Conflict in the City: Contested Urban Spaces and Local Democracy

Conflicts around urban development and planning issues are an important dimension of contemporary urban politics. Issues of social cohesion and democratic representation become all the more relevant as cities face economic crisis and when local politics tries to meet its challenges with "post-political" responses. The case studies in Conflict in the City, drawn from cities around the world, explore the potential of local planning conflicts to challenge the rhetoric of urban democracy. These conflicts expose some of the key political issues in the contemporary city: the multi-scalar nature of urban policies, the tension between "policing" and "politics," the spatial dimension of protest and social mobilization and the struggle for new forms of citizenship. Conflict in the City attempts to rethink urban development and planning conflicts through a multidisciplinary perspective, and explore how these "local" conflicts can spur broader political mobilizations.