The Illicit and Illegal in Regional and Urban Governance and Development

Discussions of the illicit and the illegal have tended to be somewhat restricted in their disciplinary range, to date, and have been largely confined to the literatures of anthropology, criminology, policing and, to an extent, political science. However, these debates have impinged little on cognate literatures, not least those of urban and regional studies which remain almost entirely undisturbed by such issues. This volume aims to open up debates across a range of cognate disciplines.

The Illicit and Illegal in Regional and Urban Governance and Development is a multidisciplinary volume that aims to open up these debates, extending themempirically and questioning the dominant discussions of governance and developmentthat have been rooted largely or entirely in the realm of licit and legalactors. The book investigates these issues with reference to a variety of differentgeographical contexts, including, but not limited to, places traditionally consideredto be associated with illegal activities and extensive illicit markets, such assome regions in the so-called Global South. The chapters consider the ways inwhich these questions deeply affect the daily lives of several cities and regions insome advanced countries. Their comparative perspectives will demonstrate thatthe illicit and the illegal are an underappreciated structural aspect of current urbanand regional governance and development across the globe.

The book is an edited collection of research-informed essays, which will primarily be of interest to those taking advanced undergraduate and taught postgraduate courses in human geography, urban and regional planning and a range of social science disciplines that have an interest in urban and regional issues and issues related to crime and corruption.