Local Officials and the Struggle to Transform Cities

A view from post-apartheid South Africa

Claire Bénit-Gbaffou (Hrsg.)

EPUB
ca. 1,49 (Lieferbar ab 27. Februar 2024)
Amazon iTunes Thalia.de Weltbild.de Hugendubel Bücher.de ebook.de kobo Osiander Google Books Barnes&Noble bol.com Legimi yourbook.shop Kulturkaufhaus
* Affiliatelinks/Werbelinks
Hinweis: Affiliatelinks/Werbelinks
Links auf reinlesen.de sind sogenannte Affiliate-Links. Wenn du auf so einen Affiliate-Link klickst und über diesen Link einkaufst, bekommt reinlesen.de von dem betreffenden Online-Shop oder Anbieter eine Provision. Für dich verändert sich der Preis nicht.

UCL Press img Link Publisher

Sozialwissenschaften, Recht, Wirtschaft / Politikwissenschaft

Beschreibung

Why are even progressive local authorities with the ‘will to improve’ seldom able to change cities? Why does it seem almost impossible to redress spatial inequalities, deliver and maintain basic services, elevate impoverished areas and protect the marginalised communities? Why do municipalities in the Global South refuse to work with prevailing social informalities, and resort instead to interventions that are known to displace and aggravate the very issues they aim to address?

Local Officials and the Struggle to Transform Cities analyses these challenges in South African cities, where the brief post-apartheid moment opened a window for progressive city government and made research into state practices both possible and necessary. In debate with other ‘progressive moments’ in large cities in Brazil, the USA and India, the book interrogates City officials’ practices. It considers the instruments they invent and negotiate to implement urban policies, the agency they develop and the constraints they navigate in governing unequal cities. This focus on actual officials’ practices is captured through first-hand experience, state ethnographies and engaged research. These reveal day-to-day practice that question generalised explanations of state failure in complex urban societies as essential malevolence, contextual weakness, corruption and inefficiency. It is hoped that opening the black box of the workings of state opens paths for the construction of progressive policies in contemporary cities.

Kundenbewertungen

Schlagwörter

institutional activism, state practices, urban governance, city officials, policy instruments, urban politics