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Authors:Michaela Trippl, Sebastian Fastenrath, Arne Isaksen Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. The unpredictable impacts of sudden shocks such as the current COVID-19 pandemic or the current energy crisis accelerated by the Russia-Ukraine war have led to a renewed interest in regional economic resilience. Much of the literature focuses attention on how regional economies and industries could bounce back, that is, how they could return to their pre-shock conditions. Other scholars have proposed to construe resilience as bouncing forward to capture the mechanisms and processes that underpin positive adaptation and structural change in response to an acute crisis. In this article, we argue that both conceptualisations do not consider shocks and crises as a window of opportunity for regional economies to transform into a radically different and more desirable trajectory. We bring a new perspective into play, that is, transformative resilience which places shifts towards more sustainable pathways centre stage. This understanding of regional economic resilience acknowledges that a crisis may bring about permanent structural change and considers to what extent these transformations are to the benefit of society and the environment. This article seeks to identify in a conceptual way what factors and dynamics are vital for enhancing the transformative resilience of regions. To this end, we draw on recent insights from the debate on challenge-oriented regional innovation systems and elaborate on the role of pre-shock conditions and various core processes in building up regional transformative resilience. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-05-11T11:37:15Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231172326
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Authors:Martin Lundsteen Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print.
Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-05-06T09:22:10Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231168534
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Authors:Maxime Felder, Luca Pattaroni Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. In the wealthy and orderly city of Geneva, Switzerland, accommodation centres built in haste between the 1950s and the 1980s to house seasonal guestworkers from southern Europe are still standing and still inhabited. Today’s residents are precarious workers, undocumented or with temporary permits as well as asylum seekers. While the seasonal status disappeared in the early 2000s, the demand for low-skilled, flexible labour did not. Analysing the historical trajectories of specific buildings helps us to answer the question of who replaced the seasonal workers, not only in the labour and the housing markets, but also in the symbolic spectrum of legitimacy. This article introduces the notion of ‘Subaltern Housing Policies’ to account for the public action that leads to the production and subsequent use of forms of housing characterised by standards of comfort and security far below those of the rental and social housing stock, but considered ‘good enough’ for their occupants. We argue that ‘subaltern’ relates not only to housing conditions, but also to the policies themselves, and last but not least to the people who are subjected to them. This notion allows us to trace a link between the production of substandard forms of housing and the production of categories of people who are kept on the margins of full citizenship. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-04-26T05:32:18Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231167091
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Authors:Stefan Bouzarovski, Jurica Brajković, Slavica Robić, Charlotte Brown, Ivana Vuchkova Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. The capacity of the state to develop and implement policy at the complex nexus of energy infrastructure, social inequality and housing is indicative of the political priorities of governing structures and, by extension, the nature of statecraft more generally. We compare and contrast the energy poverty amelioration policies of two former Yugoslav and two post-Soviet states located outside the European Union, but seeking to join its regulatory sphere – Serbia, Montenegro, Ukraine and Georgia – against the background of deep and persistent patterns of domestic energy hardship. We are particularly interested in uncovering the time horizons, socio-technical systems and target constituencies of different policy measures, as well as energy sector–specific responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that most states in the region have done little to address some of the more substantive challenges around improving housing quality, energy efficiency and gender inequality. However, energy poverty is present in the policy lexicon of all case study countries, and Ukraine, in particular, has advanced a number of more sophisticated approaches and programmes. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-04-25T12:08:48Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231162229
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Authors:Carrie Ann Benjamin Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. For years, city officials in Paris have tried to reduce ‘incivility’ to maintain public order and security. While civility is being used by the city to enforce a respect for others through a respect for public space, it is also being used to claim moral authority and legitimacy by groups who already enjoy a privileged access to these spaces. Although some of these groups may seek to bring their neighbours into an imagined moral community through ‘awareness raising’, others attempt a revanchist approach to push the ‘uncivil’ and ‘undeserving’ further outside the borders of this community. This article argues that in combatting incivility and bad behaviour, local associations attempt to establish a spatial and moral community that legitimises their vision of appropriate consumption and use of public space and excludes already-marginalised publics from its borders. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-04-17T05:55:32Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231168536
