststaken by the discourse since 1945; and the recentrevivalist discourses which suggest that, at leastfor some, the fall of the largest cities in NorthAmerica is being reversed. From Figure 26.1, onecan begin to get a sense of the key themes associ-ated with the more important discourses, whaturban problems these discourses 'identify', andwhat policy solutions they implicitly, and oftenexplicitly, advocate.

Whilst the above two points try to capture thenature of discourses on the city, Beauregardexplores two other key aspects of the approachconcerning relationships between discourses andvarious power relations in the city. Third,although for the most part implicit, Beauregard'sstudy makes use of the particular account ofpower outlined by Michel Foucault. ForFoucault, power should be regarded as insidi-ously distributed throughout society and as suchshould be conceived of as a capacity to generateknowledge and action: 'power produces knowl-edge, and knowledge presupposes and constitutesrelation of power . . . truth is already power'(Matless, 1992: 46). The value of this perspectiveis that it suggests that knowledge and power aretwo sides of the same coin and therefore have tobe studied together. The very existence of a


DISCOURSE INDICATIVE QUOTES DEFINITION OF PROBLEMSAND FRAMING OF SOLUTIONS

Prelude to The warnings were tempered by a spirit of reform Definition of problem: Overly fast growth ofpost-war decline: and the belief that the problems increasingly con- cities leads to overcrowded slums. Moralthe progressive era centrated in large cities could be solved. Most corruption both within the state and civil

intellectuals, many government officials, and society make cities 'dangerous' and 'sinful'1880-1930 almost all reformers were committed to bringing places and a threat to civilization

order to the unruly city of industrial capitalism, yetFraming of solution: Modernist' faith in theleaving intact the basic economic relationships

that created great wealth and, through exploita- capacity of the state to control and channeltion, brought poverty. Civic responsibility embod- growth. Scientific and organizationalied in 'scientific government' and compassionate advances of corporate capital help the engi-welfare agencies was the preferred path, and neering of better citiesoptimism the guiding light. (p. 59)

Prelude to post-war The discourse on cities that occurred prior to the Definition of problem: Urban growth haddecline: a temporary Second World War then, had none of the pervasive been temporarily restrained by the effects ofproblem pessimism to which people in the post-war period the great depression and the Second World

would become accustomed. Few commentators in War1920-1950 the pre-war discourse doubted the potential for sub-

sequent reinVigoration. Certainly many had been Framing of Solution: Post-depression andfearful of the effects of decentralization and the post-Second World War recovery wouldtwin problems of slums and blight in the city's cen- ensure the continuation of healthy urbantral areas, but they also, as had those in the earlier growthdecades of the twentieth century. believed in thepowers of human intervention to resist such decay.Urban growth had been interrupted, not deflected,and during the late 1940s commentators were gen-erally confident that a return to economic prosperitywould preserve the city. (p. 99)

Escalating As the nature of urban decline changed, and its Definition of problem: City was suburbaniz-downward: pace qUickened, its perception was transformed, ing itself to death. Out-migration was selec-potentially and the optimism of former years weakened. One tive, involving mainly young middle-classirreversible commentator . .. in one of the earliest appear- families. In-migration of negroes from south-problems ances of the phrase, believed that cities were 'in ern states to older industrial conurbations in

throes of urban crises'. The city was increasingly the north brought new class and racial prob-1945-1960 viewed as incapable of overcoming the endemic lems

problems of blight, slums, and urban spraWl. Thismade urban decline no longer a temporary aber- Framing of solution: National debate centredration, brought about by years of depression and upon whether to rebuild existing cities, con-war, but a chronic national condition. (p. 15) struct new suburban cities and allow eXisting

cities to pass into a less central role, or toabandon big cities altogether

From one crisis to thE The discourse shifted abruptly from the physical Definition of problem: Negroes made thenext: the racial roots state of the city . .. The slum problem was trans- slums and the slums could not be curedof urban decline ferred into the ghetto problem . .. Urban decline without dealing with the problems of racially

was no longer a list of curable ills but a funda- generated poverty. Towards the end of the1960-mid-1970s mental contradiction. Negroes became the scape- period, the negro problem was linked to the

goats for urban decline and linked to race, urban fiscal crises faced by so many cities whichdecline could not be overcome by simply adding came more to the foregroundcapital and households to the city. Institutions andbehaviours transcending the spatial bounds of Framing of solutions: Fundamental employ-

