Arguing against those who say that our communities are powerless in the face of footloose corporations, DeFilippis considers what localities can do in the face of heightened capital mobility in order ...to retain an autonomy that furthers egalitarian social justice, and explores how we go about accomplishing this in practical, political terms.
James DeFilippis is Assistant Professor of Black and Hispanic Studies at Baruch College.
Featuring updates and revisions to reflect rapid changes in an increasingly globalized world, Readings in Planning Theory remains the definitive resource for the latest theoretical and practical ...debates within the field of planning theory. * Represents the newest edition of the leading text in planning theory that brings together the essential classic and cutting-edge readings * Features 20 completely new readings (out of 28 total) for the fourth edition * Introduces and defines key debates in planning theory with editorial materials and readings selected both for their accessibility and importance * Systematically captures the breadth and diversity of planning theory and puts issues into wider social and political contexts without assuming prior knowledge of the field
As the realm of the community has grown increasingly important in the contemporary political economy, the theoretical debates surrounding community have also grown in importance and volume. Too often ...this literature has been either celebratory or dismissive; either romanticizing the concept and thereby elevating it to primary rank as the focal point of societal initiatives, or objecting to its regulated limits and contradictions and thereby dismissing its importance and political utility. There are important contributions being made by both those who dismiss community and those who celebrate it. But for those interested in understanding the potential for emancipatory social change in the contemporary political economy of neoliberalism there are also severe limitations imposed by these perspectives. After critiquing these literatures and debates, we put forward an understanding of community that is neither dismissive nor celebratory, but instead argues that communities need to be understood as simultaneously products of both their larger, and largely external, contexts, and the practices, organizations and relations that take place within them. Thus, communities, because of their central place in capitalist political economies, can be vital arenas for social change. But they are also arenas that are constrained in their capacities to host such efforts.
In November 2018 Amazon announced that they had selected Long Island City, Queens (LIC) as one of two locations for their second headquarters. While there had certainly been criticism and organizing ...against the proposed deal, given that it had the vocal support of both Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo, most New Yorkers had assumed that the deal would be implemented. Then, rather surprisingly, on February 14th, 2019, Amazon announced its withdrawal from the deal and its decision not to come to LIC. This article uses the case of Amazon and other large scale developments in western Queens to discuss the conflictual and often messy politics of local economic development (LED) in working class communities. It argues that urban studies pays too little attention to how and why working class organizations participate in the politics of LED; and often thereby shape the enacted policies of LED.
In this introductory essay we discuss Professor Bob Lake's writing over the last several decades. While the substantive foci of that work have evolved over the years, a core concern for Lake has ...always been about moral inquiry as a democratic practice of knowledge production. We discuss the role that pragmatism has played in Lake's work and the ways in which pragmatist ways of thinking and doing were evident in Lake's writings even before his explicit engagement with the pragmatist tradition. We also introduce the other essays in this special section, and discuss how the authors engage with different parts of Lake's body of work.
This article discusses the new edition of Place Matters, and uses it to discuss two primary problems in the accepted liberal narrative of segregation and spatial inequalities in metropolitan areas. ...The first is the over-emphasis on public policies as the cause of segregation and injustices. Such a narrative of causality lets the private market off the hook, and thereby makes transforming the market in ways that make it more equitable and just much more difficult. The second problem is that the book conceives of space and place in ways that are too simple, and therefore its analyses and policy proposals are not up to the tasks of understanding or addressing the complex relationships between space and justice.
Contesting Community DeFilippis, James; Fisher, Robert; Shragge, Eric
2010, 20100519, 2010-05-19, 20100101
eBook, Book
What do community organizations and organizers do, and what should they do? For the past thirty years politicians, academics, advocates, and activists have heralded community as a site and strategy ...for social change. In contrast,Contesting Communitypaints a more critical picture of community work which, according to the authors--in both theory and practice--has amounted to less than the sum of its parts. Their comparative study of efforts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada describes and analyzes the limits and potential of this work.Covering dozens of groups, including ACORN, Brooklyn's Fifth Avenue Committee, and the Immigrant Workers Centre in Montreal, and discussing alternative models, this book is at once historical and contemporary, global and local.Contesting Communityaddresses one of the vital issues of our day--the role and meaning of community in people's lives and in the larger political economy.
Learning from Las Vegas Gray, Mia; DeFilippis, James
Urban studies (Edinburgh, Scotland),
07/2015, Letnik:
52, Številka:
9
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Las Vegas is often portrayed as the apogee of postmodern urbanism, but we argue that you cannot understand Las Vegas without understanding the role of unions in the City's political economy. By ...focusing on the social relations surrounding workplace, class, and gender we highlight alternative versions of Las Vegas' history. The Culinary Union, a UNITE HERE local, has introduced new institutional forms and played an active role in the local growth coalition. They have set standards around work intensity, training, and job ladders. Highlighting the ability of the union to affect these issues contributes to a counter-narrative about the City which stresses the agency of labour to actively produce Las Vegas' cultural and economic landscapes. The postmodern narrative about Las Vegas hides these important lessons. Learning from Las Vegas can transform issues of signs and symbolism to issues of union organising and institutional structures in the post-industrial economy.
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