Entrepreneurial urbanism, austerity and economic governance

Many austerity accounts focus on the shrinkage of city governments, with less emphasis on state-building responses. Utilising the Cultural Political Economy approach, this article examines the ‘selection’ of pro-growth ‘economic imaginaries’ that seek to mediate austerity. These issues are examined by way of a case study analysis of the city government of Coventry, UK. The article finds that a pro-growth/market imaginary dominates through sedimentation and discursive and governmental depoliticisation, resulting in the marginalisation of social regeneration priorities. Critical to this is the role of historically constituted discourses and nation-state ‘selectivity’ that legitimises this particular economic imaginary.