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Urban governance, social inclusion and sustainability. Towards a conceptual framework 1

titelblad

SOCIAL INCLUSION, URBAN GOVERNANCE AND SUSTAINABILITY

TOWARDS A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Jan Vranken, Pascal De Decker & Inge Van Nieuwenhuyze


UGIS UGIS is the acronym of the international research project "Urban Governance, Social Inclusion and Sustainability". The project is a part of Key Action 4 "City of Tomorrow and Cultural Heritage" from the programme "Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development" within the Fifth Framework Programme of the EU. It started in April 2000 and will last until March 2003.

Co-ordination

Jan Vranken Research Unit on Poverty, Social Exclusion and the City (OASeS) Department of Sociology and Social Policy University of Antwerpen Prinsstraat 13 B-2000 Antwerpen

Cases Partners

Flanders Pascal De Decker and Inge Van Nieuwenhuyze Denmark Hans Kristensen, Hans Skifter Andersen, Hans Thor Andersen, Jacob Norvig

Larsen, Birgitte Mazanti, Helle Norgaard France Claude Jacquier, Maurice Blanc Germany Jürgen Friedrichs, Carola Hommerich Hungary Ivan Tosics, Sandor Erdosi Italy Enzo Mingione, Michela Grana, Enriqua Morlicchio, Giampaolo Novulati Netherlands Ronald Van Kempen, Sako Musterd, Jack Burgers, Justin Beaumont, Karien

Dekkers, Thea Dukes, Richard Staring Spain Andres Walliser, Maria Bruquetas, Javier Moreno Sweden Roger Andersson, Ingemar Elander, Camilla Palander Further information, list of participants, addresses and publications: www.ufsia.ac.be/ugis

Antwerp, March 2002


SOCIAL INCLUSION, URBAN GOVERNANCE AND SUSTAINABILITY

TOWARDS A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

FOR THE UGIS RESEARCH PROJECT

JAN VRANKEN, PASCAL DE DECKER & INGE VAN NIEUWENHUYZE This document is the result of many discussions within the project group. We would like to thank (in alphabetic order): Hans Skifter Andersen, Hans Thor Andersen, Roger Andersson, Maurice Blanc, Jack Burgers, Thea Dukes, Sandor Erdosi, Jürgen Friedrichs, Claude Jacquier, Hans Kristensen, Jacob Norvig Larsen, Enzo Mingione, Sako Musterd, Helle Norgaard, Giampaolo Nuvolati, Camilla Palander, Richard Staring, Ivan Tosics and Inge Van Nieuwenhuyze. Special thanks go to Maria Bruquetas, Ingemar Elander, Javier Moreno, Andres Walliser and very special thanks to Ronald van Kempen.


Content

Introduction Chapter 1. The ‘coming out’ of urban governance

1. The changed context for urban policies 1.1. Globalisation and governance

1.1.1. On globalisation… 1.1.2. … and the growth of governance

1.2. The changing nature of the welfare state 1.2.1. The welfare state under pressure 1.2.2. … but differently according to countries

1.3. The growing complexity of social life and its spatial consequences 1.4. Constrained budgets 1.5. By way of conclusion: the impact of these developments on the introduction of

urban governance 2. From urban government to urban governance

2.1. Several agents within a network 2.2. The goals of urban governance 2.3. The limitations of urban governance 2.4. A typology: urban government versus urban governance?

3. A set of contrasts: the problematisation of a transformation 3.1. The enabling thesis 3.2. The closure thesis 3.3. The changing policy substance thesis 3.4. The entrepreneurial thesis

4. Summary and research implications Chapter 2. No social exclusion without social exclusion?

1. Some conceptual reflections 1.1. From social exclusion to social inclusion

1.1.1. Social differentiation, social inequality, and social fragmentation 1.1.2. Social exclusion

1.2. Social inclusion 1.3. Social cohesion

1.3.1. The relational dimension 1.3.2. The cultural dimension of social cohesion

2. Social cohesion and sustainability 3. No social cohesion without social exclusion?

Chapter 3. On area-based policies to promote inclusion and cohesion

1. The spatial dimensions of social exclusion 1.1. Is there life outside the neighbourhood? 1.2. Neighbourhood effects, social exclusion and social cohesion

1.2.1. Social capital and the neighbourhood 1.2.2. The dialectics of space and daily life

2. Are area-based anti-poverty strategies to be compared with ‘running up a downward escalator? Pros and cons of area-based policies 2.1. The neighbourhood and the life chances of its inhabitants 2.2. Do area-based policies just displace problems of different neighbourhoods 2.3. Do area-based policies tackle causes of exclusion and poverty?

3. Conclusions

Chapter 4. Conclusions and propositions

Bibliography


INTRODUCTION

This conceptual framework has been developed for the ‘Urban Development Programmes, Social Inclusion, Urban Governance and Sustainability’ (UGIS) project within the key action ‘City of Tomorrow and Cultural Heritage’ of the ‘Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development’ programme of the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Commission.

What are our central research questions? The first one is: ‘To what extent have urban development programmes that have been established during the last decade all over Europe with a view to combating urban problems and/or stimulating urban dynamics succeeded in promoting social inclusion and urban sustainability?’ Compared to former definitions of the issue in terms of ‘combating social exclusion’, this redefinition implies a shift in paradigm. The second question examines the relationship between urban governance and urban development programmes. ‘How have forms of urban governance shaped these programmes, their definition, their implementation and their successes and failures?’ A third question is ‘How have urban development programmes changed traditional forms of urban government or have stimulated the introduction of forms of urban governance?’

This report starts with a further elaboration of the main concepts from our research questions. It ends with a reformulation of the questions in the form of propositions.

A central concept in our model is ‘urban governance’. ‘Governance’ is, at least implicitly, differentiated from ‘government’ thereby suggesting that the ways in which governments act have changed (Goodwin and Painter, 1996; Harvey, 1989; see also: Imrie and Raco, 1999). In the first chapter we shall deal with the background of the rise of (the concept of) governance. We shall not discuss the ‘birth’ of urban governance, but ‘the coming out’ of urban governance. Indeed, it is not something completely new that suddenly came forward and found its way to policy-making levels, applauded by everyone. Some governance techniques and methods have existed for years, but were not widely applied. Indeed, we take the point of view that some of its main points of departure are closely linked to rather recent developments on the position and the role of the state in society. In political terms, it could be seen as a shift from somewhat ‘social-democratic’ policies to ‘(social)-liberal’ ones.

Moreover, it is often assumed that to reach certain goals these ‘new’ methods and techniques are better. What are these goals? In addition to supposedly handling urban matters more efficiently, the reasons for introducing forms of urban governance are as follows: social inclusion needs to be promoted, the erosion of social cohesion has to be reversed and urban sustainability has to be developed. There is, however, little agreement on what is meant by these concepts; the state of the art regarding their definition and mutual relations is rather unclear. Therefore, chapter two constitutes an attempt to define them by allocating them a proper place in a conceptual framework.


Figure 1. Three relations between the central concepts

Source: UGIS research proposal

A third chapter deals with what might be the importance, the meaning, and the impact of the neighbourhood in a (post-) modern city. Is the neighbourhood for governments still the most appropriate scale for combating urban forms of social exclusion and improving social cohesion? What significance does a neighbourhood still have in times of hyper-mobile capital, delocated social relations and the withdrawal of middle-class and upper class families into the sphere of the family home, often after having moved outside the city centre? We thereby link governance to the old debate about ‘neighbourhood lost’ versus ‘neighbourhood found’, without elaborating it profoundly. We stick to a summary of the pros and cons of area-based policies, because urban development programmes are a major form of area-based policies and because areas – cities and ‘neighbourhoods’ – are our research object. We shall not, however, deal with the roots and contents of urban development programmes, since these will be the subject of separate publications.

In the last chapter we reconstruct our original research proposal and its research questions. From it we develop a number of propositions, informed by the present discussion of the central concepts. It is not our aim to give a complete and detailed status report on these matters. Our focus is a better formulation and further specification of the central concepts and – even more important – of the three central relations that are at the core of our project. Literature will therefore be used in a very

Urban Development Programme

– Urban Sustainability – Social Cohesion – Social Inclusion

Urban Governance

RELATION - 1

RELATION - 2 RELATION - 3


pragmatic way: the degree to which it can contribute to the very research-oriented aims of this publication.

We would like point out that this text is about our conceptual framework and its only purpose is to serve as a means of identifying important elements in the complicated reality we intend to investigate. In the course of this investigation we expect to collect information on whether these concepts are being used by the different participants/agents in the different countries and how they are defining them. Who these participants/agents are is only mentioned indirectly and in general terms, when we discuss the concept of governance; for further specification we refer to the appropriate documents. We are also well aware of the fact that the analysis of the empirical evidence will have to take account of the differences between the countries engaged in our venture. Most relevant is the differentiation as regards the different welfare state models (see Esping-Andersen, 1990; Kemeny, 1995 and 2001; Mingione, 1996; Mingione and Oberti, 2001 and many others), which will briefly be discussed in 1.2.2.


CHAPTER 1

THE ‘COMING OUT’ OF URBAN GOVERNANCE

Introduction

‘Why do we talk about ‘urban governance’ these days?’ For Kearns and Paddison (2000), it is because things have changed and city governments are no longer able or not as able as previously, to direct events. Following Rhodes (1997: 46) governance even ‘signifies a change in the meaning of government, referring to a new process of governing; or a changed condition of ordered rule; or the new method by which society is governed.

Thus, according to a number of authors, over the past ten years or so, a range of significant changes has occurred in the nature of local government, sufficiently serious to give the result its own name. Is this so? What we are witnessing today perhaps is not the ‘coming in’ of governance but rather its ‘coming out’. In other words, not the reality, but the formalisation and legitimisation of the concept are recent developments. Many of its components were already there, in many forms of what then was still termed ‘government’. Or ‘urban regimes’, constellations of public and private power within a structurally defined context, as defined by Stone (1987 and 1989).

This brings us to the not unimportant point of how to use the two concepts of government and governance. Are both each other’s opposite as is implied in most debates? Or are they ‘ideal types’, which – as we all know – do not exist in reality, but only as theoretical constructs? We already suspect that empirical research will reveal that there are many differentiated forms of ‘governing a city’, combining elements from the rather traditional forms of government to more recent ‘innovations’, introduced by ‘governance’. However, since both ‘government’ and ‘governance’ now occupy a specific position in the conceptual field, we shall follow this usage but we shall remind the reader that ours is the ideal-typical approach. We will not use both concepts as each other’s opposites.

More important are the questions to be answered in this chapter. The topic of the first section is ‘What has changed and what are the implications for urban policy?’. The second section reviews sets of dichotomies that have been developed by researchers and concern urban governance, in response to the ‘What’s new?’ question about governance.


1. The changed context for urban policies

The concept of ‘governance’ was first introduced in the context of ‘corporate governance’. It referred to new forms of management introduced by business firms as a response to a changing economic environment, such as globalisation, financial deregulation, the introduction of new technologies and rising competition. A first question that has to be answered is, do comparable developments in the context of urban policy-making exist to warrant the introduction of the concept of ‘governance’ in the urban field? A number of authors think this is the case. We shall discuss the impact of globalisation, the erosion of the welfare state, the growing complexity of social life and its spatial consequences, constrained budgets, and intra-governmental tensions. Most of these changes are also important for explaining developments regarding urban social cohesion and the shifting relation between the city level and the neighbourhood level (see chapters 2 and 3).

1.1. Globalisation and governance

1.1.1 On globalisation…

According to Flanagan (1999: 32), there are, at present, two seemingly opposed trends with regard to patterns of urban settlement, which are part of the same overall process of globalisation. In some parts of the world, he sees a continuing concentration of the population in cities, whereas in some other parts there occur changes that indicate that, in the future, people may have less need to be concentrated in cities. Whereas the former process is typical of the new economies and of developing countries, the latter - though still in its early stages – is characteristic of the old industrial nations. It is the process of globalisation that links both trends. Through processes of globalisation, seemingly opposed developments in the world’s centre(s) and periphery/ies are related, although in constantly changing patterns, as is the case with urban developments.

What is globalisation about? Does it represent ‘an apparently world-wide capitulation to the notion that there is no alternative to the rational organisation of international resources by market factors’ (Flanagan, 1999: 256)? Or is it possible to use the term in a more descriptive and ideological neutral way? According to Marcuse and van Kempen (2000: 5) globalisation ‘comprises many processes such as the spatial integration of economic activities, movement of capital, migration of people, development of advanced technologies, and changing values and norms that spread among various parts of the world’. In its present configuration, they define it as ‘a combination of new technology, increased trade and mobility, increased concentration of economic control, and reduced welfare-oriented regulatory action of nation states’. It is clear that a set of technological and economic developments is at the core of globalisation. It is quite acceptable that this process of globalisation is facilitated by the policies of national and local governments who try to maintain or to improve their position. It remains debatable what the relation is between technological and economic globalisation and the emergence of a global culture. Is it the values and behaviour of the nations with strong market economies that have profoundly contributed to the development of a ‘global culture’? Or has a relatively autonomous global culture facilitated the integration of economic and technological features from these nations?

Following the definition of Marcuse and Van Kempen, the concept of globalisation opens up interesting lines for analysis. We shall, firstly, specify the relationships between the ‘facilitating’ factor


(the role of governments) and the position of cities in this post-Wallerstein world-system. More in particular we shall discuss their relation with(in) national (welfare) states. Secondly, we shall assess some of the impacts on life within the city, that is the social life of its inhabitants and the policy-making of its ‘governors’. The latter reflections will then constitute an introduction to a discussion of new forms of urban governance in the next paragraphs.

1.1.2 … and the growth of governance

According to Kearns and Paddison (2000), globalisation constitutes a major input in the development towards governance. Along with many other authors, they link the emergence of urban governance with more mobile capital investments (see also Beauregard and Haila, 2000), the emergence of world-wide economic sectors (see also Marcuse and van Kempen, 2000), the growth of international institutions and the emergence of global spectacles. For urban governments, the argument goes that this has meant a loss of control over urban economics, and the emergence of new activities and responses. Kearns and Paddison (2000) identify several distinct changes pertaining to urban governance:

• a fiercer competition between cities,

• the development of distinctive urban cultures,

• the uncoupling of urban economies from national economies,

• an orientation towards the international arena.

One of the consequences of globalisation is that interurban competition has become fiercer, with cities trying hard to ‘sell’ themselves to investors. This evolution to ‘place wars’1 can be described as ‘the transformation in urban governance from the welfare-state model towards the economic development model’. In an increasingly competitive world, city governments, both elected members and officials, have had to become more entrepreneurial. This role potentially conflicts with local welfarism. Being on the map became important, leading to investments, often huge, to compete for major events such as World Exhibitions or Olympic Games.

Secondly, as a part of this competition to attract business investment, tendencies towards a ‘global culture’ are counteracted by attempts to develop a city’s local, distinctive culture. In order to attract tourism and inward investment, culture itself has become increasingly commodified (see also Kotler, Haider and Rein, 1993).

