Springboard, not roadblock: Discourse analysis of Facebook groups suggests that ethnic neighbourhoods in European cities might jump-start immigrants’ integration

The age of migration finds its physical manifestation in the immigrant neighbourhoods of European cities. These ‘ethnic enclaves’ have received much attention from the public, as well as policy makers. Conventional wisdom holds that policies are required to confront such concentrations. Several European countries have implemented measures to achieve a spatial balance – be it through settlement bans or allocation quotas – in the name of fostering immigrants’ integration. However, the scholarly verdict on the relationship between segregation and integration is still pending. This article aims to contribute a novel approach, namely discourse analysis of immigrants’ Facebook groups. To this end, it first establishes the level of segregation in six cities (three in Germany and three in England) using data held by municipal archives. Second, it scrutinises 119 Facebook groups of Pakistanis and Turks in these cities, with a total of 2665 posts. This exploratory analysis suggests that desegregation might be causative for downwards assimilation and transnationalism, whereas ethnic enclaves might provide the basis for a pluralist mode of integration. Therefore, it argues for a re-evaluation of the suitability of dispersal policies for shaping the transformation of ever more European cities into multi-ethnic metropolises.

Decentralised development policy: A comparative study on local development interventions through municipalities in Sweden

This article investigates how the international wave of decentralisation of development policy, promoted through ideals of place-based policy, becomes practice through development interventions made by municipalities in Sweden. Based on an extensive empirical study across Swedish municipalities, the article contributes with knowledge about how the decentralisation of development policies is formed through a combination of shared and relatively heterodox conditions for development interventions across the different categories of municipalities: cities, towns and rural settlements. The results describe the varying scope of local development interventions and how decentralisation involves differentiating the involvement of municipalities into vertical and horizontal relations within the planning sector. The article’s findings about the variations in local development interventions across the different categories of municipalities contribute to the debate within geography on the varying capacities of different geographical formations to mobilise for bottom-up development, leading to the weaker regions remaining weak. The results of this article also illustrate the importance of reflecting upon how particular national planning systems shape the implications of the general international trend towards the decentralisation of local development policy.

Policy action for green restructuring in specialized industrial regions

Combining insights from evolutionary economic geography and socio-technical transition studies, this article provides a conceptual framework and a theory-informed empirical analysis of policy dimensions for regional green restructuring. The combination of these two perspectives allows the application and confrontation of analytical concepts with the particularities of regions, with a specific focus on the role of policy to ensure directionality. Empirically our discussion is illustrated by a case study of Western Norway, a specialized industrial region. We focus on the role of policy for the development of new green technology pathways within this region. We observe that different industry transition pathways within a region are influenced by various combinations of policy action, and that policy for regional green restructuring includes complex policy mixes initiated at different levels of governance. Our framework provides a suitable scheme for assessing the role of policy for green restructuring in regions.

‘The countryside starts here’: How the urban-rural divide continues to matter in post-urban Flanders

Contemporary scholarship has critically interrogated categorical distinctions of urban and rural settlement types, shifting attention to processes of urbanisation instead. Yet, in some cases, the urban-rural dichotomy still proves an indispensable category to understand the governance of urbanisation. In this article, we explore this apparent contradiction: why is it that a distinction which is clearly inadequate in capturing the actual reality of urbanisation in post-urban regions still strongly informs the way a variety of actors involved in spatial planning think and act? This question is explored through an in-depth qualitative study of spatial governance in the fragmented post-urban settlement structure of Flanders, Belgium. Central to the study is the spatial governance instrument of demarcating ‘urban areas’, which is based on a strict urban-rural dichotomy in an attempt to counter sprawl. Through its implementation in the agglomerations of Antwerp and Mechelen, we show how this distinction tends to activate and reproduce a morally charged symbolic urban-rural divide. Combined with anti-urban identities and interests the distinction is instrumentalised in strategic actions of politicians and residents to undermine the instrument’s effectiveness. We conclude that arguments about the need for ‘new epistemologies of the urban’ should take the symbolic power of the urban-rural dichotomy seriously, as declaring these categories obsolete does not in itself lead to their disappearance.

The benefits of being a multi-capital: The economic impact of the international and European institutions and interest groups

Brussels is known worldwide for hosting (most of) the European institutions as well as several other international organisations like North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Besides the symbolic political value, their presence has an economic impact because of their administrative activities and staff remunerations. Estimating the economic impact poses two main challenges. First, the supranational nature of these organisations makes it challenging to quantify the size of these institutions and related bodies because country-based statistical systems hardly account for transnational organisations. Second, as these institutions and organisations mainly rely on taxpayers’ funding, policymakers need transparent estimates to assess the implications of their decisions as well as for a matter of accountability. For these purposes, a meticulous data collection is carried out, and transparent assumptions are used to estimate the local economic multiplier effect of these activities accounting for operational expenditures, employees’ consumption as well as (Belgian) taxes and saving. The results show that the economic impact for the Brussels-Capital Region lies between 23% and 26% of regional turnover and 19% and 20% of employment, while interregional spillovers are estimated being around 1.5% to 1.7% of regional turnover and 0.6% to 0.7% of employment for both Flemish and Walloon regions.

