Urban Restructuring: Crisis and Process (2009)

"Urban restructuring is an integral part of the crisis-induced reorganization of capital and labor."

-Soja, Morales, and Wolff, “Urban Restructuring: An Analysis of Social and Spatial Change in Los Angeles”

We began conceptualizing this sixteenth volume of Critical Planning at an “exceptionally uncertain” time at
the peak of the financial crisis last autumn1—when the burst of the housing bubble and the collapse of the
subprime mortgage industry in the United States were sending shockwaves through markets and societies
around the world.

While new homeowners in Florida and California were defaulting on their adjustable-rate
mortgages, guarantors, banks, and insurance corporations in New York and London were falling bankrupt
or being nationalized. As stock markets plunged and unemployment rates rose, we braced ourselves for the
greatest global economic downturn since the 1940s.2 What did this crisis mean for urbanization, urban
studies, and urban planning? Did it bring into question the kind of neoliberal policies widely practiced since
the 1970s? Were we on the cusp of a new era of restructuring and if so, what might this new era consist of?

Volume 16

Urban Restructuring: Crisis and Process (2009)

Table of Contents