articles by roberta cucca
This study examines school segregation in Oslo, a city with an egalitarian education system but s... more This study examines school segregation in Oslo, a city with an egalitarian education system but significant residential divides. Using individual-level data from 2008-2009 and 2018-2019, it analyses how school choice shapes segregation in primary public schools. While residential patterns remain the key driver, school choice introduces new complexities. At the urban scale, school segregation decreases due to higher levels of school choice among families with immigrant backgrounds. However, at the neighbourhood level, many schools affected by opting out see increased ethnic and socioeconomic segregation.
Urban Planning, 2023
While global urban development is increasingly oriented towards strategies to facilitate green ur... more While global urban development is increasingly oriented towards strategies to facilitate green urbanism, potential community trade-offs are largely overlooked. This article presents the findings of a quantitative and qualitative meta-analysis of the current literature on green gentrification (the process leading the implementation of an environmental planning agenda displacing or excluding the most economically vulnerable population) in connection with climate change adaptation and mitigation across the globe. Based on specific keywords, we selected the recorded entry of 212 articles from Scopus covering the period 1977-2021. Our review focused on the historical and geographical development of the literature on urban greening and gentrification. The analysis shows that the concept of green gentrification has strong roots within the environmental justice debate in the US. In terms of intervention, most studies focused on urban parks and trees and were primarily oriented towards restoration. However, debates around the role of green facades, green roofs, or blue infrastructure (such as ponds and rivers) and other nature-based solutions as a driver for green gentrification are few and far between. Finally, we also identified a strong gap between the observation of green gentrification and potential countermeasures that respond to it. Most studies suggest that the existence of a stronger collaborative planning process within the affected communities may overcome the challenge of green gentrification. Based on our results, we identify several gaps and new research directions to design a green and just city.
Urban Affair Review, 2021
This article investigates how the policy capacity of urban governments in Europe to deal with the... more This article investigates how the policy capacity of urban governments in Europe to deal with the social challenges caused by the 2008-2009 financial crisis, has been strongly shaped by the institutional multi-level governance (MLG) settings in which cities were embedded. We consider the financial crisis as an important 'stress test' for urban policy. Urban governments faced a highly complex, trilemmatic situation: they faced not only growing social and economic problems at the local level, but also a process of devolution of institutional responsibility from central to local governments, and important cuts in central funding. Our analysis is based on an empirical investigation carried out between 2009 and 2016 in six major European cities: Barcelona, Copenhagen, Lyon, Manchester, Milan, and Munich. What clearly emerges from the research is that European cities may still show a certain capacity to innovate and govern economic changes and social challenges only if supported by an enabling MLG system.
Local Environment, 2021
Limiting socio-spatial inequalities can be considered a decisive goal for a degrowth agenda. At d... more Limiting socio-spatial inequalities can be considered a decisive goal for a degrowth agenda. At different territorial scales, planning and housing policies have been crucial to achieve this goal, in terms of both reaching high environmental standards and framing the social reproduction of inequality. This article focuses on the implications, in terms of socio-spatial inequalities, of innovative housing solutions oriented to a degrowth agenda. It aims to answer to the following research questions: what are the socio-spatial implications of the most common innovative housing solutions that can best fulfil the degrowth principles/vision? How is it possible to ensure socio-spatial justice in housing projects inspired by a degrowth narrative? By analysing two cases of housing innovation in Vienna (qualitative analysis), we argue that many innovative housing projects, characterised by a degrowth narrative when it comes to the development of ecological and social practises, today show high level of elitism reproducing socio-spatial inequalities. However, we also argue that the role of local authorities can play a central role in up-scaling these housing innovations by ensuring higher level of inclusiveness.
Urban Planning, 2020
Urban densification has become a desirable development strategy in several cities. In addition to... more Urban densification has become a desirable development strategy in several cities. In addition to its environmental benefits , densification is also advocated as able to promote conditions for better coexistence and social mix. Studies have shed light on the likelihood of densification affecting residential patterns, but no attention has been paid so far to understanding the possible consequences on school segregation dynamics. As residential and school population composition are strongly intertwined, we argue that densification patterns may be associated with specific dynamics in school segregation. This study may thus pave the way to a better understanding of an understudied relationship. Using Oslo as a case study, we investigate how urban densification, here implemented through a neoliberal planning approach, can be associated with different forms of gentrification and new social divisions that are somewhat mirrored in the school segregation patterns of the city.