Beyond renovation: Addressing Europe’s long housing crisis in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

This commentary reflects on the potential of European Union institutions to address the continent’s crisis of housing affordability, which was well underway before the COVID-19 pandemic and has been exacerbated in its wake. Despite having no direct competencies in housing policy, European Union norms and policies shape housing conditions in significant ways. The greater level of public spending on housing renovation enabled by the 2021–2027 multiannual financial framework and NextGeneration European Union funding signals a welcome shift away from austerity. However, investment alone is not enough to advance the right to housing and may even reinforce existing inequalities. Plans like the Renovation Wave and the Affordable Housing Initiative must strive not only for climate neutrality but also for housing cost and tenure neutrality. Beyond pandemic recovery plans, this commentary argues that a more thorough departure from the market-based approach underlying the European Union’s institutionality is needed to tackle the roots of the current housing problematic.

Multiple geographies of precarity: Accommodation policies for asylum seekers in metropolitan Athens, Greece

Since early 2016, in the context of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’, a series of accommodation policies for asylum seekers were developed in Greece under the regime of ‘emergency’, consisting of two pillars: On the one hand, the ‘campisation’ of accommodation in the mainland and, on the other hand, urban apartments. This article sheds light on the uneven geographies of accommodation policies for asylum seekers in metropolitan Athens, by investigating in a complementary way the aforementioned distinct – yet intertwined – types of accommodation. Through the lens of ‘precarity of place’, it argues that asylum accommodation in Athens reproduces multiple geographies of precarity through (a) filtering mechanisms based mainly on vulnerability categorisations, (b) socio-spatial isolation and segregation, and (c) a no-choice basis and extensive control of everyday habitation. The article explores the impact of the above on the everyday lives, socio-spatial relationships, and processes of belonging of asylum seekers, as well as on how they experience – and sometimes contest – precarity of place. The research, conducted in metropolitan Athens, is based on a mixed-methods approach that includes critical policy analysis and interviews with asylum seekers accommodated in camps and apartments, and representatives of institutional actors involved in the accommodation sector.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic upon employment and inequality in the Mediterranean EU: An early look from a Labour Geography perspective

COVID-19 is a global pandemic but has a particular geography to it, differentially affecting people and places. Here we explore its impact upon labour markets in the Mediterranean European Union (EU) countries. Our analysis is part of a collective work-in-progress monitoring the pandemic’s effects upon workers since early March 2020. First we note that there is a geographical political economy to pandemics. We then scrutinise the current pandemic’s spatiality and impact upon Mediterranean EU workers. Following this, we discuss how workers are responding to the pandemic and how this is remaking the geography of employment. As such, our paper represents a contribution to the ongoing development of the Labour Geography literature. Overall, we stress that workers face a variety of choices in responding to the pandemic, choices which are, of course, shaped by the geographical contexts within which workers find themselves. In deciding whether and how to act, they are playing proactive roles in shaping COVID-19’s impact upon the geography of employment and emerging labour landscapes.

Socio-spatial transformations at the urban fringes of Rome: Unfolding suburbanisms in Fiano Romano

Today, suburbs and urban fringes are pivotal places for understanding contemporary urban transformations because the majority of the world’s urban population live in suburbs. Suburbanization (i.e. the process of combining the non-centric population, economic growth, and spatial expansion) and suburbanisms (suburban ways of living) are key concepts for observing these transformations, framed under the umbrella of the post-suburban theoretical framework. This paper relies on a post-suburban standpoint as it enables the complexity of the diverse transformations at the urban edges to be addressed. On such basis, this paper discusses the outcomes of a qualitative case study conducted on the most recently built neighbourhood of Fiano Romano, a suburb of Rome that has faced a number of socio-spatial transformations over the past two decades. The study illustrates the diverse complexities related to the provision of welfare services and public amenities such as water and social infrastructures. In so doing, the article unfolds the shape of a ‘new suburbia’ characterized by emerging socio-spatial changes that lie in processes of peripheralization, which characterize many contemporary post-Fordist suburban areas, especially at the present time of the coronavirus crisis. The article points out the centrality of suburban ways of living in studying issues involving both spatial planning and governance of welfare. Furthermore, the article highlights the idea that new inequalities and deprivations are taking place in diverse suburban areas, and that such aspects deserve further governance agendas able to meet the suburban social demands that differ from traditional urban vulnerabilities.

Greening of regional industrial paths and the role of sectoral characteristics: A study of the maritime and petroleum sectors in an Arctic region

Recent studies on regional industrial path development call for new perspectives and studies of how a region’s endogenous and exogenous processes (e.g. networks, capital, knowledge) influence its industries, and more recently, the greening of those industries. To this end, recent research has focused on increasing our understanding of the roles of firm and non-firm agency and multi-scalar dynamics (e.g. value chains, national and global regulations). However, the literature has naturally tended to focus more on territorial dynamics (e.g. agglomerations, clusters, regional innovation systems) than on the role of sectoral characteristics to explain regional industrial path development and regional industry greening. To address this, we have developed a framework built on the sectoral innovation systems literature to provide a better explanation of the role of sectoral characteristics in regional industrial path development. We argue herein that the greening of regional industrial paths can be strongly influenced by sectoral characteristics (e.g. standards, markets, technological solutions, laws, regulations), and not merely by territorial characteristics. Our theory-based argument is practically exemplified by an investigation of how a new green technology, onshore power supply, has influenced the greening of two industries (i.e. maritime and petroleum) in the rural Arctic region of northern Norway.