Contesting the City: How Divergent Imaginaries Produce Tucson

Abstract

This research explores downtown redevelopment in Tucson, Arizona to investigate who is imagined as the constituent for the redeveloped spaces of downtown Tucson. Drawing from various cases (primarily between 2010-2013), this study resonates with significant contributions of urban geographers to understand the ways that various forms of urban governance, placed subjectivities and political economy help to produce U.S. cities. This research provides a trialectic understanding of forces shaping downtown redevelopment, powers of: social memory; city policies and mechanisms; and economic investment. These forces constantly appear throughout the remaining pages and are informed by each other at times in reactive ways while in other moments in conciliatory ways. Each of these forces--social memory, city policies and mechanisms, and economic development--circulate within a complex of social relations and each, in varying ways (re)produces administrative and institutional norms and juridical regulations.