This book addresses the questions of what went wrong with Detroit and what can be done to reinvent the Motor City. Various answers to the former--deindustrialization, white flight, and a disappearing tax base--are now well understood. Less discussed are potential paths forward, stemming from alternative explanations of Detroit's long-term decline and reconsideration of the challenges the city currently faces.

Urban crisis--socioeconomic, fiscal, and political--has seemingly narrowed the range of possible interventions. Growth-oriented redevelopment strategies have not reversed...

For over three decades, urban theorist Michael Peter Smith has engaged in constructing innovative theories on central research questions in urban studies. This book brings together his views on the state of urban theory, sorting out the changing strengths and weaknesses in the field.

Smith refocuses attention on the cultural, social, and political practices of urban inhabitants, particularly the way in which their everyday activities have contributed to the social construction of new ethnic identities and new meanings of urban citizenship. Combining the methods of political economy...