• the city had to change and change in ways that ment and civil rights needed to be estab-redirected decades of prejUdice, discrimination, Iished to overturn racial discrimination.and oppression. (pp. 64-5) Then, with the race problem solved, the

slum or ghetto problem might also be solved

Rising from the This feverish revival produced a peculiarly 1980s Definition of problem: The quality of lifeashes: glimmer of a representation of the city. On the one hand, revi- available in a city, its leisure and culturalfuture talization displaced decline as the central theme of amenities, and its overall image, were vital in

urban commentary. On the other hand, renewed attracting business and people back to it.1970-1990s investment and the cessation of massive popula- The timing was right to represent the city to

tion loss, not to mention a rediscovered in-migra- the world as a place of life and vitalitytion of middle-class households, brought to thefore many long forgotten consequences of growth. Framing of solution: City marketing exercis-Many commentators, additionally, found it difficult es were to represent the city as a place into overlook an increasingly visible, bothersome, which to consume and be entertained. Theand deepening bifurcation of the city into rich and city could be shown to offer new lifestylespoor. A fascination with ranking cities on their 'liv- which were attractive to those bored by lifeability', however, blurred widening inequalities within suburbiain cities, and thereby rescued revival from its crit-ics. During the 1980s, critical commentary. no mat-ter how pessimistic, simply could not dislodge thediscourse from its new found hopefUlness. (p. 256)

Figure 26.1 Beauregard's framing of 'post-war' discourses of urban decline inthe United States (constructed from Beauregard, 1993)


discourse leads one to question the sources ofpower that have both produced and reproducedthat discourse. In turn, accessing the sources ofpower that lurk behind certain 'ways of seeing'the world often involves asking the question:which categories of person benefit, and whichlose, from the existence of these particular typesof discourse? Often, the sources of powerinvolved are institutional. Analyses of discourses,therefore, proceed by interrogating the institu-tional sources that benefit from the circulation ofparticular 'ways of seeing'.

Additionally, Beauregard draws attention tothe often conscious efforts made by those institu-tions empowered by the discourse to promotetheir 'ways of thinking' and therefore to suffocatethe development of alternative representations.Such institutions might indeed engage in propa-ganda exercises designed to promote and natu-ralize the discourse that they so rely upon. Thisact of denying contemplation of alternatives'smothers the actual causes of our discontent. Itstifles an awareness of how cities might bedifferent. As a result, we are unable to imaginecities where shared prosperity, democraticengagement, and social tolerance are the normsand not the exceptions. To allow cities to be thediscursive sites for society's contradictions is to beimprisoned in the cynicism of urban decline'(Beauregard, 1993: 324, emphasis added).

Despite all the twists and turns it has taken inits historical evolution, the discourse of urbandecline may, at one level, be approached in termsof the manner in which it functions to legitimatecapitalist development. One aspiration of thediscourse, it would seem, is a search for solutionsto uneven development both inside and outsidecities which do not fundamentally question orthereby threaten the basic capitalist processes. AsBeauregard argues (1993: 306), 'if people cannotbe convinced that decline is inevitable, at leastthey might come to believe that it is tolerable; ifnot natural, at least reversible; if not curable, atleast isolated and contained.' This is an intriguingargument. It suggests that even when drawingattention to capitalism's worst eyesores, thediscourse should be approached as reproducingcapitalist social relations, by virtue of the fact thatit offers solutions 'within the system'. For Beau-regard, nevertheless, discourses of urban declineare not only concerned with the power relationsembedded in the class structure of capitalist cities.Beyond questions of social class, discourses haveto be read in terms of their role in shaping othersocial relations, not least those based uponethnicity and gender, and to these one might addage and disability, among others.

