IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ijurrs/v39y2015i4p831-834.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘Arriving At’ Urban Policies: The Topological Spaces of Urban Policy Mobility

Author

Listed:
  • Jennifer Robinson

Abstract

type="main"> Spatial vocabularies are stretched to their limits by the complexities of policy mobilities. Using the example of city-wide strategic policymaking in Johannesburg, this essay argues for an enrichment of our vocabularies for appreciating how wider circuits of urban policy shape localized policy outcomes. Rather than tracing policies until they arrive somewhere, a more nuanced spatiality of policy mobility emerges when considering how policies are 'arrived at'. Thus policy influences can, for example, be ephemeral and recursive, international but already present in localities, have many simultaneous origins, and be folded into a relatively amorphous but specific policy blend. Drawing on John Allen's account of topological space, the essay indicates how both a more subtle spatiality and a more open politics of policy formation would emerge from turning the analysis of policy mobilities on its head in this way.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer Robinson, 2015. "‘Arriving At’ Urban Policies: The Topological Spaces of Urban Policy Mobility," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 831-834, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:39:y:2015:i:4:p:831-834
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/1468-2427.12255
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kevin Ward, 2006. "‘Policies in Motion’, Urban Management and State Restructuring: The Trans‐Local Expansion of Business Improvement Districts," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 54-75, March.
    2. Jamie Peck & Nik Theodore, 2012. "Follow the Policy: A Distended Case Approach," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(1), pages 21-30, January.
    3. Abdoumaliq Simone, 2001. "Straddling the Divides: Remaking Associational Life in the Informal African City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 102-117, March.
    4. John Allen & Allan Cochrane, 2007. "Beyond the Territorial Fix: Regional Assemblages, Politics and Power," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(9), pages 1161-1175.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Noga Keidar, 2023. "CITIES AND THEIR GURUS: The Role of Superstar Consultants in Post‐political Urban Governance," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 279-298, March.
    2. Sally Weller, 2017. "Fast Parallels? Contesting Mobile Policy Technologies," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 821-837, September.
    3. Mattias Qviström & Nik Luka & Greet De Block, 2019. "Beyond Circular Thinking: Geographies of Transit‐Oriented Development," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(4), pages 786-793, July.
    4. Håvard Haarstad & Stina Ellevseth Oseland, 2017. "Historicizing Urban Sustainability: The Shifting Ideals Behind Forus Industrial Park, Norway," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 838-854, September.
    5. Wood, Astrid, 2020. "Tracing the absence of bike-share in Johannesburg: A case of policy mobilities and non-adoption," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    6. Haarstad, Håvard & Wathne, Marikken W., 2019. "Are smart city projects catalyzing urban energy sustainability?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 918-925.
    7. Philip Lawton, 2020. "Tracing the Provenance of Urbanist Ideals: A Critical Analysis of The Quito Papers," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 731-742, July.
    8. Tom Baker & Cristina Temenos, 2015. "Urban Policy Mobilities Research: Introduction to a Debate," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 824-827, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jennifer Robinson, 2016. "Comparative Urbanism: New Geographies and Cultures of Theorizing the Urban," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 187-199, January.
    2. I-Chun Catherine Chang, 2017. "Failure matters: Reassembling eco-urbanism in a globalizing China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(8), pages 1719-1742, August.
    3. Robin Wright & Keavy McFadden, 2023. "Social reproduction and public finance: A comparative study of TIF in California and Chicago," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(8), pages 2108-2127, November.
    4. Tom Baker & Cristina Temenos, 2015. "Urban Policy Mobilities Research: Introduction to a Debate," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 824-827, July.
    5. Russell Prince, 2010. "Policy Transfer as Policy Assemblage: Making Policy for the Creative Industries in New Zealand," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(1), pages 169-186, January.
    6. Jane M. Jacobs & Loretta Lees, 2013. "Defensible Space on the Move: Revisiting the Urban Geography of Alice Coleman," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(5), pages 1559-1583, September.
    7. Laura Nkula-Wenz, 2019. "Worlding Cape Town by design: Encounters with creative cityness," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(3), pages 581-597, May.
    8. Rachel Bok, 2015. "Airports on the move? The policy mobilities of Singapore Changi Airport at home and abroad," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(14), pages 2724-2740, November.
    9. Ian R. Cook & Kevin Ward, 2011. "Trans-urban Networks of Learning, Mega Events and Policy Tourism," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(12), pages 2519-2535, September.
    10. Hassink, Robert & Gong, Huiwen, 2017. "Sketching the Contours of an Integrative Paradigm of Economic Geography," Papers in Innovation Studies 2017/12, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    11. Leigh Johnson, 2013. "Index Insurance and the Articulation of Risk-Bearing Subjects," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(11), pages 2663-2681, November.
    12. Perng, Sung-Yueh & Kitchin, Rob & Donncha, Darach Mac, 2017. "Hackathons, entrepreneurship and the passionate making of smart cities," OSF Preprints nu3ec, Center for Open Science.
    13. Federico Savini, 2013. "The Governability of National Spatial Planning: Light Instruments and Logics of Governmental Action in Strategic Urban Development," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(8), pages 1592-1607, June.
    14. Jacob Broom, 2021. "Social impact bonds and fast policy: Analyzing the Australian experience," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(1), pages 113-130, February.
    15. John Allen & Allan Cochrane, 2014. "The Urban Unbound: London's Politics and the 2012 Olympic Games," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(5), pages 1609-1624, September.
    16. Merje Kuus, 2015. "For Slow Research," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 838-840, July.
    17. Alexander Dodge, 2020. "The Singaporean natural gas hub: reassembling global production networks and markets in Asia [Powerful assemblages?]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(5), pages 1241-1262.
    18. Balsiger, Jörg & Prys, Miriam & Steinhoff, Niko, 2012. "The Nature and Role of Regional Agreements in International Environmental Politics: Mapping Agreements, Outlining Future Research," GIGA Working Papers 208, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    19. Vanesa Castán Broto & Harriet Bulkeley, 2013. "Maintaining Climate Change Experiments: Urban Political Ecology and the Everyday Reconfiguration of Urban Infrastructure," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(6), pages 1934-1948, November.
    20. Avelar, Marina & Ball, Stephen J., 2019. "Mapping new philanthropy and the heterarchical state: The Mobilization for the National Learning Standards in Brazil," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 65-73.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:39:y:2015:i:4:p:831-834. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0309-1317 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.