Neo-liberal urban planning policies: A literature survey 1990-2010

The academic literature on urban policy and planning which explicitly links to neo-liberalism is huge. The paper systematises much of this literature from the period 1990 to 2010, with an emphasis on journals of urban planning, urban geography, and urban studies. Neo-liberal urban policies are engendered by the nexus between mobile investment capital, inter-city competition, and public entrepreneurialism. Fourteen planning-related policies are described, and their neo-liberal rationales are explained. Typical planning concerns are outlined for each policy. The paper ends by spelling out the challenges that the neo-liberal urban policies pose to public planning. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.