Fourthly, and finally, of course the hegemonicstatus of any discourse is never complete, anddespite the best efforts of the institutional

support apparatus which grows up around anydiscourse, there always exists the possibility thatalternative representations will grow in persua-siveness. Indeed, when 'cities' are read from socialpositions at the margins of the dominantdiscourse, it is possible that representations willbecome a source of conflict. According toJackson (1991: 200), such conflict should bethought of as constituting a cultural politics,defined as the 'domain in which meanings areconstructed and negotiated [and] where relationsof dominance and subordination are defined andcontested'. The rise of a cultural politics over theway cities are represented constitutes a mostfundamental and serious challenge to the estab-lished 'order'. Not only is dissent towards thisorder made visible but the very cultural founda-tions which support and legitimate its existenceare questioned. It is indeed only during such acrisis of representation that the deeply natural-ized discourses which buttress relations of domi-nation become disturbed. The interrogation offundamental concepts which then follows may beread as a moment of emancipation for theoppressed, at least at the level of consciousness.

RE-READING THE NUP AGENDA

For the most part Beauregard's focus has beenupon discourses of urban decline. Perhapsbecause of this emphasis, we feel that his attemptto read recent revivalist agendas from the vantageof the discourse perspective remains underdevel-oped. In particular, Beauregard's reading fails toforeground the central importance of themetaphor of commodification in recent and moreoptimistic statements on the city. In this finalsection, we therefore wish to turn attention to thediscourse of revival and to present a fuller expo-sition of what a discourse reading of the NUPagenda might look like.

On the basis of the approach sketched out byBeauregard, a discourse perspective wouldapproach the NUP agenda not as an objectiveanalysis of the effects of globalization and thenew international division of labour on the cityand as an important context in relation to whichcities have to formulate imagined futures. Instead,the approach would see this agenda as a socialconstruction. In other words, as a discourse, theNUP represents the city in certain types of ways,therein providing an analytic logic in which prob-lems are defined and policy measures framed.Place marketing and the aspiration to assumecertain roles in the emerging global division oflabour come to be seen as 'natural', 'obvious','self-evident' and 'legitimate'. Treated as adiscourse, analysts would then seek to uncover


the sources of institutional power that lie behindit, and the propaganda devices used in its produc-tion and reproduction. Finally, assuming thathegemonic status for the discourse is never total,the perspective would call upon research tosearch for the possibility of a cultural politics inwhich alternative readings of the city maysucceed, however limited, in threatening thediscourses' underlying assumptions and logic.

The NUP Agenda as a Discourse

What kind of social construction of the city doesthe NUP define? In trying to approach the NUPagenda as a discourse, it is useful to begin bylocating it within a wider discursive field, oftenlabelled somewhat haphazardly as 'Thatcherism'or 'Reaganism'. This wider discursive fieldinvolves ideological shifts within the state moregenerally. It has been dominated by a 'new rightagenda', which champions the importance of themarket system and of the necessity of freeing upprivate agents from state regulations. Given theimportance of the local state as an ideologicalbattleground (Duncan and Goodwin, 1988) andthe political importance of the problems of innercity and urban decline, it was perhaps inevitablethat new right thinking would establish an agendato be applied to cities (Barnekov et aI., 1989;Peck, 1995; Peck and Tickell, 1994).

Central to the NUP agenda is the representa-tion of cities as commodities. The metaphor of'commodification' is used to construct cities asakin to any other good which sits on a super-market shelf. Places are represented as existing inan open competition with one another to lureprivate investment. They must act in subservientways to consumers, and deploy their resources tomake them more competitive in the open market.Place marketing itself is the embodiment of newright thinking. Mobile capital and tourists are thehighly flexible consumers, places are the product,and local institutions and organizations are themanufacturers, marketeers and retailers. The keymove in the NUP agenda, therefore, is the repre-sentation of place as a commodity in a highlycompetitive market place.

Given that the commodification metaphor isthe central representation which underpins theNUP agenda, further strands of thought andargument about the city as a commodity thereinfollow. If one returns to some of the ideasoutlined in section I, once the metaphor of thecommodity is revealed, it then becomes apparentthat many of the ideas contained in the NUPagenda can be read as derivative of this basicnotion. The following brief examples illustratethe most pertinent ideas in this context.

I Like brands in most spheres of the market

today, 'consumer' loyalty to places is neversecure, and consumers are indeed becomingincreasingly subject to whimsical shifts in taste.Places, therefore, are extremely vulnerable to thefast turnover times that mark the consumptionpreferences and habits of mobile capital, touristsand a range of other consumers. Places'Ileed to beaware that their futures are being determined bylaws of the market place which can be likened tothose that prevail in the case of more 'normal'commodities, and need to plan for such insecurity(Harvey, 1989a).

