Quality data and comprehensive information are essential for effective policymaking, particularly in rural areas where shaping socio-economic transition depends on an accurate understanding of local dynamics. This presentation will showcase a data experiment conducted in the Living Lab Nockregion-Oberkärnten (Austria) as part of the Horizon-Europe project RUSTIK, with a particular focus on the methods and data, and their opportunities, and challenges. The experiment focused on enhancing the visibility of Small Rural Businesses (SRBs) in regional development processes, as they are seen as relevant contributors to regional resilience and development. Therefore, spatial data on business locations was collected, business and employment statistics analysed, and SRB needs and challenges assessed through an online survey – to provide a comprehensive overview of the SRB landscape. Austria lacks comprehensive, up-to-date and freely accessible spatial business data, an initial solution involved using crowdsourced data from Google Maps and OpenStreetMap. The verification revealed that the completeness was not sufficient for a representation of the economic activities in the region. This led to an adaptation and an iterative multi-method approach, integrating spatial data from multiple sources. For overcoming data challenges like inconsistencies, gaps and differing classifications, a complex consolidation process was implemented and complemented by a series of mapping workshops with local decision makers. These mapping workshops were central to the consolidation process, serving as a participatory data validation and enrichment mechanism. The workshops provided critical local insights, ensuring the relevance and accuracy of the dataset while fostering trust and engagement among stakeholders. Despite these efforts, challenges remain: the data represents only a snapshot in time, requiring ongoing efforts for long-term benefits. The experiment also showed that data generation alone is insufficient – a supportive policy framework is needed to turn insights into action. The final output includes a detailed database and an interactive Leaflet-map of businesses, an accessible tool for regional decision-makers to support evidence-based policymaking. Beyond improving data accuracy, the participatory approach also raised awareness of SRBs’ importance for regional development. This iterative process illustrates how data can serve as a catalyst for building collaborative frameworks and consistent decision-making processes tailored to local needs.

The Osrednjeslovenska Living Lab’s (LL) goal is to improve the well-being of marginalized populations in rural areas, while addressing the challenge of food loss and waste (FLW). The research aims to answer how different approaches to food redistribution and donation impact subjective well-being, assess costs and benefits of redistribution, and explore the integration of quantitative and qualitative data for informed policymaking. Utilizing a heuristic approach guided by the Theory of Change framework, the LL seeks to provide a data tool that supports initiatives aiming to enhance social inclusion while simultaneously reducing FLW.

The data experiment utilized Etri, a social cooperative, as the primary data source and proof of concept. Etri's operations include redistributing surplus food to vulnerable groups in a canteen, while maintaining employment opportunities for marginalized individuals. The living lab approach integrates social metrics research and data-driven innovation. Through surveys, direct observations, and the analysis of logistics data, we gathered comprehensive insights into the operational dynamics and societal impact of this initiative. With the data gathered, we are designing a system dynamics economic model that combines quantitative data on surplus food and processing logistics with insights gathered through surveys. In this way, the model will serve to make a connection between the costs and social impact associated with donated meals. The model's robustness was preliminarily confirmed through iterative validation against real-world historic data, though the range of its applicability remains constrained by data availability.

Next steps include refining the model with additional data, applying it to different regions and approaches to redistribution, and scaling up through policy integration. The aim of the LL is to offer this model as a tool for enabling policymakers and social entrepreneurs to evaluate the feasibility and funding needs for new initiatives that would adopt this kind of framework. The specific approach to food redistribution was shown to improve recipients' well-being and foster community cohesion. Moreover, the case study initiative demonstrated the potential to contribute to broader policy goals, including circular economy practices and the European Green Deal, by mitigating the environmental impact of food production through reducing FLW.

On the basis of practical experience gathered in the project entitled Rural Sustainability Transitions through Integration of Knowledge for improved policy processes (RUSTIK), the authors of this article posed the question of what challenges accompany the implementation of the living lab approach to rural studies, and what new opportunities it provides. The information it yields is based on the practical knowledge of the residents, entrepreneurs and various institutions operating in the study area, which is a feature of most social surveys. However, the novelty of the aforementioned approach lies in the inclusion of the participants in the study (‘bottom-up’ information) already at the stage of problem identification, their active contribution to the research questions, which corresponds to the needs of the area in question to the greatest extent possible. The approach has been previously applied in urban areas and is more widely known as Urban Living Labs. Its application in rural areas, specific for instance due to the greater role of informal relationships and tacit knowledge, is currently a sort of methodological experiment.

In an attempt to answer the question posed, the authors took a deeper insight into the process of collecting information in the aforementioned project by implementing the living labs approach within one of 14 so-called Pilot Regions that correspond to broadly defined Functional Rural Areas (FRAs) dispersed across 10 countries. The selected case is part of the so-called inner-peripheries of Poland, a socially problematic area, one that has been struggling with the consequences of economic restructuring since the beginning of the transition period. This example will be used to present a systematic approach to information gathering within the Living Lab, based on:

• a preliminary study of the scientific literature as well as the planning and strategic documents relating to the development of the study area;
• qualitative data on the development problem of the FRA under study and its potential solution, provided directly by all Living Lab participants;
• qualitative, quantitative and spatial data on the scale of the problem and the conditions for implementing the proposed solutions, obtained via the methods of social studies, carried out using various networks of local informal relations, ;
• data processed to obtain synthetic information, using statistical methods and a cartographic method of research.

In the paper, the authors address, inter alia, the difference between the terms of data, information and knowledge, the concept of methodological triangulation and, the definition of FRA.

Living Lab Zaječar District aims to contribute to the socio-economic transition of the region by promoting short food supply chains (SFSCs) that connect local farmers with the growing demand for food in the tourism sector. This policy experiment is driven by the recognition that, despite the rapid growth in food consumption fueled by tourism, local food producers remain underrepresented in the offerings of local restaurants and accommodation facilities due to a fragmented and poorly organized supply chain.

The policy experiment seeks to provide empirical evidence for designing and implementing place-based, cross-sectoral strategies for the municipalities involved and beyond. By doing so, it aims to build local partnerships, create new employment opportunities across sectors such as agriculture, logistics, retail, and manufacturing, and foster the development of innovative tourism offerings. This initiative will enhance the region’s visibility on the tourism map, allowing local farmers to benefit from the process.

The research approach combines web scraping with survey data collected from restaurant operators (hotels, restaurants, and households offering bed-and-breakfast services), farmers, and small and medium enterprises in food processing via the Maptionnaire platform, as well as Social Network Analysis (SNA). Each questionnaire contained a consistent set of questions, enabling cross-group comparisons of attitudes among food chain actors regarding cooperation drivers, challenges, and needs. This multifaceted approach enables an in-depth understanding of key SFSC features, such as the spatial distribution of producers and suppliers, product flows, and the interconnections among actors. SNA was used to identify key nodes - actors most integrated into the local food system and critical to facilitating interactions between sellers and buyers.

The results suggest that with its adaptable framework, this approach can extend beyond the food sector, offering a valuable model for analyzing supply chains in other industries. It has the potential to be further enriched with additional variables, such as sustainability metrics, seasonal demand patterns, or consumer feedback mechanisms. Incorporating these elements would provide municipalities with deeper, more comprehensive insights across various economic sectors, enabling them to design nuanced, sector-specific interventions.

Heat stress is the primary cause of climate-related deaths in the WHO European Region, and it has risen by 30% over the past 20 years. In urban areas, research highlights the importance of integrating health and climate change adaptation strategies to reduce the health risks, including those associated with extreme heat events. To enhance urban climate resilience, the development of green-blue infrastructure (GBI), which is an interconnected network of nature-based solutions (NbS), has been encouraged. NbS are, in their turn, interventions inspired by nature that not only support nature but also benefit humans socially, environmentally and economically. Research shows that while NbS provide co-benefits, they can also increase inequalities and limit opportunities for vulnerable groups, which have already been confirmed to have higher heat-related health risks.
The Horizon Europe ARCADIA project (TrAnsformative climate ResilienCe by nAture-baseD solutions in the contInentAl bio-geographical region) aims to galvanise climate resilience through NbS in 8 regions in 8 European countries. The core of the project are co-innovation labs currently being organised in regions and cities such as Malmö (SE), Odense (DK), Zagreb (HR) and Amstetten (AT). The goal is to test and to co-develop NbS to make urban environments more resilient to extreme weather events. The ambition is to bring outcomes from the co-innovation labs to regional political agendas.
Justice is a key topic the ARCADIA project is paying particular attention. The results of the report “Principles for just and equitable nature-based solutions and green-blue infrastructure” (Mottaghi et al., 2024) set the foundation for the project when it comes to issues such as access to GBI, or potential land use conflicts and trade-offs with NbS. The report concludes that there is a critical need for a perspective change on justice, viewing it as a dynamic process rather than a by-product of NbS.
Considering a multi-dimensional notion of justice (distributional, procedural, and recognitional), this paper will present a series of insights from the on-going ARCADIA co-innovation labs. It will particularly focus on how the cities and regions in the ARCADIA project plan to utilise NbS to respond to heat and, ultimately, foster urban health.

Biodiversity loss is a global challenge, but mitigation actions need to be taken locally. Novel solutions are needed to restore biodiversity where habitats are lost due to urbanization. The Urban Biodiversity Parks project (funded by EU-UIA) applies an experimental approach to tackling biodiversity loss. In addition to the establishing the main urban biodiversity park in Skanssi area in Turku, Finland, the biodiversity park concept is partly replicated in two sub-urban neighborhoods. This research concerns the sub-urban neighborhoods, Jyrkkälä and Halinen, which differ in size and composition but hold similar socio-economic challenges, with differently perceived levels of community dynamics.

Technocratic and traditional approaches to address environmental challenges risk stabilising or even exacerbating socio-spatial inequalities if the plurality of values of space and interrelationships between social and ecological problems are not addressed. Further, urban regeneration practices frequently lack citizen engagement in development and implementation of interventions, leaving citizens outside of decision-making processes. To tackle this, the project applies a strong focus on community engagement, with diverse groups participating in the planning and implementation of local Nature-Based solutions. Through a citizen survey, we have researched the citizens` perceptions of community, socio-ecological values, and preference of nature-based solutions and local community-building activities. Our results demonstrate how residents perceive community dynamics, where they spent time in the neighbourhood, and the type of NBS and participatory nature management activities they prefer.

Understanding participation as a context-specific process based on the goals of the spatial intervention, the survey data provides the baseline for co-developing the NbS interventions. While increasing focus is put on how citizens may participate in the planning and implementation of NbS, it is not clear how the local context can effectively be utilised in the process. This presentation highlights how a place-based co-creation process for NbS planning can support its social sustainability aims, contributing to more inclusive urban regeneration. This research ultimately supports co-creating NbS and increasing biodiversity based on local knowledge and placemaking practices. The implementation of the nature-based-solutions will take place in 2025 & 2026, aiming to create solutions that live on past the duration of the project, contributing to neighborhood identity.

Ill mental health is among the global leading causes for poor health status affecting all socio-economic demographic groups. To lower the burden of poor mental health, cost-effective health-intervention strategies for mental health disorders are high priority. An extensive amount of research underpins the knowledge that interaction with natural environments can have positive effects on mental health, linked to specific characteristics such as amount, accessibility and quality of green and bluespace. Still the use of nature-based interventions (NBI) is not incorporated as a substantive resource in the individualized treatment of mental illness or to improve public mental health and well-being. The aim of this study was to investigate stakeholders’ views and knowledge of landscape characteristics, both among decision-makers responsible for planning urban landscapes for health, and among implementers who use naturalistic landscapes to provide nature-based health interventions. This to reveal if the view of characteristics differs between policy makers or implementers, between different countries, and between stakeholders and research-based recommendations.

As part of the international GreenME project, semi-structured interviews were conducted with policy and decision-makers, NGOs and NBI-providers in seven countries. The stakeholders’ views on environmental characteristics supporting NBI for mental health were recorded and transcribed, and data processed using thematic analysis. With focus on data coded to describe Area characteristics, relevant relationships to other themes in the data were identified using co-occurrence network analysis, that were qualitative interpreted to identifying patterns informing the result.

Our findings identified how actors at different decision and NBI-provider levels describe different landscape types, characteristics and functions that they consider to be relevant, or not, to support different types of NBI for mental health. Aspects of importance to different categories of stakeholders are identified and similarities and differences between stakeholder groups and countries, were compared and discussed. Within- and between-country results bridge the gap between existing research evidence and applied practice, while deepening understanding of region-specific aspects of practical relevance to physical planning, design and management of urban nature-based environments, which can inform policy and decision making, guidelines, as well as planning-, design and management processes to support NBI for mental health.

Cross-border travel in Europe is freer than almost anywhere else in the world. It might therefore seem that the borders between European countries are becoming less important and that passengers do not even think about them when choosing their travel destination. However, even in a highly integrated and liberalised region such as Europe, the border still appears as a negative factor when looking at transport supply and demand figures. Borders continue to act as barriers to some extent.

The aim of this paper is to provide reliable estimates of these negative border effects and to analyse possible determinants of such negative effects. This topic is often studied with a focus on trade, but there are only a few studies dealing with border effects in the field of long-distance passenger transport, especially in Europe. As these studies do not cover the whole of Europe or do not go into depth, there is a gap that needs to be filled. Knowing the magnitude of negative border effects is crucial and valuable for various actors, such as transport policymakers, airport operators or air service providers.

The magnitudes of border effects will be obtained using different specifications of gravity models based on origin-destination data. In addition, various factors that could influence these values will be examined. The primary estimation is based on OAG supply data using OECD/Eurostat functional urban areas (FUAs) as spatial units. Estimates from supply models will be compared with those from demand models using Eurostat data. The novelty of this paper also lies in the consideration of multiple spatial units, when the results obtained using FUAs are compared with those obtained using NUTS 3 or metropolitan regions from Eurostat. To understand how the values of border effects evolve over time, part of the analysis is carried out on panel data. In addition, the geographical distribution of border effects will be examined in order to identify spatial differences in the integration process. Further spatial differences will also be identified by mapping residuals, which should help to think beyond the models.

Railways are essential for landlocked states to secure cost-effective access to major export and import markets, which is critical for overcoming trade bottlenecks imposed by geography. However, Central Asia, a landlocked region, has historically faced significant limitations due to its underdeveloped railway infrastructure. Unlike the advanced rail networks at the eastern and western ends of Eurasia, Central Asia’s railway system lags behind, hindering regional connectivity. The improvement of railway links in this region is not only vital for Central Asia’s economic growth but also for enhancing the overall accessibility of the Eurasian continent. This paper examines how the completion of planned cross-border railway projects will transform Central Asia's connectivity with other Eurasian regions. Utilizing existing cross-border railway planning documents, the study simulates changes in accessibility resulting from the development of major trans-Eurasian rail corridors. It assesses the potential impact on travel times, logistics efficiency, and connectivity between key Eurasian regions, particularly Central Asia, China, Russia, and Europe. By comparing current and projected transport scenarios, the paper provides insights into how the expanded rail network will improve cross-continental movement, foster greater integration, and bridge gaps between less-connected regions. The study underscores the importance of railway infrastructure in improving geographic accessibility and enhancing the overall transport connectivity of Eurasia.

Border effects in global port shipping are reflected in the competitiveness of cross-border ports and the complementarity of domestic ports. For both export and import ports: the market diversification strategy determines the competitive relationships among cross-border ports; the shared hinterland and the redundant routes coping with risks determine the complementary relationships among domestic ports. Thus, based on the dimensions of “Port of Loading (POL) – Port of Discharge(POD)” and “Competitiveness – Complementarity”, four types of shipping networks that reflect border effects exist. Previous studies only investigated the competitiveness of import countries, resulting in the masking of the ports' role and the complementary relationship. Exporters have also not been considered.

To fill these gaps, this paper constructed the “POL-POD-Competitiveness-Complementarity (PPCC)” theoretical framework, and used the Export Similarity Index to construct the PPCC Intensity Model. The global iron ore trade flow, which hold significant importance for national economy and strategic security, was selected as the research object. The research data came from Automatic Identification System (AIS) and GoGo-TRADE Vessel Report System. Complex Network Methods were applied to construct the global iron ore trade flow PPCC network and measure the multiple border effects.

The results are as follows: (1) 90% of cross-border ports competitiveness intensity and 50% of domestic ports complementarity intensity are very small, indicating that the border effects of port shipping are mainly reflected among a few core ports. From the extreme values of competitiveness intensity of POL and POD, the former is 4 times higher than the latter, proving that the competitiveness of exporters is more imbalanced and cannot be ignored anymore. (2) In the competitiveness network of 109 POLs, ports in Australia, Brazil, and India are the core, while ports in East Asia are the core in the competitiveness network of 271 PODs. From the complementarity networks of various countries, it can be found that the domestic ports with long-distance and high-complementarity intensity are the most noteworthy, which could significantly enhance the resilience of the country in the shipping supply chain. (3) Competitiveness and complementarity in cross-border shipping were aggregated at the national level, and four types of countries were identified. The results revealed that China as an exporter and South Korea as an importer do not match in terms of their trade volume and cross-border transportation advantages.

As one of the most important cross-border railway networks in the world, the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) provides opportunities to enhance social and economic integration among countries it connects. Although there is extensive research on how railways transform inter-city connections and facilitate passengers and freight flows within a single-country, studies on cross-border railways remain notably scarce. Unlike railway studies focused on a single country, analysing borders — one of the most significant factors in cross-border networks — requires nuanced approaches and methods. In this study, we propose a simple but generic method to explore the extent to which borders, such as those caused by differences in railway gauge, affect the centrality and efficiency of nodes (cities) and corridors at a network scale. This approach has been applied to the TEN-T using multiple simulation scenarios. Our findings confirm that, according to the topologic structure of TEN-T, countries situated near the geometric center of the network exhibit strong connectivity. Within the TEN-T, Paris and Berlin emerge as well-connected hubs. Regarding transport corridors, the Rhine - Alpine corridor and the North Sea - Mediterranean corridor demonstrate robust connectivity. Using simulation, we further show that when gauge-related border delays are introduced in peripherical areas, such as between France and Spain or Poland and Lithuania, a 5-hour delay at these borders results in measurable effects on betweenness centrality. Specially, the centrality of Spain and Lithuania decreases by 0.57% and 0.37%, respectively, while the centrality of France and Poland increases by 2.12% and 5.13%. Additionally, these border effects significantly diminish the geographic advantage of Berlin. This study highlights that border effects influence not only the regions near borders but also those with geometric centrality. These findings suggest a need to re-evaluate the geographical decay of border effects in cross-border railway networks.

Distance is one of the basic geographical concepts used in various models. It can be defined in numerous ways, depending on context. The most frequently distinguished are physical distance, which is an empirically measured line between locations, and economic distance, understood as the cost of transport in space. Therefore, distance is a key element of various economic analyses, including those related to trade. One of the most often usage is the gravity model of trade. The popularity of its use is because of highly successful empirical analyses, despite its simplicity. However, there is a lack of uniformity in measurements of distance. The oldest works in this field use the physical distance between points in a straight line, along a road or railway track. Determining the distance between countries, which are spatial objects, becomes more complicated. There is assumption that the distances between them can be defined as the distance between their capitals or largest cities, less often between their centroids. However, these are not the only possibilities. An additional field for measuring distance is provided by remote sensing methods, which allow obtaining data for the entire world, varied in time and methodologically uniform. There is particularly great potential in data on light emissions at night because they are comparable on the actual place of residence of the population and economic activity. To correctly analyse this kind of data, the AI tools are paramount. Therefore, it is important to standardize this issue and determine the differences between various distance measures and their impact on the analyses.
To this aim, my work will develop a full gravity model of trade using many different measures of distance. Some of them come from a literature review, some are of the author's own origin based on cartographic and remote sensing methods enhanced by AI algorithms. Then, using the AIC and BIC information criteria, I will determine which of the distance measures give the best estimates. I expect that proprietary measures based on remote sensing data will provide the statistically better results.

The Covid-19 pandemic had a variety of impacts on health care in recent years which have varied over time and space, but one of the most marked consequences of all has been in digitalization processes. Digitalization in health care was already a prominent feature of the European Union's development policy before the pandemic, which led to the widespread availability of e-health (telemedicine) to health care providers and the general public.

The aim of the presentation is to provide an overview of the short, medium and long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, its direct and indirect consequences on digitalization processes in health care, primarily through a Hungarian case. The research questions are the following:

How did health care respond to the challenges of the pandemic and what role did digital solutions play in this?

What were the differences in the application of digital solutions in public and private health care?

What opportunities does the application of artificial intelligence (AI) offer in e-health for the future?

Methodologically, the research is based on using literature review, statistical analysis, online questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews. On the one hand, there is no enough data on using AI in health care, but on the other hand, there are many findings from interviews to evaluate the role of AI in health care.

Among the most important results, it can be mentioned that the pandemic initially caused the rapid and widespread spread of e-health (telemedicine) in private healthcare, and in comparison, the public health care sector was able to respond to the new challenges with a delay of one and a half years. The digitalization of health care caused by the Covid-19 pandemic manifested itself in two ways: it resulted in the acceleration of existing processes and it was accompanied by the spread of new digital solutions (e.g. such as using AI). AI offers many opportunities in health care, but there are currently no appropriate regulations for it.

The presentation is part of the project (K146833) which has been implemented with the support provided by the Ministry of Culture and Innovation of Hungary from the NRDI Fund.

In the context of intensifying climate change and increasing occurrences of extreme heat events, heat exposure has emerged as a critical concern for public health and urban sustainability. Concurrently, the rise of remote work, facilitated by artificial intelligence and digital technologies, has begun to reshape traditional work–residence relationships, thereby altering patterns of human mobility. This paper examines how the proliferation of remote work affects population distribution and movement across different regions, and investigates the consequent implications for heat exposure and environmental justice.

