The Experimental City (Routledge Research in Sustainable Urbanism)

If the much talked about politics of green transformations during the post-2009 era is to be more than another fad, it will have to find traction in the world's cities where the majority of the population now lives. This book convincingly argues that this is starting to happen as `urban experiments' mushroom across the global regions of the world. This first provocative review of the evolutionary potential of these actually existing processes of change starts off in Chapter 2 with a remarkably useful definition of `urban experimentation' that is then explored by people from many different disciplines and perspectives. The analyses emerging from this book raise the possibility that `urban experimentation' may well be the emergent mode of governance that replaces both bureaucratic managerialism and the business-led public-private partnerships that underpinned neo-liberal corporatism and splintered urbanism. Entrepreneurs, innovators and knowledge networks become the new players in a world where cities become laboratories for the future. Professor Mark Swelling, Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development in the School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

Students, researchers and practioners will find inspiration in this text from the extremely clear and succinct theorisations in section one, the illustrative case studies in section two and the insightful reflections in section three. While undoubtedly the collection reveals conceptual and empirical gaps in the field, this in itself is also productive in suggesting new directions for research and understanding. - Robert Shaw, Newcastle University, UK