2 Commodities should be marketed, notmerely advertised. For place marketeers, this is animportant distinction. To promote a place simplyon the basis of its existing attributes amounts tolittle more than an exercise in advertisement.'Marketing' cities in contrast encompasses themuch larger idea that commodities are producedto meet market demand. A survey of the marketprecedes the production process itself, and goodsare produced in the way a priori consumerdemand dictates. The notion of place marketing,therefore, suggests that cities not only should sellwhat they already are, but must change tobecome what the consumer requires. Places, thus,need to be produced to the specifications ofmobile capital, tourists, etc. (Ashworth andVoogd,1990).

3 As markets enter maturity, product special-ization occurs. Firms find their own niche in themarket and attempt to serve only a sub-section ofthe whole population of consumers. Places, like-wise, are representing themselves as offeringparticularly suitable locations for differenteconomic sectors, for units at different stages inthe production process, and for tourists withparticular tastes. As it evolves, place marketing isincreasingly playing the game of the specializa-tion of the commodity (Ashworth and Voogd,1990).

4 Many commentators have noted thatcommodities are increasingly being traded notaccording to their functionality, but according totheir image. That is, consumer taste would appearto be sensitive to the aesthetic dimension ofcommodities as well as their use values (Feather-stone, 1988). Places would seem to be nodifferent. Not only are they creating the hardware(infrastructure, tax arrangements, labour lawsetc.) which will attract inward investment, butthey are also, as a central part of their work, usingimage building techniques to produce soft infra-structure to create more conducive aestheticenvironments. This is clearly in recognition of thefact that consumers favour not only the func-tional aspects of the city, but also the gift wrap-ping that accompanies it (Boyle, 1997).

5 Just as corporate secrecy is vital in securingmarket edge in the more orthodox commodity


markets, so too is corporate secrecy a centralaspect in the commodification of place (Wood,1993). Localities now jealously guard marketresearch on the latest locational requirements ofmobile capital and tourist consumption tastes,and information on projects to upgrade the localhard and soft infrastructure is treated as confi-dential. And, as with inter-firm rivalry, inter-citycompetition generates its own ways around thisproblem; including locating staff moles incompetitors' cities, and recruiting staff from theseciti'es.

6 Finally, whilst the essence of new rightthinking champions the supremacy of marketforces, like other market places, there is consider-able debate between cities over the extent to whichthe state is subsidizing one city at the expense ofothers. Just as differential state intervention inareas such as coal production, farming and fish-eries, creates great inter-firm rivalries, so too inthe case of place marketing claims and counter-claims over the differential benefits ascribed todifferent localities by central government abound.The commodification of place, therefore, has notbeen immune from the language of subsidy andthe vocabularies which have developed in othersectors of the economy over unequal state inter-vention in markets.

In summary, the NUP agenda can be seen tocreate a particular root metaphor of the citywhich therein informs how the city is to be under-stood, and the kinds of policy interventionsrequired to 'correct' any problems it experiences(Sadler, 1993). This metaphor treats the city as acommodity. Its survival is contingent on compe-tition with other commodities (cities) for a shareof the market. To the extent that cities arerendered marginal by the wider politicaleconomy, the framing of the problem in this wayleads to the conclusion that salvation will onlycome through the market. And, only throughplace marketing and the transformation of thecity into something the consumer wants, will thecity survive.

Institutional Power and the NUP Discourse

Beyond examining the NUP agenda as a 'way ofseeing' cities, discourse analysts are interested inthe sources of institutional power that bothproduce and reproduce the discourse. Of course,in so doing, these institutions legitimate their ownactivities and secure advantages for themselves. Inshort, the discourse perspective proceeds byasking the question: which types of organizationbenefit from the circulation of this 'way ofthinking'? By seeking to examine the variouscommunities of interest which lie behind the repre-sentation of cities as commodities, the discourse

perspective promotes the idea that far frompainting a 'true' or 'real' or 'objective' picture ofthe world, representations are best thought of ascomprising 'situated knowledge', that is, knowl-edge rooted in the social positions occupied by avariety of institutions and organizations. If powerand knowledge are two sides,of the same coin,then the key question to be asked is: what sourcesof power lie behind the idea that cities are funda-mentally market places for consumer groups?

