COPING WITH UNCERTAINTIES AND THE POLY-CRISIS WITHIN EUROPE: THE METROPOLITAN ARENA

Organizers

Camilla Perrone, University of Florence
Peter Ache, Radboud University

Contributors

Valeria Fedeli, Politecnico di Milano
Karsten Zimmermann, TU Dortmund University
Ivan Tosics, Metropolitan Research Institute, Budapest
Johanna Waldenberger, University of Amsterdam
Carlo Salone, Politecnico e Universita di Torino
Jan Schreurs, KU Leuven
Marco Cremaschi, Science Po
Donato Casavola, Politecnico di Torino
Kristi Grisakov, City of Tallinn & Tallinn University of Technology

The challenges regarding European Metropolitan Regions are growing in these times of a polycrisis: climate change adaption, the energy transition and a turn towards a post-carbon-economy, and variegated socio-economic and spatial fragilities, are all building up stress levels in those regions. What happens in the ‘power houses’ of modern urban societies, and how can we navigate these areas between strategic positioning and providing everyday life worlds? How are urban policies coping with these challenges, and what impact does the Next Generation EU policy play in addressing transformations and transition? 

The RT will address related issues in a critical inquiry but also by outlining some pathways to the future of the European Metropolitan Space. Against this backdrop, the RT intends to explore three dimensions of the current transition, focusing on the nature of the game changer and the possible implementation mechanisms for innovative policy and planning responses: Urban policies dimension: Is there enough understanding of the configurations of socio-spatial-ecological formations that result from the processes of territorialisation, deterritorialization and reterritorialization within the pathways of contemporary capitalism(s)? Spatial imaginaries: What are the new spatial imaginaries, either produced by experts and institutions at EU level, but also by people, as collective constructions with a performative and normative role, in response to the ‘polycrisis’?

Pathways to the future of the European Metropolitan Space:

Which conceptual and methodological challenges result for public policies and planning, as conceived so far? Which scenarios can be sketched for the future of the metropolitan regions in the coming decades and under what enabling conditions can policy and planning foster just and sustainable urban regions? 

The RT will bring together authors contributing to a special issue for Territory, Politics, Governance. 

Key words: Europe, metropolitan regions, strategic planning, game changer