F1517 City and Immigration
Ostanel Elena
In and beyond Europe today we are witnessing a strengthening of structural spatial divisions within city neighbourhoods, with increased inequality and sharper lines of division (Marcuse; van Kempen, 2000; Balbo, 2014). Neighbourhoods are increasingly hyperdiverse (Tasan-Koc et al, 2014): they are more diverse in socio-economic, social and ethnic terms, but many differences also exist in lifestyles, attitudes and activities. Continuing immigration and increasing socio-economic and ethnic concentration in neighbourhoods challenge social cohesion in local societies worldwide (Hulchanski, 2009). In Europe, high rates of unemployment, austerity and poverty make hyperdiverse neighbourhoods and local societies increasingly complex and contested. All low-income segments of society are affected, immigrants especially, who can only rarely rely on solid community networks. This situation reinforces the polarisation of urban space, and ethnic concentration in neighbourhoods overlaps with situations of social exclusion and deprivation.
Against this backdrop, we witness a stalled urban regeneration investment across many European cities and disadvantaged neighbourhoods (Arapoglou, 2012). Regeneration budgets and the ‘property-led’ model are beleaguered, with finance enormously constrained outside core economic areas following the 2007 financial crisis; more importantly, dissimilar top-down revitalisation strategies have resulted in new urban dynamics and urban tensions (Flint and Raco, 2012), gentrification processes (Lees, 2008) and social exclusion.
In Europe and outside, urban neighbourhoods have become a privileged units of observation and policy intervention. In some cases area-based initiatives have been be key to producing social cohesion, and transforming power relations and socio-spatial inequalities in hyperdiverse neighbourhoods (Oosterlynck et al, 2013). Scholars have recognised that this occurs particularly when neighbourhoods are set within wider city and regional contexts, and that macro-economic forces may exaggerate neighbourhood problems (Atkinson and Kintrea, 2001). So conceived area-based initiatives can push towards the development of innovative assets of multilevel governance for urban revitalization and territorial development (Vicari and Moulaert, 2009) overcoming the ineffectiveness of ‘solo’ local policies. To this extent, territorial development is conceived as a grounded process in ‘spatialised’ communities, taking inequality into account in the spatial and social distribution of disadvantage.
The course will provide the students with the possibility of exploring different case studies in Europe where deprived neighborhoods have been rehabilitated by bottom-up innovative social initiatives of urban regeneration and territorial development. Beside theoretical lessons on exploring the more relevant literature on the impact of migration at city level, the students will acquire practical competences on how hyperdiverse neighborhoods can become more social cohesive spaces in the city of difference. To do this the most relevant literature on policy analysis will be explored.
Learning outcomes of the course
- Students will be made familiar with the most relevant international literature on the proposed topic. The literature will be based on a interdisciplinary perspective in order to provide students with a comprehensive overview of the topic.
- Students will profit from data and evidence from case-study researches from Italy (Venice, Padua, Turin) and other member countries of the VIU consortium: Germany (Berlin), Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Canada (Toronto). In this way students will be put in touch with practices implemented in different cities worldwide and will be trained in comparative perspectives of research.
- Students will profit from specific lessons given by invited national and international expert speakers profiting from the SSIIM Unesco Chair’s and IUAV’s networks and from some of the tutor's own networks (see CV). In this way students will benefit from the specific expertise and experiences of other disciplinary domains.
- Students will acquire specific practical skills thanks to field trips to visit some interesting projects on the topic. From these field trips students will develop new knowledge on how local welfare practices are formulated and implemented at local level.
Students demonstrating a particular interest in the course’s themes may be offered the opportunity to be tutored in their future research work (i.e. for a master or PhD thesis) by the research team of the SSIIM Unesco Chair on the Social and Spatial Inclusion of International Migrants – Urban Policies and practices” running since 2008 at Università Iuav di Venezia (http://www.unescochair-iuav.it).
Evaluation
Readings