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Authors:Johan Klaesson, Sofia Wixe Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. Although the process of integrating immigrants into the labor market unfolds over many years, it is often modeled as outcomes (e.g. employment) at specific points in time. We contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence of the sequence of events leading to active labor market participation of East African and EU15 immigrants to Sweden, whom we follow for up to 28 years. By combining the method of sequence analysis with binomial logit estimation, we can explain why individuals are sorted into different representative labor market sequences. A further contribution is that along the usual initial conditions (individual and geographic), we employ longitudinal micro data to find (1) representative sequences of movements between various types of neighborhoods and (2) an empirical estimate of individual ability, which turns out to be a strong predictor for immigrants entering an active labor market trajectory. Our results show that East Africans tend to reside in neighborhoods with a high degree of socioeconomic and ethnic segregation. Despite this, their labor market activity seems to be less influenced by neighborhood trajectories than EU15 immigrants. The labor market activity of EU15 immigrants and female East African immigrants is positively related to residing in less ethnically segregated and socioeconomically stronger neighborhoods. Our results are relevant to policy development since they point to the importance of the initial location of immigrants and their subsequent residential mobility. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-04-10T12:12:18Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231166358
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Authors:Ioana Jipa-Muşat, Martha Prevezer Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. Drawing on global production network research and conceptual explanations of the changing spatial divisions of labour, this article investigates the transformative effects of the dynamic interplay between strategic coupling and multiscalar changes across labour regimes in Central and Eastern European post-socialist sectoral trajectories. It interrogates critically whether sectors across peripheral regions have been able to slot themselves into lead firms’ transnational production systems, resulting in processes of value creation, value capture or value destruction. The empirical analysis reveals that the capacity of domestic resources to purposively match and align themselves to global lead firms and their strategic objectives is influenced by local historical legacies, spatiality, elite agency and labour agency, which combined to shape distinct meso-level transformations. The methodology is based on analysing the post-socialist transformation of three sectors in Romania, which have different historical legacies, institutional configurations, and spatial and temporal vectors of development, allowing us to trace interactions between different modes of strategic coupling or decoupling and labour regime reconfiguration. The central thrust of the article highlights how different modes of strategic coupling into global production networks, or decoupling from global production networks, are causally linked to the reconfiguration of labour regimes, leading to long-term regional socio-economic transformations. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-04-10T12:04:58Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231165200
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Authors:Veit Bachmann Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. The European Union (EU) has long projected the vision of an integrating Europe, centred on successful regional integration, as a better geopolitical model in comparison to ‘others’, such as the Cold War superpowers, US neoconservativism or diverse autocratic regimes. The purported superiority of the ‘European model’ is thereby linked to credibly advancing the story of successful regional integration – internally as well as externally. This article suggests a narrative continuum between EU-optimism and EU-scepticism and argues that perceptions about the ‘success’ of the EU as a model for regional integration have changed between the first and the second decade of the new millennium. As part of this shift, EU-scepticism has gained in prominence over EU-optimism. This is related to a series of geopolitical ruptures since the late 2000s, in particular, the financial crisis, disputes on human mobility and border management, rising nationalism, Brexit and other right-wing populist movements across the continent. Focussing on the divisions within the EU as regards financial and migration policy, this article highlights three interrelated simultaneities. It argues (a) that process and discourse of (b) integration and disintegration have (c) internal and external dimensions. Empirically, it builds on interviews with African and European geopolitical elites that have been conducted as part of two research projects on external perceptions of the EU in East Africa between 2010 and 2018. It thus offers a snapshot on the shift of both ‘internal’ and ‘external’ perceptions of the EU against the context of wider geopolitical transformations over the course of this decisive decade. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-04-10T12:02:38Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231158307
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Authors:Daniel Polman, Giulia Bazzan Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. An increasing amount of cities are invested in developing innovative policies to make the food system more sustainable. This article investigates whether combinations of governance practices can explain why some of these cities develop highly innovative food policies across multiple dimensions of the food system – such as health and waste – while others are only limited in their innovativeness. Therefore, we apply fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to identify combinations of necessary and sufficient governance conditions to explain food system innovativeness across 26 European cities participating in the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact. Results show that the absence of specific practices, such as mapping local food initiatives, food-related government integration, developing integrated food strategies and monitoring and evaluation, prevents cities from being more innovative. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-04-08T05:17:45Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231165203