Thirdly, cities have come to view national governments as less able to help them and less relevant to their fortunes. They have tried to untie themselves from their national economies. Earlier we referred to Kearns and Paddison (2000) linking the emergence of urban governance to a loss of control over urban economies2. Seen from the urban government perspective, this is true. At the same time, however, it is only one side of the coin: that which is due to different inter-governmental arrangements in different countries. These different arrangements imply that, historically, local and urban governments had different powers in implementing a local (economic) policy. In some countries their discretionary powers were (and are) large (e.g. in the field of spatial planning and housing) and in this case globalisation indeed meant a loss of control. In countries with little historical powers,

1 Haider, D. (1992), as quoted in Kearns and Paddison (2000). See also Kotler, Haider and Rein (1993). 2 Although recently some authors question this. Letho (2000) argues that a lot of local jobs are not connected to the global economy. This concerns a lot of service jobs (education, health, city administration), but also market jobs (local shops, building constructors). See also: Amin et al. (2000).


however, the changing context provided an opportunity to fill in the gaps left by the weakening of central governments.

Lastly, cities have orientated themselves towards the international arena through cross-border co-operation and trans-border networking, such as through the ‘Eurocities’ network. Often cities have set up offices in major decision centres in order to lobby for financial means or power, e.g. in Brussels in order to obtain money from the European Union. The city of Barcelona can be seen as one of the leading agents in this domain. In addition to participating in a large number of transnational organisations of cities3, the mayor of the Catalan capital is the current President of the World Assembly of Cities’ and Local Authorities’ Co-ordination, and projects himself as the voice of local authorities at the world level. He recently asked for a greater role for cities and local authorities at a meeting of the UNO sponsored Habitat meeting in Nairobi (Walliser Martinez, Bruquetas Callejo and Moreno Fuentes, 2001).

Rather than a direct link between these developments towards globalisation, we hypothesise an indirect link that is through intermediate variables. The most important intermediate variable is the nation-state. Indeed, all of these developments can be linked to the changing nature of the nation-state, and more in particular of the national welfare state. One of the better developed hypotheses in the globalisation discourse is that the function of the nation-state is being taken over by the supranational level (such as the EU) and by infra-national levels (such as regions and cities). This does not only result in a redistribution of power but has more far-reaching consequences. Indeed, the central feature of the nation-state, certainly in its ‘welfare state’-form, is formalised ‘solidarity’, solidarity between different groups and between different institutions in society. Cities uncoupling themselves from the national context and often from their national responsibilities are detrimental to this system and value pattern of solidarity. This could be particularly so with regard to emerging distinctive urban cultures which are centred on values of individualism and competition.

1.2. The changing nature of the welfare state

1.2.1 The welfare state under pressure…

Recent developments in Western European welfare states have resulted in entitlements being less widely available – or at least being more conditional – and in benefits and services provided becoming less adequate and less all-embracing in their coverage. These developments are part of a shift from the ‘institutional’ welfare state model to the ‘residual’ model, although the swing of the pendulum in that direction has not been as wide as was expected – feared by some, and hoped by others - in the late 80s and the early 90s. Nevertheless, important re-orientations have taken place (also Vranken, 1992):

• public services have been supplemented and sometimes replaced by private initiatives,

• responsibility is transferred from the state to the individual and the family,

• social benefits have become less an individual right and more related to the need of the household

• solidarity and ‘efficacy’ are giving way to ‘competition’ and ‘efficiency’

• ‘citizenship’ is becoming subordinate to a person’s functioning as a ‘homo oeconomicus’.


These developments are illustrated by many comparative studies and have resulted in new models for the welfare state. The most successful seems to be the ‘active welfare state’, which is very strongly promoted at the EU level (see e.g. Bolderson and Mabbett, 1995; Esping-Andersen, 1997; Cananna, 1998; Giddens, 1998; Rhodes and Mény, 1998). Its philosophy consists of rendering benefits conditional, since work is seen as the best way to escape poverty. This activation idea is also implemented at the local level.

Although local variations in benefits, services, and amenities are often decried as inequitable, increasingly variation and innovation in what is provided by the local state are encouraged; that is, as long as minimum standards are protected. The Belgian situation provides us with an excellent illustration, although local social authorities (OCMW/CPAS4) have always possessed discretionary powers, meaning that they can award additional help. Political decentralisation has been championed because of its higher responsiveness to local needs and to differences in political demands of localities5. These outcomes have fostered variations and innovation. These trends have been reinforced by recent changes in the political domain, such as state fragmentation and agency proliferation. Often they constituted a response by local arenas to address the agendas of competitiveness and social cohesion at the same time, by their move to involve the private sector first and by the expansion of area-based policy initiatives (‘urban development programmes’) in the late 1990s. Although responsibility for public service provision is more devolved than before, the preferred distribution of responsibilities for the regulation of public provision seems to be more open to debate and to further resolution.

1.2.2 … but differently according to countries

Of course, these developments do not take place in the same form and at the same rate in all welfare states. Welfare states differ substantially because the power equilibrium between local, regional and central governments is very different. This results not only in new forms of urban policy being introduced at different speeds, but also in similar policy options ending up differently. It is very unlikely that the clear-cut urban and housing policies’ options of Ms Thatcher’s Conservative Party (King, 1996) would have been possible in other countries. It is necessary, therefore, to take account of the historical differences of the roots of urban policy in the different countries. Following an analysis of quantitative data on 18 countries, Schmidt (1989) concluded that there was no convergence regarding housing during the 1970s and 1980s. ‘A logic of industrial society’ which largely determined housing outcomes does not seem to exist. Rather institutional factors – the way in which market agents had been organised into or outside housing policy systems – accounted for the characteristics of national housing systems. Building on these conclusions of Schmidt (1989) and of Barlow and Duncan (1994), leads us to recognise that we are not dealing with a linear range of outcomes around some average cross-national norm. Rather, we are confronted with distinct clusters of regime types in welfare capitalism (see also Letho, 2000)

This corresponds, regarding housing policies, with the three distinctive welfare regimes – liberal, corporatist, and social-democratic6 - that Esping-Andersen (1990) found with respect to social policy and labour market policy in European countries. Although elements of all three welfare regimes could

4 Public Centres for Social Welfare (OCMW is the Dutch, CPAS the French abbreviation). 5 In Flanders, three decrees (regional acts) were introduced by the christian-democrat/socialist government Van den Brande 2 (1995-1999): the ‘Social Impulse Fund’ (urban policy), the new housing decree and the new decree on spatial planning. They delegate responsibilities to local government (see e.g. De Decker, 1999; Vandenberghe, De Coninck and De Decker, 1997). Seen from the regional government, these decrees imply the redesigning of the relations, procedures and financing, and that policy choices are transferred to local government (within the framework of different criteria). 6 Barlow and Duncan (1994) add ‘residual welfare states’, referring to countries from Southern Europe.


be found in most countries, each of the 18 countries included in his study could be allocated to one or other of these clusters depending on their social policy and labour market characteristics7. Since the functioning of the economy is comparable in all European countries (Kemeny, 1995), this means that other factors, such as institutional arrangements of (historical) policy options have to be brought into the analysis. Kemeny (1995) maintains, therefore, that policy strategies, in their broadest sense, are of vital importance in determining the long-term structuring of the housing market.

Welfare state developments also have their impact on inclusion and cohesion at the city and neighbourhood level. Some authors have referred to the substitution of the welfare state by a welfare city. The context of this debate concerns changes both at the level of urban life (loss of cohesion) and at the level of the nation-state (devolution of political responsibilities to the local level, usually without transfer of the financial means to carry out these responsibilities). The latter development also is discussed under the headings of ‘privatisation’ and ‘localisation’. We shall discuss both sides of the problem in the next paragraphs. First we shall pay attention to the growing complexity of social life, also in its spatial dimension. Next we shall take a closer look at constrained budgets and at intra-governmental tensions at the intersection of both former developments, and to which governance constitutes an answer or at least an attempted answer.

With respect to this, the Spanish case is quite interesting for it represents a situation in which the provision of welfare services is aborted before having reached a real development. The political and economic constraints on spending, partly related to fiscal austerity demanded by the European Central Bank and the EU council, resulted in a freeze of budgets allocated to social policies at a very low level compared to the rest of the European member states. The situation is therefore quite unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. In this situation the Spanish welfare state is based on a very few basic pillars: public pension schemes for the elderly, limited benefits for the unemployed, a public health care system, and a public education system. The very poorly developed personal social services remain the responsibility of severely underfunded NGOs or local authorities (Walliser Martinez, Bruquetas Callejo and Moreno Fuentes, 2001).

Following our earlier considerations of the differences between welfare states, one should take into consideration that the spatial consequences of the societal changes would be different for different cities. This is due to different spatial and housing policies. Consequently, one can expect low levels of socio-economic or ethnic segregation in the cities of The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark, while segregation is much higher in countries with only modest housing and spatial policies (as e.g. in Belgium or in France – see: Breebaert, Musterd and Ostendorf, 1996).

1.3. The growing complexity of social life and its spatial consequences

The introduction of forms of governance is also fostered by the growing complexity of social life in cities, more in particular the increasing social differentiation and the need for (new) mechanisms of cohesion that are needed to compensate for this trend. Moreover, as the link between people and place has become more diffuse, the city can be seen as a locus of overlapping webs of relations on diverse spatial scales (see e.g. Swyngedouw, 2000). Again, reflecting the loss of control, it is argued that local government is no longer in a position to counter this development. It can do no more than what other

7 See for a critique: Mantznetter (1998). It is important to realise that urban policies, as social or public housing, usually are left out of welfare state models.


players do, i.e. insert experiments that aim at the restoration of these relational webs into the relational ensemble of the city (see Kearns and Paddison, 2000).

To what processes of differentiation are we referring? The most obvious one is that of increasing ethnic diversity in the city. ‘Old’ labour migrants, already of very different origin, are today supplemented by different groups of ‘new’ migrants. This ‘new’ immigration is the result of family reunions or family formation. At the same time political and economic refugees and asylum seekers are entering Western countries. Besides this widening ethnic diversification, we also observe a differentiation at household level. The once dominant traditional core family (married heterosexual couple with children) is being replaced by other household types. More and more people are living alone for a while. Others live together without being married. Divorce has become socially accepted, just like homosexual relationships. Besides the rise of these ‘new’ family formations, people generally live longer, leading to more people living alone when they are older and to a rising number of ‘young’ pensioners who are still very active socially. These developments, fuelled by a performing economy and sustained by the welfare state, merge in a myriad of lifestyles.

These new forms of social differentiation and the increase of existing forms have a spatial feature in at least two ways. Firstly, socio-spatial polarisation and exclusion accompany differentiation. Across a range of European cities, processes of social exclusion have produced concentrations of excluded people in particular neighbourhoods (Madanipour, Cars and Allen, 1998). The degree of segregation and exclusion will differ between cities, between countries and also within the same country. This is related to their income level and income distribution, the type of welfare state, and housing and spatial policies (Breebaert, Musterd and Ostendorf, 1996; Kesteloot and Cortie, 1998; van Kempen & Ozüekren, 1997; Vandermotten et al., 1999). Nevertheless, there is an inherent and re-emerging spatial dimension in many forms of social exclusion (among others, see Madanipour, Cars and Allen, 1998; Andersen and van Kempen, 2001).

Of course, cities have always had their problems. Many were caused by poor economic performance (compared to the rest of the country or the metropolitan region), concentration of unemployment (especially of the long-term unemployed), traffic congestion and accessibility bottlenecks, environmental degradation, a deteriorating housing stock, crime and safety concerns, and concentrations of marginalised groups. Recently, however, unfavourable developments resulted in cities passing through a frenetic phase of functional transformation, particularly of their core and inner city areas. In coinciding with changes in the labour market and the welfare state, these processes have led to rising levels of segregation and concentration among vulnerable groups. Hence, according to Andersen and van Kempen (2001), different social groups are separated not only spatially, but also according to living standards, life experiences, and expectations. Marginalised groups are concentrated on large estates at the edge of the city and in poor quality housing in certain inner-city areas. The governance response to these circumstances, therefore, must include new combinations of social and spatial policies.

The second spatial imprint of socio-economic change is seen in the emergence of new urban spatial forms. In a number of countries this is taking the form of a thinning out of the inner- and middle-ring, the cramming of suburban and small towns, and in a creeping urbanisation of the countryside at the same time as urban extension, urban corridors and ‘edge city’ formations emerge. The search for suburban lifestyles, new spaces of consumption, and hi-tech business parks in high-quality environmental settings, has elicited contradictory governance responses.

Again according to Kearns and Paddison (2000), these changes in our cities can be depicted as the triumph of chaos and disorder. The ordered city has degenerated into a ‘morass of fragmenting and


recombining relations’8, rather than leading to a cohesive urban economy and society. We now have a city of ‘bits and pieces’. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the city is unruly, since urban complexity is subject to human intervention. For Mooney, Pile and Brook (1999), the governance response depends upon what one’s notion of the ‘good city’ is, how the unevenness and openness of the city should be negotiated, and how conflict should be managed and regulated. This requires an understanding that in cities different forms of order co-exist but not always peacefully, and that power relations exist and are portrayed in urban environments. Spatial relations reflect and produce those underlying social relations (see among others Friedrichs, 1997; Bourdieu et al., 1999).

1.4. Constrained budgets

So far we have linked the emergence of urban governance to globalisation, increasing social complexity and their spatial consequences. But there are more, especially the budgetary tensions nearly all governments went through.

Following a range of authors (see Imrie and Raco, 1999), we could argue that the structures of local government being superseded by forms of local governance is indicative of the restructuring of the Fordist or collectivised welfare state towards more flexible and privatised forms of welfare state provision (Peck and Tickell, 1995). In this context, the collective institutions of local welfare provision, that is, (local) government, have seen their fiscal and political powers diminished. In turn, the crisis in local government of how to govern in a context of welfare cuts and increasing demands for services has seen the emergence of apparently less bureaucratised, yet ‘fragmented, (local) government’, with new institutional arrangements coming to bear upon the organisation, development and delivery of local services. In particular, the rise of public-private partnerships, of non-elected institutions and of voluntary organisations in developing and delivering public policy is seen as being illustrative of a new reality.

Pressed by financial problems, central governments have shifted the burden downwards. While becoming more restrictive in giving grants, they have been devolving old responsibilities to lower levels of government and assigning them new tasks at the same time. Central governments have given local authorities more freedom to do what they want, though generally within a much narrower financial framework.

Confronted with these challenges, local governments have reacted in different ways. They have tried to use their financial resources more efficiently by becoming more businesslike. To that effect they have used numerous strategies such as contracting out part of their services to private producers; selling public land and public shares in companies; developing the habit of internal charging and internal competition; defining performance indicators; and monitoring budgets and expenditures more closely. Moreover, they have spread out their responsibilities among various intergovernmental sectors and sub-levels, while non-mandatory policies have been privatised or dropped altogether. Lately, the strategy of reactivating the voluntary sector to replace or complement local government service provision has been given high priority in many countries. Thus, in almost all European countries, cities are forming public-private partnerships to realise major development projects that would otherwise be unfeasible.

Friedrichs and Vranken (2001) who also stress globalisation, segregation, and polarisation in a context of international migration as inputs - elaborate on that. They hypothesise that, under 8 Healey et al. (1995), Managing Cities: The New Urban Context, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, as quoted in Kearns and Paddison (2000).


conditions of urban fiscal austerity, local government becomes more and more dependent upon state interventions. Following this line of reasoning, we may ask whether the appearance of urban governance is an indicator of urban problems, which can no longer by solved by local government. Furthermore, if urban problems, such as declining cities in old-industrialised regions, now figure high on the national agenda, it will result in pressure on local governments towards urban governance. This process is fostered by the necessity of urban governments to embark on projects of urban revitalisation and redevelopment of waste areas, which can only be pursued with private investment, hence public-private partnerships. Such forms of partnerships are successful, but this could have two disadvantages: the monetary risks are far higher for the city than for the private enterprise, and the decision structures are non-democratic, since they exclude local parliaments and citizens' participation.

