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Since 1991, Bangalore has seen spectacular redevelopment through the political hegemony of real estate, IT and parastatals in local urban governance. The global city literature has demonstrated how gentrification and real estate redevelopment have been at the heart of such neoliberal urban transformation. Yet, the literature's roots in notions of ‘post‐industrial’ cities obscure a view of how industry remains a key part of contemporary global cities. The persistence of the Peenya Industrial Area, one of South Asia's largest industrial areas today, reflects the negotiated, partial, contested and uneven character of the neoliberal urban project. Peenya demonstrates how obdurate inherited urban industrial geographies continue to shape the dynamics of world city‐making. Established in the heyday of Bangalore's postcolonial public sector industrialization, Peenya employs over 180,000 workers in 8,236 manufacturing firms, even today. How does such vast industrial space persist within the core of a global city? I draw on interviews and qualitative field research to argue that Peenya's resilience is rooted in the complexity of private land aggregation and state‐sponsored industrial relocation within an interwoven geography of tiny, legally fluid land holdings with variegated tenure regimes as well as the challenge of re‐signifying space in a region with obdurate industrial imaginaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dominant interpretation of the twentieth-century U.S. city is one of declension, wherein cities contracted following a number of profound ruptures. At these moments, neoliberalism began its ascent, disconnecting the historical processes that created the city from the current policies and realities of American urban centers. By documenting the histories of urban agriculture in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this essay seeks to complicate this declensionist narrative while highlighting the overlooked role that food production played in the growth of a major urban center—all the while providing a usable history for efforts to renew the twenty-first century city. Even during the height of industrial expansion in Milwaukee, urban agriculture played a significant role in the economic, social, and spatial development of the city. Then, as both deindustrialization and responses to such phenomena began to dramatically affect Milwaukee by the 1960s, urban agriculture remained a viable tool for urban redevelopment, one employed by both public- and private-sector actors well into the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commentaries introduce some important challenges to our provocation, and in other ways, take our critique even further and in new directions. Rather than addressing each commentary sequentially, we structure our response to the commentaries around a few key critical themes that emerged across the group. These are: a) The need to retain post-industrialism as a conceptual framework for understanding urban processes, spaces, lives and change; b) for also differentiating between de-industrialisation and post-industrialisation; and c) for carefully deconstructing (and listening to) who, how, and why post-industrialism is used (i.e., whose voices, stories, histories are included or excluded? What political intentions lie behind the use of post-industrial and related terms such as 'left-behind?'), with specific attention to the structures and experiences of race, class, and gender. In other words, the focus needs to be on the discursive and symbolic power, politics, and cultural sensitivities when the notion of post-industrialism is evoked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Luger and Schwarze's critical unsettling of postindustrial is a presciently welcome one. For some years now, I—and others—have become increasingly uncomfortable with referring to and describing the locations of our research as "postindustrial." The main focus of this commentary is on the facets of Luger and Schwarze's (2024) arguments as they relate to nonmetropolitan deindustrializing urbanisms in the North Atlantic in an attempt to develop how we better conceptualize, understand and do justice to and with such spaces. The main thrust of the contribution is for the affective intensities and traumas of deindustrialization to be brought into closer analytical dialog with the profusion of processes associated with, in particular, "organized abandonment" and "neoliberal urbanism." If classed experiences and knowledge shape these dialogs, there remains hope for urban studies to contribute to an emergent multiethnic class politics around commonalities of contemporary as well as historical class violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this response to Luger and Schwarze I concur that the meaning and application of the "post-industrial" is imprecise. In particular, I argue that current manifestations of the concept background the role of racism at generating the landscapes often solely attributed to deindustrialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the divergent trajectories of automotive investment and employment in Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario. Located on opposite shores of the Detroit River, in the United States and Canada respectively, Detroit and Windsor are the founding cities of the North American auto industry. Long dominated by the Big Three, their factories have produced vehicles for the same continental market since 1965. Each has weathered parallel challenges since