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Authors:Martin Lundsteen Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. In 2018, the then right-wing government in Denmark led by Lars Løkke Rasmussen and supported by the extreme right-wing party Danish People’s Party presented new legislation to end ‘parallel societies’ in Denmark by toughening the criminal law, enforcing Danish knowledge and nursery school assistance to toddlers, and, more importantly for this article, a series of urban interventions in ‘ghetto areas’ considered as such mainly when the proportion of immigrants and descendants from non-Western countries exceeded 50 per cent. Until recently research has focused on either the discursive elements of the ‘ghetto politics’ in Denmark or the urban interventions from an architectural or urban planning point of view. However, newfangled research deal with the entwined economic elements. In this article, I compare the different developmental plans proposed in the affected areas because of the legislation, with an aim to reach further and point at the inherent elements of urban b/ordering, that is, measures taken to attain social order and gain legitimacy by demarcating categories of people to incorporate some and exclude others through urban space. Indeed, through this comparison, I conclude that the ghetto legislation is a compelling example of the urban b/ordering inherent to the politics and dynamics of current liberal capitalist social democracies. It is a social experiment that remodels the geography of Denmark in terms that recall the eugenic and hygienic social and urban policies of the 19th century and form part of a worrying pattern that may have consequences that go beyond the stated ones. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-04-08T05:15:26Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231165202
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Authors:Andrew Johnston, Robert Huggins Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. The European Union has agreed to provide significant investment to the semiconductor industry in order to address issues of self-sufficiency and digital sovereignty. This comes on the back of the long-term decline in the competitiveness and size of the industry in Europe. These issues are of considerable significance to urban and regional economic development agendas as the industry is clustered around several European regions. This commentary seeks to examine the extent to which European policy intervention is likely to positively influence Europe’s semiconductor industry. It is argued that the European semiconductor industry is at a crossroads. While it has some competitive advantages and is home to several significant clusters, it faces incessant competition from producers in Asia and the United States. It is argued that European policy should not be space neutral and aim to encourage innovation and enterprise within the sector in conjunction with existing European regional economic development policy measures. Within this approach, supporting key existing clusters through triple helix models of development are likely to be the most effective modes of intervention. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-04-08T05:11:19Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231165199
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Authors:Jan Musschoot, Ben Derudder, Sabine Dörry Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. Drawing on conceptual research exploring how evolving geographies of finance inform urban and regional change, we examine the size and functional scope of the presence of leading global banks across functional urban areas in Europe. Based on data for 100 major global banks, we find that their overall presence is proportional to (the square root of) the national gross domestic product. London and Luxembourg host far more banks than can be explained by their national gross domestic product, which can be traced back to their export of banking services. We also analyze the geographies of specialized banking services per city. Corporate and investment banking are mainly explained by national gross domestic product, with London emerging as the most prominent center. Private banking and securities services, in turn, are largely independent of national gross domestic product and rely on the importance of small and specialized economies such as Luxembourg and St Helier (Jersey). The stability of Europe’s banking centers is underpinned by their role as the national banking center and/or their specialization in international banking services, as well as manifested in specialized subnetworks of financial centers. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-03-16T04:51:40Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231161241
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Authors:Claire Colomb, Tatiana Moreira de Souza Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. This article analyses the challenges of controlling short-term rentals (STR) in an era of intermediation by digital platforms, focusing on the process of regulatory enforcement. Drawing on evidence from large European cities, it investigates how public authorities identify and tackle STR deemed illegal, how operators of illegal STR seek to escape detection, and the relationships between city governments and digital platforms in the process of regulatory enforcement. The article shows what digitalisation and ‘platformisation’ do to the possibility of (local) state regulation of housing informality and illegality in the European context. As platforms have been reluctant to release individualised STR listings to local authorities, the latter have had to rely on imperfect, ‘DIY’ methods of data gathering in the physical and digital worlds, in the context of attempts to regulate STR for public interest objectives such as the protection of the long-term residential stock. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-03-02T05:34:09Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231155386
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Authors:Chiara Castelli, Beatrice d’Hombres, Laura de Dominicis, Lewis Dijkstra, Valentina Montalto, Nicola Pontarollo Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. The purpose of this study is to identify the main factors of city life satisfaction across Europe. Data come from the recent fifth survey on quality of life in European cities and cover 83 cities located in the European Union, the European Free Trade Association countries, the United Kingdom, the Western Balkan Region and Turkey. In addition to running classical econometric analysis, we quantify the relative importance of the various determinants of overall satisfaction with life in cities, thus offering novel insights to shape evidence-based urban policies. The results highlight that two main policy-relevant areas contribute to the satisfaction with city life: the presence of amenities, on the one hand, and the inclusiveness and safety feeling, on the other hand. Socio-economic characteristics are generally not relevant, with the exception of economic insecurity.JEL Codes: R10, R58, I31 Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-03-02T05:22:44Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764231155335
