Urban Politics Cities And Suburbs In A Global Age: Challenges And Opportunities For Sustainability

Urban Politics blends the most insightful classic and current political science and related literature with current issues in urban affairs. The book's integrative theme is 'power, ' demonstrating that the study of urban politics requires an analysist to look beyond the formal institutions and procedures of local government. The book also develops important subthemes: the impact of globalization; the dominance of economic development over competing local policy concerns; the continuing importance of race in the urban arena; local government activism versus the 'limits' imposed on local action by the American constitutional system and economic competition; and the impact of national and state government action on cities. Urban Politics engages students with pragmatic case studies and boxed material that use classic and current urban films and TV shows to illustrate particular aspects of urban politics. The book's substantial concluding discussion of local policies for environmental sustainability and green cities also appeals to today's students. Each chapter has been thoroughly rewritten to clearly relate the content to current events and academic literature, including the following:

When asked to describe their neighbors, people in rural areas are far more likely than those in cities and suburbs to say all or most of their neighbors share their race or ethnicity. Suburbanites are somewhat more likely than their urban and rural counterparts to say their neighbors are the same social class as they are, while relatively few across community types say all or most of their neighbors share their political views.

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For the WHO project, numerous partners from 35 cities from around the world collaborated, for instance, through conducting large-scale focus group sessions with various groups of stakeholders [45]. Based on this research, the features of age-friendly cities were determined in eight domains of urban life. These domains are: outdoor spaces and buildings; transportation; housing; social participation; respect and social inclusion; civic participation and employment; communication and information; and community support and health services. One of the noteworthy aspects of this global study was that there were no systematic differences in focus group themes between cities in developed and developing countries, although the positive, age-friendly features were more commonly seen in cities in developed countries.

The initial flux of built environment and health research culminated in a series of articles in joint editions of the American Journal of Public Health and the American Journal of Health Promotion in 2003 [4, 5]. The research hypotheses examined the role of sprawl, dependence on the car, and the design and form of suburbs on physical activity and overweight. The resultant findings were largely suburban in focus. The role of urban environment factors in overweight, physical inactivity and poor health of urban and minority residents has been less studied [6]. Contextualizing research on overweight, physical activity and the urban built environment within the reality of political, social and demographic inequality of inner cities has yet to be done.

The loss of commercial and industrial employers in cities has increased the physical distance between inner city residents and available jobs [17]. At one time, US metropolitan areas had strong downtown commercial districts surrounded by dense residential areas with industrial areas also close to worker housing. But decades of de-industrialization and suburbanization have resulted in a large transfer of jobs away from inner city neighborhoods towards suburban employment centers [18, 19]. The result is that inner city communities are no longer close to employment opportunities, a phenomenon that economists characterize as "spatial mismatch" [20]. One consequence of this mismatch is that fewer inner city residents can walk or take local public transportation to work. They have long commutes, particularly the significant numbers that do not own cars, which ultimately could leave them little free time to be physically active or to socialize with their neighbors. To a great extent, this mismatch is not the result of zoning or government land use decisions that separate land uses in suburban areas. Rather it is the result of disinvestment and job loss in inner cities that has also contributed to the impoverishment of inner city governments and residents. Many of these economic changes have also resulted in a "loss of place" in that neighborhoods take on a tooth-gapped appearance with empty storefronts, abandoned buildings and vacant lots [21], likely making them less attractive for walking or for children playing outside.

Coinciding with the health risk of physical inactivity in inner cities is the reality of food insecurity. Many older inner-city neighborhoods no longer have a local supply of fresh, healthful food and they often lack transportation access to more remote supermarkets [27]. Supermarkets are less likely to locate in inner cities and small stores are more likely to sell low quality, non-fresh food and have higher prices, a situation that would contribute to poorer nutrition and lower health status [28]. The separation of residential areas from commercial services and goods, such as large supermarkets in inner cities, is not the result of intentional zoning policy as in suburbs; rather it is a consequence of social and economic trends, including business flight, that have impoverished older urban neighborhoods. Studies of diet and nutrition among inner city residents need to include research on the prevalence of, proximity to, and transportation access to large supermarkets, as well as comparisons of price and food quality between urban and suburban food markets.

Traffic lights can both improve and inhibit pedestrian activity. When they are well timed and placed to reduce traffic flows and improve pedestrian safety, they may encourage physical activity and social interaction. But when they are timed to improve traffic speeds or are missing, they can discourage pedestrian activity [45]. Bus shelters, public transportation and "traffic calming" can be a net boon to pedestrian activity. Conversely, intersections engineered for cars, increased speeds in residential and commercial areas, and even large parking lots can result in local people spending less time outdoors and doing less physical activity [46]. Older cities are increasingly being redeveloped with the same engineering standards of newer, automobile focused suburbs rather than in keeping with older, pedestrian-oriented communities. The new roads and parking facilities do not promote physical activity in the way older streets once did [47]. Policy research on redevelopment in inner cities could examine and reconcile the transportation design in inner city re-development with emerging pedestrian-friendly design guidelines for suburban development.

Improving the built environment in inner cities was crucial before the recent public health awareness of the correlation between built environment and obesity with its health-related diseases. However, policy initiatives that reduce barriers to physical activity in middle class and affluent suburbs do not assuredly translate to improvements in inner city health [67]. Some policies, such as better designs that encourage mixed use development and traffic calming [68], may be applicable in both suburb and city, especially in the context of urban re-development. In fact, these design policies prevailed in original inner city master plans. However, other needed interventions are unique to urban cores. These include: investment in inner city development that also builds social capital, prioritizing brownfield redevelopment, renewing efforts to reduce racial segregation and economic isolation, and addressing the trend in income inequality in cities [69]. Government policies on urban renewal and redevelopment have had the historical effect of displacing and isolating people of color and reducing their ability to move to healthier communities, a consequence of which is severe health disparities between people of color and others [70, 71].

Studies of the impact of sprawl on inner cities need to be designed to identify specific effects on urban form and resident physical activity, as has been done for metropolitan areas and suburbs [72, 73]. In addition, community-based initiatives that can incorporate the energy and experience of inner city residents, and the special knowledge of community based institutions are needed to assure that interventions and policy initiatives are effective in identifying solutions to the epidemic of obesity and related chronic disease in inner cities [74, 75].

In many ways, the geographic spread, growing sophistication and colonisingpropensities of transportation networks are the hallmark of extendedurbanisation in general (Keil, 2018a). Specifically, peri-urban (transport) infrastructuresare tremendously important for the functioning of the entire urban region (Filion and Pulver,2019). This is due to the location of prime network spaces such asairports and recreational spaces, in addition to the noxious or toxic industrialinfrastructures including waste and water treatment facilities and incinerators,which are often in peri- or suburban areas (Keil, 2018b: 132). Diseases can spreadrapidly between cities through infrastructures of globalisation such as globalair travel networks. While this has been well documented before, it is relevanthere because airports and other nodes of economic logistics and activity areoften located in suburban municipalities, thus raising potentially complexgovernance and jurisdictional issues with regards to who has responsibility tocontrol disease outbreaks in large urban regions (Addie, 2014; Ali and Keil, 2010; McNeill, 2011).

What is the role of monumentality, verticality and centrality in the twenty-first century? Are palaces, skyscrapers and grand urban ensembles obsolete relics of twentieth-century modernity, inexorably giving way to a more humble and sustainable de-centred urban age? Or do the aesthetics and politics of pomp and grandiosity rather linger and even prosper in the cities of today and tomorrow? 2ff7e9595c