Abstract

Certain policy models that are anointed as ‘best practices’ seem to quickly gain political currency across the globe. In parallel, cities that are defined as successful places for policy invention, implementation, and emulation become part of a global discussion. These inter-referential and comparative impulses are evident in municipal decision-makers’ attempts to attract the ‘creative class’, enhance downtown business areas, become the ‘greenest’ city, or implement new forms of transit. Indeed, references to models from elsewhere empower particular interests, regimes, and constituencies as they engage in local politics and governance. Yet, we should not assume that the policies themselves, or their proliferation, are somehow naturally or unproblematically good or ‘best’. What is important is not so much that they move around in some abstract sense, but that people move them aroundfor particular purposes. New planning and design strategies, economic development models, etc. are social products, built up from the ground over time and bearing the imprint of the interests involved in producing them (McCann, 2008, 2011a, 2011b; McCann and Ward, 2011a; Peck and Theodore, 2010a; Ward, 2006).