The right to the city: new challenges, new issues - Vadstena, 11-15 October 2008 11-10-2008 Introduction As it has been largely documented, modern states are facing political
rescaling processes in which the roles and functions of the different levels of
government are evolving. Thus city-regions are becoming central economic and
political territories in which a new division of labour is occurring between the
states and the local authorities. This ESF Research Conference provides the
opportunity for the world's leading scientists and other participants, including
young researchers, to meet informally for discussions at the highest level on
the most recent developments in their fields of research.
Description
City-regions are becoming central economic and political territories in which
a new division of labour is occurring between the states and the local
authorities. This tendency has been particularly analysed by the economic
literature but also by geography, sociology and political science. At the same
time, there is a large literature on the general tendency towards the
pluralization of urban decision systems in different institutional, cultural,
political and economic contexts. To say it briefly, these processes (i.e.
political rescaling and participative democracy at local level) generate a new
“right to the city”: the capacity to influence the agendas of urban public
institutions by using “appropriate” demands based on the formulation of rights
recognized as legitimate by urban institutions. The on-going process of the
constitution of an “urban citizenship” involves a set of social demands which
are, by definition, contradictory in that sense that the “right to the city”
must be linked to the social groups and classes using it in order to organize
themselves, to generate collective identity and collective action. The work
program of the Conference addresses a number of empirical subjects, all vectors
of a “right to the city”. Its objective is to compare the effects of these
dynamics on the content of urban policies and on the transformation of
citizenship regimes.
Programme Location Register Links For more information or to register, please visit the conference websiteFiles back |


