Il sito del Laboratorio di Politiche Sociali

In recent decades many European urban areas are characterized by conflicting trends. Faced with new challenges posed by globalization and economic restructuring, some cities have experimented major difficulties in maintaining their competitiveness, while others have gained new positions by taking advantage of some specific aspects of their social and economic environment.

Looking at these facts all together, it follows that not only globalization has increased competition between cities, but also that the cities are coping with the new situation of economic turbulence being equipped in very different ways.

If in the Fordist era, a good compromise between competitiveness and social cohesion was guaranteed – at least on an urban scale – by massive state intervention, today’s cities face increasing difficulties in reconciling these two aspects. While state responsibility for welfare programs is progressively delegated to the local level, new local social and economic needs arise as a result of increasing competition between urban areas.

The cities, therefore, are at the crossroads of new social and political dilemmas that require new governance capabilities and new tools for understanding the current situation.

The Social Policy Lab has developed a research line aimed to investigate the different forms of relationship between social cohesion and economic competitiveness at the urban level in a comparative perspective, providing social and economic indicators analyzed from both static and dynamic perspective.

Pubblicazioni:

(2008), Ranci C. et al., Social Limits to Growth: Competitiveness and Social Cohesion in the European Cities, XI Eura Conference, “Learning Cities in a Knowledge-based Society”, Milan, October 9th-11th.

(2009), Ranci C. (a cura di), Milano e le città d’Europa tra competitività e disuguaglianze, Milano: Maggioli Editore, Santarcangelo di Romagna.

(2010), Ranci C. (a cura di), Città nella rete globale. Competitività e disuguaglianze in sei città europee, Milano: Bruno Mondadori.

(2011), Ranci C., “Competitiveness and Social Cohesion in Western European Cities”, Urban Studies, 1-16. Pre-print version

Working papers – convegni e seminari:

Cucca R.(2010), Social housing policy as a tool for Ethnic Integration in Europe. A critical view on the Italian experience (con A. Agustoni e A. Alietti), Migration and the Global City Conference 2010, Ryerson University, Toronto – Ontario, Canada, 29 Ottobre.

Cucca R. (2011), Unequal development: economic competitiveness and social inequalities in six European cities, Urban Affairs Association 41st Annual Meeting, Reclaiming the City:  Building a Just and Sustainable Future, New Orleans, USA, 18 marzo. Scarica il paper

Cucca R. (2011), Patterns of ethnic segregation in western contemporary cities. Milan, Copenhagen and Toronto, X SSSP Conference (Society for the study of social problems), ASA, American sociological Association, Las Vegas, Roberta, 19 agosto 2011.

Ranci C. (2011), Social cohesion and economic competitiveness in six global European cities, Annual RC21 Conference 2011, The struggle to belong. Dealing with diversity in 21st century urban settings, Amsterdam (The Netherlands), July 7-9.  Scarica il paper

Torri R. (2011), Emerging Residential Patterns and the Urban Regions. New spatial divisions? A comparison between six European Cities, Eura Conference 2011: The City without Limits”, Copenhagen, June 23th – 25th  http://eura2011.org

Iniziative promosse dal laboratorio:

2009-10 The spatial construction of social Inequalities, ciclo di seminari promosso dal LPS. Scarica la Locandina (Inequalities_Seminars 2009-10)