There are several indicators of this type of change. Before the restructuring of the Regional Fund, only regions, and not cities, could apply for EU subsidies. Hence, cities in a region are forced not only to co-operate, but also to establish a formal body. In the case of cities in the German Ruhr area, several such "Regional Conferences" were created in the 1990s, each comprising representatives from the city's administration, the Chamber of Commerce, and representatives from the trade unions. Second, public-private-partnerships are an example of co-operations including private sector and regional bodies, resulting in changing from local government to urban governance. Finally, we refer to the Raval-project in Barcelona, where the whole plan was implemented by PROCIVESA, a quango organisation set up by the local government in co-operation with large firms and the association of traders of the area. In the case of San Fermin in Madrid, the whole investment scheme is run by a series of commissions formed by both the regional government and representatives of the associations and organisations of the area (Walliser Martinez, Bruquetas Callejo and Moreno Fuentes, 2001).

1.5. By way of conclusion: the impact of these developments on the introduction of urban governance

Two central questions have to be answered on the basis of our previous analysis. The first concerns the extent to which developments towards ‘globalisation’ lead to a new context for the city and for urban policies. The second whether ‘new forms of government’, subsumed under the heading of ‘governance’, are filling the gap between both global constraints and local needs.

First, it seems as if globalising processes have strengthened the structural spatial divisions within the cities. Not only have inequalities increased, cities have also become more fragmented. We are not repeating the whole debate on whether this has resulted in a ‘dual city’ (Mollenkopf and Castells, 1991), a ‘quartered city’ (Marcuse, 1989), etc. The most important conclusion is that the combination of more inequality and more fragmentation has led to specific forms of socio-spatial exclusion (see also Marcuse and van Kempen, 2000).

Next, the need to compete on a very tight and international market and the reduction of financial and other means has obliged cities to shift their focus from social objectives to a permanent search for economic success and financial means. Already at first sight, this would imply new ways of management.

Moreover, some features of governance and certainly those concerned with the payment of money or the delivery of new services have grown to compensate for the decrease of the welfare state. As a consequence, new - and maybe better - methods and techniques have been developed and more money has been provided for these functions of the welfare state/city. However, an unequal distribution seems to be inherent in this new approach, because local authorities have gained their own policy-making space, or because it is focused on specific areas.


What is this ‘governance’ about? Does it really differ from government? This is the subject of the next chapter.


2. From urban government to urban governance The concept of governance can be used in two ways: to denote the opposite of ‘traditional’

government, or a new form of government, adapted to recent developments and needs. In the first sense, it appears in the typology developed by Imrie & Raco. That is, at first sight, because both characterisations can also be taken as extreme forms of a continuum, and only the intermediate forms exist in reality. The terms of ‘government’ and ‘governance’ would then remain only theoretical concepts. In that case, it is appropriate to introduce a new word for the ‘old’ forms of government and keep ‘government’ as the overall term.

This ‘smoothing’ of the opposition government/governance already is illustrated by the fact that governance is a concept with several meanings. Thus, in a review, article Rhodes (2000) identifies seven definitions of the concept: Corporate Governance; Governance as the New Public Management; Governance as ‘Good Governance’; Governance as International Interdependence; Governance as a Socio-cybernetic System; Governance as the New Political Economy; and Governance as Networks. However, although governance may appear in different forms, in an urban setting it is commonly conceptualised as some sort of policy network, thus relating to the last of the seven definitions. As stated by Rhodes (2000: 60): "Networks are the analytical heart of the notion of governance in the study of Public Administration".

This focus on networks is central to an earlier discussion of the shift from ‘urban government’ to ‘urban governance’ by Rhodes (1997: 53), when he states that the following elements have to be taken into account:

1. Interdependence between organisations. Governance is broader than government, covering non-state agents. Changing the boundaries of the state meant that the boundaries between public, private and voluntary sectors shifted and became opaque.

2. Continuing interactions between network members caused by the need to exchange resources and negotiate shared purposes.

3. Game-like interactions rooted in trust and regulated by rules of the game, negotiated and agreed by network participants.

4. A significant degree of autonomy from the state. Networks are not accountable to the state; they are self-organising. Although the state does not occupy a sovereign position, it can indirectly and imperfectly steer networks

2.1 Several agents within a network

For Johnston and Pattie (1996) local governance can be distinguished from local government in that the former refers not only to formal agencies within the state (being local government), but also to a wide range of other agents. These are institutional and individual agents, coming from the private, voluntary and public sector, and they are involved in regulating a local economy and society. Indeed, local government functions have increasingly been contracted out to private operators, while non-elected institutions have expanded to take charge of a range of services and/or welfare institutions that were previously the reserve of local government (Goodwin and Painter, 1996; see also Imrie and Thomas, 1999)9,10.


Indeed, urban governance refers to the fact that more complex forms of self-organising, inter-organisational networks are replacing traditional urban government. These networks consist of different political, social, cultural and economic agents from different levels of decision-making. Their aim is to arrive at effective policies at the local urban level, mostly promoting urban economic growth, ecological sustainability, social inclusion, or a combination of these (and often other) goals. Kearns & Paddison - following Stoker11 - point out that governance is about the capacity to get things done in the face of complexity, conflict and social change: organisations, notably but not only urban governments, empower themselves by blending their resources, skills and purposes with others. Consequently, urban governance covers a wide range of forms, from ad hoc arrangements for one particular occasion (an ‘issue network’) to a long-term strategy for a set of agents (a ‘policy community’). Sometimes policies in a particular city may even be identified as the product of an enduring urban ‘regime’. Such regimes may be primarily oriented towards promoting urban economic growth, ecological sustainability, social inclusion, or a combination of these and other goals. Sometimes, however, urban politics is strongly fragmented, and although sector-bound coalitions may be identified, there is no city-encompassing regime (Rhodes, 1986; Stone, 1989; see also Friedrichs and Vranken, 2001).

2.2. The goals of urban governance

Cochrane (1999) states that ‘the term governance is increasingly preferred to government in order to capture both the potential complexity of these relationships and to indicate that some more or less stable or accepted set of arrangements may arise from them, at least for significant lengths of time. In other words, just because there is a high degree of complexity, the rules, the practices and political structures of urban living may still operate to maintain order in an apparently unruly world. Thus the problem of urban governance can be expressed: if urban areas are characterised by difference, tensions and divisions, how is it possible for shared agendas to emerge?’

According to Kearns and Paddison (2000), urban governance is not really an attempt to regain control so much as an attempt to manage and regulate differences and to be creative in urban arenas which are themselves experiencing considerable change. Most of the changes that have been described in negative terms, however, may also generate positive possibilities. Institutional fragmentation can produce innovative processes; economic uncertainties can result in the assertion and utilisation of local culture(s), values, and images.

Urban governance clearly is a two-faced development. It not only provides an alternative to traditional forms of urban government, but also has its constraints. Both seem to be produced by the same developments.

10See e.a. Jessop, B. (1994), From Keynesian welfare state to Schumpeterian workfare state, in: Burrows, R. and Loader, B. (eds.), Towards a Post-Fordist Welfare State, Routledge, London, as quoted by Imrie and Raco (1999) and Jessop, B. (1994), Post-Fordism and the state, in: Amin, A. (ed.), Post-Fordism. A reader, Blackwell, Oxford, as quoted by Denayer (2000). 11 Stoker, G. (1995), Public-Private Partnerships and Urban Governance, paper presented to the Housing Studies Associations Conference, Edingburgh, July; Stoker, G. (1996), Governance as Theory: Five Propositions, paper presented to Enjeux des débats sur la governance, Univesité de Lausanne, November.


2.3 The limitations of urban governance

Like more traditional forms of urban government, urban governance is limited by cultural, institutional, and economic constraints. These mould the political arena, shape the political agenda, and allocate powers and resources unequally. Keating (1991: 5-9) discusses these constraints for urban regimes. His main point is that ‘governing capacity is the ability to formulate policies and to mobilise powers and resources behind their implementation’ (Keating, 2000: 6). His questioning remains relevant for urban governance.

Critical elements thus would be:

• The formal structure and powers of urban governance

• The culture and ideological assumptions about the scope of urban governance

• The importance of territory in political discourse, the sense of place and the legitimacy of area-based policies in the political culture

• The intergovernmental network. Intergovernmental power relationships are reciprocal: national, regional and local governments are both a restraint and a source of power for one another. Does this also apply to the relation with others taking part in the network?

• Urban governance has substantial delivery responsibilities, which have generated professional bureaucracies. These will also constitute a resource and a constraint to the development of urban governance.

• The economic environment also affects governance capacities. Most productive resources needed for successful urban governance are in private hands and the city is an ‘open economy’, which can have a weak or a strong market position.

• Cities are the locus of a variety of social movements, organised around a series of urban policy issues such as the provision of collective goods and services, cultural identity, community formation and local self-government (at the district or neighbourhood level).

Evaluation of efficacy of urban governance must take account of the different agents, their position and interests, their perspectives. The central questions here are: for whom and for what? In assessing efficacy, we should not avoid normative questions (Keating, 1991: 9). We should be aware of the pitfall that poses the comparative method, particularly the (functionalist) assumption that all institutions perform some function of system maintenance. The normative issue here is the degree of openness of urban governance to initiatives such as urban development programmes that favour excluded population groups or areas. An important part of this problem is to study forms of closure and containment of political demands in this respect. Closure refers to the ability to keep certain issues off the political agenda or to circumscribe debate to a limited range of options. Containment is about the limitation of power groups that challenge the existing agenda through keeping them out of the decision-making process, preventing them from constituting or joining coalitions or networks, or withdrawing power from decision-making places that are controlled by opposition groups.

The developments that are part of globalisation or that are its results are at the core of this problem because they are increasing social and spatial forms of exclusion, hampering social inclusion, and destroying traditional forms of social cohesion without replacing them with new types. In the end and in normative terms, the debate is still about the choice between economic competitiveness and social justice.


Before we discuss these matters in section 3, we shall present the differences between government and governance in an ‘ideal-typical’ way. These are characterised in table 1 (taken from Imrie and Raco, 1999; see also Denayer, 2000).

2.4 A typology: urban government versus urban governance?

We would like to approach the relation between ‘government’ and ‘governance’ from two angles, their ‘content’, and their ‘style’, knowing that both are interrelated. Imrie and Raco (1999) have formulated differences in style in terms of – strong - oppositions. As we mentioned before, we prefer to treat them as the ends of a continuum. This approach is, at least, more productive for the empirical purposes we have in mind. However, it also opens up opportunities to develop intermediate types of ‘(urban) government’.

The opposition between bureaucratic and flexible/responsive refers to the degree of contingency of local governance; whether it concerns a closed or an open system. It is quite evident that in the latter case, a complex and changing environment will impose responses within the government structure. Bureaucratic procedures refer to slow, long, and top-down processes. The dichotomy democratic versus post-democratic refers to the backing of policies and policy implementations by political responsible bodies (parliaments, elected councils). It is suggested that government is more democratic because persons approve its decisions or because groups have to answer

Table 1 - Characterising forms of local government (from ‘government’ to ‘governance’)

Local ‘government’ is rather Local ‘governance’ is rather

Bureaucratic

Democratic

Centralised

Collectivised

Municipal

Pursuit of social/welfare goals

Flexible and responsive

Post-democratic

Decentralised

Privatised

Entrepreneurial

Pursuit of market goals

Source: Adapted from Imrie and Raco (1999)

to their electorate, while, in a post-democratic system, decisions that were previously part of the ‘legislative’ branch are more or less permanently delegated to public and private agents. The observation that more agents are concerned in policymaking and implementation is expressed in the twin concepts centralised-decentralised. The first concept refers to a top-down decision-making process while a decentralised system is rather bottom-up in that it accepts a proper scope of policymaking for the many agents involved. At the city level it refers to a decision-making process that starts from the ‘town hall’ as opposed to one that is based on ‘district or neighbourhood councils’. ‘Collectivised and municipal’ versus ‘privatised and entrepreneurial’. Do only state agents induce policies? Or do private and entrepreneurial agents play an important part, carrying with them new methods in the implementation of policies ? The final couple of concepts refers to the proposition that


government is more concerned with social and welfare goals, while market goals occupy the fore in governance.

Naturally, this series of dichotomies expresses a very definite view on governance, implying a transfer from the logic of public administration to that of private enterprise. This means not only that a number of other variables can be added. It also implies that the set of variables presented by Imrie and Raco could be complemented by the ones that can be deduced from Rhodes’ list of characteristics of urban governance (Rhodes, 1997: 53), which tend to refer more to differences in ‘content’.

Table 2. Characterising forms of local government (from ‘government’ to ‘governance’) – Rhodes’ model, adapted

Government Governance

Central actor Public Public, private and NGO

Central level State Local

Relation with state Dependent Relatively autonomous

Relations with other agents Independent Interdependence (network)

Resources ‘Monopoly’ Shared

Relations between domains Separate domains ‘Inclusive’

Orientation Process Result Based on: Rhodes (1997)


3. A set of contrasts: the problematisation of a transformation

This transformation from government to governance has given rise to a number of (hypo) theses. A coherent set of such theses is based on the dichotomies identified by Imrie and Raco (1999) and presented in table x: the ‘enabling’ thesis, the ‘closure’ thesis, the ‘changing policy substance’ thesis, and the ‘entrepreneurial’ thesis. We shall discuss them briefly.

3.1. The enabling thesis

This thesis focuses on the transformation of local government from the central player in the development and delivery of policy to the ‘strategic enabler’. Strategic enabling in local government refers to the reduction of its direct policy functions to a supportive or service role. As Cochrane (1993) suggests, the idea of the ‘enabling local authority’ is to create a framework of opportunities for many and diverse policy agents, including local authority itself, but without necessarily remaining the most dominant one12. Thus, underlying the enabling thesis is the idea that local authorities should seek to widen their remit by simultaneously drawing in new types of service providers (particularly private sector operators) while developing responsive, user-sensitive policies and programmes.

However, some authors13 note that the ‘pattern of change from providing to enabling has been much more complex than has been characterised or assumed’. In particular, while they note that some policy areas have seen their ‘providing’ responsibilities reduced to predominantly a ‘servicing’ role, they also indicate that other policy areas have had their regulatory and providing roles and responsibilities strengthened and enhanced. In the U.K., the functions of land-use planning have only marginally changed in recent times, and town planners maintain significant regulatory capacities. Likewise, environmental health and social service departments have evolved from service provision to regulation and advocacy14. The same goes for Flanders, where regulatory and providing roles in spatial planning and housing are strengthened by new legislation (see De Decker and Goossens, 1999. Although the Big Cities Policy in the Netherlands can be seen as a coalition between the state and local urban governments (and within the cities also between the local government and various organisations in the neighbourhood) it is still the case that the state divides the money. Cities had to write reports to obtain this money. In these reports the cities have to promise to reach certain goals within a few years, otherwise they cannot get the money. This is a clear indication of the lasting central role of the state (Burgers et al., 2001).