then, including spikes in the price of oil, the Big Three's loss of market share, the transition to lean production, and the near-collapses of Chrysler and GM. Yet Detroit began deindustrializing decades earlier and lost much more employment than Windsor. To determine why, we compared their automotive sectors from 1900 to the 2010s. Since the Depression, each city has repeatedly confronted the prospect of deindustrialization, but three factors have made Windsor more resilient: (1) federal and provincial interventions on its behalf, (2) Windsor's greater competitiveness with respect to factor costs, quality, and innovation, and (3) Windsor's annexation of outlying territory to capture new factories. These differences show how national, subnational, and regional/local policies have mediated corporate decision-making to produce a variegated North American Rust Belt, with Canada outperforming the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite legal protections and growing acceptance in many industrialized countries, LGBTQ + workers continue to face considerable employment disadvantage. We explain this contradiction by detailing labor market processes that limit employment prospects for LGBTQ + workers in Sudbury and Windsor (both small cities with industrial histories). Drawing on 50 semistructured interviews and 662 community survey responses from LGBTQ + workers, we show how LGBTQ + employment opportunities are constrained by a constellation of multiscalar factors. These include the absence of good work opportunities outside of blue-collar work in deindustrializing labor markets, associated persistent cisnormativity and heteronormativity, and inconsistent protection from discrimination and social acceptance at work. As a result, respondents self-selected out of blue-collar workplaces, avoided and left jobs when they experienced or anticipated discrimination, and chose to remain in jobs with supportive employers rather than find a new job in a potentially homophobic or transphobic labor market. This article extends current understandings of labor markets economic geography by connecting production histories to persistent cisnormativity and heteronormitivity, and by showing how the search for emotional safety in cities with inconsistent social acceptance perpetuates economic disadvantage for queer and trans workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the deindustrialization experience in New England, using Fitchburg, Massachusetts, as a case study to explore the dynamics of industrial decline. Topics include the gradual erosion of industrial activity in multiple phases, the competition between municipalities within New England for capital investments and jobs, and the significance of intra-regional movement of businesses, shedding light on the complexities of the deindustrialization process.

This paper intends to delve deeply into the current understanding of the ways in which the transition from a central-based economy to an economy relying on free competition has led to changes in the big urban centers, bringing about a change in the relationships with the suburban areas. The authors take into account the high population density, the lack of space, and the elevated price of land within the big cities, which leads to urban functions migrating beyond the administrative boundaries, thus favoring the process of suburbanization. Given the context, commercial forces shift, migrating from the center to the urban peripheries or even outside them. This research is based on a comprehensive process of participative investigation (2012–2022) in Bucharest, Romania's capital city. The research relies on field investigation, statistical and quantitative analyses and bibliographical sources. The conclusions rely primarily on the idea that political changes cannot be separated from economic, cultural and environmental ones, highlighting globalizing flows and the development of big cities. Industrial activities, strongly developed within a central-based economy, have significantly declined, which is partly compensated for by the development of the tertiary sector and, in particular, of commercial services leading to a functional reconversion of the urban peripheries and of suburban areas. The conclusions suggest that it is very important to be highly careful regarding the dilemmas and challenges ensuing from uncontrolled urban growth; therefore, several measures of urban planning should be taken with a view to achieving a better cooperation between urban stakeholders and those from the metropolitan areas so as to attain some common objectives in infrastructure in order to reach an integrated regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter introduces "Isolated Building Studies," a photographic series that interrogates Chicago's landscape of racial and economic segregation. In order to facilitate comparison, the series features uniform compositions of buildings that do not have neighboring structures. Through the repetition of these buildings and their uncanny settings, viewers are pushed to investigate relationships between these scenes and the social, political, and economic forces that created them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deviates from the general trend to focus on big cities as research sites. It explores the impacts of deindustrialization on urban livelihoods in Norton – a small town west of Harare using the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) to unpack how deindustrialization compromised livelihood assets and outcomes in Norton. Data were collected using