Geography
Document Type
Article
Abstract
For 20 years, turbulence has defined American urbanism. In the late noughties, a global financial crisis pushed many US cities to the brink of bankruptcy. Austerity followed, with belt-tightening squeezing city services. Then came Trump, then came COVID. The pandemic would, unpredictably, make US cities cash rich thanks to the Federal government's largesse. And now we await Trump 2.0. For US cities the prospect of radical change seems real. But what type of reform will Trump bring? Herein lies the difficulty. Trump 2.0 is as hard to predict as the first version was. Immigration, tariff reform and government efficiency are currently Trump's domestic talking points. Yet we have little idea about what precisely will be done across all these policy arenas. This is a pressing conundrum for urban scholarship since each arena will impact the future of US cities. This reflection will assess how US cities are entering into the incoming Trump presidency and consider two possible versions of urban reform under Trump: the unlikely ‘coordinated version’, and the more likely ‘uncoordinated version’ defined by Trump's populist politics. © 2025 The Author(s). The Geographical Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers).
Publication Title
Geographical Journal
Publication Date
2025
ISSN
0016-7398
DOI
10.1111/geoj.70014
Keywords
government, housing, municipal, Trump, urban development, urban geography
Repository Citation
Davidson, Mark, "He's a builder, but does Trump have an urban agenda?" (2025). Geography. 1010.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_geography/1010
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright Conditions
Davidson, M. (2025). He's a builder, but does Trump have an urban agenda?. The Geographical Journal, e70014.
