Introduction: Social Innovation and Governance in European Cities

Abstract

This introductory article does three things. First, it compares neo-liberal and social innovation discourses about urban socio-economic change, including associated policies and key agencies. Second, it seeks to improve the analytical framework of urban development by combining `spatialized' Regulation Theory with elements from Cultural Political Economy and from Urban Regime Theory.Third, with the help of case-studies, the article illustrates how social innovation is a potentially powerful concept, capable of anchoring urban change movements more firmly into the local social and political fabric. The case-studies, some of which are included in this special issue, analyse examples of social innovation in a number of European urban contexts, within the framework of the FP5 SINGOCOM research project.

Of resilient places: planning for urban resilience

“…This reactive view is closer to the emergency planning measures that are often associated with the arguments based on building the Resilience Forums in the UK which prioritize bringing together public safety institutions such as fire, health, police, etc. However, it overlooks the adaptive capacity of the communities and self-regulatory nature of socio-political systems of a city in which communities self-organize and recover from shocks through reproduction of social capital and social innovations (Moulaert et al, 2007;Vale, 2014;Baker & Mehmood, 2015).…”

Planning allocations and the stubborn north–south divide in Tel Aviv–Jaffa

“…The impact on actual allocations through materialized planning was studied by urban regime (UR) theorists, who highlighted development coalitions between private and public agents in various cities, and thus made the correlation between unequal urban spatiality and unequal development order. They then created empirical-methodological tools for analyzing the role of social agency and material resources in development politics, and explored planners' practice within the framework of general social constraints and forces (Allmendinger, 2002;Blanco, 2013;Dowding, 2001;Fainstein, 2005;Kilburn, 2004;Moulaert, Martinelli, González, & Swyngedouw, 2007).…”

Inovação e desenvolvimento territorial: o papel do empreendedorismo social

“…7 Actualmente são consideradas pelos especialistas em Política Regional outras acepções de inovação. É o caso da inovação social (Moulaert et al, 2007;André e Abreu, 2006), nomeadamente quando se trata de mudança proactiva de atitudes e comportamentos de grupos ou classes sociais -por ex, a mudança de mentalidades quanto ao papel da mulher no mercado de trabalho e à integração nele de cidadãos em risco de exclusão -e da inovação institucional (Kirat e Lung, 1999) Em consequência, os núcleos anteriormente referidos deverão destacar-se no panorama global da competitividade regional pela sua capacidade de reprodução de conhecimento inovador enquanto nós de redes de transferência do conhecimento (Amin e Thrift, 1992), funcionando como palco da "fertilização cruzada" (Lopes, 2001) de conhecimento codificado e tácito graças à sua dotação em agentes produtores e utilizadores de conhecimento novo, relevantes para a criação e difusão de novas ideias, novas técnicas, novos modelos, entre outros. Configuram-se, em suma, como verdadeiros pólos de excelência na investigação aplicada e desenvolvimento experimental, e de empreendedorismo.…”