As the realm of the community has grown increasingly important in the contemporary political economy, the theoretical debates surrounding community have also grown in importance and volume. Too often this literature has been either celebratory or dismissive; either romanticizing the concept and thereby elevating it to primary rank as the focal point of societal initiatives, or objecting to its regulated limits and contradictions and thereby dismissing its importance and political utility. There are important contributions being made by both those who dismiss community and those who celebrate it. But for those interested in understanding the potential for emancipatory social change in the contemporary political economy of neoliberalism there are also severe limitations imposed by these perspectives. After critiquing these literatures and debates, we put forward an understanding of community that is neither dismissive nor celebratory, but instead argues that communities need to be understood as simultaneously products of both their larger, and largely external, contexts, and the practices, organizations and relations that take place within them. Thus, communities, because of their central place in capitalist political economies, can be vital arenas for social change. But they are also arenas that are constrained in their capacities to host such efforts. Copyright (c) 2006 The Authors. Journal Compilation (c) 2006 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd..

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

In a context of globalization, municipalities and metropolitan regions are involved in international competition to support economic growth. This leads to new forms of collaboration between public authorities and businesses, giving birth to new forms of urban and metropolitan governances. Moreover, many old neighborhoods of the central city and some districts of the old suburbs face growth in unemployment and poverty. In these local territories, community organizations put forward local development practices that aim to improve living conditions. These organizations cooperate with other community organizations, public institutions and private agencies. Thus, they are embedded in a kind of governance: a local governance. This article, based on the case of the metropolitan region of Montreal, highlights the conception of local development of these community organizations, the local governance in which they participate, and the link between this local governance with the urban and metropolitan ones.