Essays reevaluating and challenging the critiques of the urban studies fieldThis volume revisits the tradition of critical scholarship characteristic of the urban studies field. Urban scholarship has had detractors of late, particularly in mainstream political science, where it has been accused of parochialism and insularity. Critical Urban Studies offers a sharp repudiation of this critique, reasserting the need for critical urban scholarship and demonstrating the fundamental importance of urban studies for understanding and changing contemporary social life. Contributors to the volume identify an orthodox perspective in the field, subject it to critique, and map out a future research agenda for the field. The result is a series of inventive essays pointing scholars and students to the major theoretical and policy challenges facing urbanists and other critical social scientists.