On the waterfront: Neoliberal urbanism and the politics of public benefit

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• 作者：Philip Boland ; Dr. ; ^{p.boland@qub.ac.uk} ; John Bronte ^{jbronte02@qub.ac.uk} ; Jenny Muir ; Dr. ^{j.muir@qub.ac.uk}
• 关键词：Neoliberalism ; Competitiveness ; Public ; Politics ; Economy ; Waterfront
• 刊名：Cities
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：61
• 期：Complete
• 页码：117-127
• 全文大小：1053 K
• 卷排序：61

文摘

The core findings of this paper are: Our research contributes to debates on whether public benefit has practical utility (‘grounded in reality’) and conceptual merit (‘valid or usable concept’) for spatial planning. We show that defining, understanding and measuring public benefit is a far from straightforward and challenging endeavour. In so doing, we present a theoretically informed analysis of the construction and operationalisation of public benefit in the context of an urban waterfront, through the creation of five categories/types of public benefit. Our contribution to knowledge is that in one sense public benefit could be regarded as a ‘valid/usable concept’ for spatial planning as it rhetorically captures a wide canvas of positives for the city and its people. However, when we unpack the concept and apply it to different demographic groups it becomes more challenging as an operational concept. Given this, its practical utility is less effective as it does not deal efficaciously with the differential, material and distributional consequences of competitive waterfronts. We call for future research to drill down and excavate further the empirical realities of waterfront redevelopment schemes in relation to different socio-economic groups; this can generate a more accurate grasp of public benefit, and more specifically who benefits?