Urban Planning and Governance

Urban planning and governance examines how cities are shaped by the decisions of states, markets, and communities — and who bears the costs and benefits of those decisions. As neoliberal policies have shifted public resources toward private development, researchers have traced how gentrification displaces long-standing residents, how globalization restructures local economies, and how spatial planning can either entrench or reduce social inequality. Central to this work is a tension Henri Lefebvre captured in the phrase "right to the city": the question of whether urban space is primarily an economic asset or a collective resource that residents have a legitimate claim to shape. Active debates focus on whether social sustainability goals can survive within market-driven governance frameworks, and how cities in different national contexts absorb or resist the pressures of global capital.

Works

45,821

Total citations

409,030

Keywords

NeoliberalismUrbanismGentrificationGlobalizationUrban PolicySpatial Planning