Neoliberalism in the trenches: Urban policy and politics in the United States and the United Kingdom

Abstract

How and why has urban policy and politics become dominated by pro-market thinking in the past three decades? Based on extensive archival research and elite-level interviews, this dissertation uses national urban policy—including enterprise zones and urban development corporations—and local urban politics in Philadelphia and London Docklands to argue that neoliberal ideas have played a key role in propelling political development at the national and local level in the United States and the United Kingdom. But while neoliberalization occurred in both countries, the timing, extent, and character of this shift was determined by the ways in which neoliberal ideas interacted with institutional frameworks and organized interests. Hence, this dissertation illustrates the value of viewing ideas, institutions, and interests through a single analytical frame. ^ While the first half of this dissertation explores the ways in which neoliberal ideas interact with differing institutional frameworks to shape national urban policy, the second half shifts scales to examine urban politics in Philadelphia and London Docklands. I investigate how the interaction of national and international-level forces and local political coalition-building has promoted pro-market policy prescriptions. In 'Docklands,' local institutions were radically transformed with the introduction of an Urban Development Corporation, which usurped local councils' planning powers and set about privatizing public land. Given its transformation by an activist central government, I suggest it is an example of neoliberalism by design. ^ By contrast, Philadelphia's path towards neoliberalism was more serpentine and remains incomplete. There, a particular sequence of slow-moving processes—deindustrialization and the influx of working-class African Americans—intertwined with rapid, ideologically informed cuts to federal aid. These national shifts in turn interacted with local political strategies to transform Philadelphia into a 'business-friendly' city. The Philadelphia case reveals that the coalitional linkages between African Americans and business were crucial in this regard. I argue that Philadelphia's reluctant turn toward pro-market remedies illustrates a pattern of neoliberalism by default. ^ Finally, one of the most striking findings presented within is that while the governments of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan blazed the neoliberal trail, both Tony Blair's and Bill Clinton's governments in a number of key respects consolidated the neoliberal project.^

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