The article focuses on different uses of the concept of social mix and on emerging criticalities ... more The article focuses on different uses of the concept of social mix and on emerging criticalities of its use as a planning principle by discussing the results of empirical research on recent housing projects in Milan, Italy. Although the concept of social mix is generally represented as a tool to improve the living conditions of disadvantaged social groups, the praise for social mix in new housing projects may also be driven by the will of targeting the needs of specific medium–low income groups considered functional to urban growth, and by the increase of real estate values that it may provide. In urban contexts affected by a severe shortage of rental housing, social mix strategies may foster the exclusion of lowest-income groups from access to social housing and favour their segregation. Especially with reference to southern European cities, social mix risks becoming a catchword with paradoxical effects in local policy agendas and the topic of mixed communities becoming employed as a socio-political lever for developer-led, profit-making developments
This special issue aims at a better understanding of the process of ecological gentrification, de... more This special issue aims at a better understanding of the process of ecological gentrification, defined as new or intensified socio-spatial inequalities produced by urban greening agendas and environmental policies fostered at a local level.
This special issue aims to fill this gap in the theoretical debate as well as
in the empirical investigation, by combining case studies and literature review analysis, focusing on some contextual aspects that are helpful to understand how ecological gentrification has been developing in Europe. Two key issues are persistent in these analyses: the relevance of the effects of public policies and the territorial dimension of changes and challenges.
This article analyzes the tradeoffs between the environmental and social dimensions in sustainabl... more This article analyzes the tradeoffs between the environmental and social dimensions in sustainable mobility policies. We focus on the Italian context, where car dependency is a particularly prominent feature of the transportation system. During the past decade, many local administrations have promoted policies to foster more "sustainable mobility" as a way to manage congestion and reduce environmental pollution. However, these initiatives have often missed an important sustainability pillar: improving the accessibility of the most vulnerable to economic and social resources. This issue may have implications for social justice because access to mobility is an important dimension of inequality. A proposed framework identifies some possible tradeoffs related to sustainable mobility policies, concerning mediumto long-range mobility and short-range mobility. The article argues that, paradoxically, policies fostering mobility may lead to environmental pollution (e.g., low cost airlines), and that policies to contain the environmental impacts of mobility may harm social justice (e.g., environmental taxation) in the absence of strong promotion of collective transportation. Finally, we analyze possible solutions to reach sustainable accessibility.
The Italian system of professions is characterized by strong disparities between professionals re... more The Italian system of professions is characterized by strong disparities between professionals recognized by the state and non-regulated professions, dividing professionals in terms of protection from market and personal risks. As a consequence, the absence/presence of public regulation is not neutral, but has a direct impact on three factors: education and training, acknowledgement, and welfare integration.This article address this issue explaining the divergences between self-employed representatives of two professions (architects and management consultants), considered as idealtypical examples of those disparities. The investigation has confirmed strong cleavages in terms of education and welfare system access, but not in terms of acknowledgement, that still represents an issue for both the professionals considered. Furthermore, our analysis demonstrates that this fragility is partially balanced by a growing interest in self-organization, which acts as a convergent strategy for both regulated and non-regulated professionals in order to deal with increasing instability in the market and social vulnerability.