Drawing on a combined geographic information system (GIS)-based spatial analysis and a multi-scenario remote work adoption model, we first characterize shifts in population density under different remote work scenarios. We then quantify resultant heat exposure levels across urban cores and peripheral areas under projected climate conditions. Preliminary findings suggest that enabling employees to decouple residence from the workplace may help reduce heat exposure in densely populated urban heat islands by redistributing populations to less congested or smaller urban clusters. However, such shifts can also generate new “secondary heat islands” in suburban or rural zones lacking adequate infrastructure or green space, thereby intensifying localized environmental disparities.

The study underscores the need for holistic urban and regional policy interventions that account for new mobility patterns prompted by remote work. These policies must include cross-regional coordination of heat mitigation strategies and targeted infrastructure investments aimed at supporting vulnerable populations and underserved communities. By aligning technological, policy, and social efforts, it is possible to forge a more equitable and resilient response to the dual challenges of climate change and evolving work paradigms.

This paper examines the intersection of political geography and tagging, focusing on political graffiti as a form of territorial marking within urban spaces. Drawing on the conceptual framework articulated by Ley and Cybriwsky in 1974, this study positions political graffiti as a tool for diverse political ideologies to assert presence, mark their own territories, and contest space.

Through field research conducted in Linz, a regional centre in Upper Austria, and applying the Place-Based Observation method, this research maps the spatial distribution and content of political graffiti. The findings reveal distinct patterns of political dialogue and conflict, illustrating how political actors strategically target significant and symbolic locations to amplify their messages and ideologies. The study further integrates insights from spot theory and the concept of political symbolic space, shedding light on how urban landscapes become arenas of ideological contestation.

By situating this analysis within political geography, the paper contributes to understanding the spatial dimensions of political dialogue and symbolism in cities. It specifically addresses the role of graffiti as a medium through which political actors reshape urban political landscapes and engage with the dynamics of ideological contestation.

The paper explores graffiti, street art, and murals in the context of the neoliberal city, highlighting the transformation of these forms in the context of growing commodification, touristification and gentrification of urban space. Through an ethnographic research in Ljubljana (Slovenia), the paper gives attention to the visual transformations in autonomous zones. In particular, it focuses on how an anarcha queer feminist group use graffiti and street art as media for voicing radical activism, while relying on collective muralism to build a political community. The paper argues for a nuanced understanding of the role of graffiti, street art and murals in the context of the neoliberal city and within social movements, emphasizing the multi-layered nature of political graffiti and street art as a form of radical political activism.

In recent decades, Porto has experienced a large-scale renovation of its built environment and public spaces. These operations resulted in demographic shifts and a change in the way people live the city (Mendes, 2018; Fernandes et al., 2021). In addition, the city’s widespread acceptance of street art fostered a new creative and political expressive medium. Taking as a starting point the Historical Urban Landscape approach (HUL) (UNESCO, 2011), and integrating ethnographic (Ferro et al., 2018) and phenomenological methodologies (Thrift, 2008; Wyllie, 2013), we will explore street art’s role in generating emotional and affective experiences (Crouch et al., 2015; Nomeikaite, 2023) in order to understand the ongoing urban, heritage, and social-political processes in Porto. In the last decade, street art has received more attention in both heritage studies and the geography field (Guinand et al., 2018). Street art's crucial connections to everyday life and change, as well as its socio-political performative power, have not been adequately explored in current research (op cit). The preservation of urban heritage is no longer focused solely on the protection of material and historical assets, but also on the management of transformations taking place in the urban landscape (Bandarin and Van Oers, 2012; 2014; Ginzarly, Pereira Roders, and Teller, 2019). Through a qualitative survey carried out in Porto, two main axes of analysis will be highlighted: the ambivalent relationship between street art, tourism and gentrification; the street art as a tool to address the right to housing (Zieleniec, 2016; Nomeikaite, 2017) in connection with real estate speculation and the loss of identity. The importance of street art, emotions, and affect will be recognized in both dimensions concerning change and the socio-politically re-engagement with heritage urban landscapes.

This paper explores the role of visual communication in the context of the 2024 European Parliament elections in Vienna, Austria. Offline, election posters play a significant role in reaching voters in public spaces, often conveying strong, immediate messages that capture attention. However, they cannot be seen as static but reflect dynamic and sometimes contentious political debates as they are smeared, torn, or altered by the public. In addition, Graffiti, political slogans or stickers in particular, reflect grassroot political engagement and can serve as a form of protest or alternative expression. Today, political discourse is not confined to offline world and physical spaces as societal negotiations are increasingly taking place online. Social media and communication forums have gained in importance and election campaigns as well as struggles over political meaning unfold online. Social media has given rise to the circulation of political memes, which are easily shareable, humorous, and often carry subversive or satirical undertones. Memes circulate quickly and widely, making them a powerful tool for engaging younger voters and creating viral political discourse.

With this paper, we explore how both traditional urban visual forms—such as graffiti and election posters—and digital visual expressions like memes shape political narratives and politicize online and offline spaces. Drawing on a diverse set of data, including photographs, election posters, and graffiti from urban spaces, as well as memes circulating on social media, we ask what messages these visuals convey, what in- and outgroups the construct and what the level of violence is and how these two spheres are interconnected. This paper argues that the intersection of these two realms—offline street-level visuals and online meme culture—demonstrates the increasingly hybrid nature of political communication. By examining both traditional visual materials in physical spaces and emerging meme culture online, this research highlights the dynamic relationship between different forms of visual communication, illustrating how political messages are transmitted and reinterpreted across various platforms. This paper offers insights into the evolving role of visual media in electoral campaigns, contributing to the broader understanding of media convergence and the power of images in modern politics, while providing valuable insights into political discourse and tensions today.

Besides language, religion is a major marker of national identity and consciousness as they emerged through Enlightenment and became politically relevant and powerful in the course of the 19th century resulting in the formation of nation states. Confessions, however, practice very different relations to nations. While the Roman-Catholic Church conceives itself as universal and supranational today avoiding association with individual nations and emphasizing relations with ethnic and national minorities, in the Orthodox sphere the association of the Church with nation and nation state is very close: every nation “in the full sense” has its own Orthodox Church and this Church accompanies the nation and its leaders almost unconditionally through all political circumstances. Also Protestant Churches cultivate a close relationship to nations and nation states by their country-wise organization. Despite of its supra-national character, however, also the Roman-Catholic Church used to be a significant identity marker of many European nations in the 19th century and up to the dawn of secularization starting in the European West. It was even the driving force of some national movements.
Secularization in the sphere of Western Christianity (Catholicism, Protestantism), in the European West mainly driven by commercialization and hedonism, in former Communist Central Europe mainly by a-clerical Communism, however, changed the pattern of religion as markers of national identity essentially. For ‘classical’ Catholic nations like Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese or also Austrians religion has ceased ranking among markers of national identity, while others like Poles, Slovaks, Croats or Maltese style Catholicism still one of its major ingredients. In the (former) Protestant sphere religion is anyway not much more than a historical reminiscence. Much in contrast, the Orthodox sphere continues practicing the close relation between (national) Church and nation and religion has maintained its function as a prominent marker of national identity. An interesting opposite pair are in this context Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina: while both of them are characterized by being composed of Muslims, Orthodox and Catholics, Albanians have arrived at a common national identity mainly based on language, while Bosnia-Herzegovina is still lacking such an identity and the three religious components coincide with national identities.
The paper will not only try portraying this pattern, but also explaining its reasons.

Hungary, a traditionally Christian country, is experiencing a decline in institutional religious practices, placing it among Europe’s moderately religious nations. While most Hungarians believe in God, active church participation has decreased significantly. This trend contrasts with the growing public role of traditional churches and the rise of political Christianity since 2010.

In the second half of the 20th century, political factors led to the omission of religious affiliation questions in censuses. These questions returned in 2001, 2011, and 2022, but responses became voluntary to respect the sensitive nature of religious information.

Census data reveals minimal shifts within religious communities between 2001 and 2022. The historical Christian churches remain dominant: Catholics (73.0%-68.7%), Reformed (21.3%-22.5%), and Evangelicals (4.0%-4.2%). However, the non-affiliated population has grown (14.5%-16.1%), and non-responses have surged to 40.1%, with over 3.9 million individuals opting not to answer. The Catholic Church has suffered the largest decline, losing 2.6 million members.

Our study investigates the regional aspects of this decline, often referred to as secularization, focusing on peripheral areas emphasized by Pope Francis. Using census data, thematic maps, and methods like religious diversity indices, we analyze the territorial patterns of religiosity.

Additionally, we explore the role of institutions operated by the Archdiocese of Eger, such as schools, healthcare, and social services, in influencing religiosity. Do settlements hosting these institutions experience slower rates of secularization?

To understand the causes of declining ecclesiastical religiosity, we conduct interviews with church and secular leaders in the most affected settlements. We examine trends in religious activity over several years, including participation in ceremonies (e.g., baptisms, confirmations, marriages), statistical data on church membership, and engagement in religious education.

This study aims to provide a nuanced understanding of Hungary’s religious landscape and the spatial dynamics of ecclesiastical decline.

In the years around the famous law on the separation of Church and State passed in France in 1905, numerous religious orders left the territory of the République and settled abroad, usually in border dioceses. For this reason, in the small border Italian diocese of Ventimiglia, an extraordinary presence of priests, friars and nuns from French institutes emerged at the beginning of the 20th century. In some cases, their presence lasted only a few years, while in others they remained until very recently. Usually, these religious communities were used continuing to speak their language of origin, gave an active and collaborative contribution to ecclesiastical action, and characterised the territory with a cultural, linguistic, cultic presence that, often still tangible so many years later, constitutes a peculiar element of the local “religious landscape”. The recent crisis in religious vocations caused the closure of numerous convents and monasteries formerly inhabited by French orders, but their structures have been often re-employed for other pastoral or charitable needs that were more urgent or necessary for today’s society (schools, reception of immigrants, assistance to the elderly and disabled, etc.). The first part of the study consists of a census, carried out in local archives and on the territory, of the former convents and monasteries of French religious orders that moved to the diocese of Ventimiglia during that period; then, their subsequent events and their different roles within the diocese are studied; finally, their impact on the territory in contemporary reality is explored.

Muslim places of worship have been increasing in European public spaces for decades. This phenomenon is linked to migration flows from Islamic cultural countries to Europe and the preservation of faith through intergenerational transmission. Mosques and prayer spaces are among the most visible signs of the pluralization of cultural and religious identities emerging in contemporary European societies (Giorda, 2019). Cities, in particular, are the settings where the interplay of human mobility is most evident. Religions have regained prominence in the public sphere of European societies (Habermas, 2008; Casanova, 2000), partly but not exclusively due to the presence of migrants (Peach and Gale, 2003).

The city becomes the stage for these transformations, embodying the coexistence and overlap of spatial practices and uses (Cattedra, 2003). The territory is not merely a container for society but the product of an ongoing relationship between space and society, which evolves daily. It thus serves as a kaleidoscope for understanding these changes (Dematteis, 1985; Turco, 1988; Massey, 1999).

Similarly, lived religion (Orsi, 1999) within the urban context is influenced by specific challenges of urban life (Beaman, 2017). In cities, religion more clearly demonstrates its tendency toward isomorphism (Yang and Ebaugh, 2001). The way it is practiced and perceived interacts with social, political, and economic dynamics characteristic of urbanity, being questioned and shaped by them in a co-evolutionary process (Rüpke, 2021). Some sociological studies on Islam have also adopted this theoretical perspective (Fernando and Fadil, 2015; Jeldtoft, 2011).

This research aims to focus on the spatial dimensions of Islam in Florence. Tuscany is home to approximately 180,000 Muslims (Ciocca, 2019), with a presence in Florence that began to take organized form through associations in the 1990s (Elzir, 2011).

The UNICEF international Child-Friendly Cities (CFC) initiative offers a transformative framework for designing urban environments that prioritize the rights, needs, and well-being of children. As European cities face growing demographic shifts and environmental pressures, integrating child-centered principles into urban planning is vital to fostering inclusive, safe, and sustainable urban spaces. This paper examines how the CFC initiative’s approach can be leveraged to meet SDGs 3 (Good Health and Well-Being) and 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), ensuring that urban environments support the mental and physical well-being of children as a vulnerable yet critical population group.

The contribution will explore three interconnected themes through the lens of the CFC initiative. First, it will investigate how children’s everyday experiences in urban spaces are shaped by sensory and material design elements, such as green spaces, accessible play areas, and safe transit routes, which contribute to their mental and physical health. Second, it will examine the role of public spaces in promoting accessibility and care, highlighting best practices from cities implementing the CFC framework to enhance mobility, safety, and inclusion for children and their caregivers. Third, the research will evaluate participatory urban planning models promoted by the CFC initiative, where children are empowered as active stakeholders, contributing to the design of urban environments that address their needs and aspirations.

Drawing on case studies from European cities that have implemented the CFC initiative, this research will identify actionable strategies to create urban environments that are not only inclusive but also resilient and adaptive to the challenges posed by demographic and environmental transformations. The contribution is intended to advocate for a shift toward care-oriented, child-centered urban planning that aligns with global sustainability goals while fostering environments where children can thrive.

Demographic aging and increasing care needs are becoming some of the most pressing challenges for urban life. Social infrastructures are thereby decisively influencing the possibilities of senior people to participate in society and maintain social connections as well as the organisation of care in urban environments. According to Latham & Layton (2019:3) social infrastructures comprise „networks of spaces, facilities, institutions, and groups that create affordances for social connection”. Social infrastructures are, thus, powerful parts of urban life, defining the operation of the city also with regards to well-being, inclusiveness, autonomy, accessibility and mobility for vulnerable social groups like senior people in need of care or carers. With the aim to better meet the often-neglected needs of these groups, in many European cities, not only recently so-called caring communities and local initiatives have been established to focus on more integrated approaches to age(eing), care, health promotion, and social inclusion. The paper takes this as a starting point for an analysis of the interrelation of care and space based on qualitative case studies of urban caring communities in Austria, Hungary, and the Netherlands. Drawing on the concept of social infrastructure, we ask the following questions: 1) How do urban spaces influence the provision of senior care in communities; 2) How do communities (re-)appropriate urban spaces; and 3) How do caring communities implement “(new) urban cultures of care” by connecting care and space? By analysing different care regimes, we will first examine specific characteristics of the socio-spatial embedding of caring communities in urban regions of the three countries. Building on ethnographic observations, document analysis and semi-structured interviews, which were analysed using qualitative content analysis, in a second step the concrete organisation of three caring communities (one in each country) will be clarified. This demonstrates their spatial dimension, the implementation of various types of local care relations, and the constructed connection of space and care. Thereby, the practices of caring communities potentially aim to redefine concepts of (private/public) space and care provisioning. In a last step we, thus, examine the transformative potentials of caring communities in changing the everyday practices of space.

In recent years, various forms of assisted living for people affected by mental disorders has risen exponentially in Vienna. Today several hundred apartments are offered for a large and continuously increasing number of people in need and are organized and run by multiple social organizations and charities. These forms of living are available as single room apartments or single room occupation in flat share and are inhabited by people who are not able to live independently and require different levels of specialized care. They are not in need of hospitalization and maintain a certain level of self-sufficient living, i.e. are employed in the tertiary labor market, make use of the city’s leisure amenities and are able to go about some of their daily errands.

Although these forms of accommodation and levels of self-sufficient living vary as greatly as the kind of care needed and provided, all apartments have a lack of regard to their immediate urban surroundings in common. Sidewalks, squares or parks do exist in proximity to the apartments offered yet are not considered in their potential of fostering social inclusion. Access to public spaces and accessing apartments through public space is given attention in terms of universal design measures yet not for the specific needs of people living there. Dwellings rented for assisted living are chosen for affordability and proximity to public transport yet not because a certain quality of urban space exists. In short, what is not considered is the quality of living outside one’s own walls.

This paper seeks to address this problem by looking at three case studies in Vienna. It examines, firstly, the ways in which three particular places of assisted living for people with mental disorders are currently embedded in their urban surroundings both spatially and socially; and, secondly, how these urban spaces may be improved materially in order to foster social inclusion. It specifically explores urban design measures focusing on the concept of ‘human scale’ and daily infrastructures working as ‘social condensers’.

In Germany, societal discourse recognizes children, yet their needs and roles in open spaces are framed by adult planners and designers. In the face of urban densification, housing expansion and complex economic and political pressures influencing urban planning, these professionals are assigned with balancing diverse requirements when designing public spaces. As a result, planning practices tend to prioritize formalized children-dedicated spaces and addressing children’s needs primarily through quantitative guidelines (e.g. ratios of playgrounds to population size). However, such formal spaces often fail to reflect the lived experiences and developmental needs of children. Our research examines the contrast between formalized open spaces (e.g. playgrounds) and informal, unplanned spaces, with a particular focus on how children's need for unstructured environments is addressed within urban planning practices.

Academic studies and observations of children’s behavior in outdoor spaces reveal that, in addition to formal play areas, informal and unstructured open spaces are essential for children’s well-being. These spaces foster personal development, freedom of movement and creativity. However, places where children can dig, climb, or explore freely are becoming increasingly rare and difficult to incorporate into formal planning, as they depend on spontaneity and unpredictability. At the same time, children’s digital activities are increasingly significant in their spatial practices, either complementing or competing with the use of physical spaces.

This study investigates how urban planning addresses children's need for informal, unstructured open spaces, focusing on the gap between planner’s visions, legal requirements they must meet, and actual experiences of children. Specifically, it explores how planners balance competing demands such as land consumption with the necessity of spaces that support children's free play, creativity, and individual development. By examining both the perspective of planners (through biographical interviews) and children (through field observations, spatial mapping and analysis of documents), the study uses qualitative methods, to provide a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics involved in designing open spaces in suburban Germany.

The study contributes to the broader discussion of this session on how urban planning can more effectively accommodate the needs of vulnerable groups, such as children, in public spaces, while promoting their mental and physical well-being within the framework of independent and self-determined practices.

The research focus on how coal extraction and usage for energy generation can shape the evolution of urban areas and how extractive pasts influence contemporary city development. For this, the work examines the case of Coronel, a city located in the Gulf of Arauco, southern Chile. A region historically rich in coal, and Bocamina I & II, two coal-based thermoelectric, which coal domes and ash dumpster are placed near the city center. Coronel is regarded as a Chilean sacrifice zone, one of five port cities where 27 of the nation’s 28 coal-based thermoelectric are located. The work studies Coronel’s evolution and its history related to coal extraction and usage in different phases between 1840’s and 2024; A coal-rich extractive territory, fundamental to the countries development; A deteriorated monoproductive mining-city, product of extractive oligarchies and mines depletion; A bastion of thermoelectric generated electricity and consequently backwards energy transition; A sacrifice zone with high levels of industrial pollution and urban distress, and; An industrial port city, after the closing of Bocamina I & II power plants amidst the 2050 national carbon neutrality plan.

To achieve this, the research conducted on-site photographic records, satellite imagery and geo spatial information analysis based on data from Chilean governmental institutions and NGOs, studies of Bocamina I thermoelectric original plans and a review of Coronel historical maps and urban regulatory documents. Carried with an approach that consider its evolution over time, to showcase how coal extractive and usage dynamics conditioned its urban evolution and contemporary urban development.

Coronel offers new insights on how the development of urban areas is conditioned by extractive landscapes. Its study exposes how social distress and political agendas influence energy transition dynamics and how capitalist extractive processes of the past affect current urban policies. Furthermore, it displays how coal extraction and storage infrastructures, and energy generation supply chains, historically exert pressure in the development of the port city and energy transitions. Lastly, the case of Coronel serves as a compelling model for understanding global challenges for marginal territories and could provide insights in how to adress transformation scenarios of historic extractive sites.

The uneven spatial patterns of wealth creation have long been a central theme in geographic scholarship, tracing back to the discipline’s earliest days. Theories of uneven regional development (e.g., Mandel, 1969; Aglietta, 1979) emphasize that regional disparities are not merely incidental to capitalism but are intrinsic to its functioning. As Smith (2001, p. 15958) observed, “uneven development is the process by which the social relations of capitalist societies are translated into spatial forms […] the hallmark of the geography of capitalism.” These dynamic processes reshape not only the socio-economic fabric of regions but also their natural landscapes and geographic character (Smith, 2008).

European extractive regions exemplify such transformative dynamics within capitalist systems. Historically pivotal to national wealth creation, many of these areas have, since the 1970s, become emblematic of deindustrialization and structural change, facing significant economic, ecological, and social challenges. Such regions have been for long neglected both in political and academic debates (Atkinson, 2017), but are now in the centre of recent debates on ‘places that do not matter’ (Rodríguez-Pose, 2018) and ‘left-behind places’ (MacKinnon et al., 2022).

This session focuses on the transformations of the Styrian Iron Route in central Austria, a region that remains home to Europe’s largest iron ore mine, which has shaped the area’s identity for centuries. By tracing the region’s developmental trajectory, this presentation examines contemporary challenges and explores policy responses to address the region's ongoing socio-economic and environmental transitions.

The transformation of European hinterlands into operational landscapes of urbanization, infrastructure, and resource extraction has followed distinct historical and spatial trajectories. This paper explores how formerly extractive or rural peripheries have been incorporated into metropolitan and regional governance frameworks, reshaping their economic, environmental, and territorial functions. To this end, Highlands and Islands of Scotland, UK have chosen to be focused on as the case study.

The Scottish Highlands and Islands have long been shaped by extractive processes—ranging from historical land enclosures and agricultural commodification to contemporary resource extraction, tourism economies, and renewable energy production. Once considered a remote periphery, the region has been increasingly integrated into urban and regional governance frameworks, creating new forms of territorial dependency. In recent years, the Highlands and Islands have been positioned as a renewable energy frontier, with large-scale investments in offshore wind and marine biotechnology. While framed as a climate solution, this transition reflects a new phase of extractivism—where energy production remains governed by external economic forces, reinforcing historical center-periphery dependencies and reshaping territorial governance.

