What is Revealed: Neo-Liberal Cities and Urban Spatial Theory

Marxist urban theory and geography, as practiced by such scholars as David Harvey and Mike Davis, seeks to reveal or uncover the economic interests that work to reproduce labor power and produce profit in what both have termed the neo-liberal city. This paper interrogates both this process of revealing and the myth/reality of the neo-liberal city through an examination of the history and work of the Project for Public Space (PPS). A non-profit organization dedicated to forging public/private partnerships to create “great urban spaces”, PPS is exemplary of the type of urban development, with its consequent homogenization and gentrification of urban space, which both Davis and Harvey oppose. While PPS has adapted weakened versions of the urban Marxist critique to its own work, urban administrations and private developers have co-opted both the PPS approach and the oppositional politics of Marxist urbanism to continually structure urban development to the advantage of real estate finance.  Using concepts from complexity theory, I will show how the seemingly oppositional approaches of PPS and Harvey/Davis actually work in concert to efface or forbid other possibilities and preclude new thinking about urban space.  The paper concludes by proposing possible alternatives in thinking about urban spatial theory.