According to Imrie and Raco (1999), the idea of enabling is also connected to the withering away of local government and the dissolution of its key functions into a myriad of other agencies. The enabling thesis suggests that local government has disappeared from the centre stage of policy-making and implementation, yet the evidence is equivocal. Nevertheless, the continuing importance of local authorities in matters such as developing local partnerships has been demonstrated. Others point to

12 Cochrane, A. (1993), Whatever Happened to Local Government, Open University Press, Milton Keynes, as quoted in Imrie and Raco (1999). 13 E.g. Leach, S. et al. (eds.) (1996), Enabling or Disabling Local Government, Open University Press, Milton Keynes, as quoted in Imrie and Raco (1999). 14 Note that contrary to that, housing responsibilities were taken away from local governments (see e.g. King, 1996).


the emergence of new roles and responsibilities in local government as an illustration of its continuing viability.

3.2. The closure thesis

A second set of contrasts between local government and local governance relates to the changing nature of local democratic processes (Imrie and Raco, 1999). Some authors (Denayer, 2000) categorise the institutions of local governance as non-locally accountable, given the transfer of many powers and policy functions to non-elected organisations, such as quangos and voluntary sector providers. Indeed, part of the alleged de-democratising process is the rise of business partnerships in local governance and the emergence of what Colenutt & Ellis15 characterise as a ‘corporate elite’ controlling lots of public money.

For Tickell and Peck (1996) the crucial dimension of the transition from local government to local governance ‘combines an anti-democratic centralism with a strongly politicised form of privatism’. Others also note that policy and planning frameworks are increasingly withdrawn from public and democratic accountability in order to facilitate the pursuit of market efficiency over equity objectives. For Keating, the implication is that ‘old’ styles of government were more open and accountable, while the ‘new’ seek to close off debate and streamline procedures16. Brownhill et al. (1996) suggest that the ‘new styles’, characterised by a ‘can do’ philosophy, is inimical to consultation of any processes of participation, for fear of slowing down development. Moreover, since the ‘enabling’ local authority has to deal with a plethora of agencies it is increasingly unclear who is actually responsible for what particular service. In Cochrane’s words, this a ‘crisis of accountability’ (Cochrane, 1999).

According to Imrie and Raco (1999), the evidence to sustain elements of the closure thesis is limited in a number of ways. Are the institutions of local governance any less democratic than the ones of local government? Indeed, the absence of a strong sense of local democracy has long been a feature of local government. This often was so because many substantive policy-decisions were reduced to technical and/or procedural matters and their stances were justified by claiming a value of neutrality. In this sense, policy decision-making in local government was, in part, underpinned by the control of elite ’office-corps’ groupings who, while technically accountable to members, did not necessarily have to justify their actions to the wider polity. In the same vein as Imrie and Raco (1999), some authors (among them De Rynck, 1996) argue that local government has always been a hybrid of public, voluntary and private forms of governance, and attacks on its democratic credentials are not new.

Somewhat paradoxically, other researchers argue that the reforms in local government have had the effect of opening up the institutions of local governance to their users17. Many experiments tend to encourage citizens to become actively involved in the determination of their common good, usually at a local level (Pateman, 1970). This is especially important in our case because the shift from local government to urban governance implies a redefinition of the relationship between what is loosely called ‘civil society’ and the (local or central) State. In France, for example, legislation introduced the obligation of citizen participation in urban planning, firstly in the rehabilitation programmes of ‘deprived’ areas. However, most local councillors strongly resist, because they see the participation process as a hidden strategy for putting their legitimacy into question. As a matter of fact, even though everyone is invited to participate, only a minority does so. A specific sub-group is generally 15 Colenutt, B. and Ellis, G. (1993), The next quangos in London, New Statesman, 30 July, quoted in Imrie and Raco (1999); see also Colenutt and De Decker (1996). 16 Keating, M. (1991), Local development policies in Britain and France, Journal of Urban Affairs, (13): 443-459, as quoted in Imrie and Raco (1999). 17 Leach et al. (1996), op.cit.


over-represented (usually, but not always, the ‘middle classes’) and they tend to promote their own specific group interests. In Denmark, participation is even obligatory in urban improvement programmes in order to be eligible for governmental financial support. Thus, far from a de-democratising of service provision, it is suggested that the reverse may well be taking place.

Although governance may be efficient in terms of policy synergy, financial support, and other aspects, the consequences in terms of power relations and democracy are more dubious (Elander and Blanc, 2001). The policies pursued by more or less ad hoc-collected networks are not necessarily synchronised or co-ordinated with national priorities. They are sometimes dominated by established corporate interests and strong bureaucrats, whereas elected politicians and marginalised groups have a much weaker position, or are even excluded. While traditional government, at least in theory, contained a chain of accountability ultimately leading to some kind of elected body like a parliament or a municipal council, governance largely leaves the question of accountability wide open. At best governance may serve as an extended complement to representative democracy, giving a voice for excluded groups in society. At worst it may serve as sophisticated forms of sustained elite governance.

The fact that the traditional mechanisms of accountability in representative democracy were never designed to cope with multi-organisational, fragmented policy systems has unclear normative consequences (Rhodes, 1997: 21). Consequently, the question of democratic accountability in the policy process is a crucial one. Accountability is the bridge between participation and representation. Assuming that it is not possible for any citizen to take an active part in politics at all levels and in all sectors, power has to be delegated to elected representatives or appointed bureaucrats, who should all be accountable to the electorate. Of course, behind this ideal type there are normative assumptions.

Firstly, in a representative democracy an overriding goal of government is to consolidate, develop and strengthen democracy as a system of governance. Secondly, in societies based on representative democracy this responsibility also includes the employed administrators, who have to prepare and implement the decisions taken by the elected representatives. The general empirical problem to be addressed with regard to the issue of accountability, then, can be briefly stated in one question. How and by whom is accountability claimed, when policy-making develops from a system based upon representative popular government to a situation increasingly characterised by multi-organisational, fragmented policy-making, i.e. governance?

One major problem with many forms of governance is that they tend to limit participation in the policy process to elites, which by definition already have a strong position in society. Governance thus runs the risk of becoming the creator of ‘gated communities`. These communities then define which agents are to be included, the roles of these agents and the rules of the game, and they also decide which issues will be included and excluded from the policy agenda. Thus governance may substitute private governance for public accountability. To resist such a development the role of local government and its representatives becomes crucial. Does representative local government have the will and capacity to uphold fundamental democratic values when it co-operates with various ”partners” in diffuse, policy-making networks? The question points to the fact that issues of accountability and policy-making are as relevant with regard to government as to governance.

Questioning the governance approach from a democratic point of view must not be taken as a glorification of the traditional model of linear democratic accountability. We should be careful not to fall into the trap of drawing our conclusions by comparing today’s reality with yesterday’s ideal. Maybe there was never a democratic paradise where citizens were in full control of their representatives? Questions like these are not only of academic concern. Answering them in a comparative context would create a basis for learning by experience. There are common problems in different policy areas, cities and countries and future policy-making should learn from the strategies and methods, which have been used when trying to solve these problems.


3.3. The changing policy substance thesis

A third contrast between the old and the new local governance relates to shifts in policy substance. In particular, economic policy objectives are occupying the fore of the stage in urban governance, thus pushing back traditional welfare and social distributive concerns of local government to the background (see also Cochrane, 1999). In a context of declining fiscal support of central government for local welfare spending and because the local tax base often is eroded as a consequence of sub-urbanisation, local governments need to generate alternative revenues to support spending programmes (see e.g. De Brabander, Vervoort and Witlox, 1992; Rusk, 1999). Thus, economic boosters and development projects are seen as necessary, as local authorities seek to generate jobs, boost incomes and raise tax revenues. This pressures local governments to subsidise local economic development, by redirecting resources from social and/or welfare programmes.

However, the historical importance of local government support for economic development cannot be underestimated. Local government has always had some involvement in supporting economic policies, directly through facilitating development and urban renewal, indirectly through providing useful public services (police, public transport). At the same time, the health of the local economy has always been important for local government because of the connections between job generation, local incomes, consumption, and the welfare of the residents. In this sense, it seems problematic to equate any epoch of local government with a particular policy trajectory. Imrie and Raco (1999) stress that at any given moment, local government or governance networks are seeking to resolve the socio-political tension underpinning their contradictory locations between demands. As Eisenschitz and Gough (1993) note, all policy vehicles, even the pro-market ones, have had to accede to competitiveness, welfare, and social equity. Indeed, they argue that local economic policies are necessarily consensual in seeking to resolve a fundamental tension in strategies for reviving capitalism. This refers to the seemingly irreconcilable needs to increase the mobility of capital and the freedom of markets and to organise the socialisation of production (in other words maintaining the conditions for the reproduction of the localised social structures18) (see also: Andersen and van Kempen, 2001).

3.4. The entrepreneurial thesis

A final contrast follows from the point of view that the shifts in policy substance are also bringing to the fore entrepreneurial local governance. This means that local governments increasingly have to adopt flexible procedural policy styles and means of implementation. The inference is that governance is a responsive mode, beyond the rigidities of what some have characterised as bureaucratic local government. While this characterisation has, according to Imrie and Raco (1999), some substance, many local governments did and do engage in proactive and innovative policy-making, often exceeding what is statutory permissible.

Moreover, the (neo-liberal) perspective of dualism between local government as ‘bureaucratic’ and local governance as ‘flexible and responsive’ is difficult to sustain. Indeed, the elected institutions of

18 Eisenschitz, A. & Gough, J. (1993), The Politics of Local Economic Policy, Macmillan, London, as quoted by Imrie and Raco (1999).


local government have always relied on non-elected and voluntary organisations. In this sense, local government is, and always has been, enmeshed within local governance networks.

4. Summary and research implications

Based on a first analysis of the literature we have developed a first assessment of the concept of urban governance. This was developed in different stages, starting with the context in which urban governance is rooted. This was followed by a description of the major features of both urban government and urban governance and by a review of the pros and cons of urban governance. This discussion dealt with four contrasts. The enabling thesis stipulates that local governments left (had to leave) their position as the central player for an enabling position. The closure thesis stipulates that local governments became less democratic. The thesis of changing policy substance implies that traditional welfare goals are replaced by economic development initiatives and, finally, the entrepreneurial thesis states that entrepreneurial mood is entering local government. A first, tentative assessment of urban policies shows that the change from local government to local governance is not a clear-cut dichotomy. The implicit distinction between local government and local governance is therefore problematic. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that local government is far from monolithic or remains similar over time and space. And the same goes for local governance.

In their conclusions Imrie and Raco (1999) stress that recent forms of local policy have demonstrated continuities and hybrids of local economic development, policy-making and policy-delivery. This implies that ‘new’ urban policies cannot be disconnected from urban history and former urban policies, since policies very often become locked in past policies and institutional structures set up to implement them (see Kleinman, 1996 on housing). An evaluation of the ‘new’ urban policy will therefore have to take into account that successes and failures can be a consequence of older policy, slowing down the new one. In other words, the issue at stake is not one of government or governance, but rather the role of ‘public government’ and other agents within the framework of governance as a broad umbrella concept covering numerous forms of policy networks (see Bogason, 2001: 73-74).


CHAPTER 2

NO SOCIAL COHESION WITHOUT SOCIAL EXCLUSION?

The aim of this second chapter is to develop the goals that urban development programmes often set for themselves, implicitly or explicitly. Sometimes it is called combating poverty or social exclusion, sometimes the promoting of social inclusion or social cohesion. These concepts are part of the contemporary debate about urban problems and policies. Some possess a rather negative connotation, as is the case with exclusion, marginalisation, segmentation, fragmentation, poverty, ghettoisation, and segregation, whereas inclusion, integration, cohesion, sustainability have a rather positive sound. What they have in common is that they are not very well defined. Poverty is not social exclusion. Is social inclusion the opposite of social exclusion? Is it another word for integration? Can social inclusion (or integration) and social cohesion be mutually substituted? Is cohesion connected to solidarity ? How does it relate to sustainability? In other words, this proliferation of terms is not an indicator of our increased knowledge of social reality; it is generated by a kind of policy-makers’ escapism.

Some of these questions have been discussed in other texts and suggestions for a clearer demarcation have been made (see Vranken, 2001). Poverty is defined as a specific form of social exclusion and social exclusion itself as one of four musketeers, the other three being social differentiation, social inequality, and social fragmentation. Social inclusion has been accepted as the mirror concept of social exclusion, although we warned against many hidden problems and perverse effects. Most acute was that enough account has to be taken of the fact that the processes that are subsumed under the heading of social inclusion are more than just the positive version of social exclusion. ‘The road back into society always is more difficult and not only because it goes uphill’. Social inclusion has been compared to Lockwood’s and Mouzelis’ definition of social integration and has been given a specific meaning (Vranken, 1999).

More problematic is that the concept of social inclusion nowadays is often seen as synonymous with social cohesion – and vice versa. We are somewhat baffled by this negligence, because both concepts have been defined quite clearly and differently throughout their long-standing use in sociological literature.

But there is more. The identification of social cohesion and social inclusion and the opposing of the latter to social exclusion could imply that social cohesion and social exclusion are mutually … exclusive. This is not the case and there even is a good case for the opposite argument, which is that social cohesion implies social exclusion.

However, before embarking on the development of this argument we need to delineate its context. We shall proceed in (four) steps. The first one is that social cohesion and social inclusion refer to different phenomena. The second one contains a first attempt to describe the concept of social cohesion. As the concept of social cohesion does not figure in the title of our project, we will first define its relation with sustainability, so that its position in our conceptual framework is better assessed.


1. Some conceptual reflections

First, we shall deal with the four concepts presented in table 3. We shall start with social differentiation, social inequality, and social fragmentation. Next, we shall discuss social exclusion somewhat in detail and take a look at the conditions to reverse the process into one of social inclusion. The concept of social cohesion is often taken as a synonym of social inclusion. That it is impoverishing our conceptual framework is the topic of the following section. Lastly, we shall discuss the mutual implication of social cohesion and social exclusion.

1.1. From social exclusion to social inclusion

Social inclusion is about combating and preventing social exclusion. Therefore, we shall first discuss the notion of social exclusion by comparing it to other generic general notions such as social differentiation, social inequality, and social fragmentation19. These four concepts can be said to constitute a quartet. This quartet is the result of combining two characteristics, i.e. the presence/absence of a hierarchy and the presence/absence of fault lines. Fault lines are, in short, ‘sudden discontinuities’ in social reality: between persons, groups, situations, processes or structures. Table 3. A typology in terms of hierarchy and fault lines

Hierarchy Fault lines No Yes No Social differentiation Social inequality Yes Social fragmentation Social exclusion

1.1.1 Social differentiation, social inequality, and social fragmentation

In defining social differentiation, we must go back to a central conceptual building block of social reality and social relations. They may either be co-ordinate or subordinate. Co-ordinate relations lead to social differentiation, while subordinate relations result in social inequality. Social differentiation then refers to phenomena such as different tastes in food or clothing, colour of eyes or hair and other bodily differences, so long as these do not have a notable impact on the distribution of social goods.

