Definition
Urban policy refers to the cluster of policies that are aimed at influencing the development of urban areas and urban lives. It could be fragmented and diverse in practice due to the fragility of social needs and political institution.
Introduction
Urban policy is a broad category of policies tackling public problems in urban areas. In the USA, the understanding of “urban area” has been evolving as being reflected in the US Census Bureau’s definitions in decennial censuses. For the 2010 Census, “urban(ized) area” is defined as “a statistical geographic entity consisting of a densely settled core” and “contiguous qualifying territory that together have a minimum population of at least 50,000 persons” (p. 15). However, the US Census also gives a more general identification of “urban” as the “densely developed territory, encompassing residential, commercial, and other nonresidential urban...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Atkinson R, Moon G (1994) Urban policy in Britain: the city, the state and the market. Macmillan, London
Buck I, Gordon I, Harding A, Turok I (eds) (2005) Changing cities: rethinking urban competitiveness, cohesion and governance. Palgrave Macmillan, London
Burton P (1997) Urban policy and the myth of progress. Policy Polit 25(4):421–437
Cochrane A (2007a) Understanding urban policy: a critical approach. Blackwell, Oxford, UK
Cochrane A (2007b) Urban policy. In: Ritzer G, Ryan JM (eds) Blackwell encyclopedia of sociology. Blackwell, Oxford, UK
Cox K (2001) Territoriality, politics, and the “urban”. Polit Geogr 20:745–762
Cox K, Jonas AEG (1993) Urban development, collective consumption and the politics of metropolitan fragmentation. Polit Geogr 12:8–37
Downs A (1999) Contrasting strategies for the economic development of metropolitan areas in the United States and Western Europe. In: Summers A, Cheshire P, Senn L (eds) Urban change in the United States and Western Europe. Urban Institute, Washington, DC, pp 16–56
Duranton G, Puga D (2004) Micro-foundations of urban agglomeration economies. In: Henderson V, Thisse J (eds) Handbook of urban and regional economics, vol 4. North Holland, Amsterdam, pp 2063–2117
Edwards J, Batley R (1978) The politics of positive discrimination. An evaluation of the urban programme 1967–1977. Tavistock, London
Glaeser EL (2012) The challenge of urban policy. J Policy Anal Manage 31(1):111–122
Glaeser E, Joshi-Ghani A (2013) Rethinking cities: towards shared prosperity, Economic premise, 126. World Bank, Washington, DC
Hanson R (ed) (1983) Rethinking urban policy. National Academies Press, Washington, DC
Holland B (2015) Typologies of national urban policy: a theoretical analysis. Cities 48:125–129
Imbroscio D (2016) Urban policy as meritocracy: a critique. J Urban Aff 38(1):79–104
Jha AK, Miner TW, Stanton-Geddes Z (2013) Building urban resilience: principles, tools and practice. World Bank, Washington, DC
Kantor P (2013) The two faces of American urban policy. Urban Aff Rev 49(6):821–850
Kellar EK (2015) The challenges of managing global urbanization. Retrieved January 5, 2016 from http://www.governing.com/columns/smart-mgmt/col-cities-challenges-managing-global-urbanization.html
Lake RW (2005) The financialization of urban policy in the age of Obama. J Policy Anal Manage 37(1):75–78
Peck J, Tickell A (2002) Neoliberalizing space. Antipode 34(3):380–404
Ross BH, Levine MA (2012) Urban politics: cities and suburbs in a global age, 8th edn. M.E. Sharpe, New York
Savas ES (1983) A positive urban policy for the future. Urban Aff Rev 18(4):447–453
Stoker G, Young J (1993) Cities in the 1990s. Longman, London
Turok I, Parnell S (2009) Reshaping cities, rebuilding nations: the role of national urban policies. Urban Forum 20(2):157–174
UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlement Program) (2008) The state of the world’s cities 2010/2011 – bridging the urban divide. Earthscan, London
UN-Habitat (2014) The evolution of national urban policies: a global overview. Retrieved March 26, 2016 from http://www.citiesalliance.org/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/National%20Urban%20Policies.pdf
Urban Area Criteria for the 2010 Census; Notices. Federal register. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau. Web. 24 Aug 2011.
Ward K (2014) Splintered governance: urban politics in the twenty-first century. In: Davidson M, Martin D (eds) Urban politics: critical approaches. Sage, London, pp 42–54
Wolman H, Goldsmith M (1992) Urban politics and policy: a comparative approach. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, UK
World Bank (2000) Cities in transition: World Bank urban and local government strategy. World Bank, Washington, DC
World Bank (2009) World development report 2009: reshaping economic geography. World Bank, Washington, DC
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Wang, J. (2016). Urban Policy. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_226-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_226-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences