Papers by Jean-Paul Addie
Studies of cities and urbanization are confronted with significant theoretical and methodological... more Studies of cities and urbanization are confronted with significant theoretical and methodological challenges as the urban question is reposed at the city-regional scale. Normative understandings of city-regions as sites of economic innovation and distinct political actors on the world stage belie the complex processes underlying their production. This has significant implications for social justice and political practice. This dissertation engages the challenges of city-regional urbanization through a critical comparative analysis of urban transportation institutions and infrastructure in the Chicago and Toronto city-regions. Focusing on long-term historical and spatial structures, the study demonstrates how multiscalar political, economic and social processes crystallize in specific urban formations and in tum, how processes of urbanization shape urban governance and practices of everyday life. The dissertation develops three central theoretical innovations. First, it introduces a ...
Suburban infrastructure holds a position of increasing geographic, political and conceptual impor... more Suburban infrastructure holds a position of increasing geographic, political and conceptual importance in a rapidly urbanizing world. However, the analytical significance of ‘suburban infrastructure’ risks becoming bogged down as a chaotic concept amidst the maelstrom of contemporary peripheral urban growth and the explosion of interest in infrastructure in critical urban studies. This paper develops an open and flexible comparative theory of suburban infrastructure. I eschew concerns with definitional bounding to focus analytical attention on the relations between ‘the suburban’ (broadly considered) and multiple hard and soft infrastructures. These relations are captured in two ‘three-dimensional’ dialectical triads: the first unpacks the modalities of infrastructure in, for, and of suburbs; the second discloses the political economic processes (suburbanization), lived experience (suburbanism), and dynamics of mediation internalized by particular suburban infrastructures. Bringing ...
Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society
This article discusses how critical urban theory understands generalisation and particularity by ... more This article discusses how critical urban theory understands generalisation and particularity by unpacking the process of abstraction. It develops an urban interpretation of dialectics through the philosophy of internal relations to: (i) heuristically examine conceptual and political fissures within contemporary urban studies and (ii) critically recalibrate neo-Marxist planetary urban theorising. Examining the conceptual extension, levels of generality and vantage points of our abstractions can assist in constructively negotiating relations between urban difference and generality. The challenge is not which assertions are true based on a given epistemological position, but which abstractions are appropriate to address specific issues, given the range of politics and possibilities each establishes.
Urban Geography
As producers of urban knowledge and urbanizing actors in their own right, universities play a vit... more As producers of urban knowledge and urbanizing actors in their own right, universities play a vital role in identifying the projects, processes, and agents involved in constructing the "region in itself". While academic and urban leaders in cities with one or two universities can open dialogues about citywide collaborations, such strategies are significantly more complex when scaled to extended global metropolises where provosts and presidents must vie for attention in a crowded governance arena. This paper critically examines universities' ability to, and strategic interest in, facilitating the process of metropolisation: leveraging cityregional spatial imaginaries to transcend parochial territorial interests and generate modes of urbanization and collective action constitutive of a "region for itself". An empirical analysis of the New York metropolitan area highlights the spatial contradictions and political tensions unfurling as universities create new (post-) metropolitan identities and inform decision-making at various scales, the limits of university regionalism.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography
While academic and policy analyses have explored universities' roles in urban regeneration and re... more While academic and policy analyses have explored universities' roles in urban regeneration and regional development, issues arising from intraurban collaboration and competition in multi-university city-regions have received scant attention. In response, this paper examines how higher education institutions (HEIs) connect and splinter urban space at multiple scales through a case study of Newark, NJ, USA. Newark's attempts to reposition itself as a hub for university-enabled innovation disclose the complex ways in which the infrastructures of knowledge urbanism are implemented, negotiated, and spatialised at local and city-regional scales. The study's multidisciplinary analysis assesses the discourses, technologies, and territorial constellations through which HEIs (re)shape place and project urban peripheries into wider city-regional networks. The paper's findings reveal an emergent and decentred 'de facto' form of university regionalism crystallizing in Greater New York that illustrates the need for robust, scalar-sensitive assessments of anchor institution strategies as they are articulated within broader regionalisation processes.