This paper examines the governance mechanisms that have facilitated the transition of the Highlands and Islands from an extractive rural periphery to a managed operational landscape. Using the conceptual lenses of urban political ecology, historical extractivism, and planetary urbanization, it explores how tourism, renewable energy, and conservation policies operate as new forms of territorial commodification and governance-led urbanization; and how governance structures have redefined the center-periphery relationship in the Highlands and Islands. The intended outcome of the study is to reveal the socio-spatial consequences of integrating historically peripheral rural areas into broader urban networks and policy frameworks.

A qualitative research approach is employed, integrating ethnographic methods—mapping and a historical and comparative perspective within an interdisciplinary and theory-driven framework. Through a historical and comparative perspective, the paper contextualizes the Scottish case within broader European trends of rural extraction, governance centralization, and hinterland transformation. By bridging political ecology and urban studies, it contributes to understanding how governance mechanisms shape the socio-spatial trajectories of operational hinterlands in contemporary Europe.

Largely under-represented in scientific literature compared to their mediatic counterparts of metal ores (copper, iron, nickel, etc.), quarries can be considered as places of “ordinary extractivism” in Europe, enabling the massive production of building materials. Marginal both in discourse and literature on the urban environment, and in the territorial systems in which they take place, they are nonetheless essential to the making of the city, and as such should be considered as key elements of “urban metabolism” (Barles, 2017). Since the 1960s, as a result of urban sprawl, rural areas have seen an increase in the number of sand and aggregate extraction sites serving metropolitan areas. These sites maintain an ambivalent spatial relationship with the city, balancing the need for proximity motivated by various issues (transport costs, infrastructure, environmental objectives) with the need for land, nuisance and risk, which relegates them to the periphery.

Following a legal geography approach (Graham, 2011) and methodology (Santoire,& al. 2020), we question in particular the way in which legal categorizations of space and the socio-institutional transactions around them contribute to assigning an extractive vocation to certain rural territories - sometimes at the expense of other trajectories. In this proposal, we analyze the trajectories of two territories marked by the extraction of building materials in the Seine valley, in the departements of Eure (Normandie) and Yvelines (Ile de France). We are particularly interested in two aspects. The first question addresses the way in which metropolitan urban expansion and market dynamics, coupled with new environmental regulations, have modified the cultural and economic place of quarries in territorial development paths since 19th century. The second question focuses on the legal conditions and socio-spatial variables that allow this type of extraction site to multiply in certain areas, and under what conditions - and which temporality - it is possible to speak of “sacrifice zones” in this respect.

The results of the European elections show a marked change in electoral behaviour, especially after the crisis of 2008. Among other things, they are characterised by a recomposition within the left, manifested in a weakening of social democracy, and a rise in power of extreme right-wing forces based on a nationalist and exclusive discourse, leading to a division of the working classes and modifying the traditional geography of the capital-labour divide. These new dynamics are revealed at the level of the metropolitan/non-metropolitan or centre/periphery divides. Other dynamics are also becoming apparent, such as in early-industrialisation regions or in dynamic tourist areas.

We present a cross-country analysis of the geographies of voting behavior in the 2019 and 2024 European Parliament (EP) elections using BLUE EP [1], a new municipality-level results of EP elections. BLUE_EP was recently released by the authors of this contribution and provides results for approximately 90,000 Local Administrative Units (LAU) in the EU27 and 500 parties or lists in each election, along with a classification of all parties into political groups and broader political families. The dataset was constructed by carefully collecting, harmonizing, and merging 27 national datasets, closely following the standard European and national GIS typologies for Local Administrative Units. To the best of our knowledge, BLUE EP is the first dataset to support a uniform, Europe-wide analysis of local voting behavior in EP elections.

Using our dataset, we address four research questions. First, we study the local geography of support for the main European political families across countries, quantifying consistent cross-country trends such as the stronger position of Green and left-wing parties in urban centers and higher rates of Populist Radical Right (PRR) vote in rural areas. We discuss exceptions qualitatively. Second, combining BLUE EP with European Commission data on municipalities’ degree of urbanization, we show that our dataset provides evidence for a statistically significant widening of the rural-urban gap in PRR vote between 2019 and 2024, while not supporting the hypothesis of an increase in the rural-urban gap in vote for left-wing and center-left parties. Third, we study the (in)existence of cross-border voting clusters and relate them to recent findings regarding the structure of cross-border living areas. Fourth, we study the potential spillover effects of political dynamics in the local political scene on other EU countries’ diaspora vote in 8 member-states (Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Croatia, Italy, Portugal, Romania) where detailed data is available.

[1] Hublet, F. (2024). BLUE_EP: A Dataset of Municipality-Level Results of European Parliament Elections. Codebook v1. Paris: Groupe d’études géopolitiques. 10.5281/zenodo.14569325

Voting preferences are the outcome of a number of cultural, historical and socio-economic conditions. The issue concerning variation of this phenomenon has been studied in the dimension of different preferences between communities of rural and urban areas. However, the subject matter regarding the specificity of voting behavior in small towns compared to abovementioned types of areas remains under-researched. For this reason, an attempt was made to examine the factors affecting political preferences of small towns’ (less than 20,000 inhabitants) communities in Poland. The principal objective is to state whether the size of a town (expressed in population number) or its location on the center-periphery axis is more decisive in terms of shaping specific voting behavior. The last four election results to the Parliament were examined (in 2011, 2015, 2019, 2023) for all communes (NUTS-5) of Poland. The main research consisted of two stages. Firstly to find a relation between town size and voting preferences and calculate a statistical population threshold above which voting preferences relate more strongly to large centers than rural areas. The second task was to state the distance between the location of a small town and a sub-regional growth center by expressing to threshold to such a center in kilometers and changing voting behavior. Studies have shown statistical significance of both drivers – town size and its location on a center-periphery axis. However, the regional variation in the dominance of either factor is strongly affected by another complex aspect - historical and cultural diversity of Poland's territory.

Redistricting is constantly accompanied by political conflicts as well as academic arguments in countries with majoritarian or mixed electoral system, as a result of the process could potentially influence the outcome of elections. In the international scientific discourse and legal processes, this conflict is managed by different approaches. So far, Hungary didn’t implement such methodologies by the executive branches, therefore such anomalies as malapportionment, are not taken care of, as the electoral reform of 2011 has not been advanced by any kind of social or scientific disputes. Having reviewed existing processes of redistricting in the US, UK, and Canada, a procedure was created in this paper for revising district boundaries, that would fulfil the requirement of proportionality in respect of Hungary as well. To achieve that, at the first place, proportionality among counties must be assured.Secondly, if a given county will have modified number of constituencies, district borders must be redrawn to gain proportional representation of voters. The results show that the proposed subdivision would provide proportional allocation for the forthcoming 10 years at least.

Urbicide, the deliberate destruction of urban spaces, is traditionally understood as the physical annihilation of architecture and infrastructure during conflict (Bevan, 2006). This paper argues there is an expanded definition that includes disregard for public memory and historical significance in favour of investor-led urbanism. The case of Belgrade’s Generastaff Building exemplifies this process. Once a symbol of Yugoslav modernism and later a ruin memorialising the 1999 NATO aggression, the site is now at the centre of controversial privatisation effort. It is arguably a textbook example of how governments in their pursuit of foreign capital redefine national heritage as disposable. At the same time, it is a textbook example of the nuances of a post-conflict environment and a need for consideration of historical trauma, as the site has been in a stalemate for decades, with each proposal exacerbating the issue rather than moving towards a solution (Jovic, 2022).

Serbian government's recent agreement with a private investor marks a significant shift in the timeline of this heritage site. While officials claim revitalising it will contribute to Belgrade’s economic future, critics argue its erasure and/or adaptation to proposed space of leisure constitutes an erasure of historical - and recent, therefore still painful memory. This paper argues it can further be understood as an act of urbicide in peacetime, interrogates ideas of urbicide (Coward, 2004; 2009) that occurs through economic policies rather than warfare, and questions ethical implications of prioritising capital over collective historical memory. It contributes to broader discussions on post-conflict urbanism, memory politics and neoliberal developments.

Through Critical Discourse Analysis of media narratives, government policies, and urban planning documents, this paper examines how state actors, private investors, and civil society organisations frame the Generalstaff Building debate. While the former push for its understanding as a modernisation strategy, opposing voices agree it follows a pattern of investor-driven urban transformations that prioritise profit over memory, echoing similar critiques of projects like Belgrade Waterfront (Slavkovic, 2013). The discourse of progress and economic growth, championed by political elites, often marginalises or silences counter-discourses advocating for historical preservation and - particularly pertinent for post-conflict environments, public participation.

Bevan, R., 2006. The destruction of memory: architecture at war.

Coward, M., 2004. Urbicide in Bosnia. Cities, War, and Terrorism: towards an urban geopolitics, pp.154-171.

Coward, M., 2009. The Logic of Urbicide. Urbicide. The Politics of Urban Destruction.

Jović, M., 2022. Post-Conflict Branding. Encyclopedia of Tourism Management and Marketing. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Slavkovic, Lj. 2013. Camenzind Magazine, Issue #2. Accessed at http://www.camenzindbelgrade.com/ on February 10, 2016.

In the center of the city of Madrid is located the so-called Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro, Landscape of Arts and Sciences, the official name of which is known as Landscape of Light. This site was inscribed on the World Heritage List in July 2021. It is the first tree-lined promenade in a European capital, created in the 16th century to offer the inhabitants of Madrid a spatial environment conducive to leisure and relaxation in a wooded setting. Located in the patrimonial and symbolic heart of the city, it has been configured for many years as a highly institutionalized space with an important cultural and touristic dimension.

The work is based on the study of the urban dynamics driven by private initiative, mainly companies of different sizes and orientations. The aim is to investigate the scope that the declaration as a World Heritage site has had on the real estate dynamics of this central area of the city. Some of these dynamics are linked to the renewal of the residential fabric, the establishment and renovation of hotels, the change in first floor businesses, the transformation of dwellings into tourist rental housing, or changes in the office market trends. The starting point is the idea that in recent years there has been a (re)valorization and (re)significance in cultural and, above all, touristic terms of this space, already highly institutionalized and with a high symbolic value. However, it is necessary to determine whether the declaration as World Heritage has had a significant influence on these processus and the tensions that private economic interests generate over the conservation of a legacy in transformation.

To this end, three of the dimensions that are influencing recent socio-spatial transformations will be analysed: 1). Through field work and comparative cartographic analysis, the dynamics of change in land use in the area under study will be studied; 2). Using land registry sources and real estate portals, the dynamics affecting residential and tertiary use will be analysed; and 3). Through documentary analysis we will review the major projects that are putting this urban space in the cultural and tourist marking from the private initiative, whether they are implementations of cultural headquarters and foundations dependent on large companies and banking corporations or the opening and / or remodelling of luxury hotels.

In a world hurtling towards ecological breakdown, the concept of time is of growing concern. According to the UN Secretary General, "we are now engaged in a race against time to adapt to a rapidly changing climate" (UN, 2024). The world is running out of time.

But which - and whose - time are we talking about? Reducing the question to quantitative 'objective time', arguably a technological construct (Bastian, 2017), might prompt one to paraphrase Cedric Price (1966): technology is the answer, but what is the question?

In the industrial-capitalist credo, "time is money" (Adam, 2003). This simple motto enshrines the quantitative perception of time espoused by much large-scale urban development as a seemingly stable, objective, quantifiable value. However, in the context of large developments within urban UNESCO World Heritage (WH) sites, global heritage governance can play an active role in differentiating between qualitative and quantitative concerns for the future.

Employing desk-based research of primary and secondary literature, this paper will analyse and compare approaches to time taken in contentious major urban developments at two UK WH sites: Liverpool and Edinburgh. The former WH site was delisted in 2021 as a result of its approach (WHC, 2021). The latter escaped - possibly accidentally - a similar fate, seen to have addressed UNESCO concerns dating back to 2008.

Might delisting, for urban WH sites under heavy development pressure, just be a matter of time?

Drawing on scholarship on the theme of "social time" (Luhmann, 1976; Bastian, 2016), this paper will chart the first hints of what might be termed 'World Heritage chrononomy', UNESCO's management of time within inscribed WH sites, with a particular focus on large prospective urban developments. In turn, the WH system's qualitative approaches to post-inscription temporalities might be recognized as an important contribution to a unified global governance response to the global ecological crisis.

Urban landscapes are testimony, through their changes, to the dynamic relationship between society and its environment, which simultaneously reflect and condition each other’s characteristics and evolution over time. The Old and New Towns of Edinburgh World Heritage Site presents a fascinating insight in these dynamics over the last decades. Starting with the end of the nineteenth century, when Patrick Geddes applied his principle of ‘conservative surgery’ to a series of Old Town buildings, Edinburgh had seen the rise of a heritage movement that had successfully put a halt to the ambitious post-war urban development plans of the University which clashed with those of the city and its residents. This remained the case until the turn of the 21st century, since when a series of large-scale developments have been promoted by the council, to be erected by private developers, some of them despite strong opposition from residents and local stakeholders. The latter, tourism-focused large-scale developments had seen entire campaigns mounted by local community groups, inspections by UNESCO missions, and high-profile public inquiries. The tensions between the interests of investors, administration, community, and heritage were laid bare in the process. Other city-focused proposals, however, had the support of the local community and heritage stakeholders. This paper will reflect on the way in which the urban fabric of Edinburgh has been shaped by this series of recent large-scale developments and their implications for the historic city and its residents.

Parks and green spaces in particular have a high public nature and can contribute to community development and health promotion, as local people are involved as users, as well as in maintenance and conservation activities. It also has aspects of making effective use of local resources, and historical heritage, and the conservation of cultural assets, and are expected to have positive impacts on local areas and communities, by achieving multiple goals in the SDGs. This study aims to clarify the integration between health promotion and park and green space policies in ‘SDGs Future Cities’, a selection of advanced SDGs initiatives by the Japanese Government’s Cabinet Office. The research question is how policy integration with health promotion have contributed to the creation of more green spaces to create a healthy urban environment. The research method is to review the policies of each local government's Master Plans for Parks and Green Spaces (MPPGS) from the viewpoint of health promotion in the Kansai Metropolitan Region. The results showed that all large cities and many medium-sized cities with populations 100,000 or more had formulated MPPGS in regards to health promotion, and that the content ranges from the conservation of historical environments to creation and renewal of urban parks such as conserving forests and trees in shrines and temples, and new construction and revitalization of parks and green spaces. On the other hand, only one of the 17 small cities with less than 100,000 inhabitants had formulated the plan. The roles of newly created or redeveloped parks and green spaces in health promotion are mentioned in many plans as residents nearby can better use them. Furthermore, the conservation of forests and farmlands also encourage people to visit there more frequently. In conclusion, we found that policy integration can promote to incorporate other health related policies into park and green space policies, and future support is particularly needed for small cities in their policy development. The health promotion can also contribute to the creation of more green spaces, as it is listed as a key component in developing the MPPGS.

Citizen engagement in climate adaptation is gaining traction, with an increasing number of cities resorting to the co-production of adaptation. This approach extends beyond collaborative planning, as individual citizens and the private sector are tasked with implementing flood-proof measures, which include Nature-Based Solutions, on their premises to improve overall soil permeability. Consequently, adaptation becomes a shared responsibility of all urban actors.

While community-based adaptation has the potential to address the limitations of top-down planning, by incorporating local knowledge and context-specific solutions, this responsibility shift in the provision of flood security can have severe implications for climate justice. If a city's flood security depends on citizens' action, how can policymakers ensure everyone is equally protected from flooding, thus preventing green enclaves? How can adaptation plans which rely on property-level measures prevent green gentrification?

The extent to which co-produced adaptation can contribute to climate (in)justice deserves further scrutiny. In particular, the literature is yet to address how the different actors involved in co-production (local governments, private businesses, and individual residents) frame climate justice and responsibility for flood adaptation. How do these actors think about just adaptation determines their actions and the responsibility they take in the co-production of flood adaptation.

To address this gap, this research employs a Q-Methodology study to map perceptions of stakeholders involved in the Amsterdam Rainproof programme. Amsterdam Rainproof is a leading example of participatory flood adaptation in a city facing increasing pluvial flood risk. The Q-study explores the priorities and narratives around climate justice of public and private stakeholders carrying the responsibility of adaptation within the programme.

The Q-study will produce a narrative landscape of Amsterdam Rainproof, which will identify the predominant narratives around climate justice and responsibility for flood adaptation in Amsterdam. It will also highlight areas of consensus and dissensus between the different positions, which can serve as entry points to navigate conflict in participatory greening programmes.

Urban green spaces are an essential environmental feature of cities and their presence is positively associated with health outcomes and higher physical activity (PA). While previous studies highlight the importance of context for PA, longitudinal studies examining changes across life stages are currently lacking. This study will investigate how life-stage context ­ – before and after statutory retirement – are associated with PA among late middle-aged participants (n=124) from the Finnish Retirement and Aging Study. We will further examine whether greenness exposure, measured using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) within activity spaces, impacted these associations. Activity spaces were outlined using the Individualized Residential Exposure Model (IREM), which estimates place exposure and its variation through the participant’s activity spaces. PA was measured using accelerometers, as expressed as light and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. For the statistical analysis, linear regression with Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) will be applied to account for intra-individual correlations which then will be adjusted for age, gender, occupational status, BMI, mobility limitations, residential rurality and season. To consider the impact of leisure time availability, we will compare PA and green exposure across three distinctive scenarios: before retirement during working days and days off and lastly during retirement days. Our study aims to highlight the importance of considering life-stage transitions, such as retirement, in studying the role and just distribution of urban green spaces in promoting health benefits. In our best knowledge, this is the first study to examine the associations between green exposure within activity spaces and PA across these specific contexts.

Access to urban green spaces has demonstrated positive effects on the health and well-being of adolescents. However, the increasing engagement in sedentary activities and after-school activities has reduced the time spent outdoors, limiting contact with these spaces. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that adolescents have access to high-quality green spaces near their homes to encourage their use and promote healthier habits.

This study aims to analyse possible associations between the availability of urban green spaces within a 300-meter buffer from homes and the frequency and duration of visits to these spaces by adolescents in six major Spanish cities. The methodology involves geocoding residential addresses and measuring the percentage of green spaces within 300-meter buffers. Using these data, we will assess how proximity to these green spaces influences adolescents' use of them.

Preliminary results suggest that proximity to green spaces is associated with increased frequency and duration of visits. Additionally, cities with a higher percentage of green spaces show greater use by adolescents. However, factors such as safety, maintenance of spaces, lifestyle, and socioeconomic characteristics also play a significant role in the use of these areas.

This study highlights the importance of proximity to green spaces in promoting healthy habits among adolescents and provides relevant evidence for urban planning, advocating for the creation of high-quality green spaces in urban areas.

It is common knowledge that transport infrastructures are a crucial element in the growth of a territory, both economically and territorially. Indeed, they affect connectivity and territorial cohesion. Consequently the concept of cross-border transport is now considered a fundamental element for the development of certain areas, such as the area of Friuli Venezia Giulia. Within this context, factors such as connectivity, accessibility and mobility are considered useful in promoting the exchange of goods and passengers between different nations. The analysis carried out in this research aims to analyze the spatial dynamics involving the different transport infrastructures (road, rail, port and airport) of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region. This region was chosen due to the fact that Trieste, one of its cities, is a pivotal hub for logistics and transport networks that connect Central Europe, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. With reference to the exchange and transportation of goods, the port of Trieste plays a central role due to its great ability to unite different modes of transportation, allowing efficient intermodal handling. From the passenger point of view, it has excellent cross-border rail and road infrastructures, together with local transport infrastructure, which facilitates the movement not only of cross-border tourists but also of workers and residents. Despite this, managing the different regulations in force remains a challenge, which involves the need to invest in infrastructure and integrate transportation systems in a circular perspective.
For this reason, the present work analyses the feasibility of innovative solutions to increase accessibility and mobility within the study area. To carry out this analysis, geographic information tools and quantitative models will be implemented in order to understand how infrastructure quality affects these factors.
The analysis will be carried out through a multiscalar approach and in the adoption of a holistic and dynamic vision of the territory. Indeed, combining these tools will allow us to draw a detailed picture of the relationship between territorial development, infrastructure, and the circular economy.

Regional integration policies profoundly influence the lifestyles and cultural perceptions of border-area residents while reshaping regional development through their effects on cross-border mobility and spatial interactions. In the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), the integration of Shenzhen and Hong Kong—two regions within the same country but governed by different political systems—has garnered significant attention. However, challenges such as policy coordination, cultural differences, and disparities in urban services highlight the need to evaluate the spatial satisfaction of residents. Existing research lacks systematic analyses of how integration policies affect cross-border spatial sentiments due to difficulties in collecting long-term emotional data and conducting multidimensional analysis. This study addresses these gaps by utilizing mobile signaling data and social media data, combined with large language models (LLMs), to identify Shenzhen-Hong Kong residents and evaluate their spatial satisfaction sentiments in cross-border areas. A novel causal inference framework integrating LLMs and interrupted time-series models assesses the causal effects of Shenzhen-Hong Kong integration policies on Hong Kong residents' spatial satisfaction in Shenzhen from 2018 to 2023, exploring heterogeneity across spatial types.

The findings reveal significant variations in short- and long-term policy effects across different spatial types. Transportation infrastructure policies, such as the operation of the West Kowloon High-Speed Rail Station, directly improved border space accessibility, significantly enhancing short-term satisfaction in checkpoint areas. Development planning policies generally produced sustained positive impacts, with the Outline Development Plan for the GBA yielding immediate benefits in border checkpoint and socio-cultural spaces. Notably, the five policies analyzed exhibited spatial heterogeneity, aiding in pinpointing target implementation areas and identifying overlooked "gray" spaces. This study provides an effective framework for measuring the complex causal effects of integration policies, enriching empirical research on cross-border spatial sentiments and policy evaluation. The findings offer actionable insights for advancing regional integration initiatives in the GBA and similar contexts, supporting more precise and impactful policy design and implementation.

