On the road to the in-between city: Excavating peripheral urbanisation in Chicago’s ‘Crosstown Corridor’

Abstract

This paper critically engages the uneven distribution of infrastructure provision, connectivity, and mobility in contemporary neoliberal urban landscapes by uncovering the path dependent trajectories and politics of transportation in post-suburbia. Departing from contemporary debates on the evolving geography of urban peripheries, I utilize a relational theorization of the 'in-between city' to empirically unpack the urbanization processes internalized in the evolution of the 'Zwischenstadt' in a North American context. Through a longue durée case study of transportation planning, politics, and spatial practice in Chicago's 'Crosstown Corridor', in-between urbanization is demonstrated to express an on-going multiscalar mediation of cohabiting modes of urbanism and strategic state actions that challenge generalized (sub)urbanization narratives. Despite continued interest from planners, politicians, and business groups, proposals for both a major urban expressway and rapid transit line have proved political lightning rods.Consequently, neighborhood protests, personal political battles, and macro-economic trends have locked-in a neglected development pathway for Chicago's inner suburbs. I argue that through disclosing key contradictory political-economic imperatives and conflicting scales of mobility, it is possible to identify space for political and planning interventions that can adapt to, and develop, polycentric urban practice in and through in-between urban space.

Critical geographies of transport and mobility: Studying power relations through practice, academia, and activism

“…Similar processes are work in Chicago, where long term struggles over whether and where to add additional transit lines have gone back and forth between the cross‐spoke connections that are happening in Paris, and enhancements of existing lines connecting key nodes to downtown (Addie, 2015; Farmer, 2014). Financialization has had other impacts as well: in order to raise revenue for a city budget that was significantly in debt, the city's mayor signed a leasing agreement for the city's parking meters, guaranteeing a certain amount of revenue.…”

Protesting at the crossroads: Framing ‘in-between places’ in spatial analyses of contention

“…If the urban is everywhere, there is a tendency for differences between types of places to collapse, and for those places where urban conditions are less recognisable or visible to disappear under the weight of larger, more recognisable and familiar ones. With a few notable exceptions, efforts to move beyond the city in analyses of urban politics have struggled to do more than extend their analytical scope of enquiry to the suburbs, banlieues, ashwiyyat, favelas, refugee camps and other enclaves on the city's edges (Garreau, 1991;Soja, 1996;Li, 2009;Young & Keil, 2010;Addie, 2016). While these studies effectively demonstrate the negative effects of "periurbanization" (Coward, 2009) or "splintering urbanism" (Graham & Marvin, 2001) upon the communities who reside there, they nonetheless perpetuate a city-centred or metropolitan view of urban life which does not adequately reflect or represent the distribution of population groups as well as respective struggles for social and political justice today.…”

“…The concept of the "in-between city", or Zwischenstadt, provides a useful way of drawing out the broader socio-spatial and political significance of roads. First outlined by Tom Sieverts (2003) and subsequently developed by others (Young & Keil, 2010Addie, 2016), the concept of the in-between city emerged out of an effort "to grasp the novel urban form that has emerged beyond the traditional, more compact, uni-centred European city" (Young & Keil, 2010, p.89). Tracing the effect of outward urban sprawl in shaping new and uneven geographies of power, it emphasised the key role played by (the uneven distribution of) infrastructure provision, connectivity, use, availability and mobility (Addie, 2016) in creating new nodal formations.…”

Mediating Policy Competition Through Campus Development in Dutch Limburg

“…; While et al . ; Addie ). The governance style of regional governments has evolved from managerial to entrepreneurial, focusing on fostering economic growth within their territories (Harvey ).…”

“…; While et al . ; Addie ), the tactics of lower‐tier governments in policy competition remain underexplored. This paper addresses this policy competition and the issues of regional governments and their balancing acts between unfair competition in general and binding multinationals to their region.…”