Regional Studies, Regional Science
An interdisciplinary 'infrastructure turn' has emerged over the past 20 years that disputes the c... more An interdisciplinary 'infrastructure turn' has emerged over the past 20 years that disputes the concept of urban infrastructure as a staid or neutral set of physical artefacts. Responding to the increased conceptual, geographical and political importance of infrastructureand endemic issues of access, expertise and governance that the varied provision of infrastructures can causethis intervention asserts the significance of applying a regional perspective to the infrastructure turn. This paper forwards a critical research agenda for the study of 'infrastructural regionalisms' to interrogate: (1) how we study and produce knowledge about infrastructure; (2) how infrastructure is governed across or constrained by jurisdictional boundaries; (3) who drives the construction of regional infrastructural imaginaries; and (4) how individuals and communities differentially experience regional space through infrastructure. Analysing regions through infrastructure provides a novel perspective on the regional question and consequently offers a framework to understand better the implications of the current infrastructure moment for regional spaces worldwide.
Regional Studies
An 'infrastructure turn' across the social and policy sciences is generating a new wave of interd... more An 'infrastructure turn' across the social and policy sciences is generating a new wave of interdisciplinary enquiry into how infrastructure is shaping urban and regional space. This editorial introduces a virtual special issue that charts the evolution of infrastructure as an empirical and conceptual concern within Regional Studies. The issue demonstrates that analysing regions through infrastructurewhether large, capital-intensive projects or more mundane infrastructuresprovides a novel and necessary perspective on the regional question.
Antipode
Social mix policies have emerged as a prominent mechanism to legitimate neighbourhood redevelopme... more Social mix policies have emerged as a prominent mechanism to legitimate neighbourhood redevelopment efforts across the US. Despite integrationist rhetoric, results often disabuse marginalised communities of their claims to the city. This paper employs a hybrid spatio-temporal analysis at the intersection of political-economic theories of gentrification and post-colonial and Black geographies literatures to examine underlying cultural logics and affective experiences animating such processes of neighbourhood transformation, contestation, and succession. Reflecting on 15 years of experience researching Over-the-Rhine (OTR), Cincinnati, we contribute a stylised distinction between the foundational, mature, and ongoing legacies of urban settler colonial relations. Our account discloses the power geometries shaping neighbourhood space by illustrating the impact of the discourses, tactics, and strategies employed by pro-development actors and neighbourhood activists as OTR's socio-political landscape shifted over time. In conclusion, we engage the thorny questions these dynamics raise surrounding how inner-city neighbourhoods are theorised and struggled over after gentrification. Resumen: Pol ıticas de mezcla social han emergido como un mecanismo prominente para legitimar los esfuerzos de redesarrollo vecinal a lo largo de los Estados Unidos. A pesar de la ret orica integracionista, los resultados frecuentemente reniegan a las comunidades marginalizadas de sus derechos a la ciudad. Este art ıculo usa un an alisis h ıbrido espaciotemporal en la intersecci on de teor ıas pol ıtico-econ omicos y las literaturas poscoloniales y de las Afro-geograf ıas para examinar las l ogicas culturales subyacentes y las experiencias afectivas que animan tales procesos de transformaci on, contestaci on, y sucesi on vecinal. Bas andonos en 15 años de experiencia investigativa en Over-the-Rhine (OTR), Cincinnati, contribuimos con una distinci on estilizada entre los legados del "colonialismo de colonos" urbano, que pueden distinguirse entre legados fundacionales, maduros, o en proceso. Ilustrando el efecto de los discursos, t acticas y estrategias que han empleado los actores pro-desarrollo y las activistas vecinales a trav es de los cambios hist oricos en el paisaje sociopol ıtico en OTR, nuestra cr onica revela las geometr ıas del poder que dan forma al espacio vecinal. En conclusi on, abordamos las arduas preguntas planteadas por estas din amicas, preguntas acerca de c omo teorizar y c omo luchan por los barrios marginales despu es de la gentrificaci on.
European Urban and Regional Studies
The “smart city” has risen to global prominence over the past two decades as an urban planning an... more The “smart city” has risen to global prominence over the past two decades as an urban planning and development strategy. As a broad but contested toolkit of technological services and policy interventions aimed at improving the efficacy and efficiency of urban systems, the “smart city” is subject to several pressing critiques. This paper acknowledges these concerns, but recognizes the potential of “urban intelligence” to enhance the resiliency of metropolitan areas. As such, we focus on an under-researched dimension of smart city urbanism: its application in peripheral urban areas. The paper introduces a threefold typology of: (a) geographic (spatial); (b) hard (material); and (c) soft (social) urban peripherality. Second, it reviews the concept of urban resilience and considers how its central characteristics can inform the objectives and implementation of “smart city” infrastructures and planning. Six European smart city plans are assessed via a qualitative content analysis, to id...
