This paper summarizes the theoretical insights drawn from a study of thirteen largescale urban development projects (UDPs) in twelve European Union countries. The project focused on the way in which globalization and liberalization articulate with the emergence of new forms of governance, on the formation of a new scalar gestalt of governing and on the relationship between large-scale urban development and political, social and economic power relations in the city. Among the most important conclusions, we found that:• Large-scale UDPs have increasingly been used as a vehicle to establish exceptionality measures in planning and policy procedures. This is part of a neoliberal "New Urban Policy" approach and its selective "middle-and upperclass" democracy. It is associated with new forms of "governing" urban interventions, characterized by less democratic and more elite-driven priorities.• Local democratic participation mechanisms are not respected or are applied in a very "formalist" way, resulting in a new choreography of elite power. However, grassroots movements occasionally manage to turn the course of events in favor of local participation and of modest social returns for deprived social groups.• The UDPs are poorly integrated at best into the wider urban process and planning system. As a consequence, their impact on a city as a whole and on the areas where the projects are located remains ambiguous.• Most UDPs accentuate socioeconomic polarization through the working of real-estate markets (price rises and displacement of social or low-income

This article explores the evolution of the care economy in Spain in the latter half of the twentieth century, analyzing the time use of family members, women's entrance into paid employment, and welfare state policies. Our historical account suggests that efforts to strengthen women's position in the labor market must go hand in hand with policies that encourage more equitable sharing of care responsibilities.Care, Child Care, Welfare, Social Security, Time Use, Spain,

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Since the mid 1980s, European cities and regions have become increasingly concerned with competitive restructuring and economic growth. This concern goes hand in hand with a rediscovery of the central role of cities in the performance of regional and national economies as a whole. But, in a context of radical transformation of production and demand conditions globally, the performance of cities is mediated by their capacity to lead a process of competitive redevelopment. To meet the challenges posed by the changing global competitive climate, the policy agenda of many cities has been drastically reorganized. On the one hand, the search for growth has transformed urban revitalization in one of the main domains of urban intervention. On the other, the new urban policy agenda is singularly framed in a language of competitiveness, improved efficiency, flexibility, entrepreneurship, partnership and collaborative advantage that underwrite the remaking of planning objectives, functions and instruments. In this article, we examine the rise of new urban policies in Bilbao (Spain), a city where two decades of manufacturing decline and economic restructuring are gradually giving way to so-called urban renaissance. During the 1990s, Bilbao has followed on the tracks of other old industrial cities adopting a revitalization strategy focused around large-scale and emblematic redevelopment projects. The article discusses one of these projects, Abandoibarra, a paradigmatic waterfront development that embodies the new logic of urban intervention.The first section of the paper presents an analysis of economic restructuring and sociospatial fragmentation dynamics in the city in the last two decades. The second section discusses changes in urban policy-making locating Bilbao’s regeneration strategy in the context of the ‘New Urban Policies’. The third section focuses on emerging governance dynamics and the critical role of new governance institutions in the management of Abandoibarra’s redevelopment scheme. Finally, the fourth part of the article attempts to provide an evaluation of the impact of the project, highlighting the shadows behind what is presented as a new success story in urban revitalization.

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