This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Storper, M. Articles by Manville, M. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Behaviour, Preferences and Cities: Urban Theory and Urban Resurgence

Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, CSO, 10 rue de la Chaise, 75007 Paris, France, Michael.Storper{at}sciences-po.fr, Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK. m.storper{at}lse.ac.uk

Michael Manville

DepartUrban Planning, School of Public Affairs, University of California Los Angeles, 3250 Public Policy Building, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1656, USA. E-mail: mmanvill{at}ucla.edu

The resurgence of big, old cities and their regions is real, but it is merely a part of a broader pattern of urban change in the developed countries, whose broadest tendency is urban emergence, including suburbanisation, and movements of population to certain 'Sunbelt' regions. The problem is that it is difficult to accommodate explanation of both resurgence and emergence using the main explanations in the field today. These include: theories of the knowledge or creative economy, urban amenities, diversity and tolerance, and urban beauty. In most of their common specifications, they do well for either resurgent or emergent cities, but not for both at the same time. This suggests that these ideas, interesting as they are, require much greater specification and, in some cases, overhaul, in order to offer satisfactory responses to the diversity of patterns of urban growth. By examining some of these deficiencies, we conclude that urban theory needs a better understanding of urban choice behaviours and especially the effects of bundling, the limits to preference substitutions and the relationship between past and present preferences, in order to become fully effective in explaining urban resurgence and urban emergence. When these aspects of choice and preference are better integrated into urban theory, then the 'exogenous' causes of urbanisation can be made more endogenous and, in addition, they can be applied better to both emergence and resurgence. Urban research can, by so doing, also potentially become more policy-relevant.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				P. C. Cheshire Resurgent Cities, Urban Myths and Policy Hubris: What We Need to Know Urban Stud, July 1, 2006; 43(8): 1231 - 1246. [PDF]