1st Edition

Spatial Regulation in New York City From Urban Renewal to Zero Tolerance

By Themis Chronopoulos Copyright 2011
    244 Pages 20 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    254 Pages 20 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book explores and critiques the process of spatial regulation in post-war New York, focusing on the period after the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, examining the ideological underpinnings and practical applications of urban renewal, exclusionary zoning, anti-vagrancy laws, and order-maintenance policing. It argues that these practices were part of a class project that deflected attention from the underlying causes of poverty, eroded civil rights, and sought to enable real estate investment, high-end consumption, mainstream tourism, and corporate success.

    Introduction  1.The Betrayal of the Liberal Assumptions of Urban Renewal  2. The Failure of Urban Renewal as a Spatial Ordering Apparatus  3. Times Square: New York’s Most Disorderly Place  4. Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism, and Spatial Regulation  5. Graffiti as a Manifestation of Social Disorder  6. The Declining Appearance of Order, 1978-1993  7. The Radicalization of Spatial Regulation, 1994-2001.  Epilogue: The Legacy of Displacement and Exclusion

    Biography

    Themis Chronopoulos is Lecturer in American Studies at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, U.K.