On losing the local in responding to urban decline: The Honeysuckle Redevelopment, New South Wales

The adoption of the 'new urban politics' (Cox, 1993) as a means of dealing with urban decline through entrepreneurialism engenders a range of threats to the local. These threats have not been fully explored in the new urban politics literature partly because, in looking at 'the entrepreneurial city', it has conceptualised the relations between the global and the local in an unproblematic manner (Hall and Hubbard, 1996). This chapter addresses global- local relations by examining how entrepreneurialism has been used to deal with urban decline in inner Newcastle, New South Wales (NSW). We look at the importance of the discourse of globalisation in encouraging entrepreneurialism at all levels of government, as espoused by the political ideology of neoliberalism. In addition, we emphasise the potential for the local to be lost as a result of the mutually reinforcing discourses of globalisation and entrepreneurialism. We question the capacity of local communities and discordant voices to influence the course of local development, and problematise the representation of local identity in entrepreneurial schemes.