The city in the constitutional imagination

Loughlin, Martin ORCID: 0000-0002-6102-6453 (2022) The city in the constitutional imagination. University of Toronto Law Journal, 72 (3). 356 - 371. ISSN 0042-0220

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Abstract

This essay reviews Ran Hirschl’s City, State: Constitutionalism and the Megacity, a study of ‘the great constitutional silence concerning one of the most significant phenomena of our time: urban agglomeration and the rise of megacities’ and which maintains that the solution to contemporary urban problems crucially depends on a ‘constitutional emancipation’ of the city. The essay argues that Hirschl is unable to deliver on his major claim. Launching his thesis on a skewed account of the development of the political role of the city, a one-sided presentation of the constitutional order of the modern state, and a failure to appreciate the impact of urbanization on the city’s standing as a unit of government, Hirschl ignores the work of public lawyers on the challenges of metropolitan government and argues, unconvincingly, that these challenges can be resolved once we turn to the abstractions of constitutional theory.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://utpjournals.press/loi/utlj
Additional Information:	© 2022 University of Toronto Press
Divisions:	Law
Subjects:	K Law
Date Deposited:	24 Aug 2022 23:17
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 03:14
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/116384

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