This study focuses on the motivation for cross-border mobility among inhabitants of mainly border regions. The principal objective is to identify the key factors that motivate residents towards cross-border mobility and whether there is a deviation from the perceived motivation to travel abroad compared to natural travel flows. The distance, border nature, municipality size, and purpose for cross-border mobility were successively analysed in our research. The research is based on a survey involving 668 municipalities, of which 230 (34%) lie in border regions, defined as an area within 30 kilometres of a national border, and 438 (66%) lie in the inland areas. This sample represents more than one-tenth of Czech municipalities. The results show that proximity to the national border and the neighbour’s economic strength were essential factors that created the preconditions for cross-border mobility. An important finding confirmed the relationship between proximity to the national border and commuting for work and services. Commuting to schools and for education was identified as a critical weakness. Furthermore, respondents living in borderland areas tended to overestimate their cross-border mobility on average by one-third over actual cross-border mobility flows, while respondents in inland areas tended to underestimate their cross-border mobility.

Czechia, with its key location, is part of the Baltic–Adriatic Corridor (Poland–Czechia/Slovakia–Austria–Italy), the Orient/East–Med Corridor (Germany–Czechia–Austria/Slovakia–Hungary–Romania–Bulgaria–Greece–Cyprus), and the Rhine–Danube Corridor (Germany–Austria/Czechia–Slovakia–Hungary–Romania). Central European space with a dense concentration of European capitals has excellent potential to develop a highly used HSR network and to substitute short and medium-haul flights. The focused region is delimited from the perspective of the Czech Republic. The possibility of traveling from one of three Czech metropolises - Prague, Brno, and Ostrava - to the final metropolis by direct train must exist.

One train change in the Czech metropolis is allowed despite the region delimitation by direct trains. Origin-destination metropolise pairs are so defined in "Czechocentric" Central Europe. The quality of the current rail network, HSR network change, and flight connection in the region are compared. The contribution has the specific aim of a one-day international business trip. It presents the actual cross-border business train connection market and the possibility of carrying out the trip, avoiding the need to stay overnight. The quantitative approach collects attributes such as the number of connections, travel time, and ticket cost. The available time for business talks in the destination is counted for train and plane connections.

The novelty and contribution of the research consist of accomplishing a field survey in trains on the territory of Czechia. The survey aims to gather information on the behavior of cross-border travelers. The interest lies in the number of business trips, the necessary time for business in destination, travel planning, or the willingness to stay overnight.
The synthesis of both types of research brings insight into the potential importance of Czech metropolises in the HSR network, passenger travel behavior change, and new business talk opportunities.

In the context of a doctoral research on “spaces of exception” (Agmaben, 2002), spaces of marginalization to which modern society decides to relegate Homo Sacer, i.e., the sacrificable human being, I considered two neighborhoods as case studies: Al Hussein palestinian refugee camp in the city of Amman, a Middle Eastern metropolis, and Borgo Marina, a neighborhood considered “marginalized” and “dangerous” in the city of Rimini, a middle European city. This dual choice questions the production of spaces of sacrifice that transcend the official camp form (Katz, Martín, & Minca, 2018) to creep into Middle Eastern as well as European cities, within neighborhoods informally considered as marginalized, peripheral, and dangerous spaces in which the discourse of “space of exception” is repurposed.

The research focuses on the study of these two different “exception” neighborhoods analyzed from the perspective of the children who inhabit them and who within them construct geographies of their own and could demonstrate forms of political protagonism and participation. This particular perspective is focused on using the mosaic approach (Clark & Moss, 2011) a methodology that, by favoring nonverbal tools such as photography, interactive map making and guided tours, allows children to actively participate in the research as co-researchers who are experts in the space in which they live.

In November and December 2024, I completed a project within the L. Ferrari elementary school in Rimini's Borgo Marina neighborhood. On this occasion I was able to work with 42 fifth-grade children within the neighborhood that, protagonist of an important social transformation in the 1990s, is currently home to several migrant communities and is described by a certain part of public opinion as a space of danger and marginalization. With the aim of recognizing a scholarly value to the experience of girls and boys living in these neighborhoods, the research questions the possibility that these geographies of childhood can be carriers of new, transformative solutions.

Agamben, G., & Hiepko, A. (2002). Homo sacer (p. 6). Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

Clark, A., & Moss, P. (2011). Listening to young children: The mosaic approach. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Katz, I., Martín, D., & Minca, C. (Eds.). (2018). Camps revisited: Multifaceted spatialities of a modern political technology. Rowman & Littlefield.

In today’s European context, the North-South divide and the center/periphery dynamic exert a significant influence on how possible areas come to be viewed as “expendable.” In Italy, the South (Mezzogiorno) offers a paradigmatic example of this process. Here, the “territories in struggle” (Imperatore, 2023) call for a systemic approach capable of integrating the ecological crisis with everyday territorial experiences. From this perspective, the visual arts can serve as a valuable resource for examining local communities’ forms of resistance. Such practices transform “sacrifice zones” into arenas where “emotions, bodies, and spaces interact” (Drozdzewski, Dominey-Howes, 2015, p. 17).
The case of Taranto is especially telling. Long known for its protracted conflict between environmental exploitation and redefinition of public roles, Taranto also fosters a range of “resilient” subcultural expressions—among them comics—through which local citizens challenge hegemonic narratives. These “small histories” question the notion of sacrifice and convey the experiences of those who reject the health–labor blackmail. They locate possibilities for “resistance and radical possibility” (Hooks, 1989, p.20; Sabatini, 2023, p.190) in the margins.
Given this backdrop, the present contribution aims to demonstrate how comics construct and regenerate spaces—both geographic and symbolic—that emerge as genuine horizons of shared meaning. The paper aims to examine, through comparisons, textual analysis and interviews with authors, several works by embedded “cartoonists” (Rinella, Epifani, 2021, p. 193) that depict a condition deeply marked by eco-climatic collapse. Their narratives facilitate a structural analysis of the link between local conflicts and the global socio-ecological crisis. They also underscore that environmental upheaval is far from abrupt: “If Taranto has long been a mirror of the South … today it is a mirror of the whole of Europe” (Leogrande, 2013, p.9). Instead, this upheaval is the dramatic result of deliberate political and territorial decisions implemented in a specific place, heedless of the community’s protests. Consequently, the territory acquires both symbolic and empirical significance, representing the shift from "reflexive impotence" to “collective empowerment” (Fisher, 2009, p.21; Imperatore, 2023). This vision enables the creation of shared vocabularies that connect experiences of suffering in sacrifice zones around the world, without glossing over their distinct features.

References

Drozdzewski D, Dominey-Howes D (2015) Research and trauma: understanding the impact of traumatic content and places on the researcher. Emotion, Space and Society 17: 17–25.

Fisher M (2009) Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Zero Books, Winchester (UK).

Hooks B (1989) Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. The Journal of Cinema and Media 20: 15–23.

Imperatore P (2023) Territori in lotta. Capitalismo globale e giustizia ambientale nell’era della crisi climatica. Meltemi, Roma.

Leogrande A (2022) Fumo sulla città. Feltrinelli, Milano.

Rinella A, Epifani F (2021) “Translocal” narration of environmental issues through graphic novels: two Italian case studies. Central European Journal of Geography and Sustainable Development 3(1): 5–20.

Sabatini F (2023) Sicani Telling: storie minute dai margini della Sicilia. In: Documenti geografici, fascicolo 2(2023) “Margini, bordi, periferie,” pp. 45–60.

Within the framework of European Union policy, sustainable prosperity is inextricably linked to enhanced competitiveness, leading to a strategic reorientation toward a circular economy, biodiversity conservation, climate-change adaptation, and social equity. The basic industry sector—subject to a decades-long structural crisis—epitomizes the so-called “sacrifice zones,” wheredecarbonization targets, public-health and social emergencies, and the economic repercussions on local communities intersect in a complex web of contradictions.

At the same time, the energy transition and geopolitical contingencies—from rising trade barriers to international tensions over raw-material supplies—necessitate the construction of new infrastructures and facilities, thereby creating further territories of environmental and social compromise.

From a geographical perspective, sacrifice zones are not merely spatial configurations of environmental and economic compromise, but function as territorial devices in which the rights to health and a safe environment are neglected or subordinated to logics of production and accumulation. These geographies of injustice expose the uneven distribution of environmental and health burdens, raising critical questions about the unequal allocation of environmental rights—specifically, who is truly able to enjoy a healthy and just environment, and who, by contrast, isstructurally deprived of such a condition.

This paper offers a three-part overview of Europe’s “sacrifice zones.” The first part presents a literature review of existing definitions and major interpretive categories; the second examinesmapping and cataloguing efforts applied to both historical and contemporary cases; and the thirdprovides in-depth analyses of selected case studies, highlighting practices of representation and forms of territorial contestation.

The aim of this initial exploratory study is to arrive at a shared EU-wide definition of “sacrificezone,” laying the groundwork for a European model of spatial and environmental justice capable of guiding territorial re-configuration policies and projects based on equity, participation, and sustainability.

The paper aims to contribute to the literature that is invested in understanding the relationship between migrant transnationalism and integration in the host country. While the paradigm of transnationalism has been dominant in the field of migration studies and thus the coexistence of migrant integration and transnationalism is not vehemently contested anymore, the nuanced understanding of the relationship between these two social phenomena is still not entirely clear to researchers. We carried out an analysis based on an online survey which had targeted Hungarian migrants. The focus of our analysis were the sociocultural aspects of transnational connections and host country integration among Hungarian emigrants. In addition, we also investigated the plans for returning home within the matrix of transnationalism and integration. Based on Carling and Pettersen (2014) we created an integration-transnationalism matrix to study the relationship between integration and transnationalism, and within this framework we examined the intention to return home. Our general conclusion, which corroborated Carling and Pettersen’s (2014) results, was that integration and transnationalism “neutralize” each other: strong integration and strong transnationalism, as well as weak integration and weak transnationalism, show similar ratios of return migration plans. At the same time, strong integration and weak transnationalism show the lowest, while weak integration and strong transnationalism show the highest occurrence of considering returning to the home country. The applied logistic regression model indicates that transnationalism increases while integration decreases the chances of planning to return. The paper also highlights certain spatial specificities of the integration–transnationalism matrix through the comparative description of the results from the top three destination countries of Hungarian migrants: Germany, Austria, and the UK.

Digitalisation, particularly the diffusion of affordable ICT, is linked with the growth of transnational migration, understood as sustained cross-border connections between migrants and their origin communities. However, despite the contemporary digital pedigree of transnationalism, there is limited understanding of digital inclusion among transnational migrants in destinations or transnational households in origins. Our presentation and analysis (based on a project supported by the Czech Science Foundation) is one of the first to analyse the relationship between digital inclusion and transnational migration. The main research question is: What accounts for the variation in digital inclusion of transnational Moldovan and Georgian migrants? We will analyse the level of digitisation of migrants in the process of their lived transnationalisation, its conditionalities and the wider context of a sample of 100 Moldovan and 100 Georgian immigrants residing in Czechia. The analysis will also include the situation of their households in Moldova and Georgia. The data from the unique questionnaire survey will be processed, among other tools, through regression analyses and structural modeling approach. The interpretation will be based on social practice theory.

The findings add new knowledge on digitalisation, digital divide, digital inclusion, and transnational migration, and carry important implications for social inclusion, national digital strategies and, more widely, for re-framing the Migration Development Nexus in the context of digitalisation.

Within place branding research, place loyalty is studied as an expression of positive engagement behavior by the residents. Place attachment, i.e. the affective, physical and cognitive bonding with place, and its subdimension place identity are often studied as factors leading to residents’ loyalty to a place. Such studies are mainly quantitative, focusing on the attachment to the place studied, and the residents are treated as a homogenous group. Yet in a mobile world where more and more people live outside of their place of origin, many develop simultaneous attachment to multiple places. In a current research project, we investigated the differences in place attachment of locals vs. migrants, and the differences in their types of attachment to the study location. We further studied the relation between types of place attachment and the interviewees’ behavior towards different places. In this paper, we investigate how multiple place attachment influences future mobility intentions and loyalty to the current place of residence.

We base our theoretical approach on typologies of place attachment, theories of place identity, and place behavior, specifically loyalty. For place attachment different typologies are used, i.e. Lewicka (2011)’s traditional/inherited place attachment, active attachment, alienation, place relativity, and placelessness, Gieling et al. (2017)’s traditionally attached, socially attached, footloose, and reluctantly attached types, and Di Masso et al. (2019)’s fixity and flow scale. We further analyze the subdimension of place identity, and the participants’ loyalty and mobility intention statements according to their place identity and attachments.

The data for the study were collected through in-depth interviews with diverse residents of Girona (Catalonia, Spain). The interviewees included residents born in Girona, residents who came from other parts of Catalonia and the rest of Spain, and residents who moved to Girona from abroad. The interviewees had diverse educational, employment, age, and travel experience and mobility backgrounds, although those who came from abroad were all voluntary migrants. The findings show a preference for long-term settlement and onwards migration, rather than return migration.

According to official statistics, Hungarians constitute one of the largest foreign-born groups in Austria, with approximately 100,000 individuals. Many fit the definition of transnational migrants, with family members dispersed across multiple countries, dual households maintained over extended periods, extensive cross-border networks, high spatial mobility, and active engagement with both their country of origin and destination. In addition, the number of Hungarian cross-border commuters in Austria also exceeds 60,000. Both groups share similar migration motivations, often driven by the prospect of better wages and a higher standard of living, frequently accepting jobs for which they are overqualified.

This analysis is unique as it combines primary data from two previous research projects, including narrative and cognitive interviews as well as two harmonized quantitative surveys (N = 714 in total). The paper will focus on the spatial mobility patterns and labour market characteristics of Hungarian transnational migrants and cross-border commuters. Particular attention will be given to overqualification and its effects on their life satisfaction, happiness, and eudaimonia, as well as its influence on their intentions to stay in or leave Austria.

Preliminary results indicate that while the material well-being of the target population improved after migration, they are less satisfied with their social relationships. Overqualification applies to approximately one-third of respondents in both samples, and those who are overqualified report significantly lower overall life satisfaction compared to those working in jobs that match their qualification levels. To explore the causal relationships, explanatory models will be employed, incorporating various objective and spatial factors.

The rural landscape, as a complex ecological and cultural system, represents a crucial paradigm for interpreting and promoting sustainable agriculture. This study investigates how land concentration, monoculture expansion, and biodiversity loss threaten the balance of agri-food ecosystems. Using a proven research methodology from the Interuniversity Research Group GECOAGRI-LANDITALY, the authors analyze some case studies through which they assess the process of land concentration in the European countryside, starting from the 90s of the last century - also favored by certain CAP Directives - and interpret the transformations induced on the historical rural landscapes that become fundamental geographical paradigms to explain the unsustainability of the concentration processes underway in the countryside. The analysis of the complex landscape elements and agricultural structures reveals the loss of traditional cultivation practices, already inherited from family farming and agro-food biodiversity.

Hungarian agricultural land use is one of the most concentrated in Europe. Over the past decade and a half, the ownership, farm structure and land use of agriculture have undergone profound changes. Nearly seven to eight hundred thousand small producers have given up farming and withdrawn from agriculture. By the time of EU accession, a significant concentration of land use and production had developed, which has not changed significantly since then. The proportion of land over 500 hectares reaches and, in some of its components, exceeds the share of large estates in the productive area before the Second World War. Land use concentration has a dual structure. Economic organizations cultivate the largest areas of land, but after the turn of the millennium, medium and larger individual farms also sought to purchase land and expand leases. In the first half of the 20th century, medium and small peasant farms provided a livelihood for more than a million peasant families. After the mid-1990s, the number of small farms began to decline rapidly. The sustaining capacity of agriculture declined significantly as a result of the concentration of land use and technological modernization. The restructuring of agriculture and the concentration of land use were linked to social, power and economic changes, the combined effect of which was to completely transform rural society and economy, The link between high-level rural poverty and land use structure can be traced back to the first half of the 1990s. Due to land compensation, land privatization, the way cooperatives were transformed, and the abolition of cooperatives' employment obligations, three hundred thousand people became unemployed in 1993 alone.

The paper presents the consequences of land concentration based on SAPS data and a survey of 5,000 people (2021): the change in the dominance of the monoculture of grain production, the decline of animal husbandry and horticulture, the transformation in the identity-forming role of the rural landscape, the displacement of locals from agriculture.

Monoculture production and large-scale land concentration have destroyed the direct connection of the rural population to the farmland, thereby greatly weakening the social foundations of sustainable agriculture and landscape management. The study, based on qualitative research, also presents those movements and individual forms of activity that consciously aimed to promote sustainable agricultural activities.

The evolving European rural landscape faces ascending pressures from urbanization, land concentration, and intensive agricultural practices. These dynamics have significant implications for ecosystem services (ES), particularly soil health and biodiversity, which are vital to environmental sustainability and human well-being. Portugal’s diverse ecosystems and legislative advancements provide a unique vision to explore these challenges and opportunities for sustainable land management. This study investigates the relationship between land-use strategies, soil health, and biodiversity conservation through an integrated approach that combines geospatial analysis, stakeholder participation, and quantitative assessment. It seeks to address two key questions: (i) How do different land management practices impact soil health? and (ii) What role does biodiversity play in enhancing ecosystem resilience under different land use practices?

Portugal’s environmental policies, such as alignment with the European Union’s Soil Monitoring Directive and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), underscore the urgency of sustainable practices. However, gaps in soil monitoring and biodiversity metrics hinder the development of effective strategies. This research bridges these gaps by employing advanced geospatial tools to map soil degradation risks, assess biodiversity trends, and evaluate the long-term sustainability of land-use changes.

Stakeholder engagement further enriches the analysis by incorporating local perspectives, ensuring that policy recommendations are grounded in practical realities. The findings reveal that sustainable land management practices can mitigate soil degradation and support biodiversity, offering a pathway to more resilient ecosystems.

The study’s outcomes align with the European Green Deal and the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, providing actionable insights for policymakers and practitioners. By addressing trade-offs and synergies between ecological and socio-economic objectives, the research highlights the importance of integrated approaches to land management. Finally, this study contributes to the broader understanding of rural transformations in Europe, emphasizing the need for evidence-based policies that prioritize soil restoration, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development.

Acknowledgments

This work has been developed under the Science4Policy 2024 (S4P-24), an annual Science for Policy Project call, an initiative promoted by Centre for Planning and Evaluation of Public Policies in partnership with the Foundation for Science and Technology, financed by Portugal´s Recovery and Resilience Plan. Project number 2024.00129.S4P24.

Agriculture in the Alps has long been considered a marginal activity afflicted by an irreversible decline, measured in terms of a decrease in the number of agricultural holdings and a reduction in agricultural surface area (Tasser et al., 2009; Ruffini, 2011).

More recently, some opposite trends are observed. New investments are exploiting marginal areas and new rentable crops are replacing less profitable productions, while global climate change pushes lowland species to move uphill and occupy mountain agricultural land. Vineyards are rapidly spreading in areas where a new climate, the market and rewarding policies allow it, as it is happening in the slopes of North-Eastern Italy for the Prosecco (Ferrario, D’Angelo, 2020). Similar phenomena of land concentration affect other sectors like fruit growing or grazing land.

At the same time, new signs of interest in agricultural activity have been recorded among old and new inhabitants of the Alps (Dematteis, 2012; Corrado et al., 2014), also as a response to the current socio-environmental crisis. In the context of the so-called «new farming», agriculture is considered an important factor of social innovation (Niedermayr et al., 2014; Maino et al., 2016; Gretter et al., 2019; Zollet and Majarjan, 2021) and an opportunity for environmental recovery, especially when inspired to the agroecology global movement (Wezel et al., 2009). New Alpine farmers introduce non-traditional, innovative or retro-innovative productions that can rejuvenate Alpine agriculture, preferably in a more sustainable direction.

Therefore in the Alpine landscape a new conflict has begun between a small, innovative and agroecological farming and intensive agriculture that more and more exploits mountains as a frontier to conquer. Starting from the results of a research on the new attractiveness of Alpine agriculture, this contribution works on this hypothesis through a mixed-methods approach capable of cross-referencing qualitative and quantitative data and bringing desk analysis and field investigations into dialogue. It deals both with case studies and general data analysis in the Italian Eastern Alps, as well as with rural policies that favour or impede the aforementioned trends.

Voter turnout reflects a population's collective attitude toward democracy, serving as a vital indicator of civic engagement and political inclusivity. This study examines the factors influencing voter turnout patterns in Croatia's 2024 parliamentary elections using multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) which represents an advanced local regression modelling variant. Key findings reveal that regions with above-average education levels exhibit higher voter turnout, emphasizing the role of educational attainment in fostering civic engagement. Similarly, areas with higher shares of Catholics are positively associated with increased turnout. In contrast, regions with larger proportions of national minorities, higher unemployment rates, and larger municipality populations experience lower voter participation. This research contributes to electoral geography by showcasing the utility of multiscale approaches in identifying spatial variations in voter behavior. The findings have practical implications for policymakers striving to reduce regional disparities and enhance democratic participation.

The study aims to characterize the local activity of residents in the context of selected aspects of voting behavior in the elections to district councils in Poznań in May 2024. The focus was primarily on two issues: (a) active participation of Poznań residents in the elections to district councils and its determinants, and (b) differences in the characteristics of candidates for district councils in the spatial context. In Poland, dividing communes into auxiliary territorial units was already possible under the Act on Local Government of March 8, 1990. In Poznań, such division into sub-local units has been in force since 1996. Since 2011, some of the initially functioning sub-local units have been merged into larger ones, creating 42 auxiliary units in the city. The elections were not held in two district councils, Naramowice and Żegrze, and in one part of the Nowe Winogrady Południe district council, where fewer candidates were registered than seats on the council. The primary source of information on the elections was the protocols of the election results to the individual 40 district councils prepared by the Electoral Commissioner appointed by the Poznań City Council. In addition, information on the composition of district councils in the 2019-2024 term was placed on these councils' official websites. The analysis of the connections between political careers was based on information contained in the lists of election committees to the Poznań City Council participating in the elections on 7 April 2024 (State Electoral Commission data). The indicator method was used to examine the spatial differentiation of the election results to district councils (a total of six indicators: voter turnout, candidate load, continued candidacy, the re-election of councilors, feminization of candidates, and feminization of councilors). The research results indicate significant formal passivity manifested in sub-local electoral activity – as evidenced by the candidate load indicator. Participation in these elections, the role of women and representatives of parties and para-political organizations in them, indicates the intensifying process of disintegration of traditional ties in district communities.

