The urban side of social policies

22/01/2020, h. 15:30 – 17:30
DAStU, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 26, Edificio Carta, SALA RIUNIONI

The cycle of seminars aims at questioning the tangible effects of social policies on the territory, with particular reference to those projects and experiences that have been introduced in the Municipality and the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (Spain). Thanks to its spatial diversity and the multidimensional public policies developed by the local government to face its socio-spatial inequalities, the city of Barcelona is considered here as a privileged case study to understand how such relations are articulated and what effects they produce. How do social needs affect/are affected by the spatial configurations of cities? Which might be the role of social policies in the fight against socio-spatial inequalities? To what extent social policies can be considered an urban issue? Against these question marks, different scholars and professional from Barcelona are called to present and discuss recent researches and experiences that tackled the contemporary forms of inequality at the edge between urban planning and social sciences.

Meeting #1 – ISMAEL BLANCO
The economic crisis of 2008 had a strong impact on the socio-spatial configuration of Barcelona and its metropolitan surroundings, deepening social and spatial inequalities. The severity of the crisis, together with a long  radition of mutualism and grassroots mobilization, favoured the proliferation of a myriad of practices of social protest and cooperation that, in turn, provided the basis for the emergence of a New Municipalism. The recent political experience of Barcelona invites us to think on the potentialities and the challenges of local political action in the Post-Crisis era.

Relatore: Ismael Blanco – Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Director of the Institute of Government and Public Policy – IGOP
Discussants: Lavinia Bifulco, Università degli studi Milano Bicocca (tbc)

Responsabili: Giulia Marra, Benedetta Marani and Nilva Karenina Aramburu Guevara