Mix sociale: da categoria analitica a strumento delle politiche? Una riflessione a partire dal caso milanese
Sviluppo e disuguaglianze. Barcellona, Copenhagen, Lione e Monaco a confronto
Books by roberta cucca
Companion to Urban and Regional Studies, 2021
European cities have attracted considerable theoretical and empirical attention since Max Weber (... more European cities have attracted considerable theoretical and empirical attention since Max Weber (1978 [1921]) identified the requisite conditions for the development of capitalism in medieval occidental cities. Scholars from different disciplines have attempted to highlight their distinctive characteristics and trace their development and changing nature. From this perspective, the study of the European city becomes a peculiar way of looking into the broader role of cities in the development of specific social, political, and economic outcomes. In fact, the complex layering of social, economic, political, and cultural history does not allow for identifying one European city model (Pinol et al., 2003), rather it led scholars to identify a common heritage, paralleled by differentiating factors. Much of the distinctiveness of European cities, therefore, depends on how much we need to zoom out from particular historical cities to find some common denominators. In this exercise, the role of nation-states in influencing European cities' models becomes evident. This is especially evident given their ability to define specific jurisdictions-since the Treaty of Westphalia (1648)and their capacity for allocating resources through the welfare state, particularly since the second half of the nineteenth century. In order to describe the commonalities and distinctive characteristics of European cities, this chapter is divided into five sections. The first section provides a brief history of European cities, showing the importance of disentangling the complex historical layering of urban Europe and the way it has contributed to the structure of contemporary European cities. Building on this historical account, the second section highlights the ways in which scholars used specific analytical dimensions as unifying factors to portray a 6
Unequal cities in Europe: the challenge of post-industrial transition in times of austerity, Edited by Roberta Cucca and Costanzo Ranci, Routledge,
The so-called European urban model is today under strong pressure due to the impact of the curren... more The so-called European urban model is today under strong pressure due to the impact of the current crisis and of austerity policies adopted in reaction to it. The crisis, in fact, has revealed
a long-run trend of disconnection between economic growth and social cohesion already at work for many years. Whilst on the one hand the struggle for competitiveness has induced many European cities to invest in their attractiveness and economic performance, on the other, national expenditure cuts and dominant neo-liberal paradigms have led many European cities to retrench public intervention aimed at preserving some levels of social protection and inclusion.
The book aims to describe these tensions and discuss their implications for urban policy. It is based on research carried out in six large European cities (the second largest cities in their own countries with the exception of Copenhagen) representative of the variety of welfare regimes in Western Europe: Barcelona, Copenhagen, Lyon, Manchester, Milan, and Munich.
Two aspects will be addressed.
A) The increasing spatial inequalities consequent on urban renewal, gentrification processes and development strategies in the housing market. Most of the cities have undergone gentrification and changes in the resident population as consequences of these trends. Urban policies have ambiguously supported both real estate developments in order to promote attractiveness and measures to foster housing affordability and prevent the displacement/impoverishment of the weakest social groups.
B) The economic development of cities before the crisis was accompanied by increasing demand for temporary, unstable jobs, and this provoked an increasing dualization of local labour
markets. Some cities have reacted to these trends, now greatly exacerbated by the current crisis, by promoting strategies of protection/promotion of jobs of “good quality”.
The book aims to answer some key questions : What are the main challenges that cities are facing to develop competitiveness and preserve social cohesion? What are the main social impacts of the economic and social trends ongoing in local labour markets and housing sectors? What social groups are most affected by these trends, and what are the impacts on social and spatial inequalities? How have these problems been defined in the public discourse in these cities? To what extent have the issues of social justice and economic competitiveness been combined in local political agendas? What have been the main institutional factors influencing the specific ways in which cities have dealt with these issues? What have been the impacts of the current crisis and what have been the reactions at city level? What is still the influence exerted by national policies and multilevel institutional settings?
Contributors:
Hans Thor Andersen is director of research at Danish Building Research Institute, Aalborg University, Denmark.
Irina Auernhammer graduated in architecture from the University of Applied Sciences in Nuremberg and from the University of Stuttgart. She is co-founder of the studio AWA Auernhammer Wohlrab Architektur in Munich.
Ana Belén Cano Hila is adjunct lecturer at University of Barcelona. She holds a PhD in Sociology, University of Barcelona.
