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100			_aOlesen, Kristian _951197
245			_aInfrastructure imaginaries: The politics of light rail projects in the age of neoliberalism/ _cKristian Olesen
260			_aLondon: _bSage, _c2020.
300			_aVol 57, issue 9, 2020: (1811–1826 p.)
520			_aIn the last decade light rail transit systems have become a popular mode of public transport in many cities around the world to upgrade the existing public transportation network, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to support neoliberal urban development strategies. The paper takes its starting point in the growing critical literature discussing the politics of light rail and related transport infrastructure projects in the context of neoliberalism. The paper uses the case of Aalborg, Denmark, to demonstrate how light rail projects are embedded in particular infrastructure imaginaries, which reflect wider political agendas of promoting urban development and economic growth. In the case of Aalborg, the city’s spatial strategies have played an important role in constructing an imaginary of the city as the region’s ‘growth dynamo’, which in turn have led to a growth-fixated conceptualisation of the city’s spatiality, and contributed to rationalising the need for investments in light rail. The paper argues that light rail projects are first and foremost politically rationalised as important investments for facilitating urban development and supporting entrepreneurial city strategies of urban and economic growth, whilst their social objectives of providing affordable public transportation play a less prominent role in the contemporary imaginary of the city.
773	0		_08843 _916581 _dLondon Sage Publications Ltd. 1964 _tUrban studies _x0042-0980
856			_uhttps://doi.org/10.1177/0042098019853502
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