Urban political economy beyond convergence

Abstract

This chapter discusses the transformations of contemporary European cities and is intellectually influenced by the Italian political economy tradition, which is particularly attentive to territories and cities. This tradition paved the way for sophisticated intellectual arguments about social networks, religion, crime, the role of the middle classes articulated to different processes of non-economic factors of economic development, the welfare state, relations of the labour market and poverty. The chapter reviews the ongoing dynamics of the bulk of European metropolises together with the differentiation processes taking place. The European city model has been rather reinforced in most European metropolises. The chapter argues that both contemporary urbanisation processes and the transformation of cities in Europe might be fruitfully explained in relation to social and political transformations as articulated in the Italian tradition of political economy than in terms of neoliberalisation.