Mobile Urbanism. Cities and Policymaking in the Global Age

摘要

For all who are interested in policy transfers among cities, this book will undoubtedly become an intellectual landmark. Gathering groundbreaking theoretical developments together with fine-grained empirical studies, it is a very clear and coherent collection in which contributors have been given indispensable freedom to develop their own analytical frameworks. Three main arguments are made in the book. The first is a strong thesis about change. There is a long history of circulation of urban policy ideas and models; study trips and cities networks are not a novelty. Since the 1990s, however, there has been an acceleration and multiplication of transfers, thanks to the development of networks and the rise of a global consultocracy. This has led to a situation whereby, as the editors write in their concluding chapter, 'comparison' has become an essential governance instrument, with strong 'disciplinary consequences' (p. 176).