The smart state as utopian space for urban politics

Abstract

Seen as a specific socio-spatial conjuncture of power relations, the state should be an essential ingredient in the menu of topics examined in a volume about the spaces of urban politics. The role of the state in reconstructing politically an ideal of the good society has returned to prominence. This chapter develops themes under the synoptic rubric of the smart state as a possible utopian space for urban politics. It highlights the tense intellectual-theoretical relationship between utopianism and the state. The chapter explores urban-regional politics across Greater Seattle, a US exemplar of the so-called 'smart turn' in global urbanism. It highlights the possibilities of a new politics emanating into the city-region, in part by 'drawing down' a new kind of state, one that helps to territorialize the city-region as an improved space through programmes, policies, projects and imaginaries that valorize competence over control.

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