The Neoliberal City – Theory, Evidence, Debates

International audienceFor almost two decades now, neoliberalism and neoliberalization have become the object of increasing interest not only in political debate but also in the social sciences, and in particular urban studies. Because the definition of neoliberalism (or neoliberalization) is itself one dimension of this debate, we provisionally define it here as the set of intellectual streams, policy orientations and regulatory arrangements that strive to extend market mechanisms, relations, discipline and ethos to an ever-expanding spectrum of spheres of social activities, and all this through relying on strong State intervention. These streams and orientations are far from constituting a coherent and stable ensemble. That is the reason why many scholars prefer the notion of neoliberalization in order to depict the inherently fuzzy, diverse, contingent, ever-mutating and pathdependent processes of regulatory change that have been inspired by neoliberal ideas (BRENNER and THEODORE, 2002)