Smart Growth as Urban Reform: A Pragmatic 'Recoding' of the New Regionalism

Abstract

'New' regionalism privileges social communication over political 'coercion' as a means to motivate intermunicipal, interagency and multiactor co-operation in metropolitan regions. Critics claim, however, that the NR is little more than urban crisis management within increasingly unstable post-Fordist and neo-liberal environments. This analysis of emerging 'smart growth' strategies in North America offers a 'pragmatic', context-sensitive and critical reading of region-building in 'advanced capitalist transformation'. Issues at stake involve integral approaches to regional competitiveness, social equity, housing, redevelopment, transport, the environment, public services, etc. As will be demonstrated, however, this more global set of goals is translated locally into action, resulting in highly variegated regional governance landscapes that reflect both specific socio-political and economic contexts and the historical continuity of urban governance reform processes.