triangulation of methods, which comprised interviews and field observations. Findings showed that key industries collapsed, leading to massive job losses, and job-related benefits. Findings further point to reduced service delivery capacity, resulting in poor sanitation, water, and electricity supply in the town, and how these relate to sustainable livelihoods. Deindustrialization also triggered a surge in urban poverty, food insecurity, poor housing, and the rise of the informal economy in Norton. The study concludes that despite its rural origins, the SLA is an effective tool to analyse urban livelihoods. It suggests that deindustrialization tends to be rampant in small towns vis-à-vis big cities. The study further highlights that financial assets tend to be more important in building urban livelihoods than the other forms of assets constitutive of the SLA. It concludes by reflecting on how human skills easily become redundant and stranded assets where industry is dysfunctional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large numbers of industrial zones have emerged in the urban outskirts of developing countries. Generally, these zones become economically efficient and environmentally unfriendly due to a lack of regulation and poor planning. Therefore, a restructuring of underperforming industrial areas is urgently needed. However, most restructuring processes lead to economic and social issues, such as deindustrialization and unemployment. Therefore, this study proposed a restructuring framework specific to the industrial areas in the urban outskirts and tested it in a case study in Shunde, China. In the framework, securing the existing industrial cluster is given sufficient attention, and the retained firms are relocated to dedicated resettlement sites before the demolition begins. As a result, the industrial clusters were successfully maintained after the restructuring. Moreover, the introduction of vertical factories allows for additional land supply and improves the environment to a great extent. Consequently, one world-class high-tech firm was added to the restructured areas. The restructuring framework and the case study should shed light on other restructuring projects occurring in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the political history of the failed struggle to require companies to justify their plant closing decisions in Canada's industrial heartland of Ontario. Demands for the public review of plant closing decisions began, locally, in the auto town of Windsor in the 1950s and 1960s and reached Toronto with the closure of Dunlop Tire in 1970. Another wave of closures struck in 1980, this time reaching deep into rural and small-town Ontario as well as larger industrial towns and cities, generalizing concern. The resulting Select Committee on Plant Shutdowns and Employee Adjustment, created by the Ontario legislature, took it upon itself to conduct the kind of public review of recent closures that was long demanded. Due to the strength of the political opposition to any interference with management rights, it was essential that proponents could point to precedents in Western Europe. Trade unionists also grounded their argument in favour of government regulation in the moral economy idea that long-service workers accrued a proprietary right to their jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on 52 qualitative interviews with working-class individuals, this paper explores the social and economic decline of a coastal locale referred to as High Town in Teesside in the North East of England. First, the paper outlines how the locality expanded as a popular seaside resort under capitalism's post-war period. It then assesses how the seaside existed together with industrial work, offering stable employment opportunities, economic security and a sense of community. Next, the article documents the shift to neoliberalism in the 1980s, specifically the decline of High Town's seaside resort, the deindustrialization process and therefore the 2015 closure of High Town's steelworks. It explicates how this exacerbated the locale's economic decline through the loss of industrial work's 'job for life', its diminishing popularity as a coastal area and the further deterioration of the town centre. The paper concludes by suggesting that High Town has lost its raison d'être under neoliberalism and faces difficulties in revival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A characteristic element of the transformations of cities in Central and Eastern Europe after 1990 was the emergence of shrinking cities. The main problem related to shrinking cities is around how this process developed as a result of rapidly intensifying de-industrialization. While many studies in this area are devoted to demographic, social, and economic issues, relatively few studies address the spatial dimension. In this article, the example of spatial development in the (post-) mining city of Bytom in southern Poland is discussed, pointing to the need for a multifaceted approach to this issue. This article begins with an attempt to contextualize this issue within a broader time perspective. Such an analysis makes it possible to better situate contemporary changes in the context of the processes that were visible in previous periods. Next, these changes are described using two methods. The basis of the first method is comparisons between the different types of land use. The second method, which is emphasized, is the method of A. Macias, which indicates the degree of naturalization/anthropogenization of space. Macias' method