Social inequality clearly implies more than social differentiation. What is added is a hierarchy that places one position above the other. In contemporary Western society, the aforementioned characteristics – age or height or colour of hair – will not lead to social inequality, while others – education or income or skin colour – will be significant in this respect. In sociology, mechanisms that introduce a certain hierarchy into society usually are subsumed under two headings: social values and organisation of economic life. Inequality may relate to individuals or groups (families, classes).

Strictly speaking, fragmentation refers to a collection of different fields that are separated from each other (by fault lines) though the relation between them is not one of subordination. It concerns a polycentric (social or spatial) area with equivalent fragments. In this model, no single factor upon

19 For a more detailed discussion, we refer to Vranken (2001).


which other fields (e.g. politics, education, or culture) are considered dependent is postulated as dominant. Fragmentation is latently present in quite a few theoretical perspectives, such as the multicultural tenet, where it is assumed that different cultures can exist side by side in a kind of patchwork. Some interpretations of the ‘culture of poverty’ hypothesis could also be regarded as an illustration of social fragmentation. In the analysis of the urban space, too, fragmentation is put forward as the opposite of Burgess’ classical concentric model (see among others Hitz, Schmid and Wolff, 1996: 116). It might be expected that specific cultures have more chance of developing in an urban environment (Fisher, 1975: 36). Indeed, cities possess a higher ‘critical mass’. This makes it easier to reproduce subcultures in a larger city and to host many subcultures (see already the writings of Simmel, 1908; Wirth, 1938 in the first half of the 20th century). Moreover, competition between different subcultures has a clear mobilising effect on their development.

1.1.2 Social exclusion

This brings us to the fourth and central notion, social exclusion. Social exclusion refers to situations and processes such as polarisation, discrimination, poverty, and inaccessibility. Social exclusion implies two conditions: a hierarchical relationship with individuals, positions, or groups and a separation by clearly discernible fault lines. Exclusion is not just about common ruptures in the fabric of society; the concept refers to real gaps that lead to a division between ‘in’ and ‘out’. In order to arrive at such a situation, society must possess certain characteristics. It must, for instance, be structured according to a centre/periphery relationship and society’s economic, social, and cultural capital must be distributed unevenly. Of crucial importance in this respect is of course the fault line, which may manifest itself as a gap, a wall, or a barrier.

The notion that fault lines are significant is not new. With regard to poverty, Townsend (1979: 57) has perhaps formulated this most aptly. However, fault lines are not restricted to poverty. They also occur in the event of a ‘sudden decline in participation’. Fault lines refer to both processes (consecutive phases) and situations. While Townsend primarily focuses on fault lines resulting from individuals’ and households’ behaviour, we shall concentrate on socially constructed or structural fault lines. Indeed, certain fault lines are the result of collective intervention (e.g. subsistence income or institutional isolation), while others arise without any explicit and deliberate intervention on the part of social agents (such as with segmented labour markets).

We can distinguish between different types of fault lines: relational, spatial and societal fault lines (Vranken, 1997). They are a tangible answer to what is probably the most crucial question with regard to social exclusion, namely exclusion from what? (see among others Silver, 1995: 60). Reference points with regard to which social exclusion occurs are the ‘dominant institutions’, the ‘centres’ of society; the places where Bourdieu’s economic, social, and cultural capital are stored. The reference points of social exclusion are situated at the micro level (of individuals and their networks), at the meso level (of groups or neighbourhoods), and at macro level (of society). Here, special attention will be paid to spatial fault lines, which usually occur in combination with social fault lines.

The first reference point is that of the individual, particularly that of social exchanges between individuals. They may be regarded as selfish monads maximising their personal advantage, as is the case in classical economic theory. Or they may be conceived as ‘social’ beings, who exchange social commodities and thus become part of social networks. Social exclusion may then be seen as the result of exclusion from these exchange relations and thereby from social networks. That is what relational fault lines refer to. ‘Gatekeepers’ – that is, persons or institutions that occupy strategic positions at a junction within a social network – have the power to decide whether or not to allow through the flow of social commodities. By depriving certain people or groups (the low qualified, immigrants, the homeless) of certain social commodities (employment, housing, education, income, status, power), the


gatekeepers can create social exclusion (see also Vranken et al., 1996: 57). Thus, the networks of the poor provide little or no access to important social commodities – that is, to economic, social, and cultural capital.

A second reference point consists of groups or group-like phenomena. Weber’s concept of ‘social closure’ is of importance here. Social closure is the process whereby social groups attempt to acquire, increase, or maintain rewards by restricting access to sources or opportunities to a small circle of the happy few. The purpose is to monopolise opportunities in life which others too find desirable, i.e. the closure of such opportunities to outsiders (Weber, 1922/1956: 201). Groups who fail to realise any monopoly at all must compete with each other on the open market and are subjected to its levelling effects. The groups thus excluded often respond by imposing boundaries on even weaker groups, which results in so-called ‘dual closure’ (Parkin, 1974). The relations of the autochthonous non-poor, the autochthonous poor and ethnic newcomers in deprived neighbourhoods are a very striking illustration of this process. The consequence is twofold: the creation of an uneven distribution of opportunities in life and of closed social relations and communities.

The third point of reference, societal fault lines, concerns societal structures and processes. In the economic production process, which is the central structuring feature of contemporary welfare states of the (post-)industrial capitalist type, they are the result of another form of ‘dual closure’. The first one resides in the relationship to the means of production, which leads to the (well-known) distinction between ‘possessing’ and the ‘working’ classes. A second distinction, however, has developed with the development of the welfare state. It concerns those who have a production factor (capital, labour, land) that is marketable and that produces a revenue, and those who do not and thus must (partly or totally) depend on the ‘redistribution system’ organised by the state (Vranken, 1977). On this ‘other’ side are those whose production factor is unemployed (the unemployed strictly speaking, the inactive population) or those who fail to implement a production factor optimally (unskilled workers, traditional farmers, small entrepreneurs). It is clear that the central question in this respect is whether society as a whole or parts of it have to be divided into sub-societies. Such developments have been analysed with respect to the labour market (dual labour market) or to income acquisition (‘earned’ income versus ‘welfare’ income). It is not hard to find other examples, such as lack of access to political rights. That kind of exclusion is at the level of the constitutional state – an external moral order that grants rights to individual participants.

Spatial fault lines occur at all three social levels that have been discussed above. They will most frequently be linked to the meso level, however, such as in ‘ghettoisation’. These urban forms of social exclusion are characterised by extreme concentrations of poverty in ‘multi-problem’ or `distressed’ neighbourhoods. Although segregation appears in all European cities, the American-style ghetto is unknown in European cities. Deprived neighbourhoods are almost never as ethnically, culturally, or religiously homogeneous as their North American counterparts (see e.g. Wilson, 1987). Among other factors, spatial segregation arises from increasing dislocation and modifying economic class structure, unemployment, and highly segmented (or even dual) labour markets. Persons in the secondary market – especially in its external segment – are unable to access other parts of the labour market. Although these psychological states are not always easy to observe, their consequences are clear.

Let us summarise our argument. Social exclusion may manifest itself in different shapes: as exclusion from ‘society’, from (relations with) other individuals, from groups, or from spaces. The macrolevel provides the structural framework within which social exclusion occurs. We would like to point out that, depending on whether a society is culturally homogeneous or heterogeneous, the repercussions of social exclusion are fundamentally different. In heterogeneous societies, exclusion from one subsociety still leaves open the possibility of inclusion in another; this is, by definition, impossible in a homogeneous society.


1.2 Social inclusion

Given the crucial role that several fault lines play in the production of social exclusion, it is important that they are focused in processes leading to social inclusion.

At the micro-level, inclusion takes place through different sets of roles: as a producer (labour market), a consumer (access to services), a citizen (political rights), a ‘signifier’ (entitled to own life-style) and a member of ‘public’ social networks (associations, social contacts). The first set refers to a person’s role as a producer. “It is commonly accepted that overall social integration is fundamentally rooted in labour market integration (or economic integration in a larger sense) and this is very well grounded in empirical findings” (Vranken, 1995). The second set of roles is related to one’s position as a consumer, that is her/his access to private and public goods and services. The third set refers to a person’s roles as a signifier, i.e. to the way identities are created through this consumption. The fourth set of roles is connected to the position as a citizen. The classical version of the citizenship approach considers citizenship as a cluster of rights and duties that follow membership of the nation-state. The modern version puts the emphasis on what is called ‘social citizenship’, referring to obligations of the state to the individual. The last cluster of roles is related to positions in social networks. Networks are either public - membership of diverse associations – or private – a person’s role as a family member, a friend, a neighbour.

Social inclusion in this respect may be seen as the result of participation in the exchange of social commodities and, by extension, in social networks. 'Gatekeepers' - and agents in urban governance are important ones - occupy strategic positions in the networks, because they possess the power to let the flow of social commodities go through. Through providing socially excluded people or groups (the unemployed, immigrants, the homeless) with social commodities (employment, housing, education, income, power) they can promote social inclusion.

The second level refers to the processes of inclusion whereby outsiders acquire opportunities to access groups or communities that play an important role in society. These are social groups that realise some kind of monopoly (Weber) in matters of economic, social or cultural capital (Bourdieu). A most evident example is membership in labour unions, local associations, etc. In the sense that neighbourhoods are more than just social networks - they are also communities - they should be situated at this level. At the macro-level, the need of structured forms of inclusion into the market, stronger forms of income acquisition or political rights, should be focused. In this sense, active labour market policies (or ‘active welfare state policies’ in general) are ‘inclusion policies’, although the kind of inclusion (adaptation? emancipation?) they are promoting deserves some critical reflection.

How is thinking in terms of social inclusion to be evaluated? As for the social exclusion paradigm, from which it clearly originates, the ‘inclusion’ paradigm offers the advantage of not only providing us with descriptions of situations, but also of uncovering the forces underlying them. Rodgers (1995) states that the paradigm of inclusion and exclusion offers: “… a focus on agents of exclusion and inclusion, perspectives on the ways in which exclusion can be overcome; and a broad framework which brings together economic, social and cultural aspects of livinghoods and rights. The analysis of exclusion points to the linkage between deprivation and justice on the one hand, and the waste of resources on the other. It also promotes thinking about inequality, not as an abstract, theoretical concept, but in terms of its practical implications for people’s lives …”.

Nevertheless, thinking in terms of inclusion is not wholly without problems. Authors such as Goodin (1996), Rodgers (1995) and Kronauer (1998) emphasise the fact that ‘inclusion’ suggests positive, normative connotations. This seemingly self-evident normative requirement, however, also reminds us


of ‘Brave New Worlds’ still to come. Indeed, we would like to draw attention to the unintended effects of the moral desirability of ‘social inclusion’.

Inclusion is not always the answer to problems. Or better, it depends on the society and on the specific situation whether and which type of inclusion has to be promoted or not. Indeed, when considering inclusion, it is important to take the cultural dimension into account. It is often assumed that the various forms of social inclusion are interconnected. However, inclusion in one social domain (e.g. employment) does not always imply inclusion in other respects (e.g. social networks, political participation or cultural integration). What is certain, however, is that social inclusion will have very different implications in culturally homogeneous or heterogeneous societies. In heterogeneous societies, exclusion from one sub-society can be counterbalanced by inclusion in another. In a homogenous society this is, by definition, impossible. However, inclusion in all domains does not follow automatically from inclusion in one domain, as is illustrated by the fact that naturalised migrants do not – substantially - improve their opportunities to obtain a decent dwelling or job. Consequently, an important task is to assess the existence and the types of relations between different dimensions of social inclusion.

Social inclusion may include the promise of perverse effects, if not managed carefully. A most extreme illustration is child labour. This crucial form of inclusion (labour market inclusion) actually leads to the most extreme form of exclusion: exploitation. Along the same line of reasoning, the fact that women’s participation in paid employment is spreading seems positive, but the terms according to which this takes place are, on average, inferior to those of men. This has led sociologists to develop the concept of a dual labour market, a theoretical expression of the fact that exclusion also exists within the labour market. Rosanvallon (1995) bases the existence of a ‘new social issue’ on the argument that even people who are included in the labour market may occupy a precarious position, as a result of forms of flexibility and temporary statutes. Nevertheless, even if persons are included in the labour market on precarious terms, research shows that this can contribute to a substantial improvement in self-perception and perception by ‘relevant others’.

What does social inclusion imply in terms of relation with the ‘including’ community? The two extremes are ‘adaptation’ and ‘pluralism’. Whereas in the former case, the formerly excluded person or group adapts totally to the requirements of the host society, the latter concept refers to multiple forms of the co-existence, peacefully or otherwise, of different societies (or cultures) within a formal political structure (a city, a state). It covers the whole range from separate development – e.g. ‘self-organisation’ - to ghettoisation. ‘Reciprocal adaptation’ (‘real integration’?) could lie between both former concepts. It means that different communities living within the same political boundaries take over part of each others’ cultural patterns, ultimately arriving at a shared system of values and norms (though not necessarily of life styles). The degree of reciprocity naturally depends on the power relations between the different parties. To what extent does one or another interpretation of inclusion lead to even more exclusion?

Inclusion, however, is not always a spontaneous process. When social exclusion occurs or is imminent, social inclusion has to be organised. The promotion of a framework for social inclusion should be a major task for policies. This means, first and foremost, a reduction or disappearance of structural fault lines or of the 'sudden decline in participation' (Townsend, 1978), which is the essence of social exclusion. Whereas many fault lines are characteristics of any society or of a specific type of society, certain fault lines, however, result from policy-making or other forms of collective intervention. The introduction of a subsistence income or institutionalised forms of isolation (prisons, psychiatric institutions), are but two illustrations of such perverse effects.

These questions are related to how policies, to promote inclusion, should be conceived. If exclusion means that persons or groups are being driven towards the periphery, can policies then move people


closer to the centre of this structure? Is integration in one of the outer circles a possible and acceptable alternative? In the context of labour, this would mean that directing people towards a parallel labour market, such as ‘social economy’, is a valuable policy goal. This viewpoint allows for a more optimistic perspective on peripheral integration than do most theories of ‘marginalisation’ and ‘precarisation’.

Processes and situations of social inclusion and the assessment of their effects can take different forms. Each of these forms and its effects depend on the specific context in which they have been developed. This context can be defined in general terms, such as the type of welfare state or the cultural patterns of a given society, and can also be assessed in terms of the premises underlying welfare policies that perhaps need to be questioned.

An elaborated analysis of social inclusion also should take account of the impact of structural changes. Particular emphasis must be placed on the effects of demographic changes (immigration and emigration), policy deregulation (governance), and changes in living patterns (promoting new forms of social inclusion). It also should examine the various types of exclusion mechanisms and inclusion policies, their priorities and capabilities for adjustment and the impact of changes in the welfare state, not only from a comparative but also from a European (transnational) perspective. Goodin (1996) transcends the level of national states in his critique on inclusion thinking. In his opinion, states ought to be less inclusive internally and less exclusive externally. Nation states claim to do everything for their citizens - but only for them. If everyone belonged entirely and genuinely to a state, that system would function well. However, more and more people are not properly included in a particular nation state. Moreover, social problems are increasingly transcending borders.

1.3. Social cohesion

Kearns and Forrest (2000) discuss five dimensions of social cohesion: a common value pattern, structured solidarity, social networks, group identification, and social capital. These five dimensions, however, can be reduced to two: a relational dimension (structured solidarity, social networks and social capital) and a cultural dimension (common value pattern, group identification). We approach them in this way, because it provides us with a more coherent view on what cohesion is really about.

