What does it mean to say that cities like Vancouver have taken a ?neoliberal? turn, embracing market-oriented policies while paying little more than lip service to questions of social welfare, affordability, and environmental sustainability? Does the embrace of ?creativity? really hold the promise of an alternative path, or does it threaten more of the same? Exploring these questions, Jamie Peck will chart the rise of the neoliberal city, calling attention to its mutations, its limits, and to its alternatives.

Jamie Peck is Canada Research Chair in Urban & Regional Political Economy and Professor of Geography at UBC. An economic geographer with interests in labour studies, urban theory, and the politics of globalization, his publications include Constructions of Neoliberal Reason and the co-edited collection, Contesting Neoliberalism: Urban Frontiers.

This talk is part of the Spaces of Contestation: Art, Activism and the City Speaker Series, part of the project Collective Walks ? Spaces of Contestation, curated by Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte, and was recorded on November 12, 2013 in Vancouver.