is crucial in the context of discussions about the future of post-mining towns, where attention is paid, among other things, to the issue of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research by economists has shown that deindustrialization is more severe in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America than it ever was in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Nevertheless, most research on deindustrialization is focused on the former centres of Fordist manufacturing in the industrial heartlands of the North Atlantic. In short, there is a mismatch between where deindustrialization is researched and where it is occurring, and the objective of this paper is to shift the geographical focus of research on deindustrialization to the Global South. Case studies from Argentina, India, Tanzania and Turkey demonstrate the variegated nature of deindustrialization beyond the North Atlantic. In the process, it is demonstrated that cities in the Global South can inform wider theoretical discussions on the impacts of deindustrialization at the urban scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief essay proposes ways of seeing the city and the country as relational and interdependent, cued to a cultural moment at which these spaces are often scripted as occupying separate worlds with distinct issues and dilemmas. It does so by juxtaposing the present‐day struggles of Chicago's Back of the Yards, the setting of Upton Sinclair's infamous 1906 meatpacking exposé The Jungle, in relation to ascendant and highly industrialized pockets of the countryside. In developing a notion of ruralization, the essay seeks to draw attention to how specific industrial ruralities dwell within deindustrial cities, complicating well‐worn discourses that see urbanization as a unilinear teleology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-socialist urban transformation constitutes an important segment of the contemporary urban studies. In this paper we focused on transformation processes in two typical post-Soviet residential neighbourhoods, built in the period of mass construction in the second half of XX century and located in the Ukrainian cities of Vinnytsia and Kherson. Our goals were to reveal the spatial and temporal transformation patterns, to identify the factors of transformation, and to delineate certain transformation mechanisms and models. The assessment of morphological and functional changes of urban objects was carried out via field observation according to a specially developed methodology with the further comparison of results with urban planning documents reflecting the reality in the beginning of 1990s. Our findings permitted to identify key transformation processes (deindustrialization, commercialization, revitalization, functional diversification), to list a set of factors promoting more intense transformations, and to explain mechanisms defining existing spatial pattern of transformations within the test neighbourhoods. Private commercial activity, including rapid development of retail sector, was the main source of transformation, thus defining its partial, fragmented and somewhere controversial nature. Since the probability of further transformation in each point of the territory is determined by the already existing pattern, the existing heterogeneities tend to enhance with a lapse of time, and therefore the initial stages of transformation are especially important for the further development of the neighbourhood. Despite the similar starting conditions, two neighbourhoods demonstrated different outcomes in terms of modernization, explained by the differences in the urban spatial structure, spatial and sectorial structure of industrial zones, position (importance) of the neighbourhood in the whole city, as well as the economic dynamics of the city. Based on detected factors and mechanisms, we proposed models for further transformation intended to maximize the level of modernization within the entire test neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tertiarisation, or perhaps more accurately, the deindustrialisation of the economy has left deep scars on cities. It is evident not only in the industrial wastelands and empty factory buildings, but also in the income and social structures of cities. Industrialisation, collective wage setting, and the welfare state led to a stark reduction in income differences over the course of the 20th century. Conversely, deindustrialisation and the shift to tertiary sectors could result in increasing wage differentiation. Moreover, numerous studies on global cities, the dual city, and divided cities have also identified income polarisation as a central phenomenon in the development of major cities. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we find an increasing polarisation of household income structures since the mid-1990s. In urban agglomerations, this income polarisation is even more pronounced than in the more rural regions. The income polarisation in Germany is likely to have multiple causes, some of which are directly linked to policies such as the deregulation of the labour market. But extensive deindustrialisation is probably also one of the drivers of this process, and it has directly weakened Germany’s middle-income groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the determinants of 6 types of crime in Milwaukee, a Rust Belt city that has experienced significant deindustrialization in recent decades. Inner-city areas, as well as a unique low-density area on the city’s northwest side with many rental