Governing urbanism: Urban governance studies 1.0,2.0 and beyond

Abstract

Governance has been a key concept in urban studies since the late 1980s. This paper reflects on its use and development over the past 25 years and identifies contemporary innovations and concerns that will likely define the future of urban governance studies. The paper argues that to fully understand the impacts of governance approaches on our understanding of cities, urban regions and global urbanism, we must address how urbanism, rather than urbanisation, is governed. An attention to urbanism highlights a wider range of scholarly work on how the mutually constitutive relationships between the development of built environments and the identities, practices, struggles and opportunities of everyday social life are governed. In introducing 15 contributions from the archives of Urban Studies, the paper employs a heuristic framing – urban governance studies (UGS) 1.0, 2.0, and beyond – to show that, while governance as a contemporary critical concept gained prominence through the work of Marxian political economists concerned largely with urbanisation (UGS 1.0), other work, analysing the governance of other aspects of urbanism, including identity and citizenship (UGS 2.0), also has a significant history. The paper then points to ways in which urban governance studies grapple with future-defining challenges, such as climate change, and new framings, such as the ‘smart city’, while extending the scope of their analyses both temporally and spatially. The paper concludes by pointing to gaps and potential topics for ongoing attention.