1.3.1 The relational dimension

A first element of the relational dimension is solidarity. It involves in the first place policy goals such as reduced inequality, better employment opportunities, improved access to social services and better social protection (see The First Report on Economic and Social Cohesion, EC, 1996) and the ‘organised solidarity’ (social protection, social services) that is instrumental to these goals. It also implies an interest in the needs and wellbeing of fellow-citizen. This kind of ‘solidarity’ – aptly termed ‘mutuality’ by Leadbeater (1997: 3) – is so successful in contemporary discourse because organised solidarity seems unable to solve the social problems of today. This could be because public administrations are too bureaucratic, appropriate social policies too expensive, or the social problems themselves too complicated and too interconnected. Especially the latter case is well illustrated by the problems encountered in combating urban forms of poverty.

Durkheim’s conceptualisation of types of solidarity (mechanic and organic solidarity) could be helpful in understanding the different forms of solidarity in contemporary society and assist us in understanding the rise of new forms of solidarity as a result of a changing technological, demographic


and economic context. Indeed, the forms of labour division lying at the basis of one or other form of solidarity, seem to be present in modern-day urban society and this could well explain some of the problems that are the subject of our research. The result could be that the ‘organic’ solidarity that is rooted in a functional division of labour needs to be complemented by ‘mechanic’ forms of solidarity that are imposed from above, through all kinds of social controls (by the state or by mass media). The erosion of traditional social networks (social capital?) and the necessity to organise links between people are other illustrations of this trend.

In other words, in order to have social cohesion we also need a structured multiplicity of social links with individuals or their positions. Through these networks, persons have their place in society. This in turn requires that many different foci (Feld, 1981) exist, where persons of different social groups (or subcultures) meet. Cohesion is then measured by the extent to which ‘social circles’, as phrased by Simmel (1908: 312-313), are crosscutting.

We just want to mention two characteristics of social networks that are relevant in the context of this research: the ‘strength of weak ties’ and the need to focus also the substantial dimension of networks (the ‘qualitative’ facet) and not only their formal characteristics.

The ‘strength of weak ties’ refers to the fact that indirect relations with persons in powerful positions (weak ties) provide access to the important ‘social goods’ (labour, income, education), whereas the strong ties – kinship and friendships relations – mostly are restricted to emotional support (originally Granovetter, 1973). Since the strong ties are rather with ‘the same kind of people’, their resourcefulness is very low for people living in situations of social exclusion. The only way to connect to a city’s or larger society’s resources – and so to improve their individual or collective position - is through the development of their weak ties. This debate is being complicated by recent developments within the neighbourhood (the increasing in- and out-flow, leading to more anonymous relations; see chapter x of this contribution) and by changes in the structure and functions of the family (especially compared to friendship networks).

From recent research, Kearns and Forrest (2000: 1000) conclude that most people remain strongly family-centred and that this feature increases with age. Moreover, and partly as a result, the extended family has become cross-generational and is assuming a new importance. Seemingly in contrast with this focus on the family’s new importance, they state that the significance of friendship networks is an under-researched and underestimated source of potential social cohesion in contemporary society. The crucial question of course is whether these developments are as ‘new’ as the authors suppose them to be. Could they not be the products of sociologists’ attention to ‘problematic’ situations, thus overlooking the ‘dominant’ forms of social life?

Is it sufficient to be informed about the formal characteristics of a network, to be able to judge its functions and importance? Or do we need data on the substantial dimension of a network? Whilst the former information is highly quantifiable and can be obtained through fairly traditional interview, the latter needs in-depth interviews and a qualitative analysis. We are aware that qualitative research does not provide us with the information needed to construct a ‘quality’ network prototype – if it exists at all.

What is lacking in most empirical research and theory-building regarding social networks, is the uneven distribution of different types of network over the population, the diverse functions they have. The network paradigm should avoid the functionalist trap that considers society (and thus the city) as an integrated whole only characterised by ‘differences’, and not by inequality and forms of social exclusion (such as segmentation).

As most successful - because fashionable - products, the concept of social capital has many fathers. The most renowned ones are Coleman (1990), Putnam (1995), and Bourdieu (1). Accordingly,


different definitions are currently being used. One is very close to that of social networks, in fact rather another word for it. For Coleman (1990), social capital refers to ‘the relations among persons’; it is an ‘aspect of social structure’ that ‘facilitates certain actions of individuals who are within the structure’. Given its closeness to ‘social networks’, we shall not discuss this approach further.

For others, ‘social capital’ is more about ‘social investment’; about ‘human capital’ being put into collective action. In this second sense, it implies networks and something else. For Putnam ‘himself’, therefore, ‘… social capital refers to the norms and networks of civil society that lubricate co-operative action among both citizens and their institutions’ (Putnam, 1998: v). Later in this publication, he introduces another crucial concept, which – alas – possesses too much plasticity for research purpose, that of trust. He propositions that social capital is ‘accumulated’ through the interaction between trust and co-operation; whereas the trust facilitates co-operation, the latter produces the former.

Putnam argues that social capital in the U.S. has declined, using amongst others, voluntary work and participation in associations, such as the Red Cross or the Boy Scouts, as indicators. He finds a decline in the interest in national affairs in favour of the pursuit of individual interests: "By almost every measure, Americans' direct engagement in politics and government has fallen steadily and sharply over the last generation" (Putnam, 1985: 68). Evidence from Germany (Heinze and Olk, 1999; Leisering, 1998; Streng, 1997) shows that the Putnam hypothesis has to be modified: there is indeed less participation in associations pursuing almost entirely collective goals (and goods), but an increased interest in associations promoting both the individual’s and the collectivity’s goals. Thus, the individual benefit of participation seems a precondition for joining an association, which (also) serves collective benefits.

For Bourdieu, the concept of ‘social capital’ is a constructive concept which permits producing realities that were invisible before (Bourdieu, 1979). In daily language, he continues, social capital means ‘social relations’. Daily language often points to very important social facts, but it simultaneously masks them though effects of familiarisation, making us believe that we already know them, that we have understood them and consequently, stop research. In his opinion, it is important to discover the logic according to which this particular form of capital is transformed into economic capital and, inversely, at what costs economic capital can be transformed into social capital. It is about the means to grasp the function of institutions such as associations or simply the family which is the main site of accumulation and transmission of this kind of capital. Social relations then are but one manifestation of social capital just as ‘conspicuous consumption’ is.

1.3.2 The cultural dimension of social cohesion

What about the second - cultural - dimension of cohesion? A Parsonian view would focus on the presence of a set of shared values and norms. This would enable the members ‘to identify and support common aims and objectives, and share a common set of moral principles and codes of behaviour through which to conduct their relations with one another’ (Kearns and Forrest, 2000: 997). Given our approach of social cohesion, it is the latter element that is most relevant because it refers to the ‘horizontal’ dimension that is typical of social cohesion. Concurrence of the group members with the value pattern itself refers to the more common Parsonian concept of social integration.

It should, however, be clear that this ‘value dimension’ of social cohesion should not be reduced to a ‘mutually respected moral code’ or to a common political culture (read voting behaviour), both of which have been at the centre of politicians’ concerns (see Kearns and Forrest, 2000: 997). Elements such as the recognition of one’s societal responsibility, democratic conflict-resolving and tolerant behaviour are equally important. The sociological problem lies in the collapse of civil society and its institutions, which before served as mediators between the general value patterns and the everyday life of the citizens and, moreover, fulfilled an important function of social control. Indeed, in modern


Western societies, social control is exerted through the routines and reciprocities of everyday life. This is best illustrated by the behaviour of people who have no daily routines, e.g. as a result of long-term unemployment. (See Turner, 1990: ‘quasi-members of society’ – leads to ‘deviant behaviour’)

This brings us to another facet of social cohesion, a feeling of belonging to or identification with a group, most aptly a collectivity. Although we discuss it as a feature of the ‘cultural’ dimension, identification with a group could also be regarded as an integration of the two dimensions we just discussed. Indeed, any collectivity implies the merging of a cultural pattern and a social network into a specific ‘social form’. The forces leading to this group formation are internal and external. Internal are the networks, facilitating interaction and communication, and common cultural frameworks, providing shared values, facilitating common meanings and interpretations, and common norms. Most important in this respect is the feeling that members are all part of a common enterprise, and that they are prepared to co-operate with each other to reach common goals. The external force promoting identification with the in-group is the perception of an out-group as a ‘threat’, of which the generation of stereotypes and stigmatisation is an important result.

In order to have cohesion at the supra-group level, two conditions must be fulfilled. As above, it is a negative and a positive one. The ‘negative’ one is that the development of inter-group conflicts is controlled by institutional arrangements. The ‘positive’ one is that the goals are general enough to induce co-operation of different groups. Urban residents identifying themselves with others of ‘their’ city, or, stated differently the city viewed as my ‘home’ (heimat) is a good illustration. We shall return to this linking of the social and spatial dimensions of cohesion in the next paragraph.


2 Social cohesion and sustainability

In our model, social cohesion refers to the social dimension of sustainability, which is less prominent in the traditional definition of the Brundtland Commission. ‘Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (as quoted by P. Marcuse, 1998). In this classic definition, ‘sustainability’ usually refers to its economic and ecological dimensions although it implies the necessity of including the whole system and its social, ecological, and economic sub-systems into any policy-making framework20.

The term ‘sustainability’ should then include the social conditions that are needed for the survival of a social system, such as a neighbourhood or a city. These conditions are the presence of social networks and other forms of social capital (exchange relationships, solidarity) and the presence of common values and a sense of belonging. In a certain sense, this answers the traditional definition of sustainability, which usually refers to a state of a human system, where resource consumption is at best lower than resource reproduction.

This use of social cohesion as ‘social sustainability’ takes account of characteristics of sustainability that are not to be found in its other two dimensions, such as

(a) some non-monetary costs and benefits of human activity for these systems;

(b) inequality between present and future generations;

(c) participation of all agents - grass-roots, professional, technical and social groups - to ensure recognition of diverse and changing values;

(d) addressing the needs of all sets of end-users; 20 Brundtland Commission: ‘Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’, as quoted by P. Marcuse (1998).

Sustainability

Social inclusion

Social dimension:social cohesion

Ecological dimension

Economic dimension

Vertical relation

Horizontal relation


(e) a time horizon that is longer than the one needed for current to short term decision-making.

However, a number of pitfalls are connected with the concept of sustainability. It does not necessarily go hand in hand with social justice; it might even induce injustice by generating new forms of social exclusion. It cannot be the sole goal of a programme, nor should it be equalled to the effectiveness of a programme. A sustainable programme, therefore, would not have to meet other criteria in order to be effective or to be implemented (a sustainable programme then would be realistic ‘by definition’). As a goal in itself, it might easily be interpreted as the preservation of the status quo. It might suggest that there are policies that are beneficial to everybody, and this could imply a functionalist and even organic view of society. In most cases, however, urban developments and urban programmes are conflict-laden arenas.

In a very critical approach, Marcuse develops some of these darker sides of the concept of sustainability. He states that sustainability may be a treacherous goal for urban policy. Indeed, it suggests the possibility of a conflict-free consensus on policies whereas, in fact, vital interests do conflict. When it comes to causes other than environment, sustainability is not an appropriate goal; at best it is one criterion among others. At worst, it is a constraint on the achievement of other goals.

"Sustainability" suggests that everybody has a similar interest in “sustainable urban development”. This, however, is not the case. We do not have common interests in ending poverty, segregation, inadequate housing, or homelessness. Measures aimed at reducing the use of scarce resources will lead to protests from several groups of urban residents and to acclamations by others, and thus to conflict and reduced social cohesion. Some of us profit from these problems, and they could even be ‘functional’ to groups or even whole societies. Gans’ classic analysis of ‘the positive functions of poverty’ could be a source of inspiration in this respect (Gans, 1972).

"Sustainability" taken as a goal only benefits the ‘haves’, while further excluding the ‘have-nots’. Indeed, although the latter groups’ conditions can easily be sustained, they should not be sustained. Sustainability could mean the preservation of the status quo. If, however, sustainability is a constraint rather than a goal, then it can be used as a criterion to evaluate measures. A desirable measure that is not sustainable is not as good as an equally desirable measure that is. In evaluating a policy, ‘sustainability’ should be weighed along with other criteria such as economic development, democratic control, equality, or social justice. Balancing is required: a very good programme that is not sustainable may be more desirable than a minor one that is, Marcuse writes.

Should the demand for a sustainable environment therefore focus simply on the constraint of environmental sustainability? Marcuse’s answer to his question is unequivocal. Even the limited use of ‘sustainable’ as ‘environmentally sustainable’ raises questions. Many desirable measures will have immediate adverse effects on the environment, such as building housing for low-income families in a possible conservation area. It means that the costs of environmental sustainability, not unlike the costs of environmental degradation, will not be borne equally by everyone. What is clear is that the simple criterion of sustainability does not get us far.

As is so often the case, the very definition of our goal depends on class and other social variables. For the poor, the issues tend to be immediate and very local: housing, public facilities, safety, clean streets. The affluent can escape these problems; they possess the means to choose their neighbourhood or they can rely on private market provision. Their concern tends to be on a larger scale: pollution at the city level, global warming at a world wide level. Even for an environmentally limited definition of sustainability, the agenda will be very different for different groups.

Marcuse ends with the consideration that we should rescue sustainability as an honourable and critically important goal for environmental policy. If transferring it to the area of social policy, it should be used to emphasise the criterion of long-term political and social viability in the assessment of


otherwise desirable programmes. It should not, as a goal, replace social justice – and we might add social equality or social inclusion.

From the preceding discussion it should have become clear that social cohesion is not necessarily a positive feature for everyone, in all circumstances. As a result, we must specify the conditions according to which the including or the excluding mechanisms of social cohesion function, whether or not they keep each other in balance or operate in one of both ways. We therefore need empirical research, to assess the circumstances under which cohesion produces certain (desirable or undesirable) results.

3. No social cohesion without social exclusion?

Whereas social inclusion refers to a vertical relationship, social cohesion is about a horizontal one. Social inclusion focuses on participation and integration of elements in a larger whole, such as persons in groups, and groups or individuals in societies. Social cohesion focuses on relations between the elements of a group (be it a primary group, a collective or class, a society) that are at a comparatively comparable level.

Social cohesion is about the processes through which the (urban) social system is integrated. It is needed to ensure the reproduction process of the (urban) system. A high degree of social cohesion within a group or community could even mean that social inclusion of some groups or individuals becomes more difficult, as is the case in ethnically or religiously homogeneous societies.

Following from this, we agree with Healy’s argument (Healy, 1998) that exclusion and cohesion are not opposite concepts, but that they overlap. Exclusion implies the active existence of cohesion, while a strong, neighbourhood related cohesion can exclude inhabitants from opportunities outside the neighbourhood. This suggests that we need to understand social exclusion and cohesion as group-building and mobilising processes that generate boundaries and create labels of ‘we’, ‘you’, and ‘they’. Some cohesion may be constraining and limiting, unable to respond to new conditions. They may also exclude others from opportunities to which they are entitled. This suggests that research and policy attention need to be directed at discriminating between forms of cohesion and of exclusion which are supportive and which give strength and identity to people in vulnerable situations, and those which actively seek to prevent others participating in their opportunities and social worlds.