This international EU-wide study investigates the relationships between election results and regional economic and demographic development with a focus on left-behind regions. It addresses the growing relevance of spatial inequalities in explaining the support for nationalist and right-wing populist parties. We use self-compiled, unique and comprehensive datasets on (a) regional economic and demographic characteristics and (b) the latest available national parliamentary election results of 20 EU countries. The study presents maps of right-wing populist party support and bivariate regression results based on a regional classification approximating labour market regions. The findings reveal that the "revenge of places left behind" thesis—proposing that disadvantaged regions exhibit stronger support for populist parties—varies in applicability across countries. Furthermore, the study highlights the ambiguity and complexity of defining "left-behind" regions, emphasizing the need to view them as multidimensional constructs shaped by the interplay of structural and dynamic regional factors.

In recent years, a question often raised in public debates concerns the decrease of public services in rural zones and the increasing difficulty to access basic services and equipments (bank, bakery, doctor etc.). The impact of this situation would be the increasing discontent of people living in these regions and support to far-right parties.

However, this question has not been systematically studied by research by using quantitative strategies. Mainly ethnographical studies have been done on this supposed relation.

This paper aims to describe and understand the link between the decrease of public services & equipments and the vote for far-right parties in rural regions.

This paper aims to describe and understand this specific phenomenon in electoral geography by a quantitative approach. The idea is to do an ecological analysis of rural regions in some European exemplary countries, to quantify the difficulty accessing services & equipments, and to study the link with electoral behaviour by using regressions and other econometric tools.

The paper explores how urbanization and the growing influence of English in daily culture affect landscape-related vocabulary, concepts, and understanding. Landscape is a recorder of cultural activities (Lowenthal 1986) and a mediator of national memory (Cosgrove 1998), functioning through mappable patterns (e.g., settlements, road networks), representation in art (e.g., painting, literature), and language, especially vocabulary and concepts. Globally, landscape studies have evolved from examining how landscapes are formed (how landscape is made), to how they are perceived (how landscape is seen), and now to how they are experienced (how landscape is felt) (Sidaway 2009, Harvey 2024). From here, a study lines leads towards landscape identity, which in terms is largely related to place names, words and terms we use in everyday languages and the comprehension of the meaning of these. As an example, Striedl et al. (2024) analyzed the meanings of landscape concepts (e.g., mountain, sea) across English, German, and French speakers, identifying both similarities and culturally rooted differences.

This paper will draw on two planned studies. First, a word listing experiment will map Estonian landscape-related vocabulary. Results will be analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively, e.g., calculating a cognitive salience index to identify the psychological salience of prototypical words (Sutrop 2001). Second, an association test will use stimuli such as mägi (mountain), soo (bog), and mets (forest) to explore associations tied to landscape terms. This method will reveal not only the vocabulary but also the perceptual units linked to these words (cf. Striedl et al. 2024).

The United Nations has designated the year 2025 as the "International Year of Glacier Preservation," aiming to underscore the significance of glaciers worldwide. Glacier history is intertwined with climate history, as glaciers respond to changing conditions with a time lag. Since the conclusion of the Little Ice Age (LIA) in 1850, glaciers in the Austrian Alps have significantly diminished in volume, which has also impacted toponymy. The geographic name landscape of the high mountains is evolving, particularly concerning glacier names.

Topographic maps have served as vital sources of geographical names for centuries, reflecting their transformations. Glaciers, or more precisely their names, shape the appearance of topographical maps. A diachronic analysis of glacier names from the Austrian national surveys (“Landesaufnahmen”), spanning from the latter half of the 18th century to the present, reveals the enduring changes in toponymy and their effects on cartographic representation.

The loss of a glacier does not necessarily entail the complete disappearance of its name; instead, depending on natural conditions, a new name type may emerge that retains part of the original name. In areas where glaciers once existed, other types of toponyms can arise due to altered topography. The geographical conditions may lead to the formation of new natural lakes from glacial meltwater, or artificial lakes may be created through damming. These newly assigned names fall under the category of hydronyms. When a glacier ceases to exist, the corresponding type of name, known as a glazionym, also disappears. However, a toponym may still appear on the map in that region due to the transition of the name type, where a glazionym evolves into an oronym or a name for a landform. The naming process will be analyzed through specific examples.

The aim of this presentation is to illustrate how the retreat or disappearance of glaciers influences geographical names on topographical maps.

It is well known that toponyms in cartography help ‘reading’ the landscape in its plano-altimetric and environmental features. Sometimes, however, they do not show any correspondence from a linguistic standpoint or are inappropriate, as erroneously associated with location and/or morphology of the landscape. What is reported above was observed in some maps of the Campania region (Southern Italy). The first mismatch (i.e. the linguistic one) witnesses the frequentation of the locations by civilisations or cultures now disappeared. Of such civilizations, only the toponomy handed down by local tradition survives. On the other hand, the second mismatch (i.e., the one with the plano-altimetric features of the landscape), only indirectly indicates the morpho-topographic landscape features and/or its geomorphic evolution. However, very often, these apparent discrepancies in toponomy became established and entrenched in local communities over time, allowing for the definition of widely recognised geographical entities, even reported in official non-cartographic acts and documents. This increases the chronological dimension and sense of territorial belonging. This happened in some inland areas (e.g. Sannio and Irpinia) of the Campanian Apennines that experienced a long history of occupation by different cultures and civilisations: these latter connoted the locations and landscapes features with their own names, which “survived” to the natural geomorphic evolution also. Toponyms, history and geomorphological landscape peculiarities intertwined in these areas, allowing the geographer/geomorphologist to reveal geo-environmental scenarios hitherto unimaginable in a landscape that has always been anthropised. They are therefore able to ‘unveil’ river and slope dynamics that shaped a given landscape with its human presences. The lack of understanding or even cancellation led, in some cases, to landscape mismanagements in terms of planning and natural risk assessment. It remains confirmed, however, that the study of toponyms in these areas proved to be of great importance, also because they allowed detecting and highlighting locations of considerable scientific importance (e.g. geomorphosites). These latter further enrich the geological heritage of these landscapes form a geo-touristic point of view and from a sustainable development perspective.

The paper analyses place names tied to physical-geographical and human features of the Antola Natural Regional Park (Ligurian Apennines) to provide insights into the understanding of landforms and their evolution through time. The protected area is around 5,000 ha wide and was established in 1995; it is included in the metropolitan city of Genoa along the border with the regions of Piedmont, Emilia and Lombardy.

The park owes its name to Mount Antola (1597 m a.s.l.), known as “the mount of the Genoese”, which represents the watershed between the park's main valleys: the Vobbia and Brevenna valleys (which flow into the upper Scrivia valley) and the Brugneto and Cassingheno valleys, which flow into the upper Trebbia valley. This position allowed the mountain to become an important commercial crossroads between the inhabitants of the two main valleys during the past centuries.

Preliminary cartographic research was based exclusively on the Military Geographical Institute's 1:25,000 scale maps, surveyed between 1936 and 1937; the selection is linked both to the abundance of detail of this cartography and to its consolidated use in this type of research, with particular reference to the studies on Ligurian toponymy developed since the 1960s.

The research highlighted numerous place names with a clear geographical connotation, linked not only to aspects of physical geography, but also to vegetation and agriculture, livestock breeding, animal life, human settlement, industries, crafts and communication routes.

Toponyms tied to elements of physical and human geography can be classified into main categories:

• those linked in general to hydrography and the presence of water (eg. Fontanino, Fontanasse, Fontana dell’Asino, Acquabuona, Moglia);
• those associated with the nature and character of the ground, including a clear geological component often connected with human features (eg. Castello della Pietra, Bric delle Ciappe, Chiappa, Costa delle Scabbie)
• those associated with valleys, plains and other geomorphological features (Pian d’Orio, Piancassina, Pianelli, Pian dei Curli, Campo di dietro, Cugni, M. Crosi, Valle Crosa)

What does empowering and giving more freedom to rural communities mean? This paper aims to complexify the understanding of projects that aim to ensure sustainable economic and tourism development for rural communities by taking the example of the rejection of two projects to create a new national park in Ticino, Switzerland.

These projects included wide participation opportunities, were organised in a bottom-up format, provided for reversibility and drop-out mechanisms for the communities, and offered a prospect of local tourism and agricultural development that should have curbed the depopulation of the affected Alpine valleys. Yet both projects were rejected by the local population, who feared the introduction of an additional actor in the production of space - the park board and the possible influences of national and international environmentalist organisations and policies. The political battle – a true culture war – focused on the notion of freedom, to which supporters and opponents gave a radically distinct meaning. While criticising institutions for their lack of understanding of rural realities it is also necessary to avoid idealising local communities and their social dynamics. In this regard, this paper discusses the concept of false consciousness (Lukács, 1967) and little tradition (Scott, 2013) in order to understand the potential limits of a localist perspective.

Climate change and multi-hazard risks have emerged as top-priority topics in Disaster Risk Agendas and Sustainable Development Goals. Multi-hazard risk assessments and efforts to increase the coping capacity should be elaborated and implemented using a downscaling approach that accounts for local-scale, particular manifestations of hazards, as well as vulnerability sources, accounting for improvements in knowledge, preparedness, and trust in authorities. These approaches and their benefits are pivotal for the overall resilience of the local communities, especially when considering the significant communication barriers between laypeople, the scientific community, and local decision-makers. Analyzing local authority responses and strategies is particularly important for transboundary areas, given that natural hazards can affect regions across administrative boundaries, policies, economic development and exposure particularities, and human communities with different levels of vulnerability.

As part of the transboundary research project “Exploring the paths to cope with hydro-climatic risks in transboundary rural areas along the Prut Valley. A multi-criteria analysis”, this study presents the outputs of five workshops organized in different locations along the Prut River Valley (Cotusca/Lipcani, Costesti/Stanca, Sculeni/Victoria, Cotu Morii/Grozesti and Cahul/Oancea), the current border between Romania and Republic of Moldova. Mediated by the research team members, the workshops involved local stakeholders (mayors, farmers, police officers, priests, and heads of local institutions) from both sides of the Prut River. At the local scale, the main challenges regarding risk management and improving coping capacities can be considered the need for an improved dialogue and communication between both sides, from different points of view: economic, technological, environmental, social and cultural, as well as the cooperation in terms of awareness, prevention, intervention and recovery. The multi-criteria analysis also highlights some local particularities regarding the different hydro-climatic hazards, based especially on past experiences.

In the context of climate change, increasing droughts threaten freshwater availability, particularly impacting rural areas of the Global South. In northwest Costa Rica, part of the Central American Dry Sector, water scarcity, intensified by agriculture and tourism, presents complex governance challenges. Here, community-based water organizations (CWOs), run by volunteers, usually supply small communities with water. While these organizations often face capacity limitations that hinder the development of their operations, they play a vital role in actively protecting locally available water resources through collective action. In some parts, however, the Costa Rican Institute of Aqueducts and Sewers (AyA) conversely provides drinking water, while at the same time functioning as regulator of CWOs, known locally as ASADAs.

This dual system, where state bureaucratic-hierarchical and communal network governance operate to provide the same good, calls for an examination of Costa Rica’s water governance framework. Therefore, this study addresses the question: How do public and communal drinking water operators act and interact in the Costa Rican water governance system in addressing challenges related to water scarcity? It integrates scientific and grey literature with insights from 40 semi-structured interviews conducted in November 2023. Interviewees included public and communal water providers and community members from two case study communities, and higher-level actors from both water governance domains.

Applying Qualitative Content Analysis, the study uncovers strengths and weaknesses within both domains of this hybrid governance system and scrutinizes multi-level interactions. Findings reveal contrasts between the CWOs’ network and AyA’s bureaucratic-hierarchical governance approaches. CWOs demonstrate flexibility, autonomy, and environmental stewardship but face resource and capacity constraints. Conversely, AyA struggles with cumbersome processes and staff shortages, focusing almost exclusively on providing water, often neglecting conservation and the ASADAs’ operational needs. Consequently, AyA’s interactions with ASADAs are perceived as imposing rather than supporting, leading to conflict and the emergence of parallel, more flexible bottom-up network governance structures.

These results emphasize the need for stronger integration of community-based organizations in environmental decision-making processes and improved coordination between communal and state entities. Bridging these gaps could enhance Costa Rica’s ability to manage water resources sustainably in the face of escalating scarcity.

Globalized food production has weakened the link between agricultural products and their origins, leading to homogenization and consumer distrust. In Slovenia, these trends exacerbate challenges like the decline of traditional practices, unemployment, and rural transformation. EU quality schemes such as Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) aim to safeguard product authenticity, promote socio-economic benefits, and foster producer cooperation.

This study examines the impact of PDO and PGI schemes on producer collaboration in Slovenia, based on qualitative interviews and data analysis. Findings highlight that regions with strong traditions of collective action, like wine production, benefit from shared marketing and resource pooling. However, in areas where historical distrust of cooperatives persists, producers face challenges in leveraging these schemes, resulting in weaker market performance and limited knowledge exchange.

Key barriers include fragmented governance and a lack of centralized support to assist producers. The study underscores the need for a national coordinating body and educational initiatives to build trust and collaboration among producers. While PDO and PGI schemes enhance traditional practices and socio-economic development, sustainable adoption remains limited in regions facing economic pressures.

The presentation offers practical recommendations to strengthen producer cooperation, improve governance, and promote long-term sustainability, contributing to policy improvements for more effective rural development in Slovenia and beyond.

Are there reliable indicators that show how agriculture is adapting to climate change? Agriculture is considered the most vulnerable sector to climate change in almost every country in the world. Policy and financial instruments are introduced because agriculture is highly vulnerable to drought, storms, heat waves or floods. However, there is no clear guidance on what indicators can show the level of adaptation of agriculture to climate change.

Unlike mitigation, the extent and development of adaptation is more difficult to quantify. In the case of mitigation, it is easier to evaluate measures in terms of how much GHG emissions can be reduced or avoided.

For quantification of adaptation, however, there are no databases or official statistics available, and there is no consensus on which measures are considered as adaptation. Irrigation, for example, is often the focus of subsidy policy instruments, but it is highly investment and maintenance intensive and can cause serious environmental damage.

In the absence of guidelines, we have developed a set of indicators to show how agriculture is adapting, based on literature, statistics, databases, researches, policy and strategy documents and expert consultation.

These indicators include for example conservation tillage and soil cover practices in crop production, grassland cover and grazing intensity; for agricultural water management, water retention, irrigation practices, illegal irrigation and wetlands; health risk reduction measures in livestock production; the extent of damage to agriculture; behavioural change of farmers and health impacts such as mycotoxins.

We have prepared an Adaptation Report for the Hungarian agricultural sector, which includes a significant number of indicators. We have found that a number of indicators are suitable for monitoring adaptation in agriculture, but due to data gaps, lack of continuity in data collection, inaccuracy and low data quality, most of the indicators are not applicable.

We used geographic information methods to present spatial differences in the extent to which soil cover and conservation tillage practices are being introduced; how wetland creation is evolving; whether runoff slowing and infiltration is being supported on cropland; whether afforestation and landscape features are being established, among others. We aim to initiate the co-design of adaptation indicators.

The Sand Ridge in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve, within the Hungarian Great Plain, grapples with severe water scarcity due to recurrent droughts, significantly affecting agricultural activities and farmers' incomes. The combination of decreasing annual precipitation, increasing temperatures due to climate change, water management focusing on draining waters from the landscape, and other agricultural practices compound these challenges. While local and regional actors acknowledge water scarcity, they harbour diverse expectations regarding potential solutions. Some farmers, supported by the local government and associations, have cooperated voluntarily to conserve water and enhance agricultural efficiency. They have initiated landscape restoration using nature-based water retention measures to fulfil biodiversity and climate objectives. However, most farmers and local stakeholders anticipate solutions from external actors.

Over a four-and-a-half-year research period funded by the MOSAIC Horizon 2020 project, we investigate the motivations behind local land use changes. We initiated a science-policy process encouraging farmers and stakeholders to alter their existing practices, such as reducing groundwater over-exploitation, cultivating less water-intensive crops, and employing non-tillage farming techniques. We established a 'policy lab' to support multi-stakeholder planning and equip the local farmers' coalition with tools to incentivise key stakeholders to implement jointly defined sustainable land use plans. Inspired by the preliminary results of the first year and the intensive discussions around water management in Hungary, we focus on the policy processes influencing local water management and land use decisions.

Our research, rooted in participatory methods, offline workshops, focus group meetings, and semi-structured interviews with farmers, local decision-makers, inhabitants, experts, and activists, delves into prevailing circumstances and recognises that farm-level land use decisions impact not only individual farms but the broader local socio-environmental milieu. We aim (1) to share insights about the social and power dynamics of different actors participating in water and land use policy processes, (2) determinants shaping decision-making at local, regional and national levels and (3) to elucidate effective proto-policies for fostering transformative change with diverse local stakeholders possessing distinct interests, power and knowledge regarding land use changes, in a situation which is changing rapidly due to the clear effects of climatic changes.

North Africa faces mounting challenges as climate change exacerbates water scarcity and disrupts agronomic systems. This research explores the interplay between water resources, demographic pressures, and agricultural production, offering innovative strategies for resilience. Utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing, the study examines the spatial dynamics of water stress and its impact on agronomic practices in critical North African river systems such as the Nile, Draa, and Medjerda. Buffer zone analyses (10, 20, and 50 km) highlight areas of acute vulnerability where water shortages threaten food security and ecological stability. The findings advocate for adaptive water management strategies, including advanced irrigation systems, rainwater harvesting, desalination technologies, and wastewater recycling. Integrating spatial data with multi-criteria decision-making frameworks, this study identifies priority areas for intervention and optimal locations for infrastructure development. Emphasizing the importance of transboundary cooperation, the research underscores the need for equitable resource allocation and sustainable agricultural practices. This study provides actionable insights for policymakers, aiming to balance agricultural productivity with environmental conservation. By addressing the region’s unique challenges, it lays a foundation for climate-resilient strategies that secure water resources and bolster agronomic sustainability across North Africa.

Rural areas hold significant cultural and environmental heritage that represent resources to be valorised through active tourism and soft mobility recreation. A sustainable development approach, aiming to balance economic development, environmental protection, and the conservation of local traditions, can be obtained promoting and developing dedicated infrastructures, such as greenways and cycling routes, that can be extensively utilized both by tourists and local people.

Climate change has heightened flooding risks because of the proliferation of impermeable surfaces and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, not only in high density urban centres but also in the built areas of the rural landscape. Traditional drainage systems are often inadequate, highlighting the urgent need for innovative Nature-based Solutions (NbS) such as Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS), which manage stormwater effectively through natural processes.

This study is part of a broader initiative to integrate soft mobility infrastructures, such as cycling and walking, in the rural landscape to connect tourists and local people with natural and cultural heritage. Soft mobility supports active tourism, healthy recreation, and sustainable development, providing an alternative to car-dependent transport, reducing carbon emissions while strengthening local economies, culture and natural environments, by connecting rural and urban landscapes.

In this framework, the project focuses on creating a soft mobility connection between the EuroVelo 5 cycling route, which cross the Milano area, to the UNESCO MAB Reserve of the Ticino Park. The planning and design process have taken into account the specific Climate Change context and was based on the integration of the soft mobility topics with the stormwater management ones. The design process of the soft mobility infrastructure integrated various data sources, including digital terrain models, rainfall patterns, land use, soil properties, and the configuration of the existing drainage network. The case study of Casorate Primo (Pavia), a small agricultural village with urban centre vulnerable to flooding, will be presented.

The project highlights the potential of integrating NbS with soft mobility to enhance urban resilience to climate change, promote sustainable tourism, and preserve local landscapes.

By means of a micro-level study conducted in the arid Western Pamirs of Tajikistan, it will be shown how self-organized management practices, collaborative action, and pragmatic technical solutions fed by local knowledge contribute to addressing the spatiotemporally uneven water supply for irrigation. The findings reveal that local-specific water management and irrigation arrangements prove to be essential not only for local agriculture and food production, but also a means of social organization and a central instrument for the equitable utilization of locally available natural resources, along with balancing interests within the community. The study also shows how collaborative resource use and management contribute to community cohesion and individual survival in a society that is struggling with manifold social and ecological challenges. The empirically based insights contribute to a better understanding of how social and ecological challenges related to societal transitions and global change can be tackled ‘from below.’

The city of Prague today has an unparalleled number of fruit orchards in its territory owned and managed by the city for the benefit of its public, which have been handed down through the many social and political changes of its history. The beauty, productivity and value of these spaces is palpable in their vibrancy and popular usage, maintained as they are by the Department of Environmental Protection according to a clear program and a clear set of perceived sources of value (ecology, recreation, aesthetics, cultural heritage, production). However, due to practical constraints, the city has boundaries to the work it can do to maintain these public goods. Beyond these boundaries, the city department relies on an informal/un-formed network of civil society organizations (CSOs) and private individuals to conduct the remaining work essential to the reproduction of the value of the common goods embodied by its orchards. The city department conducts the foundational ecological work, but relies on CSOs and private individuals to harvest and circulate the fruit, to integrate these places into urban lifeways and civic identity, and so on. Through the coordination of the city, the CSOs and the individuated public, the orchards sustain their value, despite this formal/informal arrangement.

