Modern urban government: A foucaultian perspective

Abstract

This paper provides a theoretical framework around Foucault's notion of governmentality and illustrates it with some evidence about modern urban government. We aim simply to indicate the possibilities of this approach to readers of the journal. In examining certain knowledge developments around modern urban life and tracing some connections between these developments and certain techniques of modern urban government, both diect and indirect, we highlight the operation nexus between knowledge and modern urban government which we argue is the core of ‘urban governmentality’. © 1996 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.