Evaluating the Success of Urban Success Stories

Wolman, Harold; Ford, Coit Cook; Hill, Edward W.

doi:10.1080/00420989420080701

Cited by 46 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 8 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Atlantic City, which in 1976 legalised casino gambling as a (then) 'unique tool of urban development', has by any measure been amongst the most aggressive in its single-minded embrace of this kind of entrepreneurialism, leaping headlong from an objective state of structural crisis into a fateful pact with casino capitalism, which for several decades delivered a bounty to corporate investors, spurring a brash pattern of growth and inflating the local tax base (Schwartz, 2016;Sternlieb and Hughes, 1983: 2;Wolman et al, 1993). When Atlantic City's luck ran out, however, it did so in equally dramatic fashion.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Transatlantic city, part 1: Conjunctural urbanism

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As the first installment of a two-part article exploring contemporary transformations in metropolitan governance in the wake of the entrepreneurial turns of the 1980s and subsequent waves of neoliberalisation and financialisation, a case is outlined here for a 'conjunctural' approach to urban analysis. This can be considered to be complementary to, but at the same time distinct from, some of the concurrent approaches to comparative urbanism, in that it explicitly problematises the relative positioning of cities in the context of uneven development and multiscalar relations, as well as the dialogic connections between case studies, midlevel concepts and revisable theory claims. Taking as its point of departure the current financial and political crisis in Atlantic City, the New Jersey casino capital, the article historicises the concept of the entrepreneurial city, placing this in the context, successively, of the evolving 'commonsense' of neoliberal governance, the emergence of austerity urbanism and the intensification of financialised restructuring. In tracing an arc from more abstract theory claims through to the specific circumstances of contemporary urban restructuring in the United States, the article sets the stage for the more granular and concrete analysis of 'late-entrepreneurial' Atlantic City to follow in Part 2. To the extent that it is necessary to construct some of this staging, this first part of the article reflects on some of the methodological implications of a conjunctural approach to urban studies.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Transatlantic city, part 1: Conjunctural urbanism

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The residents of several of the distressed New England cities-Bridgeport, New Haven, and Providenceexperienced some improvement in economic well-being during the 1980s. These cases suggest that reporting on alternative criteria and sample periods is particularly valuable for studying cities that place somewhere in the middle of the continuum of most distressed to least 23 Of these cities, Allentown and Erie were categorized by Wolman, Ford, and Hill (1994) as nondistressed in 1980, but having weak residential well-being by Furdell and Wolman (2006 distressed. Ultimately, a sharper focus on the areas of relative strengths and weaknesses may lead to better policy prescriptions for this set of cities.…”

Section: Analysis Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The studies by Wolman, Ford, and Hill (1994) and Wolman, Hill, and Furdell (2004) addressed the degree to which improvements in central business districts benefited city residents. In each of these studies, the authors queried economic development experts about the degree of revitalization in approximately 50 cities whose population had either decreased or increased only modestly one decade earlier and whose residents had had a low level of economic well-being 10 years earlier.…”

Section: Combatting Low Incomes and Widespread Povertymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Economic Distress and Resurgence in U.S. Central Cities

Kodrzycki

Muñoz

2015

Economic Development Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:This paper provides a review of the literature on U.S. central city growth and distress during the second half of the twentieth century.It finds that city growth tended to be higher in metropolitan areas with favorable weather, higher growth, and greater human capital, while distress was strongly correlated with city-level manufacturing legacy. The article affirms that distress has been highly persistent, but that some cities have achieved resurgence through a combination of strong leadership, collaboration across sectors and institutions, clear and broad-based strategies, and significant infrastructure investments. Finally, the article explores measurement issues by comparing two methodologies used to identify poorly performing central cities: comparisons across a comprehensive national cross-section of cities and comparisons within smaller samples of similar cities. It finds that these approaches have produced similar assessments of a city's status, except in some cases where the city's progress has been uneven across time or with respect to alternative criteria. JEL classifications: R11, R12, R23, R58, O15

show abstract

“…There have been a number of authors who have observed that the successful redevelopment does not always correlate with the social or economic wellbeing of the local residents, and may in fact occur at their expense [15,44].…”

Section: What Constitutes Success?mentioning

confidence: 99%

What constitutes success in brownfield redevelopment? A review

Silverthorne¹

2006

WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, 94

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This review identifies and examines the different definitions of success that appear in the literature on brownfield redevelopment and discusses perceptions of: greenspace creation; economic issues; sustainability and success models. It concludes with some insights into what is currently perceived to constitute success in brownfield redevelopment. Brownfield redevelopment is generally acknowledged as one of the principal factors in ensuring that development is sustainable, but there is neither a benchmark standard nor a list of criteria by which success can be defined. In many redevelopments that have been judged, primarily by the developers, to be successful there is little correlation between the criteria on which the success has been claimed and the social or economic wellbeing of the local residents and success may in fact occur at their expense. Success is usually measured against the original objectives of the project where the focus is often more towards economic factors rather than social and environmental factors. All of these variables make it very difficult to generically quantify success in brownfield redevelopment.

show abstract

Evaluating the Success of Urban Success Stories

Cited by 46 publications

References 8 publications

Transatlantic city, part 1: Conjunctural urbanism

Transatlantic city, part 1: Conjunctural urbanism

Economic Distress and Resurgence in U.S. Central Cities

What constitutes success in brownfield redevelopment? A review

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About