Using the theoretical frameworks of legal-normative pluralism and actor-network theory to analyze ethnographic data collected by the author in support of their Master’s thesis work during the years 2023-2024, this contribution seeks to answer how the multiple stakeholders invested in the many public orchards in the city of Prague co-produce the sustainability of these common goods. How are rights, responsibilities, norms, valuations, and disciplinary practices distributed and performed to ensure the sustainability of these public/common resources? How do actor networks drive transformations in the meanings and management of Prague’s public property?

This paper adapts Petr Jehlička’s concept describing Czech sustainability practices, to an account of how different public and private actors co-produce the productivity and value of these public orchards. Quiet commoning practices emerging in Prague’s public orchards, sustained by a civic-ecological habitus (as in Jehlička’s analyses) and distributed among a receptive actor network, offer an image of democratized agency in the post-socialist urban realm; a model of quiet and sustainable processes which transform public goods into common ones for the common benefit of Prague’s residents; a source of inspiration for ways of organizing resilience despite social disruptions and transformations.

Gardening is integral to urban sustainability, but not all urban gardens receive equal support. Community gardens, often considered more inclusive and efficient sustainable land-use innovations in densifying cities, are frequently prioritized over traditional practices such as allotment gardening. This article uses Prague and Brno, Czechia’s two largest cities, as case studies to introduce the concept of the quiet right to the city, highlighting routine and inconspicuous ways of negotiating quiet sustainability in urban spaces.

Through qualitative content analysis, we explore how municipal actors, gardeners, and activists perceive community and allotment gardening. We compare these perceptions and practices across four dimensions that contribute to both urban sustainability and the right to the city: (1) public access to urban greenery and spatial justice, (2) community building and engagement, (3) food cultivation, and (4) environmental and climate protection.

We argue that worldwide community gardens tend to be preferred by local governments and planners due to their transitory and informal nature, which aligns more closely with capitalist urban agendas. In the Global East, efforts to emulate Western development by replacing traditional gardening practices with community gardens than undermine citizens’ right to the city, urban sustainability, and resilience against future challenges. Amplifying urban sustainability and allotment gardeners’ quiet right to the city requires addressing government biases, fostering alliances between allotment and community gardeners, and supporting initiatives that converge the two gardening practices.

As transformative visions for more just and sustainable societies multiply around the globe, the Diverse and Community Economies approach presents one of the most influential strategies to advance postcapitalist visions. In this paper, we contribute to this project based on our research and activism in the Global East, intended here as Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. We argue that engaging with the Global East is not only a matter of epistemic inclusivity but also a (too-often-neglected) opportunity to learn from a region with a history of dramatic economic transformation and diversity. We highlight examples of community economies already contributing to more-than-human wellbeing, and we present emerging theoretical insights concerning temporality, the multi-sitedness of the enterprise, and diverse economic subjectivities. With that, we articulate our ongoing research agenda and advance conversations with postcapitalist scholarship and politics.

Transport problems are among the biggest challenges facing the largest cities in Central and Eastern Europe. Most public transport systems in these cities lack metro systems and rely primarily on less efficient tram and bus networks. However, they often possess well-developed rail infrastructure, which, if effectively utilized within the city's administrative boundaries, offers an opportunity to mitigate the negative effects of traffic problems. Examples from Western Europe demonstrate that rail transport can significantly improve the efficiency of urban transport systems, particularly for trips from peripheral to central areas. This model of transport organization remains relatively under-explored in the literature, with a notable lack of reference points regarding methodologies for evaluating the potential use of regional rail within city administrative boundaries.

The purpose of this presentation is to explore the potential of using rail transport for intra-urban commuting in various parts of Central and Eastern Europe and to compare these systems with Western European standards. The study examines four cities in Central and Eastern Europe—Lviv, Riga, Wroclaw, and Zagreb—alongside one Western European city, Leipzig, which serves as a benchmark for analysis. The assessment employs eight simple indicators grouped into three categories: infrastructure, organization, and development. The results show that cities in Central and Eastern Europe have significant potential to use rail for intra-urban commuting in certain operational aspects. However, there remains a significant gap between the overall performance observed in the Central and Eastern European cities analysed and the Western European case study.

The expansion of high-speed rail (HSR) networks in Europe has brought significant benefits to urban centers and major corridors, but it has also led to the deterioration of conventional rail services in low-populated and rural areas. As governments and rail operators prioritize investments in HSR for its economic and environmental appeal, funding and resources for traditional rail networks are increasinglydiverted. This shift is creating a growing divide in rail connectivity and quality betweenurban and rural regions, with profound social, economic, and environmental consequences.

In rural areas, conventional rail services face significant reductions in frequency and quality, while some routes are entirely closed. Aging infrastructure and rolling stock, coupled with inadequate maintenance, exacerbate the decline. These challenges undermine accessibility to essential services, jobs, and education for rural populations, forcing many torely on cars. This trend increases spatial inequalities, deepens the urban-rural divide, and isolates communities already struggling with limited public transport options.

The prioritization of HSR contributes to regional disparities. While urban areas and high-density corridors benefit from faster and more efficient travel options, low-populatedregions are left behind. This imbalance undermines efforts for balanced regional development and creates a polarized transportation system where benefits are not evenlydistributed.

There is also an environmental paradox. HSR is promoted as a sustainable alternative to air travel, but the decline of rural rail services leads to greater car dependency in lessconnected areas, increasing carbon emissions and eroding some of the environmentaladvantages of HSR.

To address this issue, policymakers must adopt more equitable investment strategies. Solutions include maintaining conventional rail through public service obligations (PSOs), modernizing rural rail infrastructure, and integrating rail services with local bus networksto create multimodal systems. These measures can ensure accessibility and sustainability in all regions, not just urban hubs.

In conclusion, while HSR offers significant advantages, its expansion must not come at theexpense of conventional rail services. Preserving rural connectivity is essential to fosteringsocial equity, balanced regional development, and sustainable mobility across Europe.

The aim of the presentation is to determine the level of accessibility and spatial coverage of airports in Poland in 2023, as well as to indicate changes in the range of impact as a result of the construction of the new Solidarity Airport and the new high-speed rail line. The second important methodological objective is to assess the possibility of using the Huff`s model to determine the strength of the impact of airports in Poland. The study analysed changes in the range of impact of airports in 2023 and 2040. The range of airports is also influenced by transport accessibility, which will change in the analysed period as a result of a number of infrastructure investments, including the construction of high-speed rail lines no. 85 and 86, connecting Warsaw with Łódź, Poznań and Wrocław. It seems that the construction of a new transport hub may significantly affect the range of impact of airports in the country, marginalising the role of some of them. The results of the analyses presented in this study indicate that if the forecast prepared by IATA turns out to be true, and at the same time all infrastructure investments provided for in the Central Transport Hub programme are implemented, air transport in Poland will become highly centralised. In addition to creating a significant offer encouraging the use of the new airport, the factor that will determine the scale of the port's impact will be its accessibility, which, according to the analyses presented in the study, will significantly improve. The construction of a new high-speed rail line will have a key impact on changing the spatial accessibility of Poland's main cities and their airports.

High-speed rail (HSR) has revolutionised daily commuting in Spain, offering unprecedented reductions in journey times between urban centres and their surrounding areas. These developments have facilitated the growth of inter-city commuting, allowing workers to reside in smaller towns while maintaining employment in metropolitan hubs. The regional HSR services (the so-called ‘AVANT’), in particular, have enhanced regional mobility, enabling daily commutes from satellite towns such as Segovia, Toledo, or Ciudad Real to Madrid (the nation’s capital), with reduced fares and subsidised monthly tickets.

However, the rise of teleworking, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, may have significantly altered traditional commuting patterns. With the ability to work remotely, many professionals could now commute fewer days per week to large metropolitan areas, while others could have relocated to smaller towns connected by HSR, as daily travel is no longer required. This shift represents a dual trend: a potential reduction in daily HSR commuting among those already commuting before COVID-19, but a possible increase in ridership due to a redistribution of residential preferences away from major metropolitan areas.

This research seeks to examine the impact of teleworking on commuting travel behaviours among HSR users in Spain. Specifically, it aims to explore how the reduced need for daily travel has influenced patterns of HSR use and decisions regarding residential locations. The methodology involves conducting surveys of HSR passengers through commuters’ associations established in several HSR-connected cities, gathering data on their travel behaviours, as well as their employment status and teleworking arrangements, across two scenarios: before and after the pandemic.

The anticipated findings suggest that teleworking has decreased reliance on HSR for daily commuting while encouraging relocations to smaller towns with HSR connectivity. These changes may necessitate adjustments in the design and provision of HSR services, such as more flexible ticketing options and optimised schedules to accommodate a less frequent but geographically dispersed ridership. Ultimately, adapting both socially and spatially to these evolving mobility demands will be crucial for aligning Spain’s future HSR strategies.

This study is part of the European Union-Next Generation EU funded research on Urban green infrastructure, policies related to green spaces, and health outcomes, focusing on the relationships between green areas, public health, and climate change adaptation policies. The research addresses the question on how the characteristics and spatial organization of urban green areas can influence public health and climate resilience in medium-sized Italian cities. Combining insights from geography, urban planning, and public health, the study evaluates green spaces based on their accessibility, proximity, and quality, using cities in Tuscany and Lazio as case studies.

The theoretical framework integrates urban health and climate adaptation paradigms, emphasizing the co-benefits of green spaces in mitigating environmental exposures (e.g., improved air quality, reduced heat) and promoting well-being (e.g., increased physical activity, social cohesion). Methodologically, the research employs Geographic Information System (GIS) tools and indicators such as NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), LST (Land Surface Temperature), woodland coefficient, and soil sealing degree to map and classify green areas. Proximity and accessibility analyses leverage official and OpenStreetMap (OSM) data to identify disparities in green space distribution.

Moreover, this paper aims to investigate the characteristics of green areas in order to define their quality. The equitable distribution of green spaces - considering factors such as green vigor, accessibility, distance, proximity to urban settings, and green space per capita - is then analyzed, divided into three main categories: urban parks, agricultural areas, and forest areas.

Preliminary results reveal some inequalities in green space availability and quality across different urban contexts, with implications for public health outcomes. By highlighting these disparities, the study underscores the necessity of integrating green infrastructure policies with public health strategies. This approach aligns with the concept of “healing cities,” which prioritize citizen well-being while addressing climate challenges.

The findings provide actionable insights for urban planning, offering a pathway to enhance the role of the green areas and, more in general, of the nature for health, through strategic green infrastructure development.

This study aims to scientifically justify the identification of suitable urban properties for urban green infrastructure (UGI) interventions to optimize its natural regulating functions for long-term pollution mitigation and secondary dust reduction. This study adheres to the perception that planning urban transformations to improve ambient air quality (AQ) requires a thorough understanding of urban structural heterogeneity and its interrelationship with the local microclimate. We apply an approach in which UGI and its potential multifunctionality are explored as a structural–functional element of urban local climatic zones. The same (100 × 100 m) spatial framework is used to develop place-based adapted solutions for intervention in UGI. A complex geospatial analysis of Burgas City, the second largest city (by area) in Bulgaria, was conducted by integrating 12 indicators to reveal the spatial disbalance of AQ regulation’ demand and UGI’s potential to supply ecosystem services. A total of 174 municipally owned properties have been identified, of which 79 are of priority importance, including for transport landscaping, inner-quarter spaces, and social infrastructure. Indicators of population density and location of social facilities were applied with the highest weight in the process of prioritizing sites. The study relies on public data and information from the integrated city platform of Burgas, in cooperation with the city’s government. The results have been discussed with stakeholders and implemented by the Municipality of Burgas in immediate greening measures in support of an ongoing program for Burgas Municipality AQ improvement.

Adapting cities to climate change is bringing new trends in urban green planning. Cities adapting to climate change are realizing that urban ecosystems have a significant role in mitigating heat waves and reducing direct runoff during heavy rainfall events. The development of green urban infrastructure is not possible without the participation of residents. The emerging generation of young people, their perception of green spaces and their ideas about urban planning and their public spaces play a key role in the future development of climate-resilient and healthy cities. Based on a broad online survey, we investigated the visual preferences of young adults in the Czech Republic for green spaces in their settlements. The survey was based on questions about the selection of graphically presented urban environments, their public spaces, housing typologies, and street profiles. The aim was to assess the links between the current state and the ideal vision of the future environment of settlements. Part of the survey also reveals preferences for public space amenities (green or technical infrastructure elements) in the form of a participatory budget game. The identified visual preferences of the young generation (15–18 years old) should be understood as a potential ideal image that is influenced by specific factors associated with the general characteristics of Generation Z (or Alpha), such as their relationship to technology, ideas about employment, and their relationship to the environment and sustainability. Based on the research results, recommendations were made for local governments on how to communicate with the young age group, how to involve them in planning, and above all, what environment to create for their lives.

Urbanization, climate chance, and more extreme weather patterns have increased flood risk in recent years. Communities worldwide are facing more severe and frequent flood events due to intensified storms and rising sea levels. Coping capacities and adaptation are key factors in reducing vulnerabilities of the affected population, hence leading to risk reduction. In this context, risk communication and public awareness are critical, however, people are often not aware of their exposure to risk. People have differing risk perceptions and coping capacities based on socio-economic factors and experiences, and therefore, their perception needs to be included for adequate risk communication. In addition, in just risk communication, it is essential to be aware of digital and language barriers due to an ageing society and increased migration as well as available coping strategies based on previous experiences and local knowledge. Furthermore, green and blue infrastructure are important nature-based solutions (NBS) for consequences of climate change and the wellbeing of urban dwellers. Thus, NBS can adapt urban areas to storm water while providing co-benefits for citizens such as recreational areas and cooling effects. Similar to risks, the awareness of such NBS is essential so that citizens are willing to accept and even support them. Local knowledge is crucial in the planning of NBS and thus, a dialogue between citizens and planners is required.

The first research objective of our study is to define the characteristics of individual risk awareness in order to establish categories for personalized risk communication. The second focusses on developing a conceptual approach to evaluate the influence of flood risk awareness on the awareness of NBS and vice versa.

Methods comprise of an in-depth literature review and collaborative methods from transdisciplinary research to account for diverse cultures, policies, experiences, and socio-economic factors. Interviews and surveys complement these methods. The framework is tested and evaluated in a pilot study in a European urban area.

The expected outcomes will provide new insights for individualized risk communication and successful implementation of urban green and blue infrastructure as NBS.

During the last intercensal period, Croatia's total population declined by over 400,000, significantly impacting the country's age and family structures. The intensive emigration of young adults and entire families following Croatia's accession to the EU led not only to a substantial decrease in the total population but also to a notable reduction in the number of individuals of reproductive age, which ultimately influenced birth rates in subsequent years. Between 2011 and 2021, Croatia's population decreased by 9.6%. The number of people under the age of 15 fell by 15.3%, while those aged 15–64 declined by 14.7%. In contrast, the population aged 65 and older increased by 14.6%. As a result, Croatia recorded an unprecedentedly low number of live births in 2023.

Additionally, the number of families with children in Croatia decreased by approximately 100,000 during this period. The emigration of the working-age population created a labor shortage, forcing Croatia to rely heavily on immigrant labor force. Consequently, after years of being an emigrant country, Croatia transitioned into an immigrant destination, primarily due to the influx of workers from non-EU and Asian countries. However, most of the immigrants are male, who find employment in sectors such as construction, transportation, tourism and hospitality, etc. The substantial influx of foreign workers in the last few years prompts for the development of a robust immigration policy focused on ensuring effective and high-quality integration of foreign workers, among other things.

The main objective of this research is to analyze the impact of migration patterns in Croatia after 2011 on the country's age and family structures. Furthermore, the study will compare Croatia with other former socialist EU member states to better understand migration trends and their influence on population dynamics following these countries' accession to the EU.

The notion of 'left-behind places' has emerged as a prominent theme in discussions of geographical inequalities and has gained widespread usage in urban and regional studies. This term is employed to denote the particularly salient challenges faced by former industrial and rural regions that have been adversely impacted by population decline, globalization, economic shifts, and technological advancements. This research examines demographic dynamics in Latvia's peripheral and rural regions of Latvia through the population change, building on Billari's (2022) framework of the “fast and slow” demography perspective. While traditional demographic research has emphasized gradual, long-term population transitions, this study argues that Latvia's left-behind places experience demographic shifts driven by the interplay of structural population decline, out-migration, and uneven development patterns. The research investigates how these areas navigate between slow structural changes (aging, low fertility) and sudden demographic disruptions caused by economic and social factors. The study employs a set of variables derived from the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, analyzing quantitative data of population turnover and migration share and age structures in rural areas and former industrial monotowns to understand patterns of demographic change. The study's initial findings suggest that Latvia's peripheral regions exhibit characteristics of both slow and fast demographic change, with some areas experiencing sudden population losses while maintaining underlying patterns of gradual decline. This research advances theoretical discussions about demographic temporalities in post-socialist context of urban change. The findings provides important insights for regional development policies by highlighting how different dimensions and temporalities of demographic change require varied policy responses.

The socio-cultural and economic conditions of older adults in Croatia, as well as the organization, accessibility, and quality of formal care services, both institutional and non-institutional, vary significantly depending on their geographical location. Key factors influencing these disparities include whether individuals reside in urban or rural areas, the size of their community, the region’s level of economic development, and the extent to which the area experiences immigration or outmigration. This paper aims to explore the role of the state in caring for the elderly and to examine the significance and impact of family ties and solidarity in old age. This analysis examines strategic documents that address the needs of older people in Croatia. It also presents findings from a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with 41 respondents aged 65 and older, all of whom are ageing in place. The research was carried out in two distinct locations: Zagreb, Croatia’s largest and most economically developed city, and Vinkovci, a medium-sized city in a less economically developed region that has experienced significant outmigration in recent years. However, regardless of geographical location and personal socioeconomic conditions, all older persons receive some type of assistance and care primarily within the family or household. Although family ties remain strong and the level of solidarity is high, especially in small communities, informal carers cannot compensate for the, often complete, absence of formal care for older people. Demographic changes, including the decline in household size, transformations in family structures, advancements in gender equality in employment, and the significant migration of younger populations (from rural to urban areas and, increasingly, abroad over the past decade) require new approaches in planning to meet the needs of older people. There is a need to develop various services that enable older individuals to continue living in their own homes and encourage their active participation in community life, which can greatly enhance their quality of life. At the same time, due to the growing number of individuals aged 80 and older and their increased need for all forms of care, it is necessary to continuously expand the network of nursing homes.

The expansion of International Student Mobility (ISM) reflects the increasing internationalization of higher education, with growing attention to non-traditional destinations. Emerging ISM hubs, such as Latvia, challenge the dominance of established education centers, signaling a shift toward a more multipolar ISM landscape. While traditional research often focuses on motivations, destinations, and mechanisms of educational migration, this paper investigates how ISM contributes to demographic resilience in Latvia, a nation grappling with ageing populations and high emigration since the 1990s.

In recent decades, Latvia has leveraged internationalization to attract diverse student groups, particularly from non-European countries. Between 2000 and 2021, Latvia experienced a significant diversification in its immigrant population. In Riga, while the European population increased modestly by 4%, the non-European population grew by 25%, with the most prominent groups being Indians and Uzbeks. These populations have concentrated in inner-city areas, as well as near higher education institutions, while largely avoiding Soviet-era housing estates and outer-city neighborhoods.

This study explores Latvia’s dual identity as an emerging ISM hub: attractive for its affordability, cultural openness, and strategic location, yet less desirable due to its small size, semi-peripheral European status, and historical-geopolitical context. By examining these dynamics, the paper highlights ISM’s role in shaping Latvia’s immigration landscape and its potential to address demographic challenges. The findings provide insights into how ISM can serve as a strategic resource for demographic resilience in other regions facing similar population shifts.

In my paper, I present a research design for the participatory art workshops which will be implemented as a part of the data collection of my dissertation on sex workers’ possibilities to impact the discourse about themselves in public city space. Despite the challenges of being excluded in the public sphere, we know multiple examples when sex workers have reclaimed and occupied the city space. In Finland, suring the previous years, sex workers have been actively arguing for their rights in city spaces e.g., in demostations and exhibitions. However, hegemonic social norms and moral geographies, which are not usually in favor for sex workers, play a significant part in managing access to urban space and the safety and livelihoods of sex workers. Access to public space impacts the possibility of expressing stories that maintain an understanding of the historically marginalised and stigmatised group and shape societal inclusion and the possibility of claiming rights. This makes it vital to pay attention to changes in the ways through which sex work is articulated in public spaces.

The participatory art-based workshops of the study are mainly based on theater and puppet theater methods and utilize other related artistic ways of expression, such as moving, singing, and writing, that the participants feel most comfortable with. The participants are sex workers based in Finland. The aim is to bring the lived experiences and utopias onto the stage and discuss the themes that are brought up. In the workshops, sex workers are welcome to express (1) their experiences of achieving visibility, becoming heard, and reshaping shared imagination on sex work in city space and, (2) their experiences of barriers that limit their possibilities to participate or be heard in the public discourse and (3) visions of how they would like to become heard in public space. The method aims to break the prevailing hierarchies between the active researcher and the passive research object. Art-based and theatrical methods are new in sex work research even if they have been considered useful in the study of marginalized groups' identity narratives, social positions, and power relations.

In the project “VISION: Envisioning Convivial Europe” we work with migrant and cross-border workers in a multiplicity of small cities on both sides of the Polish-German border, using creative collaborative workshops and other sensory and multimodal methods. This paper presents insights derived from these artistic and creative research practices. Drawing from the theories of the play ethic and conviviality, our collaborative approach pushed us to have confidence to be spontaneous, creative and empathic, and centre our research methodology around the passions and enthusiasm of all involved. We aimed to advance a convivial research approach, which integrates methods of cooperative knowledge production while enhancing a deeper understanding of how people can live together and cooperate despite differences.

