Reflexive Urban Governance: Critically Engaging with Urban Policies

This innovative book sets out the concept and potential of reflexive urban governance. It argues that combining the practices of urban governance with continuous reflexivity on the assumptions underlying urban policies allows stakeholders to develop collaborative problem-solving capacity and to learn from the successes, failures and outcomes of policy interventions.

Identifying the thematic triggers for reflexivity; others, events, places, methods and tools, and attitudes; this book critically discusses the unintended outcomes of urban governance, such as inequality and injustice. Expert authors expand on the political associations and future directions of the use of city labels, such as healthy cities, resilient cities and sustainable cities. Chapters cover the opportunities and challenges faced when organizing reflexivity in urban governance, especially when attempting to employ consistent reflexivity traditions in existing political-administrative structures. Ultimately, this book develops the necessary building blocks and stepping stones to incorporate reflexive theory and practice into urban governance processes.

Reflexive Urban Governance is an essential read for students and scholars of critical urban studies and urban governance. It will also be of benefit to urban professionals with an interest in the potential for reflexivity in their daily practices.

Edited by Jurian Edelenbos, Professor of Governance, State and Society and Beitske Boonstra, Assistant Professor of Urban Governance, School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Team Governance and Pluralism, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands.