Towards a Neomedieval Urban Future: Neoliberal or Sustainable?

Abstract

The role of cities in the transformation of society is discussed. The growing importance of cities and their global networks undermine the nation state. This is a reversal of the development of the modern state which, over several centuries, increased its control over its territory and cities. Such changes have generated renewed interest in the Middle Ages. The relations between Medieval cities and territorial states were part of complex and shifting political arrangements, involving urban networks and overlapping claims to authority over territories. The general characteristics of prospective neomedieval political systems are discussed in more detail and applied to the regulatory challenges faced by neoliberalism and the transformation to a circular economy. The shift in the focus of neoliberal policy from the competitiveness of cities to that of metropolitan regions, with diverging urban and provincial interests hampers neomedievalist coordination. The cooperation between urban and provincial interests can however be realised in the transformation from a linear to a more circular economy, where metropolitan regions are well suited to accommodate the diverging aspects and forms of territorial regulation in a neomedievalist manner.