Beyond the spirit of the new urban crisis : risk-class and resonance

Tyfield, David (2022) Beyond the spirit of the new urban crisis : risk-class and resonance. In: Handbook on Risk and Inequality :. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 194-232. ISBN 9781788972253

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Abstract

The contemporary 'new urban crisis' (NUC) offers a singular lens on the unprecedented challenges of the age with a view to mitigating and overcoming them. Meeting these challenges, and the meta-problem of learning how to govern complex systems well, demands commensurately significant conceptual innovation and upgrading. This chapter explores the combined contributions of two concepts that promise to be particularly illuminating in this regard: risk-class and resonance. It is argued that together they offer strategic illumination regarding both means and plausible but surprising ends for better futures. The chapter considers the concept of risk-class and shows how it illuminates the NUC, regarding both how much worse it could yet get and, conversely, neglected openings to brighter outcomes. Key to seeing the latter is a reorientation, engaging with the paradigm-shifting sociology of resonance proposed by Rosa, to what may collectively be labelled as issues of 'spirit'. This opens up a critique of inequality studies while showing how risk-class and resonance together illuminate productive, if anti-utopian, dynamics regarding urban inequalities, as part of a broader project of rebasing sociological thought for the 21st century.