The birth of the “neoliberal” city and its media

This chapter’s account of the birth of ‘‘neoliberal’’ city and its media shares with various veins of research in Communication and Media Studies, Urban Sociology, and Geography an interest in the ‘‘new media’’ city. However, this chapter proposes an alternative theory, history, and analysis of the past and current relation between media and cities, specifically questioning recent formulations of the (new) media city. To what extent have recent theories’ and analyses’ understanding of the linkage between media and urban space emphasized that one is the primary determination of the other? To what extent have they emphasized politics, economy, culture, or technology as the single, primary, or most important determination? To what extent have they understood any of these determinations as singular and self-determining? These questions lead me to ask another set of questions. What would a study of the production of a media city involve if it did not place ‘‘media’’ or media-making at the center of a chain of productivity? What would be involved instead in an analysis that considers the current media city (the ‘‘newness’’ of the linkage between media and the city) through a history of spatial practice and the production of space? Addressing these questions involves recognizing the Modern bias of most studies of the media/city, as well as the possibilities of a counter-Modern form of thought and analysis from and about the media city.