Urban revanchism today? An introduction

Abstract

This introductory essay frames discussion and debate in the pages ahead about an important issue in urban studies – the realities of urban revanchism today if we are to understand the complexities of current urban development in the United States and beyond. Are revanchist impulses and processes alive-and-well and still virulent as persistent lurking forces albeit in modified or new forms? If so, what are these forms? And how, it follows, is revanchism being executed in planner, developer, media and politician daily practices? Or, alternatively, are revanchist realities all but dead, with other dominant forces and processes mostly responsible for structuring ongoing urban transformations? The bluntness and brutality of revanchist sensibilities and acts once became, to urbanist Neil Smith and many others, the clearest evidence of ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ in motion, a historically specific truth that may still be the case. In this vein, we suggest that it becomes vital to continue engaging with the significance of revanchism in new ever-changing times. Recent multi-scalar political shifts, as possible new ‘carriers’ or facilitators of revanchism, make this engagement extremely relevant.