Policing Protest in the Post-Fordist City

This article situates lower level court cases decided over the last ten years in the context of post-Fordist transformations to urban economies and geographies to address the urban fiscal crisis of the 1970s. Urban public spaces are governed in accordance with norms appropriate for shopping malls or Disney World to attract suburban visitors and tourists. Consequently, demonstrations are zoned away from sites of post-Fordist entertainment to contain their effects. These court decisions indicate the emergence of a neoliberal juridical regime that disarticulates the right of free speech from the practice of democracy