Citation

Barbehön M, Münch S. Urban Stud. 2017; 54(9): 2072-2086.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Urban Studies Journal Limited, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0042098015613002

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

There is a long tradition of debate about the crisis of cities or the crisis of local government in public, political and scholarly circles. The diagnosis of 'the urban crisis' often implies a homogeneous phenomenon with each city facing similar and unambiguous problems. However, we know little about local practices in constructing a city's crisis. Taking discourse analysis as a starting point, we propose an interpretive and comparative framework that investigates how 'the urban crisis' and 'the city' emerge interdependently with specific meanings in different socio-spatial contexts. By comparing the discourses of Frankfurt, Dortmund, Birmingham and Glasgow, we illustrate how in each city the meaning of crisis is constructed differently and how these constructions constitute the collective understanding of the particularities of these cities.

Language: en