Rémi Dormois, Engineer and PhD in political science, is civil servant for the French Minister of Sustainable development in a local state administration
Deborah Galimberti is PhD student in political science at Triangle UMR 5206 research centre and contractual teacher (ATER) at Sciences Po Lyon
Marisol Garcia is professor of Sociology at the University of Barcelona. She is Local coordinator for the U.B. Faculty of Economics and Business of the European PhD in Socio-economic and Statistical Studies (SESS)
Alan Harding is the Director of the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy and Practice at the University of Liverpool
Nicola Headlam is Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy and Practice at the University of Liverpool
Agostino Petrillo is Assistant Professor of Urban Sociology at the Polytechnic University of Milan.
Gilles Pinson is Professor of Political Sciences in Sciences Po Bordeaux and researcher at the Emile Durkheim Research Centre.
Marc Pradel is Assistant professor at the Department of sociological theory, University of Barcelona
Alain Thierstein, is a Full professor for spatial and territorial development at the Munich University of Technology, department of architecture
Rossana Torri, M.A. in Architecture and Ph.D. in Sociology, is post-doc fellow at IUAV, University of Venice. She collaborates since 2001 with the Social Policy Lab at the Polytechnic of Milan, where she also teaches Contemporary City Analysis.
Papers by roberta cucca
The ‘European City’ at the Crossroads: Four Analytical Elements for Understanding Convergence and Differentiation
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Nov 20, 2023
This theoretical contribution explores the use of four analytical elements to understand European... more This theoretical contribution explores the use of four analytical elements to understand European cities' commonalities and distinctive characteristics in the face of the challenges presented by structural global changes and supra-national governance mechanisms: sovereignty, policy, politics, context. The article shows how institutional and contextual opportunities mediate globalization's repercussions to varying degrees at the urban level, according to national and regional dynamics and institutional frameworks as well as urban governance structures. Additionally, the article argues that the local policy capacity of cities and their ability to innovate and deal with new social challenges are shaped by the interplay among the four specific elements mentioned before.
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 2023
This theoretical contribution explores the use of four analytical elements to understand European... more This theoretical contribution explores the use of four analytical elements to understand European cities' commonalities and distinctive characteristics in the face of the challenges presented by structural global changes and supra-national governance mechanisms: sovereignty, policy, politics, context. The article shows how institutional and contextual opportunities mediate globalization's repercussions to varying degrees at the urban level, according to national and regional dynamics and institutional frameworks as well as urban governance structures. Additionally, the article argues that the local policy capacity of cities and their ability to innovate and deal with new social challenges are shaped by the interplay among the four specific elements mentioned before.
Urban Planning
While global urban development is increasingly oriented towards strategies to facilitate green ur... more While global urban development is increasingly oriented towards strategies to facilitate green urbanism, potential community trade-offs are largely overlooked. This article presents the findings of a quantitative and qualitative meta-analysis of the current literature on green gentrification (the process leading the implementation of an environmental planning agenda displacing or excluding the most economically vulnerable population) in connection with climate change adaptation and mitigation across the globe. Based on specific keywords, we selected the recorded entry of 212 articles from Scopus covering the period 1977–2021. Our review focused on the historical and geographical development of the literature on urban greening and gentrification. The analysis shows that the concept of green gentrification has strong roots within the environmental justice debate in the US. In terms of intervention, most studies focused on urban parks and trees and were primarily oriented towards resto...
Female labour market participation and early child education and care services. A comparative perspective on the Bologna model in transition
Urban Planning
The Covid-19 pandemic and energy, climate, and demographic crises have shown how cities are vulne... more The Covid-19 pandemic and energy, climate, and demographic crises have shown how cities are vulnerable to these impacts and how the access to green and blue spaces has become highly relevant to people. One strategy that we can observe is the strong focus on the resilience discourse, meaning implementing more green and blue spaces in urban areas, such as at previous brownfield quarters. However, social justice implications of urban greening have been overlooked for a long time. The implementation of strategies to improve the quality and availability of the green and blue infrastructures may indeed have negative outcomes as far as housing accessibility is concerned by trigging gentrification processes. Issues related to environmental justice and socio-spatial justice are increasing in contemporary cities and call for a better understanding of the global and local mechanisms of production and reproduction of environmental and spatial inequalities. This thematic issue includes eleven ar...
