European Cities

TLDR

European cities are expanding, benefiting from European integration and globalization, yet they confront economic shifts, social inequality, poverty, and new constraints. The book investigates how EU integration transforms nation‑states and affects cities, local societies, and governments, and asks whether Europeans will create a new institutionalized, territorialized capitalism with medium‑sized cities as key actors. It analyzes EU examples to assess how state transformation impacts urban governance and local societies. The study finds that new urban governance modes are emerging, cities are becoming collective actors in European governance, many still function as compromise and representation of diverse interests, and that without a new institutionalized capitalism, changing scales could profoundly reshape the European urban model.

Abstract

European cities are on the rise, and are taking advantage of the opportunities of the European integration and globalization processes. But they also face economic changes, social inequalities, poverty, and a new set of constraints. Taking examples through the European Union, this book explores the impact of the transformation of the nation states on cities and the change of local societies and local governments. It argues that new modes of urban governance are emerging, and that cities are becoming collective actors within European governance. It shows why and how the bulk of European cities still appear to be original forms of compromise, aggregation, representation of diverse interests, and culture. Different modes of governance are gradually being structured in most middle-sized European cities despite processes of social exclusion segregation accompanied by the increased mobility of some citizens. Are Europeans going to invent a new form of institutionalized and territorialized capitalism, of which medium-sized European cities will be one of the pillars and one of the actors? Failing that, the effects of changing scales could be expressed as profound transformations of the European urban model.