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Authors:Pranita Shrestha, Nicole Gurran Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. Secondary dwellings, from ‘backyard’ and basement units to converted garages or ‘granny flats’ are increasingly viewed as a potential source of lower cost rental accommodation. However, in many cities of the so-called global north, secondary dwellings are restricted under local planning rules designed to maintain lower density residential neighbourhoods. This article examines the outcome of planning reform to legalise secondary dwellings as a housing solution, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Traditionally, secondary dwelling production has been seen as a form of unregulated/informal dwelling type. In response to a chronic shortage of affordable renting supply, this paper considers how the state has undertaken a process of deregulation of planning controls to permit secondary dwelling production. We call this an example of ‘calculated informality’. We examine the case with reference to data on the geography and scale of secondary dwelling production, as well as interviews with secondary dwelling industry groups and local council officers responsible for enforcing planning regulation. Our analysis shows that deregulatory reform enabled an informal rental market in secondary dwellings to grow at scale; however, affordability and secure private rental outcomes remain unclear. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-02-13T12:40:03Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764221145436
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Authors:Francesco E Iannuzzi First page: 172 Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. Using Venice as a case study, this article seeks to analyse the experience of migrant workers in the hotel industry through a theoretical engagement with the local labour market segmentation approach. The global hotel industry relies on large numbers of migrant workers, who are often in their first job in the host context, as a solution to the problem of cyclical staff shortages. Previous studies have found that low barriers to entry into the sector and high staff turnover are the underlying reasons for this relationship. They have also shown that the same characteristics that make the hotel sector attractive to migrant workers also lead them to leave the industry shortly after entering it. However, this article reveals significant stability in the careers of migrants employed in Venetian hotels as well as heterogeneity in their individual experiences. Through identifying and analysing the factors underpinning the trajectories of these workers, the article emphasises the importance of local characteristics of production, consumption, institutional and welfare regulation patterns, workers’ social stratifications and strategies of social reproduction in shaping the relation between migrant workers and the local hotel industry. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2023-01-10T07:00:45Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764221145357
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Authors:Carlos Delclós Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. Beginning in the late 1990s, Spain experienced major changes in both its population structure and housing market. Between 1998 and 2008, the country’s immigrant population increased nearly 10-fold, from half a million foreign-born residents to five million, with the share of immigrant workers jumping from 2 per cent of all working-age people to 16 per cent. During this period, immigration accounted for the vast majority of Spain’s population growth, and this was reflected in the housing market by significant increases in the construction of new dwellings. However, the situation changed dramatically after the housing crash in 2008. In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the collapse of the country’s housing bubble, a massive wave of evictions made housing precariousness and displacement salient sociopolitical issues in Spain. Through multiple regression analyses of data from the Spanish Living Conditions Survey, this study shows that households headed by non-European Union citizens were significantly more likely than those headed by Spanish citizens to experience higher levels of housing precariousness and displacement pressure, net of housing arrears and other relevant factors. Non-European Union citizens were also significantly more likely to experience rent overburden and were found to pay higher rents than Spanish citizens for similar dwellings. By putting these results in dialogue with the ethnographic and theoretical literature on housing struggles and everyday bordering, this article argues that the differentially precarious citizenship status of migrants in Spain facilitates housing practices that multiply and thicken urban borders and facilitate rent extraction. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2022-11-26T09:39:26Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764221136092
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Authors:Nancy Holman, Alan Mace, Davide Zorloni, Pablo Navarrete-Hernandez, Jacob Karlsson, Erica Pani Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. Urban designers have long sought to plan more secure public spaces by encouraging a sense of territory through the surveillant and the surveyed. Nevertheless, the racial dimension of this territorialisation is insufficiently recognised. Our research tool, which we have trialled in Milan, identifies the influence of design in creating a sense of security in public space and, independently, the influence of race. It provides designers with a tool that could facilitate a more radically just practice that takes ownership of the role of race in perceptions of secure public space and challenges existing conscious and unconscious bias and which in so doing makes design practice more resilient to the rise of populist administrations increasingly engaging in bordering practices that conjoin migration, race and security at a national scale, but which are often enacted at the city scale. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2022-10-11T08:45:22Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764221129531
