By Design or by Default: Varieties of Neoliberal Urban Development

With the onset of the Great Recession, it looked for a moment that neoliberalism had become vulnerable to challenges from the urban level. Yet, it appears that the neoliberal ideas, institutions, and policy frameworks continue to dominate urban governance. As such, there remains a need to develop interpretive frames through which to examine the construction and reproduction of urban neoliberalism. This article seeks to provide a historically grounded account of urban neoliberalization, which pays specific attention to how neoliberalism has been constructed ideologically, politically, and institutionally. Through a comparison of cases in the United Kingdom and the United States, I suggest that the respective alignment of ideas, institutions, and interests accounts for “the pace, extent, and character” of urban neoliberalization. I argue that the variation in the manner of urban neoliberalization may be captured through two key mechanisms: neoliberalism by design and neoliberalism by default.