IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ijurrs/v45y2021i2p385-388.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

For or Against ‘The Business of Benchmarking’?

Author

Listed:
  • James Merricks White
  • Rob Kitchin

Abstract

This short response does two things. First, it argues that urban benchmarks have specific and structural limits not identified in the principal essay in this intervention, which curtail the kinds of constructive and critical work such benchmarks might be expected to perform. ISO 37120 is discussed as an example. Second, it proposes a pluralistic approach to engagement and offers six suggestions for how academics might take urban benchmarks and their makers seriously without becoming fully embedded in their business. These are: ethnography, discourse analysis, self‐reflexive critique, critical urban benchmarking, alternative publication channels and scholarly debate.

Suggested Citation

  • James Merricks White & Rob Kitchin, 2021. "For or Against ‘The Business of Benchmarking’?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 385-388, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:45:y:2021:i:2:p:385-388
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12978
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12978
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1468-2427.12978?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erik Swyngedouw, 2009. "The Antinomies of the Postpolitical City: In Search of a Democratic Politics of Environmental Production," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 601-620, September.
    2. Michele Acuto & Daniel Pejic & Jessie Briggs, 2021. "Taking City Rankings Seriously: Engaging with Benchmarking Practices in Global Urbanism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 363-377, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Erik Swyngedouw & Joseph Williams, 2017. "The pleasures of hydro-controversies: a reply to Leandro del Moral, Julia Martínez and Nuria Hernández-Mora," Water International, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(3), pages 339-341, April.
    2. Andrew Clarke & Lynda Cheshire, 2018. "The post-political state? The role of administrative reform in managing tensions between urban growth and liveability in Brisbane, Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(16), pages 3545-3562, December.
    3. Kleemann, Janina & Struve, Berenike & Spyra, Marcin, 2023. "Conflicts in urban peripheries in Europe," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    4. Hillary Angelo & David Wachsmuth, 2015. "Urbanizing Urban Political Ecology: A Critique of Methodological Cityism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 16-27, January.
    5. Aryana Soliz, 2021. "Creating Sustainable Cities through Cycling Infrastructure? Learning from Insurgent Mobilities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-21, August.
    6. Rachel Bok, 2021. "Wayfinding in the Long Shadow of City Benchmarking: Or How to Manufacture (an Economy of) Comparability in the Global Urban," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 381-384, March.
    7. Ross Beveridge & Philippe Koch, 2017. "The post-political trap? Reflections on politics, agency and the city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(1), pages 31-43, January.
    8. Laurence Troy, 2018. "The politics of urban renewal in Sydney’s residential apartment market," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(6), pages 1329-1345, May.
    9. Janet Newman, 2014. "Landscapes of antagonism: Local governance, neoliberalism and austerity," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(15), pages 3290-3305, November.
    10. Bartzokas-Tsiompras, Alexandros & Bakogiannis, Efthimios & Nikitas, Alexandros, 2023. "Global microscale walkability ratings and rankings: A novel composite indicator for 59 European city centres," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    11. Byron Miller & Samuel Mössner, 2020. "Urban sustainability and counter-sustainability: Spatial contradictions and conflicts in policy and governance in the Freiburg and Calgary metropolitan regions," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(11), pages 2241-2262, August.
    12. Marit Rosol & Vincent Béal & Samuel Mössner, 2017. "Greenest cities? The (post-)politics of new urban environmental regimes," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(8), pages 1710-1718, August.
    13. Joshi, Deepa & Platteeuw, J. & Teoh, J., . "The consensual politics of development: a case study of hydropower development in the eastern Himalayan region of India," Papers published in Journals (Open Access), International Water Management Institute, pages 5(1):74-98..
    14. Ingolfur Blühdorn & Michael Deflorian, 2019. "The Collaborative Management of Sustained Unsustainability: On the Performance of Participatory Forms of Environmental Governance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-17, February.
    15. Gordon MacLeod, 2013. "New Urbanism/Smart Growth in the Scottish Highlands: Mobile Policies and Post-politics in Local Development Planning," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(11), pages 2196-2221, August.
    16. Seowoo Nam & Seung‐Ook Lee, 2023. "URBAN REGENERATION IN SEOUL: Alternative Urbanism or the Resilience of Neoliberal Urbanism?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 601-623, July.
    17. Jean Hillier, 2009. "Assemblages of Justice: The ‘Ghost Ships’ of Graythorp," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 640-661, September.
    18. Fulong Wu, 2018. "Planning centrality, market instruments: Governing Chinese urban transformation under state entrepreneurialism," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(7), pages 1383-1399, May.
    19. Filippo Menga & Michael K. Goodman, 2022. "The High Priests of Global Development: Capitalism, Religion and the Political Economy of Sacrifice in a Celebrity‐led Water Charity," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 53(4), pages 705-735, July.
    20. Darren Sierhuis & Luca Bertolini & Willem Van Winden, 2024. "“Recovering†the political: Unpacking the implications of (de)politicization for the transformative capacities of urban experiments," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 42(2), pages 303-321, March.

    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:45:y:2021:i:2:p:385-388. 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.