Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Neoliberal crises and the city: Wrestling with authoritarian neoliberal urbanism(s) - Güldem Özatağan, Gareth Fearn, Ayda Eraydin, 2025

Reposted by Gareth

Ian Bruff @ianbruff.bsky.social · 20d

This is an excellent collection

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · 26d

Very proud to say that our special issue with @urbanstudiesjournal.com is now all up online!
We address the authoritarian turn in urban governance globally, as neoliberal policies lose legitimacy and require more coercive means of enforcement.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

This Special Issue presents ‘authoritarian neoliberal urbanism’ as an empirical marker and a concept that signposts the ascendence of a new constellation in whi...

Carney's red tape narrative doesn't hold up

1 1 2

Reposted by Gareth

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 21d

trump’s numbers are tanking and there is a palpable desire in the electorate for a real alternative and yet the only money in democratic politics is for doing starmerism

340 1.5K 8.2K

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · 23d

This story is playing out one country after another: declare the only way forward is major deregulation because you dont want to challenge capital, have these claims completely discredited by evidence, tell the public they are going to work anyway...and hope for the best?

Larry Neufeld @larryneufeldsk.bsky.social · 23d

The perception that a bureaucratic maze is preventing Canada from building major projects, as PM Mark Carney has argued to support his deregulatory nation-building agenda, doesn’t hold up according to a data analysis of projects already underway. www.nationalobserver.com/2025/09/15/a...

The perception that a bureaucratic maze is preventing Canada from building major projects, as Prime Minister Mark Carney has argued to support his deregulatory nation-building agenda, doesn’t hold up ...

www.nationalobserver.com

Reposted by Gareth

Nitin Bathla @nitin-bathla.bsky.social · 26d

The special issue on authoritarian neoliberal urbanism is now out. Happy to be featured in it and thanks to the editors - @gfearn.bsky.social Güldem Özatagan, Ayda Eraydin for this very timely work.

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · 26d

Very proud to say that our special issue with @urbanstudiesjournal.com is now all up online!
We address the authoritarian turn in urban governance globally, as neoliberal policies lose legitimacy and require more coercive means of enforcement.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Neoliberal crises and the city: Wrestling with authoritarian neoliberal urbanism(s) - Güldem Özatağan, Gareth Fearn, Ayda Eraydin, 2025

This Special Issue presents ‘authoritarian neoliberal urbanism’ as an empirical marker and a concept that signposts the ascendence of a new constellation in whi...

1 3

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · 26d

Many thanks to the team at Urban Studies, all the reviewers and interlocutors throughout the four years of the project. Podcast mini-series on the issue coming in the Autumn with @urbanpolitical.bsky.social

The urban question under illiberalism? Three thematic approaches - Jason D Luger, Miklós János Dürr, 2025

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · 26d

Finally, Jason Luger & Miklós Dürr offer three conceptual lenses to understand the relationship between illiberalism and urbanism – arguing that urban density, crises and speed and virality – asking whether the urban question is an illiberal one
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Advocating the value of an urban lens for researching and understanding illiberalism, we propose a threefold thematic anchoring for emerging inquiry into cities...

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · 26d

Focusing on Istanbul, @ebrukurtozman.bsky.social & @tunatasankok.bsky.social shows how entrepreneurial citizenship fuses with authoritarian practices through a mixture and selective use of both informal and formal real estate development practices.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · 26d

The paper from Leonardo Fontes explores the cultural politics of Sau Paulo, arguing that ‘progressive publics’ are held together by geographically situated social capital, whereas ‘conservative publics’ are primarily structured around moral capital.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Housing the historical bloc: Civil society contestation of authoritarian neoliberalism in England - Gareth Fearn, 2024

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · 26d

My own contribution focuses on the housing crisis in England, arguing that the civil society contestation of planning reform has shifted common sense towards reducing democratic and deliberative practices
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Neoliberalisation, particularly since the financial crisis, has been associated with significant housing crises. Rising prices and rents have benefitted asset o...

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · 26d

Focusing on policy transfer from Russia to Kazakhstan, Sofia Borushkina argues that authoritarian governance creates its own policy entrepreneurship, based on conformity with state goals and avoiding democratic demands
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · 26d

The contributors:
The paper from @nitin-bathla.bsky.social focuses on highway development in India, that selectively incorporate favoured caste groups and exclude others to secure development and obscure the crisis of ‘jobless growth’
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

1 2

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · 26d

Authoritarian populist denunciations target ‘enemies within the city’, such as migrants and political activists, to be subjected to violent policing, whilst officials develop cosy relationships with favored developers. Institutions of liberal democracy are targeted as barriers to development.

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · 26d

We term the current conjuncture ‘authoritarian neoliberal urbanism’, where a broadly neoliberal model of private sector real estate development persists, alongside more repressive state actions and limitations on democracy and deliberation.

Neoliberal crises and the city: Wrestling with authoritarian neoliberal urbanism(s) - Güldem Özatağan, Gareth Fearn, Ayda Eraydin, 2025

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · 26d

Very proud to say that our special issue with @urbanstudiesjournal.com is now all up online!
We address the authoritarian turn in urban governance globally, as neoliberal policies lose legitimacy and require more coercive means of enforcement.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

This Special Issue presents ‘authoritarian neoliberal urbanism’ as an empirical marker and a concept that signposts the ascendence of a new constellation in whi...

1 3 11

Reposted by Gareth

Gareth @gareth.entertainium.co · 27d

Ezra Klein’s NYT column about Kirk is legitimately disgusting. I don't care if he didn't write the headline, even suggesting that Kirk was a legitimate voice and not an active agent of hatred and intolerance is to throw everyone Kirk vilified to the wolves.

Reposted by Gareth

Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 28d

Everything about this is nuts
www.wsj.com/business/ope...

OpenAI signed a contract with Oracle to purchase $300 billion in computing power over roughly five years, people familiar with the matter said, a massive commitment that far outstrips the startup’s current revenue.
The deal is one of the largest cloud contracts ever signed, reflecting how spending on AI data centers is hitting new highs despite mounting concerns over a potential bubble.

The Oracle contract will require 4.5 gigawatts of power capacity, roughly comparable to the electricity produced by more than two Hoover Dams or the amount consumed by about four million homes.

5 16 46

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · Jul 15

Here is the paper, for anyone interested:

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

AESOP - AESOP Best Published Paper Award 2025

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · Jul 15

Apparently I was shortlisted for the AESOP Best paper award for 2025, which was a very nice surprise! Congrats to Harriet Dunn for winning!

aesop-planning.eu/resources/ne...

Association of European Schools of Planning

aesop-planning.eu

Gareth @gfearn.bsky.social · May 25

Think this did a great job of explaining why, very early on