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articles by roberta cucca
This special issue aims to fill this gap in the theoretical debate as well as
in the empirical investigation, by combining case studies and literature review analysis, focusing on some contextual aspects that are helpful to understand how ecological gentrification has been developing in Europe. Two key issues are persistent in these analyses: the relevance of the effects of public policies and the territorial dimension of changes and challenges.
Books by roberta cucca
a long-run trend of disconnection between economic growth and social cohesion already at work for many years. Whilst on the one hand the struggle for competitiveness has induced many European cities to invest in their attractiveness and economic performance, on the other, national expenditure cuts and dominant neo-liberal paradigms have led many European cities to retrench public intervention aimed at preserving some levels of social protection and inclusion.
The book aims to describe these tensions and discuss their implications for urban policy. It is based on research carried out in six large European cities (the second largest cities in their own countries with the exception of Copenhagen) representative of the variety of welfare regimes in Western Europe: Barcelona, Copenhagen, Lyon, Manchester, Milan, and Munich.
Two aspects will be addressed.
A) The increasing spatial inequalities consequent on urban renewal, gentrification processes and development strategies in the housing market. Most of the cities have undergone gentrification and changes in the resident population as consequences of these trends. Urban policies have ambiguously supported both real estate developments in order to promote attractiveness and measures to foster housing affordability and prevent the displacement/impoverishment of the weakest social groups.
B) The economic development of cities before the crisis was accompanied by increasing demand for temporary, unstable jobs, and this provoked an increasing dualization of local labour
markets. Some cities have reacted to these trends, now greatly exacerbated by the current crisis, by promoting strategies of protection/promotion of jobs of “good quality”.
The book aims to answer some key questions : What are the main challenges that cities are facing to develop competitiveness and preserve social cohesion? What are the main social impacts of the economic and social trends ongoing in local labour markets and housing sectors? What social groups are most affected by these trends, and what are the impacts on social and spatial inequalities? How have these problems been defined in the public discourse in these cities? To what extent have the issues of social justice and economic competitiveness been combined in local political agendas? What have been the main institutional factors influencing the specific ways in which cities have dealt with these issues? What have been the impacts of the current crisis and what have been the reactions at city level? What is still the influence exerted by national policies and multilevel institutional settings?
Contributors:
Hans Thor Andersen is director of research at Danish Building Research Institute, Aalborg University, Denmark.
Irina Auernhammer graduated in architecture from the University of Applied Sciences in Nuremberg and from the University of Stuttgart. She is co-founder of the studio AWA Auernhammer Wohlrab Architektur in Munich.
Ana Belén Cano Hila is adjunct lecturer at University of Barcelona. She holds a PhD in Sociology, University of Barcelona.
Rémi Dormois, Engineer and PhD in political science, is civil servant for the French Minister of Sustainable development in a local state administration
Deborah Galimberti is PhD student in political science at Triangle UMR 5206 research centre and contractual teacher (ATER) at Sciences Po Lyon
Marisol Garcia is professor of Sociology at the University of Barcelona. She is Local coordinator for the U.B. Faculty of Economics and Business of the European PhD in Socio-economic and Statistical Studies (SESS)
Alan Harding is the Director of the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy and Practice at the University of Liverpool
Nicola Headlam is Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy and Practice at the University of Liverpool
Agostino Petrillo is Assistant Professor of Urban Sociology at the Polytechnic University of Milan.
Gilles Pinson is Professor of Political Sciences in Sciences Po Bordeaux and researcher at the Emile Durkheim Research Centre.
Marc Pradel is Assistant professor at the Department of sociological theory, University of Barcelona
Alain Thierstein, is a Full professor for spatial and territorial development at the Munich University of Technology, department of architecture
Rossana Torri, M.A. in Architecture and Ph.D. in Sociology, is post-doc fellow at IUAV, University of Venice. She collaborates since 2001 with the Social Policy Lab at the Polytechnic of Milan, where she also teaches Contemporary City Analysis.
Papers by roberta cucca