European Urban and Regional Studies is planning a special issue on ‘Diversity, Inequality and Urban Change’

EURS special issue: ‘Diversity, inequality and urban change’

‘Diversity’ is a powerful, and, yet, abstract ideal, for urban development and planning. In many European cities diversity policies have been introduced with the aim of  increasing ethnic and social mix in neighbourhoods in order to advance the integration of ethnic minorities and accommodate the arrival of new migrants. Nonetheless, recent evidence suggests that increasing ethnic diversity can be coincident with increasing levels of poverty and deprivation. In effect, in the context of politico-economic transformations, cultural and social differences intersect, and in the process, produce new landscapes of urban inequalities.

Acknowledging that diversity develops through complex paths in different contexts, the main purpose of the EURS special issue is to bring together and compare empirical evidence about the processes and policies generating ethnic and social residential mix in European cities, and, to critically assess their impact on the living conditions and development prospects of deprived populations and areas.

Papers can focus on one or more of the following areas:

a) Different conceptualisations of diversity, social cohesion and integration in urban and social policies. Discourse and practice discrepancies;  the varied successes and failures of local governance in resolving tensions between diversity and social cohesion; displacements and hidden exclusions in urban regeneration and neighbourhood and community development across Europe.

b) Changes in land-housing systems, interrelationships between ethnic and social class mix and their effects on the living conditions and opportunities of disadvantaged populations.

c) Shifts in theoretical traditions relating to migration, marginality and segregation, and analysis of the differential effects of social and ethnic diversity on social cohesion and urban change.

d) The role of transnational migration in producing new relational spaces and mediating inequalities; how migrant settlements and networks contribute to shaping wider processes of urban change, including both inner city transformations and suburban and outer diversification.

Title and abstracts are to be sent to Dr Vassilis Arapoglou This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , by January 15, 2010.  A special session at the 8th EURS Conference in Vienna: 15-17 September 2010 is intended as a venue for discussion of accepted papers. NB. Submission of abstracts and acceptance of papers is not conditional upon conference attendance.