Masculinities and Markets

Studies of urban neoliberalism have been surprisingly inattentive to gender. Brenda Parker begins to remedy this by looking at the effect of new urbanism, "e;creative class,"e; and welfare reform discourses on women in Milwaukee, a traditionally progressive city with a strong history of political organizing. Through a feminist partial political economy of place (FPEP) approach, Parker conducts an intersectional analysis of urban politics that simultaneously pays attention to a number of power relations. She argues that in the 1990s and 2000s, the city's business-friendly agenda-although couched in uplifting rhetoric-strengthened existing hierarchies not only in class and race but also in gender.Taking on municipal elites' adoption of Richard Florida's "e;creative class"e; thesis, for example, Parker looks at the group Young Professionals of Milwaukee, exposing the way that a "e;creative careers"e; focus advances fundamentally masculine values and interests. She concludes with a case study that shows how gender and race mattered in the design, enactment, and contestation of an uneven urban redevelopment project. At once a case study of the city and a theorization of urban neoliberalism, Masculinities and Markets highlights how urban politics and discourses in U.S. cities have changed over the years.