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Authors:Öznur Yardımcı Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. This article explores the role of contemporary urban redevelopment in invoking a renegotiation of citizenship. There has been a wide acknowledgement that neoliberalism is a political project involving transformations in the state–market–citizen relations. However, the scholarly emphasis on market-led principles in remaking places and people falls short of acknowledging political aspirations and struggles that intrude in processes of inclusion and exclusion at the city scale. Focussing on the case of Turkey, where neoliberal urban policies and practices have been linked to the central government’s political ambitions, the article illustrates that urban redevelopment projects help the state actors realign citizenship with the authoritarian regime. A focus on the state-led urban interventions from the perspective of bordering the ‘good citizen’ suggests that neoliberal urban redevelopment projects are mobilised by the state to promote official citizenship agendas. Drawing on in-depth interviews, photos and observations from 9-month fieldwork in Dikmen Valley (Ankara), this article ethnographically documents how the ideals of the ‘good citizen’ in an authoritarian context differ from the market-led promotion of consumerist, aspirational and active citizens. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2022-09-13T06:32:43Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764221119919
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Authors:Christy Kulz Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. This article examines the relationship between bordering practices and processes of situated intersectionality by exploring how British migrants encounter and erect borders as they move through Berlin. Through exploring how research participants conceptualise and orientate themselves towards Berlin’s city spaces and how this relates to transnational and translocal processes of classification, I interrogate how processes of racialisation and classification move across European contexts to manifest within localised spaces. The research explores how these intersections work to minimise, accentuate or transfigure one another as inequalities come into being through urban space by placing feminist intersectional approaches in conversation with border studies. By uniquely focusing on a migrant group infrequently considered in European migration literatures, and often regarded as invisible or unproblematic, we can examine how race, class and gender intersect with nationality and how racialised exclusions from European belonging function through everyday processes. I highlight how classification processes have transnational portability and carry intra-European similarities, yet also assuming context-specific features. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2022-04-28T03:46:39Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764221087644
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Authors:Helen Traill, Andrew Cumbers First page: 93 Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. There is increasing enthusiasm at urban and municipal scales for leading sustainability transitions, amid higher level endorsement and even expectation of such leadership. Yet this downscaling of responsibility for transition requires a greater critical focus. It raises questions of how evenly spread the capacity to lead on this is, and how it relates to the complex and differentiated multi-scalar governance structures and political landscapes within which municipal actors are situated. This article draws upon evidence from a mixed methods comparative and multi-scalar analysis across Europe exploring the different pressures and potential that exist for municipalities. Our central aim is to critically interrogate what municipalities are doing to achieve a post-carbon energy transition beyond lofty aspirations. Departing from the tendency to focus on paradigmatic success stories, our research on the different conditions affecting municipalities across the continent suggests that the focus so far on case studies and techno-social solutions is insufficient for considering the broader geographical patterns and multi-scalar tensions of transition. Our findings suggest that while municipalities are alive to the opportunities to lead on sustainability transitions, we need a clearer understanding of the ways that policy and politics at national and international scales shape political capacities for action. There are clear limits to independent municipal action, particularly without more supportive interventions at higher scales. The increased urgency for sustainability transitions requires far more multi-scalar and trans-local coordination than that exists at present, although the building blocks of such work may be beginning to emerge. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2022-08-24T06:34:56Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764221101740
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Authors:Iolanda Bianchi First page: 107 Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. Social innovation scholars see grassroots welfare initiatives as being potentially empowering. However, they also argue that this potential is enhanced when these initiatives receive support from local governments through a bottom-linked approach to social innovation. This article examines how empowering policies for grassroots welfare initiatives can be provided within a bottom-linked approach, while considering the reservations expressed by critical urban scholars on the link between them. By introducing the concept of self-government developed within commons theory into the bottom-linked approach to social innovation, it argues that policies aiming to empower grassroots welfare initiatives should provide adequate material and legal support, and should foster the emergence of new initiatives, but should always be careful not to limit their self-governing capacity. The article carries out a comparative analysis of two cases of grassroots welfare initiatives in Barcelona, comparing two different policy interventions adopted by the local government: one is a case in which an empowering policy was implemented, and the other one is a case in which this did not take place. The article concludes by highlighting the contribution made by this study for both policymaking and scholarly research. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2022-10-13T11:51:50Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764221129532
