![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
Recent years have seen a growth in work on the notion of cosmopolitanism. In urban geography the term has a number of meanings, and this article focuses on two. The first refers to claims of how the experiences of certain cities have been universalized and the calls that have emerged in recent years to diversify the empirical basis on which theories are constructed. The second refers to claims of the ways in which those charged with governing urban downtowns have mobilized notions of cosmopolitanism as part of their efforts to market themselves and to define particular development trajectories. Using the example of Wisconsin's Business Improvement Districts, this article argues for a greater appreciation of diversity within this model of downtown governance than hitherto has been acknowledged, broadening the geographical referents for studies of entrepreneurial urbanism and thinking through what this knowledge might reveal about how we theorize urban revalorization. Despite some evidence of copy-cat urbanism in the two cases, there remains a need to be alive to diversity and variety.
En estos pasados años ha sido notable el aumento de trabajo alrededor de la noción de cosmopolitanismo. El término tiene varios significados en geografía humana, sobre dos de los cuales se centra este artículo. El primero se refiere a la discusión de cómo se han universalizado las experiencias de ciertas ciudades, lo mismo que las propuestas surgidas recientemente para diversificar las bases empíricas a partir de las cuales construir teoría. El segundo se refiere a reclamos sobre las maneras como se proyectan las nociones de cosmopolitanismo por quienes gobiernan los núcleos urbanos, como parte del esfuerzo de promoverse a sí mismos y para definir trayectorias particulares de desarrollo. Tomando como ejemplo el caso de los Distritos de Mejoramiento de Negocios de Wisconsin, este artículo clama por una mayor apreciación de la diversidad dentro de este modelo de administración del centro de la ciudad de lo que hasta el momento se ha reconocido, ampliando los referentes geográficos para los estudios de urbanismo empresarial y pensando sobre lo que con este conocimiento se podría revelar sobre cómo teorizamos la revalorización urbana. A pesar de alguna evidencia de urbanismo de calco en los dos casos, subsiste la necesidad de mantenerse abierto a la diversidad y la variedad.
Acknowledgements
The Worldwide Universities Network, in the form of a Research Mobility Award, and the Leverhulme Trust, in the form of a 2005 Philip Leverhulme Prize, financed the researching and writing of this article. Thank you to Eugene McCann and Nate Winkler for comments on an earlier draft of this article; to Audrey Kobayashi, the editor of the People, Place, and Region section; and to three anonymous referees for their supportive comments on the initial manuscript. Thanks go to Graham Bowden at the University of Manchester for producing the two figures. Finally, thanks to all those who gave of their time and their views on BIDs across Wisconsin. Responsibility for the arguments here is mine.
Notes
1. This draws on a wider literature that offers a postcolonial critique of the globally uneven production of knowledge (for example, CitationChakrabarty 2000).
2. It is worth reflecting on the politics of using Robinson's (2006) theoretical framework in this manner. She used it to critique the disempowering ways in which “third-world” cities have been understood according to “first-world” theories. Out of her work emerges a more general call for a decentering and diversifying of urban studies. Although this is my focus in this article, nevertheless, its empirical references are another study of U.S. cities. This use of Robinson's (2006) approach is, perhaps, a matter for future reflection.
3. Of course, there is a wider debate in urban geography about the role of paradigmatic cities and the way they have shaped the development of knowledge in the field (CitationNijman 2000; CitationMcCann 2002b; CitationConzen and Greene 2008).
4. There are currently BIDs (or very similar schemes) in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Scotland, Slovenia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States (CitationWard 2006). Research in these countries reveals hybrid models, a mix of BIDs in general and BIDs in particular. In each country the program has faced particular challenges. These include the nature of debates over public space, the history of business–city government relations, and the strength of public-sector unions.
5. This is also wont to underestimate urban political diversity. Downtown urban development politics is one type of political expression, albeit a very important one. Others include those around a number of identity or territorial issues, where forms of resistance might or might not be stronger and where elite business agendas might have less purchase. I do not wish to argue that those in charge of BIDs always get what they want, as they do not!
6. There is nothing particularly new about this—for over two centuries U.S. localities have been competing against each other for investment through the production of “good business climates.” What sets the current era apart is perhaps the role of the state in encouraging and valuing these activities, the ways in which places are connected into wider capital flows through the emergence of transnational real estate corporations and investors, and the institutional geographies of programs like BIDs.
7. See http://www.neworleansdowntown.com/site22.php (last accessed 30 September 2010).
8. Heather MacDonald wrote for the Manhattan Institute's City Journal. The Institute played an important role in creating the conditions under which BIDs were understood to be instrumental in delivering Manhattan's economic particular model of downtown governance.
9. There is, of course, voluminous literature on the designing and planning of downtowns, which tends to focus on the policymaking consequences of individual cities’ experiences (CitationAbbott 1993; CitationRobertson 1993, Citation1995, Citation1999, Citation2001; CitationMeans 1997; CitationByers 1998; CitationLoukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee 1998).
10. CitationFlorida (2002) seemed surprised by this occurrence. He noted, “I was amazed how quickly city and regional leaders began to use my measures and indicators to shape their development strategies” (xxviii).
11. This reflects a broader trend in the geographical distribution of the population of the United States. Ninety-seven percent of U.S. cities have populations of less than 50,000, and 87 percent have populations of less than 10,000 (CitationBrennan, Hackler, and Hoene 2005).
12. Quote from the Web site http://wisconsindowntown.org/?page_id=7 (last accessed 30 September 2010).
13. In terms of the timing of this legal reform, a similar act was passed in the state of New York just two years earlier. The Act stated that: (1) The continued vitality of the commercial business districts of this state, especially those in the downtown and central city areas, is necessary to retain existing businesses in and attract new businesses to this state; (2) Declining public revenues emphasize the importance of assembling viable public–private partnerships to undertake revitalization of these districts; (3) The establishment of a business improvement district system benefits the health, safety, welfare and prosperity of this state; and (4) It is the purpose of this act to authorize cities, villages, and towns to create one or more business improvement districts to allow businesses within those districts to develop, to manage and promote the districts, and to establish an assessment method to fund these activities (1984, 2).
14. The company is one of the world's leading manufacturers of article products such as facial tissues, article towels, napkins, and toilet articles.
15. Strom (2002, 3) reported that “a survey of 65 US cities (those with populations of 250,000 and above) finds that 71 major performing arts centers and museums have been either built or substantially expanded since 1985.”
16. Quote from the Web site http://www.appletondowntown.org/ (last accessed 30 September 2010). This resonates with Michigan's Cool Cities initiative (http://www.coolcities.com/main.html [last accessed 30 September 2010]).
17. Quote from the Web site http://www.meadpubliclibrary.org/local/history?nid=169 (last accessed 30 September 2010).
18. Quote from the Web site http://www.kohler.com/corp/welcome.html (last accessed 30 September 2010).
19. And as N. Smith (2002, 96) reminded us, the building of “whole new complexes of recreation, consumption, production, and pleasure, as well as residence … [constitutes a] … class infected urban remake.” Although not the subject of this article, there are clearly significant redistribution effects stemming from the pursuit of speculative downtown redevelopment projects, and their couching in regional growth discourses, of the sort performed by BIDs in Appleton and Sheybogan (CitationShort et al. 1993; CitationWilson and Wouters 2003).