The City as a Self-Help Book: The Psychology of Urban Promises

Despite the many negative aspects of life in cities, urban promises of economic prosperity, freedom and happiness have fuelled the imagination of generations of migrants, who have flocked to cities in search of a better life, invariably exaggerating the opportunities and neglected the potential disadvantages of their choice. This paper uses...

Structural and Exchange Components in Processes of Neighbourhood Change: A Social Mobility Approach

Neighbourhood socioeconomic change is a complex phenomenon which is driven by multiple macro- and micro-level processes. Most theoretical and empirical work has focused on the role of urban-level processes, such as filtering, life-cycle, and social dynamics. For individual neighbourhoods, these processes generate flows of different socioeconomic...

The Effects of Physical Restructuring on the Socioeconomic Status of Neighborhoods: Selective Migration and Upgrading

In the last few decades, urban restructuring programs have been implemented in many Western European cities with the main goal of combating a variety of socioeconomic problems in deprived neighborhoods. The main instrument of restructuring has been housing diversification and tenure mixing. The demolition of low-quality (social) housing and the...

Inequalities and Segregation across the Long-Term Economic Cycle: An Analysis of South and North European Cities

The aim of this paper is to get new insight into the complex relationship between social inequalities and socioeconomic segregation by undertaking a comparative study North and South European cities. Our main finding shows that during the last global economic cycle from the 1980s through the 2000s, both levels of social inequalities and socio...

Ambivalence in Place Attachment: The Lived Experiences of Residents in Declining Neighbourhoods Facing Demolition in Shenyang, China

This paper investigates the place attachment of residents in declining neighbourhoods that are facing demolition in Shenyang, China. Through in-depth interviews with homeowners living in danwei communities, or urban villages, at the pre-demolition phase, this paper reveals the strong connection between place attachment and both positive and...

Understanding the Experiences of Relocatees During Forced Relocation in Chinese Urban Restructuring

Despite the massive forced relocation of residents during urban restructuring in China, there are no systematic studies on how residents undergo the process. Most studies concerning urban restructuring in China directly equate forced relocation with displacement, which has a negative connotation. This negative view overlooks the multifaceted...