ABSTRACT
Most observers agree that the political economy of Western cities has undergone an important change in the past two decades. Cities are increasingly caught up in the dynamics of globalization and shifts in the structure of labor and property markets. Intersecting processes, such as deindustrialization, the globalization of the property market, the rise of the service economy, and the increase in transnational flows of commodities, people, and ideas, have all reshaped the urban economy. Urban politics have also shifted. Although place promotion has a long pedigree, the mobility of investment has encouraged many city governments to engage in more aggressive programs of place marketing, positioning themselves as platforms in an emergent economy of flows.1 More entrepreneurial programs of urban governance, in which cities compete aggressively to attract capital, tourists, and government funds, have been identified, with a consequent shift from an emphasis on local livability
and the life opportunities of local residents to an externally oriented logic of the bottom line.2