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Authors:Ricard Zapata-Barrero First page: 121 Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. Within the framework of Mediterranean migration studies and as a contribution to the emerging debate on the ‘local turn’, and on multiscalar approaches of region-making from different disciplines, the main objective of this article is to analyse an empirical trend that theoretically reinforces the view that cities can shape new regional domains. This city-region interface delimits the article’s two-sided argument. On one hand, the article argues that because of the increase of trans-Mediterranean relations, cities are contributing to regional-making; and, on the other hand, that this occurs through a critical process of State disengagement from the way in which the Mediterranean is configured today. After arguing for a Braudelian view of the Mediterranean as région de villes, the article conceptualizes the category of ‘regional cities’ within current geographical and international relations literature. Drawing on three examples of external city practices (city-to-city networks, city involvement in international non-governmental organization and city bilateral diplomacy with other cities), the article empirically illustrates, as a third step, the relevant different functionalities of the city that shape region-making. Finally, the article sets this empirical and theoretical focus within current European Union and State-based geo-migration politics as a top-down region-making failure. The purpose is to highlight the dissonance between the top-down region-making blockage and the historical bottom-up construct of the Mediterranean as a region of interconnected cities. This invites us to visualize regional cities as the basic component for a paradigm shift in Mediterranean migration governance. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2022-09-27T12:43:20Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764221125343
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Authors:Joe Birsens, Antoine Decoville First page: 135 Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. The social and spatial integration of knowledge-related urban development projects into their urban environment is seen by policymakers as a necessity to unlock local and regional growth dynamics and regeneration. However, the understanding of socio-spatial integration, and how it can be scientifically analysed and interpreted at a local scale remains somewhat vague when the concept is not approached in its totality and measured by unidimensional indicators. The current article first proposes a holistic and multidimensional analytical framework to measure and analyse the socio-spatial integration of knowledge districts. Then, it focuses on one specific dimension – the structural dissimilarities between territories – and suggests an indicator-based multivariate analysis that is applied to the case of Belval, in Esch/Alzette (Luxembourg). Our findings for the Belval case study show that the structural dissimilarities between knowledge districts and adjacent neighbourhoods are mainly due to the young, international and professional profile of the population this place attracts, while differentials in terms of socio-economic status are much less significant than expected. In other words, the specificity of this knowledge district lies in the educational and migratory backgrounds of its inhabitants, rather than in their economic wealth. Accordingly, we call for a more nuanced debate concerning the urban integration of knowledge districts. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2022-11-11T11:52:04Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764221136093
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Authors:Chiara Burlina, Patrizia Casadei, Alessandro Crociata First page: 152 Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. Several studies have detected a positive relationship between the spatial dynamics of cultural and creative industries (CCIs) and their social and economic outcomes. In this article, we draw upon the Economic Complexity Index (ECI) as a proxy to capture the social interactive nature that characterises CCIs and the way this affects firm performance. Our assumption is that more complex locations, endowed with different types of more sophisticated production capabilities, allow CCI firms to perform more strongly. This can depend on the higher opportunities of complex knowledge sharing and cross-fertilisation processes among different types of CCI firms or with non-CCI firms. The focus is on Italy, a country with a long-standing historical tradition in culture and creativity. We draw upon an original panel database at firm and province level (for the period 2010–2016) to compute two different ECIs, one for the CCIs and another one for the rest of the economy. Moreover, we analyse the effects these two types of complexity on the performance of firms within sectors with different levels of cultural and commercial value. We find that economic complexity of CCIs but not economic complexity of the rest of the economy matters for CCI firm performance. However, the effect is relatively weak. The same finding applies to all CCI firms, irrespective of their type of sector. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2022-09-24T06:27:04Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764221125336
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Authors:Dave O’Brien, Griffith Rees, Mark Taylor First page: 186 Abstract: European Urban and Regional Studies, Ahead of Print. There are significant inequalities in the publicly funded arts sector in England, including significant spatial inequalities. If anything, the critique of spatial inequalities in this ecology do not go far enough. This article uses a unique dataset of the boards of directors of Arts Council England’s national portfolio, derived from Companies House. While a majority of national portfolio organisations do not share board members with any other organisation, the analysis demonstrates that London-based organisations are significantly more likely to share board members with other companies than organisations outside London – and that, where an organisation outside of London does share a board member with a company in another region, it is more likely to be with a company in London than all other regions put together. It further demonstrates that this effect is most pronounced where these organisations are part of the same artform. Crucially, the organisations connected to London have more than double the portfolio income of other organisations, whether they share board members or not. This illustration of the concentration of power in London in the publicly funded arts sector, over and above the distribution of organisations in general, demonstrates the conceptual value of a cultural economy that emerges from interconnections within a local or national ecosystem. At the same time, the analysis and findings push the cultural ecology literature to centre inequality as a core issue as the concept is developed. Even the local cultural ecosystem is not exempt from the impact of the nation’s uneven (cultural) geography. Citation: European Urban and Regional Studies PubDate: 2022-09-01T12:18:44Z DOI: 10.1177/09697764221113750
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