Through a series of art workshops we engaged in a dialogue with our research participants/ partners. Key topics of activism and engagement, identities, recognition, and fluid perspectives on the future emerged organically during these sessions. Moreover, the influence of the Russian-Ukrainian war and the relationships formed with Ukrainians in the small cities in which our participants live, appeared to play a pivotal role in shaping the their narratives and perspectives.

Through this paper we approach on the one hand the question of opportunities created by collaborative, art-based methods, and on the other hand the question of limits and possible alternative routes of what we call urban research. Having ourselves a longstanding experience of urban research in the context of big cities which are full of activities, diverse communities and opportunities for research, we often find challenging our new field of multiple small cities in regions considered “inner peripheries” that suffer from remoteness and are nothing as lively as cities on which urban research usually focuses. Through art we explore what it means to live in such a city, how different lifeworlds intersect in these places, and how they can be sensibly explored using multimodal, multisensory and engaged research methods.

This paper explores how transcultural artistic events within Istanbul's post-migration spaces contribute to the reimagination of migrant identities and foster community cohesion. Focusing on the "Spaces of Everyday Solidarity" initiative within the Hubban project, the research examines how public spaces such as grocery stores, cafes, and barbershops—widely used by migrants—are transformed into venues for cultural interaction through exhibitions, performances, and workshops. This collaborative effort, led by two urban-focused organizations, aims to investigate the evolving dynamics of refugee communities in major cities across Turkey.

Employing Participatory Action Research (PAR), this study captures the dynamics of these artistic encounters, emphasizing their role in facilitating cultural dialogue and social integration. Researchers actively participate in and document these events, analyzing the interactions between migrant and local communities. The project involves in-depth interviews with artists, organizers, venue owners, and participants, along with on-site observations and feedback collection to assess the impact of these transcultural practices on community dynamics.

The study aims to provide insights into how art, as a form of expression and communication, transcends language barriers and socio-cultural differences, creating a platform for political engagement and community building. By focusing on the transformative potential of art in migrant-dense and transforming Istanbul neighborhoods such as Laleli, Sultanbeyli and Küçükçekmece, the research contributes to broader discussions on the role of cultural practices in shaping social interactions and promoting integration in urban settings. The findings are expected to inform future initiatives that leverage public spaces for fostering cultural exchange and resilience within migrant communities.
This presentation is sponsored by Theatre and Gentrification in the European City (Acronym: THEAGENT), which has received funding from the European Research Council (Grant Agreement No: 101043740).

Densely populated fringe areas located on the outskirts of large urban centres, such as garden zones, vinehills and resort areas, have emerged as focal points of spatial transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, including Hungary, following the political and economic transitions of the post-socialist era. These areas have become destinations for diverse and often contrasting migration processes, such as suburbanisation (even within city limits), economically driven migration, and employment-related mobility from remote rural areas to urban peripheries. These dynamics have led to pronounced social polarisation and fragmented land use changes, ranging from intensive urban development to landscape degradation.

Given the micro-level nature of these transformation processes, which often vary even within a single street, mapping such changes through statistical data and remote sensing poses significant challenges. To address these limitations, we complement traditional approaches with field data collection. However, conventional paper-based field surveys present numerous obstacles, including the coordination of team efforts, variability in survey design across study areas, and the conspicuous presence of surveyors in local settings. In addition, the high proportion of properties in these peripheral areas do not comply with legal standards, which underlines both the inconsistencies in urban planning and the growing social inequalities.

Our research methodology centres on mobile-based field data collection using the QField application. This approach enables the construction of a parcel-level database capable of accurately mapping the transformation of complex, mixed-use peri-urban areas. In this presentation, we will discuss the methodological features of our research and share our field experiences. Beyond the intended quantitative insights, the research has unexpectedly incorporated qualitative dimensions through interactions with residents in fringe areas.

This study is supported by the FK 146486 project (“An inexhaustible resource? Garden zones, vinehills and resort areas in the squeeze of urban development”), funded by the National Research, Development, and Innovation Fund within the framework of the FK_23 grant program.

In Turkey, as in many Mediterranean countries, the Covid-19 pandemic enhanced the mobility of the country’s affluent classes to coastal towns. Many decided to settle there permanently, either by making their second homes their main residences or by purchasing or renting new property. This has created severe social, infrastructural, and environmental problems in these towns because of transformed demographics, a largely unregulated construction boom, increased renovation activities, and an unprecedented rise in real estate and consumer goods prices.

This study focuses on two coastal/vacation towns in Turkey that have been subject to intense population flows from metropolitan areas during the Covid-19 period: Seferihisar (in İzmir province) and Datça (in Muğla province). We conducted field research in these districts and semi-structured interviews with the district mayors, administrative officials in the municipality, residents, neighborhood mukhtars, real estate agents, and contractors. We investigated the economic, social, administrative, spatial, and environmental impacts of urban to rural migration on the Seferihisar and Datça districts. In this presentation, we would like to share our data regarding societal conflicts particularly caused by the "misplaced" expectations of the newcomers. At the beginning of the research, we have an expectation that due to many problems caused by the increasing inflow of people, the local residents of these coastal towns may raise complaints about the new incoming population. However, the field study provides data that contradicts our initial assumptions. The newcomers seem to have a very selective perception of what "nature" provides them, and they seem to have a longing for a new, but slower version of an urban life in these coastal towns. Paradoxically, they also voice their complaints louder than the "native" residents about the rapidly transforming and "urbanizing" context of these small towns.

The lived experience and the transformative effects of urban-to-rural lifestyle migration are key research interests of rural studies, but we know little about what happens when urban dwellers make use of their local voting rights after relocating to rural areas. The paper presents insights from ethnographic explorations in a peripherialized rural region of Czechia in which social and spatial disadvantage intersect. Using an agency framework to bring the scholarship of lifestyle migration into a conversation with the literature on the transforming modes of political participation, the paper investigates how lifestyle migration affects the subjective perceptions and practical enactment of political agency of both lifestyle migrants and other rural residents. The findings show that lifestyle migration into rural peripheries widens the room to manoeuvre of the newcomers and highlights the role electoral tools play for the emergence of new formations of local citizenship. However, when lifestyle migrants emerge as political actors, this also triggers uncertainties, social distinctions and local power struggles. The contribution is intended to stimulate further conceptual work towards a nuanced understanding of the political realm of urban-to-rural lifestyle migration and points out promissing avenues for further research.

Within the framework of rural gentrification theory (Phillips, 1993; 2010; Phillips et. al. 2021) in “The role of gentrification in rural development” (FK-138098) research project the motivations, perceptions and impacts of urban to rural movers (rural gentrifiers) on their chosen settlement over four years was examined. It was found that many of the urban newcomers established small businesses in their chosen rural village, primarily in the tourism and hospitality sectors. Both academics and policymakers agree that boosting rural tourism can be an important escape route for charming rural settlements that have lost their agricultural role. On the basis of interviews with around 100 entrepreneurs (both indigenous and newcomer) in six research areas, the presentation will seek to answer the question: what exactly do the incomers/lifestyle entrepreneurs bring to the table, what material, cultural and social capital, knowledge and skills do they mobilise for the benefit of their business and the wider community, and to what extent can this contribute to the economic success of the local entrepreneurial community as a whole, could they contribute to the livelihoods and sustainability of the rural community or do the benefits accrue only to them? On the other hand, we have also seen that different socio-cultural backgrounds, values and attitudes sometimes lead to radically different visions of the development path and future desired by newcomers and indigenous local entrepreneurs. In this presentation I would also like to highlight where, along which value choices and attitudes, the greatest differences, even conflicts, exist.

The European Union seems to be the geopolitical space that symbolises an international chessboard that the proposers of this session have defined as disordered because it is unstable, fluid, chaotic and now lacks global leadership. The geopolitical weakness of the European Union is accentuated by the second term of Donald Trump, who prefers bilateral relations and seems interested in loosening the historic Euro-Atlantic alliance.

The European Union has provided national responses to the global challenges of international migration. The growing migratory pressure from the southern shores of the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has not prompted European states to promote a robust common migration and security policy. The predominance of nation-state logic does not allow the European Union to respond to and manage the major challenges of this disordered world: migratory flows, Islamist terrorism, energy security, etc. This presents Europe with internal and international geopolitical problems. Internal geopolitics, because the conflict between the national interests of the EU member states has been exacerbated by the internal conflict within public opinion, which has never been so divided and polarised on these issues. International geopolitics, because on a global scale the European Union appears increasingly fragile and irrelevant to the extent that it risks playing no role in the resolution of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The aim of this paper is to trace the European geopolitical horizons, focusing on the causes and consequences of the conflicting management of migratory phenomena, especially with regard to the new electoral geography of Europe.

In addressing the complexities of global relational dynamics, geopolitics increasingly turns to analyses of popular processes to explain the resulting international order. Contemporary times demand a focused reflection on the role of women, who are often victims of objectification and marginalization - issues deeply intertwined with key concepts such as identity, security, and migration. Female objectification is not merely a social issue but a pivotal factor in the construction of geopolitical strategies. Women frequently occupy the center of narratives conveying messages of both hospitality and power, with their representation profoundly shaping state control policies. Migrant women emerge as potential agents of change and carriers of cultural diversity, yet they are also perceived as threats to traditional values, exacerbating political and social tensions as well as misunderstandings in host countries. Embracing these reflections, European geopolitics is increasingly concerned with fostering inclusive perspectives aimed at reducing the gender gap and ensuring universal human rights. By drawing on the feminist studies approach -which highlights the anachronism of separating public action from the domestic sphere- this contribution seeks to address the current status of women as geopolitical subjects. The analysis is framed within two overarching themes: first, a discussion of the challenges surrounding female migration and its connections to the broader geopolitical context; second, a critical examination of the European Union’s interventions aimed at consolidating the values of equity and solidarity upon which it is founded. The analysis consciously avoids the oversimplifications characteristic of occidentalism, instead embracing the critical perspective of scientific research to ensure a nuanced understanding of these interconnected issues.

This contribution intends to enrich the session Geopolitics of Migration and Security in a Changing Europe through an eminently cultural geography reading of the migratory journey. On the basis of a reflection advanced in recent times, we propose a) the idea of the journey as a tripartite scanning device: the stasis, the trigger, the experience, and b) the paradoxical alteration of the paradigm triggered by Europe's securitarian migration policies. Through the methodological references proper to the geographical discourse, which chooses to cross, with heuristic intentions, the literary perspective, an itinerary through myth, the sacred word, literature and experience has thus been proposed in order to trace, highlight and knot within a single cognitive afflatus the paradigmatic tripartition of the journey, a true geographical connector. In order to unveil the alteration of the paradigm consolidated in myth and literary perspective, thanks to Merlau Ponty's insights, we have identified chiasmus as the essential rhetorical figure. The push-backs of migrants and the policies and rhetorics of deterrence, in our view, are unnatural alterations of the chiastic structure: imperfect chiasmus. That of imperfect, incomplete Chiasmus, determined by missed landings, by rejections, by the shipwrecks of migrants, the delay of rhetoric and narratives or, in fact health reasons. It is the ship the chosen semiophor. Thirty years have passed since the Vlora appeared, with twenty thousand Albanian migrants, on the Apulian coast and, even today, ships at anchor tell of trips suspended a few strokes from the quay. The Diciotti blocked in the harbor by the political-media debate; the quarantine ships as the Moby Zazà, moored for the quarantine of migrants south of Porto Empedocle. The Diciotti ship will be our strong example. In a very tough geopolitical context and domestic politics, the paradox of the interrupted Chiasmus occurs in front of the coast of Catania.

Recent economic crises and geopolitics events (including trade wars among the US, China and Europe; Suez; the Ukrainian war; the crisis in the Middle East, COVID and post-COVID, and others) have posed serious threats to global supply chains’ ability to ensure uninterrupted end-to-end flows, from raw materials to end customers. Current geographical configurations of logistics networks seem to be outdated and “fragile” to face uncertainty coming from geopolitics and economic developments – including security risks. Global supply chains’ disruptions (actual or potential) and crises seem to be become the new normal in the global economy. The only certainty when designing global networks seems to be uncertainty. What should be done? How to cope with such risks? What kind of strategies, policies and actions should be designed to cope with relevant impacts? How global networks should be (re)designed in the event of crises to determine new geographical configurations, in particular in Europe? Additional research questions include: are global supply chains bound to become “shorter”, thus, moving from global spatial patterns to more “regional” ones? Are risks of “empty shelves” (that is, unavailability of products for consumers) going to increase in the future? Some major research and practice findings pinpoint the role of resilience as a renewed guiding principle supporting the geographical reconfiguration of global networks and territories. However, effective and practical contributions about how to implement such a principle are dramatically missing currently. The paper develops original contributions to support decision-making processes of economic actors and policymakers facing such challenges. The methodological approach is based on literature findings and on-the-field data collection consisting of interviews to logistics and supply chain experts, executives and professionals “in the driving seat” in relevant industries in Europe, including wood & furniture, domestic appliances, food, apparel, eyewear, multimodal transport and logistics and IT.

In my contribution, concerning the figure of Gabriel Chappuys, I would point out the historical relevance of a collection of chorographical writings put together by the French Chappuys as secretary and interpreter of two kings of France, Henry III and Henry IV: L'Estat, Description et Gouvernement des royaumes et républiques du monde tant anciennes que modernes (1585). This work presents itself as a wide combination of travel accounts, summarized treatises on constitutions, translations from ancient political masterpieces, excerpts drawn from lenghty writings on foreign institutions all brought together to forge an editorial product which, even if not so original as for its contents, is worth some interest with regard to both the final aim of the draft itself (the assertion of France's political greatness in relation to the European geopolitical context) and the specific historical context in which the work came into existence.

In the wake of Jean-Marc Dechaud and Jean Balsamo's scholarship, the intellectual profile of Chappuys, especially as for the prominent role he played in the field of translation of Italian classics (such as Giovanni Botero, Baldassarre Castiglione, Stefano Guazzo, Francesco Guicciardini, Ludovico Ariosto) has become the object of growing interest by scholars, mostly French, mainly concerned with the cultural connections between late-Renaissance France and Italy or the French reception of Italian texts in the late 16th century. As I have partially put forward in some recent essays, to approach the figure of Chappuys means looking to a political actor who made use of his linguistic skills, as secretaire du roi, to participate in the rule of State and promote some specific arts instrumental to the good practice of government. Of course, in this context also geography, as part of a comprehensive project of appreciation of the world, in the extremely multiform variety of its expressions, appears to be a field of knowledge indispensable to all those having political tasks or bureaucratic offices such as princes, rulers, advisers, ambassadors, ministers, statesmen. officers and, obviously, like Gabriel Chappuys himself, secretaries.

I aim at highlighting the crucial role of geography, through a comparative study of the work mentioned, as a repertory of strategic information useful to found and preserve the status of the French monarchy.

As media, early modern maps and nautical charts served as an important but subtle means of communication between different actors. They also played a role in promoting state interests, whether through producing and presenting knowledge about a particular area or establishing of territorial control and power. Nautical cartography was particularly important for coastal areas and played a key role in the construction and understanding of geographical reality, as a primary source of information. In addition to representing of spatial relationships and content, great attention was also paid to the aesthetics of cartographic representation, including the iconographic embellishment of maps with various decorative elements. The cartographic repertoire of decorative elements arose from the expectations of a broad public on the one hand and of commissioners, patrons, and sponsors on the other.

In the early modern period, most of today’s territory of Croatia was border territory between the Habsburg Monarchy, the Ottoman Empire, and the Republic of Venice. The geostrategic position of the Adriatic at the intersection of various European political-imperial and confessional systems, each representing its own interests and territorial claims, influenced the shaping of the region's political, economic, and cultural landscape and its cartographic patterns. Those patterns refer primarily to the influence of the Republic of Venice, in particular the depictions of the north-eastern Adriatic coast in the early modern period. The most important maps of Venetian provenance were created by the official cosmographer of the Republic of Venice, V. M. Coronelli. Such iconographic content in cartographic depictions of the Adriatic was frequently adopted by other European cartographers, along with their cartographic practices and traditions.

This study analyses the rhetoric of cartographic decorative and imagological elements on selected early modern cartographic representations of the Adriatic of different provenance. A detailed analysis of selected cartographic representations of the Adriatic revealed forms of communication through decorative images such as compass roses, vedute, ships, sea monsters, images of saints, people, and others. The aim of the study is to evaluate the communicative capacity of symbolic decorative elements as carriers of ideological, political, cultural, and other symbolic messages on cartographic representations.

Preliminary research suggests that decorative elements on maps and nautical charts were an essential communication tool for conveying geopolitical, cultural, and religious messages, which also engraved territorial, ideological, and cultural boundaries. Given the important geostrategic and economic interests in the cartographic representation of the Adriatic, the Republic of Venice took on a pioneering role.

During the Age of Exploration, with the European acknowledgment of the existence of a “New World” and with the rediscovery of Ptolemy’ s Geography everyone became interested in geography and cartography to the extent that it became fashionable to decorate palaces and villas with cartographic representations.

These mural cycles were designed around a main theme, mainly regarding a global and geopolitical vision of the world and a territorial dominance. According to Schulz, they are the first evidence of the use of geographical maps as images serving political power (Schulz, 2006).

The interpretation of the cycles is strictly connected to the production-related information, and their messages can be extrapolated from the analysis of their original location and the political and religious ideology of the committee. These cartographic cycles are a proper vehicle useful to build religious supremacies, political legitimacy or to spread universal knowledge (Fiorani, 2007).

This could be achieved thanks to the combination of elements that carry a semiotic meaning which convey messages of power and contribute in the formation of specific mindsets. An aspect that has often been overlooked, considering these cycles just as mere artistic works.

It is believed that mural cycles were designed and created solely during the Sixteenth century, and there are no further examples of them afterwards.

Aim of this contribution is to prove that mural cycles with geographical themes and political and propagandistic intentions have also been created during the following centuries and to highlight which elements of these cycles were inherited from their renaissance prototypes, mainly focusing on the case study of the Rooms of Maps in the Palazzo Aeronautica of Rome, built during fascism in 1931.

After a semiotic and critical study of the maps, useful for the acknowledgment of their meaning, and a geopolitical reading of the historic cartography, the contribution will bring out the parallelisms that occur between the cycles, highlighting which communicative methods of the Sixteenth century are also present in the maps of the Twentieth century, establishing a continuum which will prove that the practice of the mural cycles and its purpose survived the Early Modern Age.

Modernity corresponds to European openness to global spaces. Or, rather, to the establishment of what Schmitt called more appropriately a “Global Linear Thinking”. The German theorist intended to highlight the birth in early modern age of a way of thinking about power relations based on those global geographical coordinates fixed on the map. The first of these was the Raya, established following the Treaty of Tordesillas (1492), up to that line of demarcation represented by the Peace of Cambrésis (1559).
Compared to the pre-existing, pre-modern global routes-just think of those introduced by Marco Polo-the new global lines defined the action of European powers, in an increasingly pronounced and systemic way and precisely in a global sense. The international treaties by which the areas of influence were stipulated by European States effectively introduced the terms of a jurisdiction that gradually became international, not only in power but factually, and that found reflection precisely in maps as a means of attesting power. The global lines indicated on maps served as an indispensable instrument of political globalization.
The exact and precise indication of global lines on maps soon became the subject of international disputes and diatribes between States, creating an international competition that saw cartographers at the center. Maps thus became the tool through which political projects of a global nature took hold in the early modern age.
The contribution, following an interdisciplinary methodological approach, combining elements of the history of cartography and the history of the early modern age, aims to highlight the as yet uninvestigated aspects of the connection between global lines, geopolitical issues of the early modern age and the first form of globalization. The aim is to provide an overall conceptual framework that sheds light on a topic that is still little debated.

In line with Grabher’s (1993a; 1993b) seminal work on path dependencies and “Verhinderungsallianzen,” this study explores how deeply ingrained sociocultural dynamics shape the Ruhr Area’s transition from an industrial monoculture to a nascent entrepreneurial economy. By drawing on theoretical building blocks on path development and change (Hassink 2010; Geels 2019), we frame Stam’s (2015) conceptualization of entrepreneurial ecosystems as contexts for entrepreneurial activity. The contribution focalizes on the cognitive, emotional, and social-institutional lock-ins that persist despite growing efforts to foster entrepreneurship.

Semi-structured interviews (n=30) with regional (knowlesge-intensive) entrepreneurs, intermediaries, and policymakers expose long-standing mindsets and cultural proclivities that favor job security over risk-taking, rooted in the Ruhr’s history of heavy industry and powerful legacy firms. We find, cultural attitudes hamper the emergence of a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) by dampening the attraction of talent, inhibiting new venture creation, and perpetuating skepticism toward entrepreneurial careers. At the same time, our data demonstrates incremental but meaningful changes: local success stories, intercommunal collaboration, and renewed leadership in governance signal an evolving recognition of entrepreneurship as a viable path for regional development.

These findings reinforce the importance of social and cultural processes in either slowing or accelerating the formation of an EE (Stam 2015; Mack & Mayer 206; Roundy & Fayard 2018). As Grabher (1993a; 1993b) underscores, lock-in effects can be deeply embedded in regional identities, yet they can gradually be dismantled through intentional interventions and the collective reimagining of what the Ruhr stands for. By examining the complex interplay of resource endowments, cultural narratives, and institutional frameworks, the study illuminates how sociocultural factors can sustain or reshape regional trajectories. Ultimately, the research highlights the critical role of dismantling cognitive and affective barriers to realize the Ruhr Area’s entrepreneurial potential, thereby paving the way for a more adaptable and knowledge-driven future.

Europe is, and has always been changing. This is evident, for example, in the cross-border twin city of Gorizia (Italy) and Nova Gorica (Slovenia). The area was characterised by changing national affiliations. For a long time, it was considered ‘one’ city, but with the Peace of Paris in 1947 and the newly defined state border between Italy and Yugoslavia, it was divided into western and eastern parts. From then on, the Iron Curtain shielded the border for decades. After Slovenia joined the EU in 2004 and the Schengen area three years later, fences and border controls gave way to a renewed, deeper exchange and the neighbourhoods started to move closer together again. At the same time, the decades of separation – for example in the area of infrastructure – remain visible until today.

