Urban Movements and the Challenges of the European City
The tensions experienced by European societies in the early twenty-first century have primarily emerged from urban areas. Cities provide the stage for technological innovation and economic transformation, but also the context in which increased inequality
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Urban Movements and the Challenges of the European City Oriol Nel·lo
2.1 Social Crisis, Urban Crisis The tensions experienced by European societies in the early twenty-first century have primarily emerged from urban areas. Cities provide the stage for technological innovation and economic transformation, but also the context in which increased inequality and poverty are most keenly felt. This is hardly surprising, as the urbanization of society has been one of the defining features of contemporary European history. This process – marked by a drive to concentrate populations and activities, followed by an expansion of urban networks and lifestyles – has shaped and consolidated the functional and economic preeminence of cities throughout the European territory (Lefebvre 1970; Brenner 2014). It is understandable, therefore, that the social and political crises which are engulfing Europe coincide with a profound urban crisis. In fact, both these crises are different expressions of a single underlying transformation: the transition of contemporary capitalist societies to hitherto unknown futures. Generally speaking, this transition is characterized by growing economic instability, automatization of work, struggles for natural resources, exacerbation of social inequalities, and the dangers of climate change (Streeck 2014; Frase 2014). In the urban arena, these dynamics correspond with a crisis in the traditional form of the city and configuration of global urban networks, as well as profound internal social divisions and difficulties for urban governance. In this context, the current institutional frameworks show signs of exhaustion. In the first decades of this century, many European countries have witnessed disruptive political attitudes and electoral behavior that express both the dissatisfaction and
O. Nel·lo (*) Geography Department, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Fregolent, O. Nel·lo (eds.), Social Movements and Public Policies in Southern European Cities, Urban and Landscape Perspectives 21, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52754-9_2
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fears of large sectors of the population. This is a relatively new phenomenon, and it is giving rise to extremely varied social practices and political manifestations. On the one hand, self-organization initiatives have emerged to palliate the effects of the crisis and attempt to supply underprivileged citizens with access to goods and services that both the State and the market are failing to provide (Moulaert 2013). On the other hand, mass movements of discontent have sprung up, with a variety of political expressions, ranging from radical anti-capitalism to an intensification of nationalism, racism, and xenophobia (Nel·lo 2015). In spatial terms, these movements and social practices are distinguished by their eminently urban character. The most obvious expression of this is the proliferation within cities of what Tarrow (1998) has called “disruptive political practic
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