Changing Places.
Urbanity, Citizenship & Ideology
in New European Neighbourhoods

This book investigates the process of change in some European neighbourhoods, either newly and purposely built, or redeveloped from ashes. The book tries to offer evidence of many varied and complex paths of change, far from the mainstream simplified models of general urban evolution.  The piecemeal production of new additions to cities, as well as the process of incrementally reconverting old places and urban segments, we argue, proceeds in fact on twin tracts: structural change and internal evolution, therefore discourses and combined practices are to be considered together. “Changing places” is composed of a series of different case studies, all investigating the change of European neighbourhoods in the last twenty year. 

All the cases investigate places in a process of consistent transformation. The rate and nature of change, however, is diverse. The book focuses upon local change, while most of city transformations are due to non-local reasons. As is well-known, the restructuring of the economy has hit cities sparingly. Some cities are on privileged ground because of size and political weight, and have been able to develop independent development policies, often supported by ambitious strategic visions. Through overwhelming rhetoric, urban “visions” have lately gained influence on public opinion and policy making. 
This collection of case studies questions the nature of urban rhetoric, and explores individual neighbourhoods through rich, “thick” descriptions of their present situation and their development story. 

CONTENTS 

Introduction
Marco Cremaschi and Frank Eckardt 

• New neighbourhoods, places of Europe
Marco Cremaschi, Frank Eckardt  
• Envisioned and manufactured landscapes in Marseille
Heidi Bergsli  
• Evolving urban citizenship and the erosion of public space in Ponte di Nona, Rome
Sandra Annunziata 
• The Ørestad beyond what an eye captures: an existentialist enquiry into the being and becoming of new neighbourhoods
Ivana Trkulja 
• Spatial tactics: a study of everyday uses in the Parque das Nações in Lisbon
Patricia Simões Aelbrecht 
• Re/En/living history, Copenhagen’s memory of modernism 
Signe S. Bøggild and Marie B. Yde 
• The regeneration of inner city neighbourhoods and the role of cultural industries of Psiri in Athens
Nicholas Karachalis  
• Changing Frankfurt: Niederrad at the gates of globalisation 
Frank Eckardt and Janoš Klocke  
• Neighbourhoods in transition: the case of Bielany in Warsaw
Magdalena Górzynska  
• Insurgent public sphere in illegal settlements: Afragola in Naples metro-region
Daniela De Leo 
• Conclusion: exploring urban change
Marco Cremaschi, Frank Eckardt 

Contributors
Index

ABOUT THE EDITOR:
Marco Cremaschi, Associate Professor of Urban Policies at the Roma Tre University, Department of Urban Studies. He is the president of Planum, a network publishing the European Journal of Planning online. He has published extensively on housing, urban policies, and the European Union initiatives for the regeneration of cities.
Frank Eckardt, Professor for urban sociology at the Bauhaus-University Weimar, coordinator of various international, national and regional research projects, has written on different subjects of urban sociology, urban planning and related fields.