CHAPTER 3

ON AREA-BASED POLICIES TO PROMOTE INCLUSION AND

COHESION

As mentioned before, one of the important recent urban policy developments is the introduction of area-based policies. According to Andersen and van Kempen (2001) this territorial or area-based approach taps into a major source of potential. Territory functions as a sort of institution for co-ordinating and mobilising various agents, initiatives, and efforts in time and space. We should, however, be aware of the fact that the relevance of area-based approaches for combating poverty and social exclusion and for promoting social inclusion and social cohesion, is controversial. It is linked to the debate about neighbourhood effects. We are confronted with different points of view on this matter, ranging from one side of the continuum to the other. Ostendorf, Musterd and De Vos (2001) state that poverty is an individual matter, and that neighbourhood actions to combat poverty therefore miss the point. They state ‘As an alternative, we suggest that poverty is a personal characteristic and that it is therefore preferable to approach poverty directly instead of hoping for the results of a dubious “neighbourhood effect”’ (Ostendorf, Musterd and De Vos, 2001: 371). For them, area-based poverty policies are like treating cancer with a disinfectant (Gilles Martin-Chauffier in his Novel ‘Les Corrompus’, Grasset, 1998). Earlier, Musterd and Ostendorf (1998) - and also Friedrichs (1997) - found that some neighbourhood effects could be found, but that they tend to be small in Europe compared to the American experience. Not surprisingly these researchers are critical of area-based approaches.

van Kempen and Priemus (1999) write that ‘The battle against segregation and concentration is fought on the basis of ideas that are questionable in the Dutch situation, and probably in other European countries as well’. H.S. Andersen (2001), among others, holds a different view. ‘Without being naive on that matter’, he states, ‘it can be argued that deprived neighbourhoods also constitute a very important element of and contribution to the interaction between social, economic and physical changes in the cities that cause urban decay. These areas are not just a simple result of social inequality and segregation; they are also by themselves creating new segregation and inequality. In these neighbourhoods there have been started strong self-perpetuating processes that, by complicated mechanisms, pull them into a downward spiral from which they seldom come up again by themselves’ (see among others also De Decker, Meert and Peleman, 2001; Atkinson and Kintrea, 2001).

Before our tentative assessment of the relevance of area-based policies, however, we need to provide answers to a number of questions. At what territorial level should area-based policies focus? Is it the neighbourhood, the city, or the conurbation? What is the smallest system level at which a coherent and efficient policy can be conceived? Do these levels possess enough (economic, social, cultural) capital to tackle the problems that arise? In other words, does the spatial dimension add something to traditional policies that usually have individuals, groups, or situations as their point of reference?

The answers to these questions are, of course, dependent upon the context within which these territorial units exist and operate – such as the type of welfare state or other institutional


arrangements. This contextual question will not be answered here, if only because it is the subject of our empirical research.

First, we shall discuss the changing spatial dimension, the relationships between neighbourhood effects, social exclusion and cohesion, the importance of neighbourhoods for socialisation, and structural marginality. Subsequently, we shall review briefly the pros and cons of area-based policies and discuss the processes that could constitute threats to their success. By way of conclusion, we shall formulate some qualified answers to the main issues in this debate on the possibilities of area-based policies.

1. The spatial dimension of social exclusion

Social exclusion has to be understood as a multi-level and multi-facetal phenomenon, which means that social exclusion manifests itself at the individual, group and societal level and that it implies economic, social, cultural and political features. Combined, these will keep people and groups of people at the margins of a society. This phenomenon has clear spatial expressions in the old, industrial neighbourhoods in inner cities and large-scale social housing estates (Donzelot and Jaillet 1997). As a consequence of these observations, Room (1995) states that research on social exclusion should also pay attention to spatial dimensions and to local communities and not only to the characteristics of the individual and the household (see also van Kempen, 2001).

1.1. Is there life outside the neighbourhood?

It is not really surprising that the ‘neighbourhood lost’ versus ‘neighbourhood won’ debate has gained ground. Generally speaking, the ‘neighbourhood’ refers to a geographical delineated area used by people in a practical and symbolical sense. In many current policy papers, however, the implicit image of a neighbourhood is what Tönnies called a ‘Gemeinschaft’ at the end of the 19th century21. A good neighbourhood was seen as a neat village dominated by harmony and solidarity. Leaving open the answer to the question if these communities ever existed, we can at least argue that the fabric of the theoretical construct of a ‘Gemeinschaft’ must have crumbled under the pressure of recent developments. These changes in the social structure increasingly opened up choices for organising one’s life, which no longer has to be lived with people from the same community.

This fundamental change in the social structure has its implications for the role that the neighbourhood plays today. It can be assumed that the neighbourhood is less exclusively and less intensively used. During the first part of the 20th century, public familiarity, knowledge of each other in an accessible space played a much greater role. Although one can argue that even then people did not really constitute a community in the sense of Tönnies, people met more often in public spaces – and the home then was still part of it, at least for the ‘common people’. People knew their neighbours, at least enough to identify one’s own social position and those of the others. One could oppose ‘we’ against ‘them’ in daily practices. As some urban neighbourhoods possessed a significant degree of social cohesion, it could be said that urban neighbourhoods were inhabited by ‘urban villagers’ (Pahl, 1966). This is certainly still the case in many urban neighbourhoods.


Living together never has been free of obligations, not even in ‘good old times’. Old neighbourhood relations were often rational and instrumental. Since most services were not state provided or very expensive (on the market), people were connected to one another out of necessity. Meanwhile neighbourhood relations have changed dramatically as a result of technological innovations, economic changes, increasing welfare and consumption and the restructuring and development of the welfare state. The post-war increase in welfare made these changes possible. Here lie the roots of the diminishing importance of neighbourhood relations. The welfare state ‘socialised’ mutual aid: people became less dependent on each other. Formal organisations, experts, and welfare workers took over. More recently, flexible work and shift work differentiated the trajectories of families and neighbours even more. Not everybody leaves the house with his of her lunch box at the same time anymore. Few walk to their work and nearly no one leaves for the same destination. Neighbourhood and work have become separated. Only unemployment or retirement lead to an increase in time spent together (e.g. Blokland-Potters, 1998).

1.2. Neighbourhood effects, social exclusion and social cohesion

Many features could be discussed in this paragraph. We shall focus on the items social capital, social networks, and the interaction between the spatial and the social dimension. The reasons for selecting these items should be evident to the attentive reader. Both social capital and social networks are, in different ways, relevant to phenomena of exclusion and cohesion and both exclusion and cohesion are the result of interplay between the social and spatial dimensions of any society, including urban societies at the city and the neighbourhood level.

1.2.1 Social capital and the neighbourhood

For some, space around the home has little meaning. They travel between their home and other places: the school, the workplace, the shopping centre, the leisure complex, and grandparents' house. Other people, however, spend most of their time in and around their home. The ‘passive neighbourhood’ becomes an ‘active neighbourhood’ as people come to use, enjoy and identify with its qualities and develop interactions with others.

Our discourse so far represents this paradox: for some authors, the neighbourhood seems to have lost its significance as a framework for social relations, while others are convinced of the opposite. There is clearly a certain degree of consensus, however, about the groups for whom the neighbourhood has greater significance. As the most vulnerable social groups - the elderly, single mothers and some ethnic minorities - are spatially concentrated, neighbourhood effects on their social relations will be more pronounced. How does this relation fit into our conceptual framework?

The link between both concepts of ‘social capital’ and ‘social relations’ is easily made. Social capital refers to the norms and networks of civil society that lubricate co-operative action among both citizens and their institutions. Without adequate supplies of social capital – that is, without civic engagement, healthy community institutions, norms of mutual reciprocity, and trust – social institutions falter (Putnam, 1998). Putnam argues that there is a decline in the stock of social capital (in contemporary USA) and that poor neighbourhoods in general lack the necessary qualities of self-help, mutuality and trust which could assist in their regeneration. Temkin and Rohe have argued that two constitutive elements of social capital, socio-cultural environment, and institutional infrastructure are key determinants of neighbourhood trajectories. The socio-cultural dimension refers to qualities of local


interaction referred to above, while the institutional infrastructure ‘is a concept that measures the level and quality of formal organisations in the neighbourhood’ (1998: 69).

For the further elaboration of these ideas we use Healy’s institutional approach (Healy, 1998). The questions dealt with highlight, first, that neighbourhoods, in the sense of places where people live, have become a social world that shape attitudes and aspirations. Secondly, these attitudes and aspirations may be significantly different from those of people who live in other parts of the city. Both questions in the end look at the processes of social exclusion and cohesion at neighbourhood level. To assess these processes more profoundly, we focus on the meaning of social relational webs and the dialectics between space and daily life. This enables us to highlight some more concrete insights regarding the context of socialisation processes in neighbourhoods and the emergence of structural marginality at the neighbourhood level (see Healy, 1998).

A relational perspective on social processes considers individuals not as autonomous subjects with individual preferences, but as individuals formed within social contexts. It emphasises the social relations within which we live and the social worlds with which we construct our identities and our relations with others. The tern ‘social network’ is often used to describe this relational concept. In an institutionalist approach, a network is more than just sets of relational links through which people can access material resources, knowledge, and power. Different networks or relational webs embody and express social worlds through which local knowledge flows, framing how people think, perceive, and give value. In the context of these worlds collective identities (‘we’, ‘you’, and ‘they) ’were constructed. It is often claimed that modernity and post-modernity have disrupted these ‘gemeinschaftliche’ relations. Today, many people participate in several networks at once, choosing alternative identities and living with the possibility of multiple identities. Social networks intersect with each other and cluster in particular places, but these places are not necessarily neighbourhoods. They may not even be physical places, but may exist on the airwaves or the Internet.

The institutionalist approach, as developed by Healy (1998), emphasises the importance of when and how being in a place matters to people and how this may differ between those who live and work there (‘the insiders’) and ‘outsiders’ who label it. This suggests that any policy aimed at overcoming the adverse effects of social exclusion, should look at: (1) how social worlds of place affect people in terms of mobilising for change (where do people look for allies? Whom are they mobilising for and against?), (2) what motivates outsiders to engage in place-based mobilising in someone else’s place ? And (3) which conceptions of place and community are used in these insider/outsider mobilisation processes? In order to obtain an understanding of what living in a place means to people, we need a method for looking at social life, which reflects the way we live. The concept of everyday life offers such an approach.

1.2.2 The dialectics of space and daily life

The concept of every day life provides more focus to what living in a place means. Firstly, it counterbalances the contemporary emphasis on the point of view of business life and the firm (see also: Madanipour, 1998). Secondly, it challenges the policy literature that treats people’s concerns in terms of separate areas of service delivery (health, education, training, and employment). This tends to emphasise a service producer view of people’s needs and concerns. An everyday life perspective focuses instead on the multiplicity of roles people play and the services they use every day.

This all highlights, still following Healy (1998), the way social exclusion and cohesion are expressed in the mental maps through which residents, employers and service providers view the social space of the city. Neighbourhoods are symbolised in people’s conceptions of place, leading to valuing and devaluing processes, which can be very exclusionary (such as low property values, redlining). An


important dimension of neighbourhood improvement work is to consider how people value their living places, how they compare them with others, and the social context in which this valuing takes place.

This perspective offers the possibility of evaluating public policies in terms of their contribution to people’s wellbeing. It is clear that the place where daily life is located is important in this respect. Some living places are rich in resources for support and enhancement. Others are a collection of hurdles and barriers, environmental and social contamination that undermine their inhabitants’ physical and mental health and the development of their aspirations. In this context, social exclusion could mean being cut out of opportunities to live with people and in places that enhance the chance to participate in whatever way people may want to prosper. The every day life concept of Healy (1998) thus puts considerations of social exclusion and cohesion into an evaluative concern.

Although this will differ from country to country and from city to city, neighbourhoods are remarkably stable if compared to larger societal changes. As for individuals, some neighbourhoods also suffer from ‘intergenerational poverty’; they remain poor for a long time22. This implies that neighbourhoods are (or can be) important in the formation of more or less permanent social groups in a more or less permanent structure of residential segregation. A neighbourhood also constitutes a social environment offering values and aspirations. That way, it is an important source of socialisation. Following Goldsmith and Blakely (1992) we can argue that for poor and vulnerable people poor neighbourhoods can form ‘a spatial lock’. As a consequence of living in an - often geographically, socially and politically isolated – poor neighbourhood, youngsters do not learn the skills necessary to find a regular job. In finding a job, people from poor neighbourhoods and unemployed, poor households (see Pahl, 1984) often lack the social skills and insights needed to sustain relations (e.g. membership of a union). All this leads to a low and/or an uncertain income, implying a problem of access to good and affordable housing. Since low-cost housing is often concentrated, poor and/or vulnerable people are doomed to live in poor neighbourhoods. That way, the circle of poverty develops into a vicious circle.

The discussion leads to the hypothesis that living in poor neighbourhoods will affect life chances in a negative way, but that the circumstances have to be specified (see earlier). Despite the importance of the spatial organisation, we cannot conclude that it determines general social conditions. It only enforces existing processes. Wilson (1991-92; see also Saunders, 1985) speaks of a concentration effect. It is a feature that facilitates certain developments, negatively or positively.

At least some parts of the ‘zone of transition’ (see Burgess, 1925) which historically, integrated newcomers into the city, have become a ‘cul-de-sac’ (Dubet and Lapeyronnie, 1992). People living in these neighbourhoods have little power; they cannot choose their dwelling. Very often they see their marginal place in the labour market reproduced and even aggravated by their housing condition and the neighbourhood they live in. The ‘spatial’ context symbolises and strengthens personal and social marginalisation. In the end, two processes coincide in stigmatised marginal neighbourhoods. The first one is the concentration effect, implying that the living together of poor families and persons increases the chance that poverty is passed from one generation to the next. The second is the result of stigmatisation. Since living in a distressed neighbourhood is considered as reflecting on a person’s possibilities and even characteristics, strong urges exist to leave the neighbourhood as soon as possible. Phenomena of ‘reference group behaviour’ and the related process of social disintegration

22 This does not exclude the fact that the turnover in these neighbourhoods can be very high and that some neighbourhoods will alternate rise and decline – as is illustrated by some gentrifying neighbourhoods. Here we refer only to the fact that as a physical place, neighbourhoods often remain very stable for a very long time if governments do not interfere. Moreover, it is our impression that gentrification is only important in large cities (where commuting distance and time is crucial) and in cities where huge government interventions try to make urban life more attractive to high income-households.


lead to a diminishing of internal solidarity (Wacquant, 1996 – see also De Decker, Meert and Peleman, 2001), which will negatively affect the success of area-based policies.

On the other hand, urban policies can sometimes reverse these processes. During the 1960s and 1970s, many ‘lower-class’ families in Belgium were able to exchange their poor neighbourhoods for a suburban dwelling. This was the result of economic growth and the development of the welfare state. Times have changed, however, and socio-spatial polarisation rather has increased, with old, industrial neighbourhoods and large social housing estates becoming poor neighbourhoods.


2. Are area-based anti-poverty strategies to be compared with ‘running up a downward escalator’? Pros and cons of area-based policies

Do area-based approaches to combat poverty and social exclusion and/or to promote social inclusion or social cohesion make any sense? Or is it true that these policies do not sufficiently affect these dimensions of social life?