units, might lack the social control necessary to reduce crime. Creating an index of deprivation at the block group level for 2014, we find it to be high in the central city and on the northwest side and correlated with crime, income, and other socioeconomic variables. Crime hot spots, with a few notable exceptions, are located in 2 central-city areas that are poorer and less White than other block groups. A spatial lag regression model shows that deprivation primarily drives arson and assaults, and the share of renters is shown to increase thefts and robberies in low-income areas but not high-income areas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Contemporary urbanization in India is in transition and this, along with the continuation of a ‘top heavy’ urban structure and gradual deindustrialization, is characterized by faster growth of informal employment, a declining trend of urban-ward migration of males, the slow down in the growth of cities and towns and the emergence of new urban centres. Given this immediate backdrop, this paper examines the contemporary processes and emerging forms of urban transition in West Bengal, with its longstanding history of ‘mono-centric’ urbanization. It reveals that urbanization in the state is no longer confined to a few pockets, as many new urban centres have emerged away from them and small towns are growing at relatively faster rates compared to the cities. But the underlying factors of this transition are not associated with the dispersal of economic activities and employment opportunities away from the metropolises. Furthermore, the study is sceptical about the significance of this emerging form of urbanization fuelled by the growth of small cities and towns which have a weak economic base, a crisis of urban governance and inadequate access to basic amenities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the tangible and documented impact race plays in questions of housing, employment, education, and health, discourses of antiracialism perpetuate the idea race—and by extension, racism—is no longer a relevant marker of disparity. In this alleged “post race” context, how do news accounts cover stories on urban crisis and renewal? This article takes up scholarly calls to develop “conceptual tools” that may enable critical scholars to explore how racism continues undercover in the 21st century. I argue for the importance of exploring how strategic forgetting operates in conjunction with the familiar and formulaic frame of personalization to erase or evade the continued presence of structured, systemic racism in the (re)construction/renewal of city spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to explain the evolution of urban governance in Spain during the last 40 years as a product of different waves of state rescaling. Historical, political and economic specificities shape the evolution of Spanish urban governance, especially because of the recent process of democratic transition, regional decentralisation and the specific process of de-industrialisation. We distinguish three periods in urban governance trends, from the restoration of democracy in the late 1970s to the current austerity urbanism marked by the economic crisis starting in 2008. For each phase, we highlight the three interrelated factors explaining urban governance: (1) the evolution of the Spanish political economy in the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism; (2) the evolution of the welfare state; and (3) the role of urban social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the case of Lugoj Municipality in Romania to reveal the major characteristics of the post-socialist industrial restructuring. During the last two decades of post-socialism, industry in Romanian cities has undergone an important transformation in terms of industrial restructuring. This is an outcome of the neo-liberal policies that reached the Eastern European countries (EECs) with the collapse of the former state socialism. The paper examines the post-socialist industrial restructuring at the local level based on quantitative and qualitative methods. In-depth empirical analysis unveils the main transformations in the industry of Lugoj Municipality, emphasizing how industrial restructuring works at the local scale, altering the spatial structure of the town and generating new different spatial patterns. Postulating a simultaneous de-/reindustrialization accompanied with tertiarization, the paper provides a critical reflective and generalizable account in the post-socialist transformations of Romanian cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In dialogues among eight pairs of photographs, this piece aims to tell a distinct story about modernity’s industrial remains. These dialogues embody the workers’ dream of mass utopia that has come and gone. Images depicting Massachusetts’ Gateway Cities enter into conversation with photographs of Soviet industrial architecture.1 This juxtaposition of images and text serves the purpose of telling a story about the same thing: the rise and fall of empires, ones ideologically seemingly so different, yet similar in fate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Population decline in cities ('shrinking cities') is an increasing international phenomenon. The purpose of this study was to determine citizens' policy preferences for tackling shrinkage and to ascertain whether different causes of shrinkage lead to different preferences, on the basis of which we identify viable urban regeneration strategies to implement in Portugal's shrinking