Governing Suburbia: Modalities and Mechanisms of Suburban Governance

Abstract

Ekers M., Hamel P. and Keil R. Governing suburbia: modalities and mechanisms of suburban governance, Regional Studies. This paper traces the major modalities of suburban governance through a review of the extant literature on the matter. Based on the existing debate on suburban governance it appears that three modalities can be differentiated: the state, capital accumulation and private authoritarianism. A case is made for each and how they function and interrelate is developed. What are the universal and particular forces shaping suburbanization processes in different urban-regions? It is also argued that governance itself needs to be used in critical sense by extending its meaning towards issues of suburbanism, not just the process merely of suburbanization.

Ekers M., Hamel P. and Keil R. 管治郊区：郊区管治的模式与机制. 区域研究. 本文通过大量文献回顾来追溯郊区管治的主要模式。基于现有郊区管治的争论，可以识别出三种模式：政府、资本积累和私人独裁主义。文中为每种模式给出了一个案例，而且探讨了这些模式是如何发挥作用和相互联系的。在不同的城市区域，塑造郊区化过程的普遍和独特驱动力是什么？本文还认为需要批判性地使用管治这个概念，将其含义扩展到郊区主义的各种问题，而不仅仅是郊区化的过程。

郊区化 郊区主义 管治 全球性郊区

Ekers M., Hamel P. et Keil R. Gérer la banlieue: modalités et mécanismes de la gouvernance suburbaine, Regional Studies. Cet article passe en revue les principales modalités de la gouvernance suburbaine à partir d'une recension des écrits sur la question. À la lumière du débat en cours relatif à la gouvernance suburbaine, trois mécanismes de gestion peuvent être distingués, à savoir: l'État, l'accumulation de capital et l?autoritarisme privé. Chacun est présenté sous l'angle de son mode de fonctionnement et des relations qu'il entretient aux autres. Quelles sont les forces universelles et particulières qui structurent les processus de développement suburbain dans diverses régions urbaines? Les auteurs soutiennent aussi que la gouvernance elle-même doit être considérée sous un angle critique en élargissant sa signification par rapport aux enjeux de la réalité suburbaine et non simplement en référence au processus d'un développement suburbain.

Développement de la banlieue Vie périurbaine Gouvernance La banlieue à l'échelle mondiale

Ekers M., Hamel P. und Keil R. Regierungsführung in der Vorstadt: Modalitäten und Mechanismen der suburbanen Regierungsführung, Regional Studies. In diesem Beitrag werden die wichtigsten Modalitäten der suburbanen Regierungsführung anhand eines Überblicks über die vorhandene Literatur zu diesem Thema untersucht. Ausgehend von der bisherigen Debatte über suburbane Regierungsführung lässt sich offenbar zwischen drei Modalitäten unterscheiden: Staat, Kapitalansammlung und privater Autoritarismus. Wir nennen Argumente für jede Modalität und führen aus, wie sie funktionieren und miteinander zusammenhängen. Welche universellen und partikulären Kräfte gestalten die Prozesse der Suburbanisierung in verschiedenen urbanen Regionen? Ebenso wird argumentiert, dass die Regierungsführung selbst in einem kritischen Sinn eingesetzt werden muss, indem ihre Bedeutung nicht auf den Prozess der Suburbanisierung beschränkt, sondern auf Themen des Suburbanismus ausgeweitet wird.

Suburbanisierung Suburbanismus Regierungsführung Globale Vorstädte

Ekers M., Hamel P. y Keil R. Gobernar los suburbios: modalidades y mecanismos de la gobernanza suburbana, Regional Studies. En este ensayo exploramos las principales modalidades de la gobernanza suburbana a partir de la bibliografía existente sobre este tema. Basándonos en el debate existente sobre la gobernanza suburbana, podemos diferenciar entre tres modalidades: el estado, la acumulación de capital y el autoritarismo privado. Introducimos argumentos para cada uno y estudiamos cómo funcionan y se relacionan entre ellos. ¿Qué fuerzas universales y particulares forman los procesos de suburbanización en las diferentes regiones urbanas? También sostenemos que la misma gobernanza debe utilizarse en sentido crítico ampliando su significado hacia cuestiones de suburbanismo sin limitarse al simple proceso de la suburbanización.

Suburbanización Suburbanismo Gobernanza Suburbios globales

Keywords:

• Suburbanization
• Suburbanism
• Governance
• Global suburbs

JEL classifications:

• O50
• P16
• R52

Acknowledgements

This article has greatly benefited from the generous comments and criticisms of Gordon McLeod, Thorben Wieditz and two anonymous reviewers. The authors are of course responsible for the form and content of the final article. This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada through funding from the Major Collaborative Research Initiative ‘Global Suburbanisms: Governance, Land, and Infrastructure in the 21st Century (2010–2017)’.

Notes

One example of this is an article written by Sonia Hirt (Hirt, 2007) that sets out to explore whether peri-urban development on the outskirts of Sofia, Bulgaria, is actually a process of suburbanization. Her research asks whether Sofia's development pattern exhibits the same characteristics of suburbanization in the United States discussed by Kenneth Jackson in his influential book Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (1985). There is much to commend in Hirt's article, and in particular the detailed ethnography of the everyday in the suburbs of Sofia; yet it is emblematic of a trend that enshrines the US experience as hegemonic and measures other forms of peripheral development against the norm of the United States.

For a critical discussion of this model, see Kooy and Bakker (2008), Coutard (2002), and McFarlane and Rutherford (2008).

Phelps et al. (2010) appear rather reluctant to provide a quick definition of post-suburbia preferring to develop three analytical windows for identifying post-suburbia. First, they highlight the ‘temporal disparity’ that defines post-suburbia, by which they refer to ‘differences in the pace and timing at which … postsuburban settlements have emerged in different settings (p. 369). This point resonates with the present authors’ own comments on the limitations of providing a periodization of suburbanism. Second, they suggest the spaces of post-suburbia are more fragmented, splintered (Graham and Marvin, 2001) and decentred, and thus at odds with the concentric circles that define previous phases of urban and suburban growth. Third is the new differentiation of actors involved in the production, ideology and politics of post-suburbia, with an emphasis on the changing role of the state, the increasingly cosmopolitan character of post-suburbia and the lingering ideologies associated with ‘traditional’ suburbia.

While proper treatment to the subject cannot be given in this paper due to space limitations, it should be stated at the outset that the concept, ‘state’, is being used in a broad sense. It encompasses theoretical meanings (as in ‘state theory’), refers to the nation-state as the classical container of political action, but goes beyond this definition to refer to sub-national states, local states in particular. The authors acknowledge fully recent work on the rescaling of states and political economies in this context (Brenner et al., 2003; Keil and Mahon, 2009; Magnusson, 1995, 2012).