Cities as political objects

Two images of Nantes as a ‘green model’ of urban planning and governance: the ‘collaborative city’ versus the ‘slow city’

“…The emergent logics of urban collaborative governance are increasingly (and correctly in our view) characterised as 'messy' practices and processes, which are forged by the interactions between local urban contextual configurations, the layering of multiple institutional rules and norms, and the politics of competing identities and hegemonic projects (Cadiou, 2016;Parès, Broda, Canal, Hernando and Martínez, 2017;Skelcher, Sullivan and Jeffares, 2013). Seen in these terms, 'cities' and urban boundaries are produced and reproduced as political objects; they are therefore best viewed as hybrid assemblages of plural technologies, governance practices, institutional and economic resources, multiple histories and identities (Cole and Payre, 2016). As cities are constructed and reshaped by complex political practices, competing narratives and discourses offer a means to reproduce order across urban spaces, albeit of a partial and temporal kind (see Bradford, 2016;Barbehön et al, 2016).…”

National urban policies in Europe - an introduction

“…They found evidence that it is not a strong social democratic welfare state that allows local governments to implement high-profile city welfare schemes; rather, strong local governments are a prerequisite for national welfare states. This points to the need to take a historical perspective when analysing national urban policies (Cole and Payre 2016), and the authors of this volume have been asked to provide such a perspective on the current situation.…”

The logics and limits of “collaborative governance” in Nantes: Myth, ideology, and the politics of new urban regimes

“…Inter-municipal collaboration in Nantes cannot be divorced from state sponsored initiatives that go as far back as the 1960s when Nantes and Saint-Nazaire were designated one of eleven metropolitan zones to counter regional inequalities in France (Pinson, 2005;Renard, 2000). The rise of city-regions was also enhanced by the rescaling of the French state after decentralization in the early 1980s and the accelerated growth of intercommunal collaboration from the late 1990s (Cole & Payre, 2016;Ghorra-Gobin, 2015;Pinson & Le Galès, 2005). Nantes came relatively late to inter-municipal collaboration, limiting itself to a series of "functional collaborations" around the likes of transport and waste, with inter-authority leadership exercised by the regional council rather than the city.…”

“…Inquiries into the recent transformations of urban governance highlight the variegated nature of urban regimes, as well as the pluralization and hybridization of urban space (Davies & Blanco, 2017;Gross, 2017;Parés, Boada, Canal, Hernando & Martínez, 2017;Skelcher, Sullivan & Jeffares, 2013). Indeed, it is often argued that cities and urban spaces are increasingly constructed and reproduced as political objects, which are best viewed as complex assemblages of diverse technologies, governance practices, and chains of institutional and economic resources; such objects reflect plural histories and understandings that bring into being multiple identities and modes of agency (Cole & Payre, 2016).…”