Clearly, if one thinks of the capitalist world ingeneral, the democratically elected local statewould appear to be the main institution thatdraws authority from and gives authority to theNUP discourse. It is this authority that can befound most often championing the discourse anddefending its integrity and plausibility. Further, itis this institution that can be seen to benefit inboth fiscal and electoral terms from the boost-erism which forms a central element of thediscourse. Nevertheless, depending upon whichregion of the capitalist world is being examined,there exist at least two other categories of institu-tion which draw upon the discourse as a source oflegitimation for their involvements in the gover-nance of the city (Harvey, 1989a). First, in somenations, responsibility for formulating localeconomic development strategies falls primarilyto a number of central government quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations(quangos) which often bypass the democraticlocal state. Particularly in the United Kingdom(Peck, 1995; Peck and Tickell, 1994), it wouldappear that the local state has steadily becomereplaced by a network of central governmentbodies which have been 'parachuted' into citieswithout the consent of local people. These bodieshave arrested many of the functions previouslycontrolled by the democratic local state. Thesebodies include and are exemplified by the UrbanDevelopment Corporations, Training and Enter-prise Councils and Local Enterprise Companiesthat now plan so much of the economic develop-ment work undertaken in British cities. Much ofthis work both draws upon and reproduces theNUP discourse.

A second category of interest group served bythe NUP discourse is that of the variety of formsof local capital which benefit from this partic-ular type of local accumulation strategy.Although not the only capital to benefit, NorthAmerican studies, in particular, point to thedisproportionate economic rewards to accrue tofactions of locally dependent capital. Cox andMair (1988) define local dependency to mean thedegree to which certain factions of capital arewedded to the overall economic health of alocality. This weddedness may derive from thefact that substantial amounts of fixed capitalhave been invested or that the firm has a


number of non-substitutional exchange linkages(with the local market, local labour, or localsuppliers). Among the more important locallydependent capitals to benefit from the NUPdiscourse are property developers, banks, utilitycompanies and local newspapers (Cox and Mair,1988).

That such fractions of capital benefit can beobserved from the manner in which they them-selves actively promote 'readings' of the plight ofcities which fall within the terms of reference ofthe NUP discourse. This would seem to be partic-ularly important in the North American context.Logan and Molotch (1987) argue that a distinc-tive feature of the governance of North Americancities is the manner in which locally dependentcapitals form into coalitions to articulate strategicpolicy visions for the future of their cities. Thesecoalitions, pressing for development which servestheir interests, lobby the local state to follow poli-cies for growth. Inevitably, to a large degree thisentails an interpretation of the city consistentwith the NUP discourse. Logan and Molotch(1987) characterize these coalitions as 'growthmachines'. Whilst growth machines do exist inother national contexts, albeit in a modified form,it would appear that their spontaneous formationand sheer power is a distinctively North Amer-ican phenomenon (Rogerson and Boyle, 2000;Wood, 1996). Consequently, locally dependentfractions of capital may represent both a sourceof the discourse, and a beneficiary.

According to literature produced within thepolitical economy tradition, therefore, the hege-monic status of the NUP discourse can beargued to be a reflection of the power the localstate, quangos and growth coalitions have inpromoting their own reading of the city. It isprimarily the interest of these bodies that therepresentation of the city as a commodity serves.This is perhaps most evident in recent literatureon the manper in which these bodies are active inpropaganda exercises -intent on selling theirreading of events to the local population morebroadly. One of the most fertile research areaswithin literature on the New Urban Politics hasbeen that which seeks to examine the role of civicboosterism in the politics of local economicdevelopment (Cox and Mair, 1988). It is in thiscontext that analysts have sought to examine therole of place marketing exercises within the city. Inthe account offered in the first section of thischapter, it was suggested that place marketing isviewed in the NUP agenda as an instrumentaltool in making localities more competitive whenprospecting for capital, state functions, consumerexpenditure and further prestige projects them-selves. At their most ostentatious, however, placemarketing exercises can have effects within citiesfunctioning as a form of civic boosterism or, as

