Urban decay and the fallacy of perpetual growth: How neoliberal policies hollow out cities and communities
Original framing: “Cities, ruins, and the myth of growth” — bing news
Research in urban economics (e.g., Harvey’s 'right to the city') demonstrates how financialization of real estate drives displacement and inequality. Studies on 'shrinking cities' (e.g., Detroit, Leipzig) reveal that austerity and disinvestment are policy choices, not natural phenomena. The 'growth machine' theory (Molotch, 1976) explains how coalitions of elites prioritize exchange value over use value in urban development.
The myth of urban growth as an unalloyed good is a neoliberal fiction that obscures how deregulation, financialization, and racial capitalism have hollowed out cities from Detroit to Delhi.
This framing serves elites who profit from speculative real estate while displacing marginalized communities, yet it ignores historical precedents like Vienna’s social housing or Mumbai’s informal economies that thrive outside growth-centric models. Indigenous perspectives—from Andean buen vivir to Māori relational space—offer a radical alternative to the property-centric urbanism dominant in the West, while trickster logics (Hermes, Anansi) expose the absurdity of treating market forces as sacred. The path forward lies in decommodifying land, reclaiming public infrastructure, and centering marginalized voices, as demonstrated by movements like Barcelona en Comú or Jackson’s Cooperation Jackson. These solutions are not utopian; they are pragmatic responses to a system that has long prioritized profit over people, and their success hinges on dismantling the growth myth itself.