Have Cities Abandoned The Poor And Middle Class?

"If you live in or near a big city, you may not realize that neoliberalism is fiendishly taking over your environ. No, it's not just the Starbucks by your office, or the Gap that just opened in the once-edgy neighborhood. It's also the high-rise condominium apartment building going up over the subway station, the new sports arena downtown, the industrial loft conversion, and even the brownstone getting flipped in that sketchy neighborhood."

"Jason Hackworth, an associate professor of geography and planning at the University of Toronto, has found a common theme among those trends -- gentrification, privatization, corporate invasion, and public-private revitalization projects -- that have come to symbolize renewal in America's urban core in recent years. In his new book, The Neoliberal City, he argues they are all manifestations of the international trend towards neoliberalism, which he defines as 'an ideological rejection of egalitarian liberalism in general and the Keynesian welfare state in particular, combined with a selective return to classical liberalism.'"