Boyle (1997) calls them elsewhere, Urban Propa-ganda Projects. Here the manufacturing of a formof local consciousness which minimizes conflictsand galvanizes local support in line with the NUPagenda helps secure legitimacy for the agenda. AsPhilo and Kearns point out (1993: 3):

There exists a social logic in that the self promotionof places may be operating as a subtle form of social-ization, designed to convince local people, many ofwhom will be disadvantaged (by both globalizationprocesses and local economic development projectsthemselves) that they are important cogs in asuccessful community and that all sorts of 'goodthings' are really being done on their behalf.

Within the political economy literature, thus,the NUP discourse is argued to be a central ideo-logical tool used by the capitalist state, and bylocally dependent capital, to secure local supportand legitimacy for actions primarily designed toserve their interests. Place marketing has to beunderstood as playing a dual role in this context:on the one hand acting as a tool utilized in thestrategy; on the other hand, in the guise of localboosterism, functioning as an ideological lubri-cant. Of all the discourses on the city examinedby Beauregard (1993), there can surely be noother which makes such an ostentatious displayto secure legitimation and self-fulfilment. Ofcourse, this claim does not assume that every localgroup will be seduced by the discourse. It istowards those instances when conflict has brokenout over the NUP agenda therefore, that attentionnow finally turns.

The NUP Discourse and Social Conflictin the City

To the extent that the NUP discourse is changingthe way in which cities are being conceptualized,and therein governed, it would be fair to say thatit has in turn become a central focal point withinwhich new types of social conflicts are emerging.Given the emphasis within the discourse readingon the notion that all knowledge reflects estab-lished positions of social power, the rise of alto-gether new types of urban conflict not surpris-ingly emerges as an area of central concern withinthe approach. In this final section we wish toconsider briefly, from the vantage of the discourseperspective, how the various conflicts that areemerging might be understood.

In so doing, a typology of potential conflictsis presented. A review of studies undertaken todate suggests that conflict may revolve aroundthree major issues. These can be ordered in termsof how 'fundamental' they are. First, the NUPagenda has material consequences for different

Power. Discourses and City Trajectories 413

population groups within cities and thereforehas prompted a series of conflicts over redistrib-utive concerns. At the simplest level therefore, itcan be said to have triggered a politics of redis-tributive justice. For example, there is a growingliterature pointing to the existence of protestswhich focus upon the extent to which localeconomic strategies are diverting resources awayfrom local welfare provision and towards theassistance of selective capitalist interests (Kenny,1995; Rutheiser, 1996). Harvey calculates thatthis amounts to nothing less than a transitionfrom urban managerialism to urban entrepre-neurialism (Harvey, 1989a; see also Cox andMair, 1988), and points to the macro-economicshifts across the economy from labour to capitalwhich it brings. Inter-locality competition in thisregard is seen to induce a redistribution of stateexpenditure away from labour and towardscapital, as yet more inducements have to beoffered when prospecting for business. Since alllocalities are involved, place marketing has thepotential to become a zero-sum game, with eachlocality having to divert ever greater resourcessimply to stand still. Related to such protests,there may also arise a class based politics rootedin the nature of the economic strategy pursued.The pursuit of a post-industrial strategy may failon a number of counts: (a) in the context ofzero-sum competition for investment, thevolume of new jobs created may not be sufficientto replace old ones lost: (b) the nature of jobscreated may entail poor, low paid, menial, part-time service sector employment. There may beopposition, therefore, from groups for whom thetrickle-down philosophy carries little weight(Imrie and Thomas, 1993; Leitner and Garner,1993).

Second, at a more advanced level, by commod-ifying place, the NUP discourse fails to acknowl-edge the various other non-market relationshipsthat exist between populations and cities. Partic-ularly, sections of the population for whom thecity has use values and not merely exchange values,can often prompt what we will refer here to as acultural politics ofplace. A sophisticated accounttracking the development of conflicts over howplaces are to be represented - as commoditieswith exchange values or living environments withuse values - has been that provided by Logan andMolotch (Logan and Molotch, 1987). Logan andMolotch identify a variety of ways in which placeperforms a central role in people's efforts to makea life, ranging from concrete and practical issueslike people's use of local facilities (shops, playingfields, schools etc.), to more sophisticated notionssuch as the ways in which social relations, situatedin places, provide people with a sense of civicpride and identity. The insensitive ways in which thecommodification of places threatens and under-

mines these an-important but fragile use valuesbreeds tensions and leads to conflicts.

An example of the way in which the NUPdiscourse and place marketing have led to thedevelopment of a cultural politics of place, can beseen in Boyle and Hughes's (1991, 1994) work onGlasgow (see also Hewison's (1987) more generalstudy). In their study of Glasgow's role as Euro-pean City of Culture 1990, Boyle and Hughessought to demonstrate how the event was hi-jacked by the NUP agenda and used as an exer-cise in place marketing for economic develop-ment. The result was that many groups in the citycomplained that the real, organic culture andheritage of the city was being excluded in favourof a sanitized version of consumer culture for thecomfort of incoming business people and tourists.This led in turn to a heated and controversialdebate on what the 'real' Glasgow was andwhether its socialist past was being disrespectfullycast to one side. Whilst city authorities conceivedof all aspects of the city as constituting aresource base to be used to sell their commodity(including the city's culture and heritage), forothers, civic identity represented a use value thatcould not be disposed of so cheaply.

Finally, at the most fundamental level, thevigour with which the NUP agenda promotes theview that there is only one response to the global-ization of capital - namely the commodificationof place - suffocates groups with more imagina-tive responses. Opposition might arise therefore,challenging the view that there are no alternativesfor cities. Alternative representations of whatglobalization means for cities might give birth,therefore, to a culturalpolitics of the NUP agendaitself. Such a politics would foreground thesubversive potential of representations whichcreate alternative responses to globalizationforces. By constructing a different and more imag-inative account of the plight cities face, theserepresentations take to task ways of thinkingwhich the NUP simply naturalizes. Given thehegemonic status of the basic thesis underpinningthe NUP, it has to be said that there are fewexam-ples of conflicts at this level. Nevertheless, twoexamples can be cited.

Wills (1995) has argued that there exists thepossibility that labour movements might in futureplaya more active role in combating the global-ization of capital and the regressive social conse-quences inter-city competition generates. Herfocus was upon the way in which companies withbranches straddled across the world, attempt toplayoff workforces at each branch by threateningto transfer work to another site unless the localworkforce agrees to changing labour conditionsand practices. According to Wills, labour move-ments need to organize more effectively acrossnational boundaries. If workforces presented a


united front and were prepared to agree on a basicminimum social standard, the capacity of firmsto make such threats would be greatly reduced.Pan-national coordination of the labour move-ment, therefore, represents a challenge to theassumption that the only solution to globaliza-tion is: inter-city competition for the scraps whichfall off the capitalist table.

A second example which challenges the basicrepresentation of the world created by the NUPdiscourse can be found in the growth of LETS ~the abbreviation Lee (1996) gives to localexchange employment and trading systems - inAustralian, New Zealand, British, United Statesand Canadian cities. To be sure the number ofpeople involved in LETS is miniscule. The impor-tance of the LETS scheme, however, lies in itspromotion of the idea that local communities canshield themselves from the ravages of global capi-talism by formulating alternative systems ofwork and reward. LETS represent attempts bylocal communities, which might not be able topurchase work formally through the capitalisteconomy, to de-couple themselves from thiseconomy and to create local forms of social andeconomic organization which facilitate the'purchase' of work outside the normal concept ofa currency (Pacione, 1997). Those participating inLETS give and receive all kinds of goods andservices through reciprocal arrangements whichdo not involve a transfer of money.

