Urban Growth Management and Its Discontents

YONN DIERWECHTER is Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Washington, Tacoma, USA.

• Introduction Pro-growth, Anti-growth, Smart growth: History for a 'usable' future The Territorialities of the Smart-growth Paradigm: A theoretical framework Spatial Promises: Smart goals for urban growth management Spatial Practices: Tools, techniques and the geo-politics of urban growth management Metropolitan Portland: Excavating the new territorialities of 'success' Seattle-Tacoma:  Re-scaling the spaces of fragmented places Greater Baltimore: hope through smart growth and the spaces of retreat Madison-Dane County: Regionalizing the progressive tradition Conclusions: After the 'next step'

"This exceptionally well- written book represents an analysis of the recent history of growth management in the United States, considered as an important dimension of contested state territoriality. The argument presented here is wrapped up into wider debates about state re-scaling and the neo-liberalization of space, viz. the deregulation and flexibilization of urban-region planning and policy. At the same time, the book is a critique of a tendency to over-represent the politics of space in the American city-region as a neo-liberal politics. With an original integration of planning literatures with political geographical theory, the author unravels a variety of rationalities found in different planning regimes across the USA, drawing upon examples from Seattle-Tacoma, Baltimore, Portland, and Madison. Dierwechter s volume will be enriching for scholars at all levels in urban and political geography, city and regional planning, urban sociology as well as political science." - Andrew E.G. Jonas, Professor of Human Geography, Hull University, England