European Planning Studies
This paper focuses on the spatial development problem of university-led innovation in peripheral ... more This paper focuses on the spatial development problem of university-led innovation in peripheral urban areas. Highlighting issues of proximity, uneven geographic development, and multiscalar urban governance as weaknesses of the regional innovation systems literature, we provide a novel synthesis of regional economics, innovation policy, and critical urban studies to assess the development roles of universities in concrete contexts. A comparative investigation of Naples and Newark, NJ captures the functional operation of regional innovation and urban development as a contested product of discourses, technologies (material and governance), and territorial arrangements. Our analysis demonstrates the significance of multi-scalar relationships in structuring innovation policy and practice in peripheral urban areas. The architecture of innovation is not simply rolled out into predetermined spatial containers in places lacking established 'institutional thickness' or urban centrality. The spatial development of university-led innovation is a social product: material and governance infrastructures are essential components of the urban fabric and are essential to its co-constitution. Universities are shown to contribute differing resources dependent on their institutional strategic goals and the capacities and spatial imaginaries afforded to them by their situation in broader territorial governance regimes. We conclude by drawing comparative lessons and identifying directions for future research.
Cities
In this Cities viewpoint forum, we argue that there is a need to rethink U.S./U.K.centric approac... more In this Cities viewpoint forum, we argue that there is a need to rethink U.S./U.K.centric approaches to the urban university in policy and practice. Gathering three critical commentaries by practitioners from within the Singaporean higher education system, the forum responds to the challenges of: (1) broadened expectation placed on higher education institutions; (2) the pressures and possibilities of global urbanization; and (3) the provocation to theorize the urban, and thus the urban university, from beyond the 'Global North'. Following an introduction detailing the history and relevance of the Singaporean context, the three viewpoints seek to illustrate the various dimensions of university urbanism in the 'Lion City'. Each address what the idea of being an urban university means, and how it is operationalized in Singapore. Key policy and conceptual insights illuminate a higher education regime negotiating the tensions between national developmentalist agendas and the opportunities opened by global urban connectivity. Significantly, and in contrast to current urban university paradigms, we find Singapore's university sector internalizing and operating with a particular technocratic urban ontology that, while partial, helps collapses the distinction between universities being 'in', 'of', or 'for' the city and opens new avenues to analyze and mobilize universities in urban(izing) society.
Urban Affairs Review
While there is a growing recognition of the mutually beneficial relationships universities and ci... more While there is a growing recognition of the mutually beneficial relationships universities and cities can forge around local and regional development, urban and academic leaders have often struggled to harness the diverse capacities of universities as producers and analysts of urban space. This article addresses this challenge by examining the institutional and spatial strategies being prioritized by universities in the context of global urbanization. It details a Lefebvrian-influenced conceptual and methodological approach to evaluate the multifaceted, multiscalar urban(izing) functions of “universities in urban society.” Comparatively assessing the organizational structures, spatial orientations, and ways of operating being pursued by universities in London and New York City reveals the scope—and variation—of university urbanism within and across global urban higher education systems. The empirical analysis points toward the need for adaptive approaches through which urban actors ...
City
Questions regarding the production and politics of urban knowledge are back on the agenda in crit... more Questions regarding the production and politics of urban knowledge are back on the agenda in critical urban studies. Alex Schafran (2014, 2015) and David Madden's (2015) recent debate in these pages, in particular, has elevated a concern with the capacity of critical urban theory-and the wider urban academy-to catalyze emancipatory and democratic social change. Both of their interventions seek to leverage the latent potential of critical urbanism beyond narrow academic debates, but they diverge on questions of epistemology and tactics. Schafran argues critical urbanists need to think more concertedly about building power in order to serve as a vanguard for social and political change. Madden, by contrast, posits our energies ought to be focused on empowering community groups, activists and marginalized city dwellers beyond the walls of the 'ivory tower'. Both positions offer political opportunities and novel modes of engagement, but both also have their blind fields and dangers. Steer too close to the former and power and claims
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Papers by Jean-Paul Addie