Such a typology of the conflicts surroundingthe NUP discourse provides a framework to guidefuture research. It should be noted, however, thatthe apparent ranking of forms of conflict fromthe least to the most fundamental and 'advanced'is not meant to carry any evaluative content. Eachtype of conflict is important in its own right. Theconstruction of the categories in this way is meantto capture how they might be seen within adiscourse reading. Conflicts over redistributiveconcerns ~o not challenge the NUP discoursedirectly. They point to the effects or consequencesof the discourse in practice. Conceivably, redis-tributive concerns might be addressed within theterms of the discourse; for instance, by tinkeringto ensure the proper workings of the trickle-downmechanism, or by attempting to secure a differentrole in the emerging global division of labour.Conflicts at this level, therefore, do not challengethe cognitive framework espoused by thediscourse, but instead encourage technical fixeswithin its terms of reference. The second andthird types of conflict, in contrast, do entail chal-lenges to the representational qualities of thediscourse: the second focusing more narrowlyupon the metaphor of the commodification ofplace:, the latter seeking to question the entire wayof seeing of the discourse itself. As such, theselatter alternative political challenges are arguably

more subversive since they attempt to underminethe NUP at the level of representation.

CONCLUSION

In this chapter we have attempted to explore theway in which urban studies might profitablydevelop a new framework of analysis based uponthe key concepts of power, discourse and citytrajectories. We have argued that a discourseapproach moves beyond orthodox policy analysisof the city in a number of key respects. Whilstsuch orthodoxy has tended to focus on the formu-lation, implementation and impact of differentpolicies on the city, a discourse reading focusesless on policy practice and more on the culturalconstructions of the city which policy naturalizes.Furthermore, it calls attention to the notion thatall cultural constructions are underpinned bysources of institutional power. Instead ofstudying policy in action, therefore, a discoursereading foregrounds the ways of seeing citiesassumed in policies, and the idea that ways ofseeing always derive from an underlying positionof power. Focusing primarily on the NUPagenda, we have tried to exemplify what such anapproach might look like. Whilst we have raised avariety of concerns, we will conclude by drawingattention to three aspects of a discourse readingof the NUP which require development.

First, whilst Beauregard represents one of thefew studies that attempt to trace the genealogy ofthe various discourses of the city, the whole ques-tion of writing historical geographies of the NUPdiscourse ~ and discourses of the city more gener-ally - remains a fertile, unexplored area ofresearch. For instance, much work still requires tobe done examining the locations of origin of theNUP discourse and the geography of its diffu-sion. To what extent, for instance, did thediscourse derive from a select number of US citiessuch as Baltimore, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh,diffusing, first, through the de-industrializingcities of North America and then on into the UK,through cities such as Glasgow and Sheffield?Further, it is likely that the evolution of the NUPdiscourse has been tortuous, encountering avariety of different local conditions and opposi-tions and, at least in the innovative stages, strug-gling to secure hegemonic status. As such, it mayalso be necessary to write the genealogy of theNUP discourse with reference to the historicalgeography of different forms of opposition inparticular locations.

Secondly, in tracing out the 'key players' inparticular cities who have championed the NUPagenda, and shaped its rise to fame, it would befair to say that work to date has been biased to


the political economy perspective, and as such,has approached this task within the terms of amaterialist framework. That is, emphasis hasbeen placed upon large political bodies andcertain fractions of capital as the primaryproducers and beneficiaries of the agenda.Whilst such work has contributed greatly to ourunderstanding of the capitalist power relationsreproduced by the NUP discourse, it has done soat the expense of a thorough analysis of themany other power relations with which thediscourse interacts; such as those formed aroundgender, ethnicity, age and disability. This is not tosay that all research has ignored the importanceof other power relations. It is simply to state thatthe origins of the NUP are taken most often tosignify the rise to power of certain fractions ofthe state and certain types of capital. Genealo-gies, therefore, require more innovative ways ofstudying the sources of power lying beneath theNUP discourse.

Finally, given the status of the NUP discourseas the agenda cities have to work with, futurework needs to be careful in not assuming that thediscourse will lead to certain concrete outcomesin different types of cities. As noted in the firstsection of this chapter, some recent studies of theNUP have worked with the explicit assumptionthat in engaging with global capital, strategictrajectories open to cities are conditioned by theirdifferential abilities to master global capital. Forinstance, there is an acceptance that some cities,such as the global cities, can construct a coherent'blueprint' based upon a mastering of capital'svolatility and flexibility, whilst for other citiesstrategies are, at best, short-term and oppor-tunistic or fragmentary. The connections betweenthe NUP discourse and the strategies pursued bydifferent cities is seen to be more contingent thanis found in this narrow reading, and is thusworthy of future research.

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