ABSTRACT
This chapter examines what is meant by "shrinking democracy" and outlines both the practical and theoretical issues concerning urban resistance and public space in the context of the neoliberalizing city. Cities, or more precisely city-regions, have indeed become an important site in which processes and outcomes of neoliberalization can be vividly witnessed, including shrinking democracy and evidences of public life. In many East Asian cities, including Taipei and Hong Kong, for example, city governments or redevelopment authorities have become complicit in expropriating properties for developers and bulldozing entire neighborhoods under the banner of urban renewal. As simultaneously a place for mobilization and organized resistance and as a space threatened by neoliberal urban development and policing, public space serves as an important site for examining the linkages between processes of shrinking democracy and urban resistance. The chapter also provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book.