Our analysis has also shed some light on a number of rather subtle and more manifest processes that coincide in the unequal spatial distribution of material and social prosperity. It shows that ‘the geography of misery’ (Burrows and Rhodes, 1998) is the (persistent) result of the dialectic between macro- or mega-trends (e.g. economic and political restructuring), meso-processes (e.g. stigmatising) and social relations in daily life. The negative impacts of these processes are threatening the success of area-based policies.

In what follows, we will try formulate a balanced judgement of both pros and cons of area-based policies. We will do this at three levels: that of the neighbourhood and the life chances of its inhabitants; that of the relation of the deprived neighbourhood(s) with other neighbourhoods; and that of the structural context of area-based policies. We refer to Parkinson (1998) and Andersen and van Kempen (2001) for a further discussion of both advantages and disadvantages of area-based approaches.

2.1.The neighbourhood and the life chances of its inhabitants

Let us first discuss the disadvantages of area-based policies. Forrest (2000) points out that the

ongoing outflow of more successful earners and higher socio-economic groups has far reaching consequences for deprived neighbourhoods. These neighbourhoods will remain unbalanced areas concentrating a wide range of social risks, by sheltering poor inhabitants who possess hardly any negotiation capacity and who are isolated from the labour market and the leading social and cultural norms of society.

Providing particular communities with increased resources and attention would create a long-term dependency culture that prevents their residents from finding routes out of exclusion. On the other hand, the few individuals or families who can catch up, leave the neighbourhood, thus adding nothing to the neighbourhood’s prosperity. In short, very few succeed and those who do so, leave – being replaced by newcomers who are often even worse off than those who are left behind.

How can this negative turnover in the area be avoided23? Is the way out of this dilemma to be found in the Netherlands, where a huge urban restructuring programme was introduced that replaced cheap social housing for rent by more expensive housing for purchase? This would provide households with the means to move up the housing ladder in their own neighbourhood and keep their social capital there (e.g. Burgers et al., 2001).

23 Which is the case for the Dutch and Danish neighbourhoods in the UGIS-project. See: Anderson, Norgaard and Pedersen (2001) and Burgers et al. (2001).


One effect of such a policy would be to increase the social and/or ethnic mix of the neighbourhood. More specifically, it assumes that social mix should be an outcome of area-based policies. Social mix is indeed expected to enhance social cohesion and harmony, to reduce delinquency, and to improve the social integration of excluded people. A strong argument in favour of a social mix and the creation of balanced communities is that a concentration of deprivation is not good at all (Van Engelsdorp- Gastelaars, 1996; Forrest, 2000). Social mix is also understood as offering better and more possibilities towards social integration of new generations. Yet, if we consider the historical development of cities, the feasibility of social mix becomes problematic since more affluent social groups have nearly always left the distressed areas, looking for more prosperous ones in the urban periphery. Moreover, the promotion of social mix also ignores more direct policies of income redistribution, guaranteed employment, or local voting rights for immigrants (Kesteloot, 1998).

Nevertheless, if social mix is linked to a wider choice on the housing market, meaning that a greater variety of different dwellings is being offered in a wide range of locations, this may enhance the freedom of choice. Strongly simplified the current structure of the housing market forces the poor to live in deprived neighbourhoods with poor housing conditions, while affluent households can choose where to live. They even have the opportunity to gentrify distressed areas. Seen from this perspective, social mix can at least offer the opportunity to successful local households to stay in the neighbourhood. This means that they will not have to run up the downward escalator and leave the neighbourhood. The Dutch restructuring policy is built on this assumption, demolishing cheap dwellings in the inner city and replacing them by more comfortable (and more expensive) dwellings in order to support successful local households in sharing the neighbourhood with the poorer households.

Area-based policies increase community social capital – skills, confidence, assets, organisational capacity, and internal networks - and the prospects of individuals finding routes to inclusion. By focusing public resources area-based policies can help to compensate for market failures where the private sector is unwilling to invest in areas which have concentrations of excluded people. This is discussed in more detail in so-called ‘redlining literature’ (see e.g. Jacobs, 1961; Dingemans, 1979; Palm, 1979; Darden, 1980; Kantor and Nystuen, 1982; Bradford and Rubinowitz, 1975)

There is a general consensus that the first aim of area-based policies concerns the empowering of inhabitants with social capital and networks, in order to improve their access to the formal labour market and to dominant institutions of society. Such measures are taken in the realm of the social economy and include specific training programmes and work-experience projects. These initiatives are often the most ambitious components of territorial policies. The success and failure of such projects depends not only to a high extent on their intrinsic qualities and management, but even more on the possibility to provide decent jobs within the neighbourhood (or within a distance that is easy to bridge). Area-based approaches to enhance labour market access will indeed have meagre effect without the proximity of jobs (Jargowski, 1997).

2.2. Do area-based policies just displace problems of different neighbourhoods?

According to Forrest (2000), area-based approaches simply displace problems of different

neighbourhoods and do not add to the overall economic and social well-being of the city as a whole –


they are the equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic (Parkinson, 1998). Parkinson concludes that trying to solve the problems of social exclusion within particular areas of cities is bound to fail, since the causes on the problems and the potential solutions – whether they are economic or social changes or institutional resources and programmes – lie outside excluded areas.

Andersen and van Kempen (2001) are less negative about the effects of area-based policies on the relation with neighbourhoods and on the city overall. They do, however, recognise that successful area-based initiatives can have some perverse effects. The electoral requirement that successes must be quick and visible can become a problem as it often turns projects into promotional means for the careers of politicians and policy-makers. The increasing number of programmes with specific aims offer decision-makers the possibility of obtaining a higher profile in the media. In other cases, the areas themselves may be used to enhance prestige. Cities might deliberately target all policies to particular areas, to be able to show off their success story. Of course, it may very well turn out to be one, but the rest of the city might suffer from a lack of attention and money. Moreover, not all excluded individuals live in excluded areas (see also De Decker, Meert and Peleman, 2001) and area-based approaches do not address their needs. In other words, general poverty policies remain necessary and can only be complemented by area-based policies, not replaced.

2.3. Do area-based policies tackle the causes of exclusion and poverty?

That the causes of the neighbourhood’s deprivation lie outside the neighbourhood constitutes the main drawback for territorial social policies. It means that, given the current Western-European context of economic growth and lasting high rates of unemployment in certain groups, area-based policies have to go hand in hand with a radical and large-scale redistribution of work, schooling opportunities and purchasing power. This redistribution in turn is linked to two important macro-social trends. The first one is the development of new labour saving and productivity stimulating technologies; the other is demographic developments such as the ageing of Western societies, leading to a reduced labour force and an expanded demand for care.

They help to improve the prospects of excluded areas by linking them strategically to economically and socially included areas of the city through citywide regeneration strategies, which also have a neighbourhood focus.

Area-based policies also create a good framework for concerted action to counteract multiple deprivation and form a concrete platform upon which cross-sectional efforts can be co-ordinated. They encourage a more integrated approach, linking regional economic growth and neighbourhood regeneration. They produce considerable synergy, as they imply direct involvement and co-operation with the local community and with various public authorities, businesses, and other organisations. They improve the delivery of services in excluded communities by integrating the policies and resources of different agencies and partners in the area, linking mainstream programmes to special initiative. They encourage the development of good practice and policy innovation, by producing visible results within a relative short timeframe.

It is quite clear that poverty policy cannot be restricted to urban areas alone, because forms of social exclusion are also present in other spatial areas. However, we should not forget the undeniable fact that poverty is concentrated in certain parts of larger cities and that general measures are not able to focus the specificity of urban poverty. For once, they are mainly targeted at individuals or households, and thus are overlooking the collective and spatial dimensions of urban poverty.


3. Conclusions

Does the neighbourhood have a relevant impact on the life chances of its inhabitants? The area-based approach is obviously functional when pursuing policies at the daily-life-scale. By means of a subtle spatial design, the inhabitants' possibilities of enlarging their social capital can be increased. There is no reason why such intra-neighbourhood policies should have negative effects on the situation in other neighbourhoods.

Do area-based policies just displace problems between different neighbourhoods? To reduce the flight of successful households from the neighbourhood, a sufficient variation in quality of neighbourhood dwellings should be provided, which means that ‘a kind of’ social mix should be promoted or at least made possible.

Do area-based policies tackle the causes of exclusion and poverty? Area-based policies should always go together with policies that focus the individual citizen (income redistribution, entitlements), target groups (migrants, handicapped people, the aged) or situations (health programmes, social economy policies). Exclusion issues on a local scale are interwoven with and determined by European and national initiatives.

These brief answers to three crucial questions should not hide the fact that the integration of area-based and social inclusion policies (especially poverty policies) remains a problematic issue. A series of questions remains and the UGIS-project intends to provide at least the beginning of an answer to some of them.

Is the only possible answer then a rejection of the entire idea of area-based policies? Both urban and poverty policy have their specificity. An urban policy involves more than only tackling social problems; it is also about the promotion of wellbeing of all urban citizens. Should improving the quality of urban life then be their main objective? We could argue that combating poverty and promoting the citizens’ welfare are part of this goal. Should we assign to area-based policies either an urban or a poverty (social inclusion, social) perspective? Is a two-track approach inefficient? Or can both approaches be integrated? The problem therefore has to be reformulated in terms of finding some equilibrium between (general) poverty policies, urban policies and urban poverty policies.

Are area-based policies more than ‘rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic’? In particular, we argue that possibilities for enhancing social and economic integration can be offered by developing elements of spatial layout and a well-circumscribed freedom of choice for inhabitants in order to modify their own neighbourhood. These can significantly contribute to fighting alienation and exclusion. Research has shown that five principles of spatial design seem to be important: visibility, openness or accessibility, flexibility, vicinity and image (Kesteloot, Loeckx and Meert, 1999). They may lead towards the fostering of social capital and relational networks.

Visibility implies that residents have an overview of their area in order to exercise some social control and to contact others. At the same time, it also must be possible to be seen by others who would like to interact and communicate. Openness or accessibility implies that people can choose whom they want to meet or to ignore, and that they have the right to leave in order to end a relationship. Flexibility in using the neighbourhood means, for instance, that residents have the right to modify and to rearrange their space. After all, these opportunities, whether offered by local housing landlords (social or private) or the municipality, may help residents to construct a positive identification with their neighbourhood. Vicinity stresses the importance of a distribution of potential


meeting places close to the residential infrastructure, as most social contacts emerge around the dwelling where the paths of different people cross each other.

Finally, tinkering with the image of the neighbourhood is important because what people say about their neighbourhood highly influences the way they act in their neighbourhood. When they feel stigmatised because they are living in a badly reputed neighbourhood, they might isolate themselves from the wider social and relational networks. Again, this illustrates the crucial role of social landlords and municipalities. They have the keys for installing local infrastructure for leisure, meetings, and other strong initiatives that might favour the image of a neighbourhood.


CHAPTER 4

CONCLUSIONS AND PROPOSITIONS

Since the purpose of this text is to clarify and to specify the original research questions in such a way that they take the form of propositions, we shall order these conclusions according to these questions. They follow the three relations between our central concepts and try to integrate these propositions into a modified scheme (see figure 2)

Research question 1: Which factors explain that urban development programmes have (not) fostered social inclusion at the neighbourhood level? We expect that area based initiatives have both positive and negative effects. Our hypothesis is that they have a positive effect in cases where urban government takes the form of governance24.

Proposition 1a

Theoretically, the impact of urban development programmes on a given neighbourhood largely depends on the characteristics of that neighbourhood. However, the larger context, such as the type of welfare state, may have an equalising effect on the differences between neighbourhoods.

Proposition 1b

We expect the effects of that spatial concentration to differ, because of differences in macro-variables and policy contexts.

(a) Differences in welfare states will have rather direct effects on the inclusion of people living in specific neighbourhoods. These differences may be a result of the existence and the level of social benefits. Differences between states may also affect income more indirectly, for example due to the existence (or not) of housing subsidies. A key factor remains the effect of spatial concentration of underprivileged persons on the labour market and consequently on economic, social, cultural, political and legal fields.

(b) We also expect different cities to offer different opportunities to their citizens. Such may be the case for the more general economic situation in a city (employment opportunities in a city with a traditional industrial basis versus a city where services form the economic backbone).

Proposition 1c

The different goals of urban development programmes and urban governance are not always compatible.

24 We also expect that area-based initiatives will be more successful where the participation rate of local residents has been high and people have been involved. We expect this is the key rather than the degree of problems facing individual neighbourhoods. We define positive effects of area-based initiatives by the improvement of the physical surroundings in individual neighbourhoods, by a high degree of participation by local residents and by improvement of job opportunities for local residents, etc ’.


(a) Social cohesion implies forms of social exclusion, because social cohesion is not only fostered by ‘positive’ internal conditions such as the creation of social networks or the existence of a common value system. Cohesiveness also depends on the creation of a clear opposition between the ‘in-group’ and the ‘out-group’ through the ‘negative’ process of ‘scapegoating’.

(b) Social inclusion and cohesion have contradictory effects, depending on whether the city or the neighbourhood level is considered. Strong social cohesion at the neighbourhood level could lead to less social inclusion of the neighbourhood’s inhabitants at the city level, whereas less social cohesion could have the opposite effect.

Research question 2: How have certain forms of urban governance shaped these programmes, their definition, their implementation and their successes and failures?

The implicit assumptions in urban development programmes (whether they are closer to the ‘government’ or the ‘governance’ model, see our typology) have an important effect on the way they affect social inclusion and social cohesion.

(a) With respect to social inclusion: is it true that governance has stimulated the integration of neighbourhoods in the city through the introduction of multiple participation and communication channels?

(b) With respect to social cohesion: is it true governance has stimulated local networks? Has governance stimulated a better understanding between the inhabitants of the neighbourhoods? Has it created a sense of ‘belonging together’ in neighbourhoods?

(c) Regarding urban sustainability: is it true that the absence of cohesion in combination with a deteriorating urban output produces a climate of urban decay, where all opportunities for inclusion decline?

Research question 3: How has the presence of these programmes changed urban governance and even stimulated (new) forms of urban governance (the ‘feedback loop’)

The feedback-loop exists if the way urban development programmes were managed has influenced the demand for urban politics, the conversion process and political support.

a) Have the priorities of the UDPs had lasting effects on the more general policy-making agenda?

b) Have coalitions between parties (the policy network local governments, other parties (such as residents groups), unions and companies) served as an example for the management of urban development programmes?

c) Have experiences with UDPs changed

– local government capacities and resources (constitutional, financial, professional and political; the length of bargaining in urban councils on major issues; party composition of urban councils)?

– the policy network (agents and interests in different kinds of coalitions)?

– the policy process in selected policy areas and issues (role of local government, of political parties, of ‘strong agents such as companies or labour unions, and citizens)?

d) Did UDPs affect trust in local institutions, conventional political participation (voting), unconventional political participation, and political apathy of the disadvantaged part of the urban population?


FIGURE 2. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE CENTRAL CONCEPTS – ADAPTED VERSION

Context:

‘Globalisation’? A combination of world-wide …

• spatial integration of economic activities • movement of capital • migration of people • development of advanced technologies • changing values and norms

(see P. Marcuse & R. van Kempen, 2000: 5)

Urban Development Programme

– Urban Sustainability – Social Cohesion – Social Inclusion

Urban Governance

RELATION - 1

RELATION - 2 RELATION - 3


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