cities. This information was obtained by a face-to-face questionnaire survey of 701 residents in four case study cities, who were asked to rank five types of policy: economic revival, safety and accessibility, public services, building interventions, and environmental actions. The results show no differences between cities regarding the policy identified by residents as being most important (economic revival). However, differences between cities in the second and third most important policies were observed and are linked to the particularities of shrinkage in each city. Furthermore, we found a strong link between the ranking of the policies and the demographic and socioeconomic profiles of respondents, which also differ between cities. Younger respondents ranked economic revival higher, whereas older residents ranked safety and accessibility higher. Building rehabilitation was ranked as important mostly by lower-income residents, whereas improvement in public services was identified as being important by the residents of smaller cities in the interior of the country. Giving voice to citizens and allowing them input into policy options appears to be of value for defining the most appropriate policies to apply in shrinking cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brownfields are spatial manifestations of previous economic activities, and their redevelopment may contribute to a more sustainable urban land-use in the rapidly urbanising environment of post-reform China. Owing to China's unique institutional background, two types of brownfields can be distinguished in China, namely of brownfields in urban areas and brownfields in urban villages. Based on this twofold classification, a stage model consisting of three stages (industrialization, suburbanization, and deindustrialization) is introduced to conceptualize the formation process of brownfields in both types of locations in Chinese cities. Deindustrialization of economic activity in the urban core is considered as the main cause of brownfield creation. Differing characteristics of brownfields in urban areas and brownfields in urban villages are interpreted in detail, consisting of land ownership, size of the site, spatial distribution, the mechanisms by which the sites are created, and the stakeholders involved. This article concludes that future research on brownfield redeveloping strategies in China needs to pay particular attention to different institutional settings of urban areas and urban villages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the history of deindustrialization in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in relation to the urban renewal known as the Pittsburgh Renaissance. Topics include population decline in Pittsburgh neighborhoods, public relations efforts to boost the city's reputation, and comparisons of Pittsburgh other Midwestern U.S. cities, including Detroit, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio.

The article offers information on urban depopulation which questions the salience of existing urban growth paradigms. Topics discussed include information on urban depopulation in reference to spatial patterns, demographic shifts, deindustrialization, and urban governance; challenge of promoting social justice and equity in cities; and need for policies that promote revitalization.

Questions about the city - its boundaries, fabric, size, scale, culture, economy, historical and political contributions - populate the expansive horizon of architectural theory. Its immediate denotation is elusive, but the city is frequently captured within images of living networks: complex organisms, ecosystems, hives, colonies, bundles of neurons. These images of "city as living being," present it as possessing essential organs connected by an indispensable circulatory system, regulated by a metabolism. Thus, the vitality and relative scale of a city can be measured from its transportation infrastructure and flow of capital. Many large-sized US cities survived the devastating effects of deindustrialization and white flight, maintaining adequate circulatory systems that connected urban residents to means of work. For the majority of medium-sized US cities - Baltimore, Cincinnati, Buffalo and Pittsburg to name a few - this was not the case. These cities suffered large declines in employment, population, and infrastructure maintenance, as they transitioned from an industrial to a tourist and service (FIRE) based economy. While mobile network technologies supplement existing transit systems in large-sized US cities, they exploit the hollowing out of medium-sized cities in the US post-industrial landscape. These technologies are attempting to both define urban labor and imagine how people connect to labor. In so doing they (re)imagine and (re)define the city itself, (re)organizing the way essential organs are connected and regulated. This article examines the economic and social practices of Uber and how it shapes, and is shaped by, the commons of medium-sized cities that revolutionizes traditional notions of urban work and mobility, but not necessarily for the better in the long run. Later, the article explores how this imagining impacts the commons through differentiating Uber from Hacking, a long-standing though illegal solution to urban immobility in Baltimore. Through their comparison, the article proposes a civic-minded, open-sourced on-demand car service that capitalizes on Baltimore's car centricity and strengthens the commons through cooperative and mobile networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]