In 2025, both cities hold the title of European Capital of Culture following a joint candidature, making them the first ‘European Capital of Borderless Culture’. The cities wish to share their past, their stories and their people to showcase creativity and solidarity across borders. With events like a ‘Smuggling Tour’, a ‘Cross-Border Cultural Hub’, an Art Exhibition that explores what lies beyond borders, or their ‘Borderless Map’ for visitors to plan their stay, borders become the main theme of the programme.

With their past in mind and with current initiatives to foster cross-border links, the question arises as to what extent the appointment as European Capital of Culture 2025 will provide additional impetus to bring the two cities of Gorizia and Nova Gorica and their inhabitants closer together. In what way do cultural offerings and developments contribute to cross-border cohesion and regional development? In our paper, we provide insights into the programme and projects of this European Capital of Culture 2025 and reflect upon how the border theme is transported to visitors. From a theoretical perspective, we classify the opportunities that cultural innovations can unfold for cross-border relations, regional development, and European integration at a small scale.

George Orwell’s observation that “All animals are equal, but some are more equal” highlights the inequalities surrounding cultural access. Despite culture’s significance in our lives, barriers persist, particularly for individuals in smaller towns and rural areas facing geographical, financial, health, and linguistic challenges. The European Capital of Culture (ECoC) programme aims to enhance cultural access by promoting shared values of European culture while supporting local creative industries and improving tourism.

Since 1985, over 60 municipalities have been designated ECoC, including Pécs in 2010 and Veszprém and the Bakony-Balaton region in 2023 from Hungary. The ECoC title places a city in the European spotlight, fostering cultural projects that celebrate its unique cultural identity. These initiatives encourage local participation, helping communities engage through shared history and cultural practices.

This study, based on interviews with stakeholders and experts, along with a panel discussion, addresses three key questions:

- What proposals can be made post-VEB2023 ECoC programme to enhance cultural access?

- What is the long-term legacy regarding cultural access from the ECoC cities?

- How should the ECoC programme's proposals and criteria be refined from the EU perspective?

The findings indicate that the VEB2023 ECoC programme significantly enriched the local cultural landscape, featuring over 3,600 events across 24 genres, thus invigorating the lives of residents and visitors alike. This initiative not only facilitated community development through cultural activities but also fostered collaboration among 117 local authorities to craft and realize a shared vision. Projects like the GyárKert community space, ActiCity Dance Centre, and the Pajta programme exemplify efforts to enhance access to culture in the region.

At the EU-supported "Access is Success - Opportunities and Challenges of Accessing Culture in Contemporary Europe" conference in 2024, participants and experts highlighted the positive impact of the ECoC programme on both the cultural sector and public life in the host city and its surrounding municipalities. They highlighted the significance of volunteering, the principles and practical aspects of long-term sustainability, the need for cultural access, and the importance of intersectoral collaboration.

The interplay between culture and tourism plays a significant role in shaping destination development and attractiveness. Our research aims to explore the role of culture in the travel decisions of the Hungarian population, with a particular focus on generational differences. Additionally, we investigate how familiar Hungarian people are with domestic and international destinations, and which cultural products and attractions they associate with specific destinations. Furthermore, the study extends to examining both consumers’ and destinations’ sustainability perspectives. From the consumer side, we focus on the extent to which environmental protection, support for local communities, and sustainable resource use are considered in cultural tourism decisions. On the destination side, we analyze strategies that contribute to long-term sustainability and the preservation of cultural values.

The research employs an online quantitative survey methodology, featuring predominantly closed-ended questions. The survey utilizes nominal, ordinal, and scale questions to uncover detailed insights into cultural preferences, attitudes, and sustainability considerations. Special attention is given to World Heritage Sites and national heritage locations, as well as the comparison of highly frequented and less-known destinations. Key outcomes of the research include the identification of cultural products and categories, alongside an analysis of sustainability factors, offering a deeper understanding of the role of cultural attractions in travel decisions and regional development.

The collected data is analyzed using statistical methods, yielding variables and indicators that reveal further correlations. Our findings are particularly valuable for destination developers, offering insights to support the creation of complex and sustainable tourism products. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the connections between cultural tourism, sustainability, and regional development, facilitating the design of long-term viable and innovative tourism strategies.

Islands, due to their geographic isolation, present unique challenges that make them vulnerable laboratories, where local governance plays a pivotal role in shaping responses to internal and external dynamics. This study investigates the tourism geography of Mallorca during the current transforming times marked by a “policrisis” —a series of interconnected crises, particularly climate change, energy suply or geopolitical inestability—, which have heightened tensions and demands from the local population, particularly in relation to the struggle for the right to the island as a response to increasing prices and subsequent spatial dispossession.

The aim of this communication is to explore the reactivation of the profit rate within the hotel sector, examining its connections to both the influx of private financial investment and the renovation of surrounding infrastructure through public funding. Our analysis focuses on Mallorca as a case study, where preliminary findings indicate a significant renewal and expansion of the real estate capital in the tourism industry. This includes an increase in the number of hotel rooms, as well as upgrades to hotel categories, new constructions, and refurbishments. These developments predominantly target enclavic sun-and-beach tourist resorts.

The methodology applied involves spatial correlation analysis of hotel renovation and expansion projects, public investments (e.g., Sustainable Tourism Tax, Next Generation Funds), the sources of capital investment, and changes in hotel RevPAR.

Our findings suggest that these renovation and expansion initiatives have contributed to the reactivation of profit rates, measured in terms of Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR), within the primary capital accumulation circuit. Simultaneously, they enhance the attractiveness of the built environment for real estate financial investment as a way to boost the secondary circuit of capital accummulation. These results indicate a clear relationship between the revitalization of the tourism sector and improved profitability, linked to the revaluation of hotel real estate. This underscores the interaction between the primary and secondary circuits of capital accumulation, driven by public investment and regulatory flexibility in planning policies.

Losing population since 2009, Japan has been at the forefront of research on how to deal with shrinking populations. The effects are most severely visible on its remote islands. However, on some islands, diverse forms of tourism have attracted new residents, which in turn innovate the tourism sector. This paper will analyze the complex links between tourism and in-migration from the examples of three Japanese islands. It will offer valuable insights for European islands into strategies that don’t rely on sea, sand and sun tourism. I use the framework of place making to answer the following questions. What is the role of new residents in creating and sustaining a tourism destination? What elements of place attract them to the islands? The research is based on longitudinal studies of three islands on the Western edge of Japan and includes three steps. Images of islands in general and of the three islands were analyzed through an online monitor survey with 1601 respondents. In the second step, tourism development plans and interviews with local administration clarified the administrative placemaking efforts. Finally, interviews with new residents involved in tourism business were transcribed and coded to provide information on their motivations, activities and self-perceptions.

Results indicate three important links between tourism and new residents: destination image, business innovation and spatial expansion. While a strong tourism image can attract new residents, individual factors play a more important role in choosing “their” island. New residents in turn contribute to creating a more diverse island image, although in an uncoordinated way. Starting a business is one of the attractions of moving to an island, where it is possible to find a niche in the tourism market. New residents on the three island therefore contributed to a diversification of the tourism sector. However, many relied on generous national subsidies for businesses on Japan’s border islands. Finally, they often chose localities outside the main tourism sites for their business, thus helping to relieve concentration of tourists and to improve services in remote localities. As a result, their role in place making includes imaginary, economical and spatial components.

Over the last six decades, the Faroe Islands, an 18-island archipelago in the North Atlantic, undertook a massive road construction project. The project included building many tunnels, the first of which opened in 1963, and sub-sea tunnels, the most recent one was inaugurated in December 2023. Transport infrastructure lies at the foundation of the country’s development, and ferry lines have been progressively replaced by fixed links regardless of socio-economic conditions, such as the economic and demographic collapse after the crash of the fisheries in the early 1990. This paper investigates the archipelago’s spatial and regional development over the last six decades in order to determine whether road expansion has contributed to demographically sustaining communities. This is done by analysing the development of transport infrastructure and its impact on population change at the regional, island, and village levels.

Results show that fixed links have been critical in connecting distant villages and islands together across the archipelago. Yet, the few exceptions of the so-called ‘outer islands’ demonstrate that tunnels alone have been insufficient to achieve a demographically balanced country. In terms of spatial development, we argue that fixed links (i) have favoured individual mobility patterns; (ii) have re-configured existing centre-periphery relationships; and (iii) may have altered the archipelago’s insular condition.

This research investigates perceptions of islandness, place identity, and sustainability, comparing the viewpoints of islanders and non-islanders. Focusing on the Greek islands as a primary context, the study explores how geographical isolation, cultural identity, and resource limitations shape development strategies and perceptions of sustainability. It further examines the role of place branding as a tool to bridge these perspectives and foster sustainable development. Using a mixed-methods approach, the research combines quantitative analyses with qualitative insights from a large scale survey and two focus groups. These methods capture both the unique priorities of island residents and the external perceptions held by non-islanders. The study employs a robust analytical framework that integrates insights from geography, sociology, and environmental studies to examine how local and external perspectives converge or diverge on key issues. The findings reveal both key differences and areas of convergence in how islanders and non-islanders perceive the role of place identity and branding. Islanders emphasise community resilience and cultural preservation, while non-islanders highlight the potential for tourism and economic opportunities. However, both groups align on the importance of sustainability and the need to balance economic growth with environmental and cultural stewardship. Place branding emerges as a valuable strategy for harmonising these perspectives, enhancing community engagement, and promoting sustainable tourism. This study underscores the importance of participatory governance to ensure that development policies reflect both local aspirations and external expectations. By offering a replicable framework, it provides practical insights for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders aiming to navigate the complexities of sustainable island development. It advocates for reimagining islands as vibrant, self-sustaining communities that actively contribute to regional and global progress through shared perspectives and collaborative strategies.

The provision of overnight train services in Europe has contracted very substantially over the last 30-40 years, from the comprehensive continent-wide network which existed in the late 1980s to the discontinuous and fragmented pattern of services which operate in 2025. However, while there is a prevailing narrative of a long-term and general decline in service provision, there has been very little geographical analysis of the extent of changes in provision or of geographic differences in the effects of different factors on overnight train operations. Yet, in the last few years, after a long scaling-down, there has been a certain revival of overnight trains, which seems to be affected by increasing interest in railways as an environmentally-friendly transport mode. Given this recent revival of interest in overnight trains and some limited expansion of services, there is a need to gain a better understanding of how service patterns have evolved in the past, and the geographic factors which have influenced this evolution, in order to inform future planning.

This paper aims to help meet this need by undertaking a quantitative analysis of changes in overnight train service provision from the late 1980s through to the present day. The analysis is based on case studies of eight European countries (Czechia, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, and the UK), in order to permit comparison of trends in provision in different geographic and socio-economic contexts. A major challenge in any analysis of long-term changes in public transport service provision is the lack of historical data on such services in a form suitable for computational analysis. This issue has been addressed here by manually digitising data from a range of paper timetable books, providing a detailed and comprehensive picture of the overnight services which operated at four points in time. This data is used to summarise changes in the provision of both domestic and international overnight trains in the case study countries across the study period, and to consider how both trends in this provision and the factors influencing these trends vary across Europe. Both similarities and contrasts between the geographies of these trends are highlighted, and key factors which have influenced the trends are discussed, such as geopolitical processes and events resulting in changes in the porosity of international borders, competition from road transport and low cost airlines, and the 'liberalisation' of the rail market in the EU.

Night trains in Europe have garnered significant attention in recent years. The introduction of new services by both established operators and new entrants has opened new markets, attracting interest from customers, the media, and policymakers alike. It raises the question of whether night trains can evolve into a viable, environmentally friendly alternative to air travel or if they are destined to remain a niche market confined to a few routes with limited frequencies. This issue can be examined from both demand and supply perspectives. From the demand side, the critical question is whether enough potential customers will use these services. From the supply side, the focus is on whether sufficient services can be provided to meet this demand. This paper concentrates on the supply perspective of night train services. We interviewed operators in Central Europe to gain insights into their views on the opportunities and limitations of the development of night trains in Europe. These interviews identified several critical obstacles to the broader expansion of night trains in Europe, including infrastructure bottlenecks, high investment costs for new rolling stock, low profitability, high risks, challenges with cross-border operations, and operational difficulties. Based on this evidence, the conclusion is that while night trains may remain an interesting niche market, they are unlikely to become a serious alternative to air travel unless significant public policy support is implemented.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly transformed transportation patterns worldwide, leading to profound shifts in the spatial and temporal dynamics of railway demand. This study aims to examine the changes in rail demand in the United Kingdom caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, in terms of geographical variations. The research focuses on identifying the key factors affecting changes in demand by comparing rail usage trends before and after the pandemic.The main objective is to identify and analyse how economic restructuring, hybrid working models, environmental awareness and changes in regional mobility are driving these transformations. In particular, we focus on how these factors are reshaping the demand for commuter lines and leisure travel compared to long-distance travel.

The study analysed rail passenger data across the UK and compared it with pre-pandemic trends. The data revealed the geographical distribution of changes in passenger numbers, differences in types of travel (business, leisure, day trips) and demographic impacts. In addition, the impact of economic and socio-demographic factors (e.g. income levels, hybrid working rates and regional population density) on demand patterns was assessed. In terms of methodology, the study adopts a mixed methods approach combining quantitative data analysis with qualitative insights from industry stakeholders. Longitudinal passenger flow data covering the years 2018-2024 were examined using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to reveal geographically distinct changes in demand patterns.

Preliminary findings suggest that rail demand, particularly in large cities and business centers like London, has decreased significantly compared to pre-pandemic levels, while demand remains more resilient in suburban areas. The spread of hybrid working has led to a decrease in business travel, while recovery in leisure and personal travel has been faster. In addition, access to transportation infrastructure and the level of economic recovery have been found to shape geographical differences in demand patterns.

This study aims to contribute to the literature on understanding the long-term effects of Covid-19 on railway demand. The findings provide important information for planning transportation policies and optimizing railway operations. A better understanding of regional differences is considered an important step towards the development of sustainable transportation strategies.

Evidence for the health and social benefits generated through urban green and blue spaces is comprehensive. Numerous studies have found that visits to parks and natural spaces can help address policy priorities such as reducing obesity, diabetes and heart disease; support social integration and community engagement; and encourage connections with the natural world (Dobson et al., 2019). The Covid-19 pandemic underlined these benefits at a global scale, with multiple contemporary studies reporting the health and wellbeing benefits of access to green spaces in mitigating the impacts of pandemic-era restrictions (Ugolini et al., 2020; Venter et al., 2020; Xie et al., 2020).

However, there is little evidence that knowledge of these benefits has resulted in greater care for and investment in urban green spaces. In the UK green spaces have been starved of funding for more than a decade due to government austerity policies, and this is likely to continue. Drawing on a three-year longitudinal qualitative study focusing on eight urban locations in the UK, this paper examines the impact of an intervention which was designed to initiate systemic change in local and national policies to give urban green spaces a sustainable future. We outline the programme's achievements and limitations and reflect on the challenges of changing embedded systems so as to promote and share the benefits of green spaces more widely.

Engaging with recent thinking on the rights of nature (Stone, 2010, Talbot-Jones & Bennett, 2022), we therefore ask what voice natural spaces can have in policymaking; how that voice may be amplified to protect and enhance the health of urban green spaces and their users; and how entrenched systems may be changed to generate greater benefits for human and nonhuman species. In posing these questions we also consider the ontological and practical dilemmas raised when green spaces are considered as possessing agency and value.

The paper focuses on the relationship between climate and health by discussing how local communities approach sustainability, and what kind of communal solutions they can offer for the the most recent challenges of climate change. The research constitutes a part of a nation-wide research studying sustainable consumption involving a large number of interviews from different fields. In this research field, we focused on an inner district of Budapest, which can be characterized by fast and radical changes, increased gentrification, but at the same time, it is also home to a rising number of urban community projects aiming at the local, rapidly changing population. In our research we analyzed local community programs, which aimed at integration programs for the marginalized population. Within those programs, we focused on societal groups with various backroungs, such as Roma people, most particularly children and young people, the local elderly, and the specific segment of young mothers with small children.

The paper examines the attitudes and practies of these societal groups towards various segments of sustainability, such as climate change, food consumption, clothing, access to healthy food and home practices of energy consumption - and the role of community within those.

The main question is, what are the community solutions for the challenges of climate change and how can communal programs contribute to sustainable solutions on a local level in a quickly changing urban area with a great societal diversity? We aimed to examine how the societal groups with very different backgrounds approach problems of climate and sustainability, what it means for them, and whether and how communal programs can help them to co-operate. The research is based on about 40 qualitative interviews and ethnographic research.

This presentation explores the intersection of urban ecological transformation and children’s well-being through the lens of the Oasis Schoolyard program in Paris. Initiated in 2019, this program aims to depave and green schoolyards, addressing climate change adaptation, fostering biodiversity, and improving children’s quality of life in a dense urban environment.

With 70 hectares of asphalted schoolyards, Paris has a unique opportunity to create cooling islands that benefit children and local communities, particularly when these spaces are open to the public. Contact with nature provides well-documented benefits for children, including stress reduction, enhanced immune systems, cognitive development, decreased bullying, improved academic performance, and better social relationships. These considerations make children’s well-being the cornerstone of the Oasis program, facilitating the integration of vegetation and other living elements despite potential resistance from educational stakeholders.

This talk will focus on research conducted in partnership between the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle and the City of Paris. Drawing on data collected in 2024 and 2025, including vegetation inventories, interviews with urban designers, managers, and school staff, as well as observations of children’s interactions with vegetation, the study examines perceptions of greening efforts and the ways children engage with these new spaces. This presentation will focus on understanding which parameters play a role in the ecosystem services children can benefit from in green schoolyards. We will use interviews and observations carried out in a Parisian school environment to test the hypothesis of the role of the educational community in promoting these interactions, as well as the importance of plant diversity for children. This work brings together inventory data on the ecological quality of environments and how they are appropriated by children, in an interdisciplinary approach combining urban ecology and science.

The Oasis Schoolyard program also highlights Paris’s broader strategy of ecological transformation which extends beyond schoolyards to include streets, housing courtyards, and other urban areas. This talk will provide insights into how urban initiatives can successfully combine climate adaptation, biodiversity, and human well-being, using Paris as a living laboratory for sustainable urban development.

In the new geographical research, the concept of urban care involves the spaces, materialities, and subjects, of care. （Emma R. Power，Miriam J Williams, 2019）This is a striking departure from classical research of urban care. Based on these ideas, this article explains the multiple values of gardening in urban care through the practices of Beijing residents. Our research yielded four key and novel findings: (1) The involvement of Beijing residents in urban care through gardening is widespread, fostering a harmonious space where nature, humanity, and spirituality coexist. Nearly all participants exude generosity and vitality, both in body and mind. (2) The neglected corners and wild land spaces within the community were transformed, adding more natural areas to the urban landscape and enhancing livability for residents. (3) Urban care encompasses both material and spiritual dimensions. On the material side, it includes activities like planting food that can be readily consumed, while spiritually, it manifests in acts of mutual assistance, charity, giving, and interpersonal support, all contributing to the realization of self-worth. (4) The subject of care includes both individuals and the harmonious symbiosis between humans and non-human entities. This creates an experience of bringing the idyll of nature back home. This article explores the diverse values of gardening in urban care, highlighting its role in bridging the divide between humans and nature, as well as addressing the alienation of human nature in the context of postmodern. It emphasizes the value and creativity inherent in gardening as a means of urban care, as well as the positive correlation between urban environments and quality of life. It also explores the pathways for public participation and practice of gardening in urban care spaces. The issue under discussion is the impact of gardening, as a form of urban care, on urban planning, management, and services, as well as the challenges and difficulties it presents. In conclusion, while gardening may be considered a micro-system, it is omnipresent. Its prominent features—naturalness, physicality, interconnectedness, and well-being—enable it to play a unique role in urban care, particularly in the context of climate change.

This paper examines participatory governance models and local policies of urban citizenship as sociopolitical and cultural tools that facilitate literary engagement among displaced communities and help create alternative imaginings of the city. Studying both political and literary practices through a local and small-scale lens, the paper focusses on En Palabras, a civil society initiative in Barcelona that promotes collective storytelling among the Latin American community. I contextualize its activities in relation to the participatory and cosmopolitan policy agenda of Barcelona en Comú, the citizen platform governing the city at the time the organization was created. While urban citizenship policies are often seen as rights-giving practices that enable multiple forms of legal identification for unauthorized migrants, the paper shows how the promotion of cultural expression of minorities through writing can act as a bottom-up, rights-claimingactivity that enables migrants to carve a symbolic space within the local public sphere. I illustrate this subjective reappropriation of the city through a (para)textual analysis of Intraducibles / Intraduïbles, En Palabras’ bilingual anthology published in 2024. The publication offers an alternative cartography of Barcelona by crossing Catalan, peninsular as well as Latin American Spanish and incorporating images of the city that show the authors’ personal entanglement with the urban space described in the texts. These creative engagements with the city redefine notions of national (and regional) identity and add an affective dimension to local participatory policies, translating collective measures into tangible, singular acts of speaking up and taking space.

• Research questions: How does a small-scale and local approach to literary production and migration redefine notions of citizenship and belonging? How do local citizenship policies and governance models interact with symbolic reappropriations of the city?
• Theoretical framework: Citizenship Studies, Transnational Literary Studies, Spatial Theory
• Methodological approach: close reading of the texts and paratexts, collaborative research, qualitative interviews
• Data: Intraducibles/Intraduïbles anthology + interviews with partners from the organization

Albeit enjoying considerable public recognition as the biggest public park of Florence, Italy, Le Cascine is subject to a discursive transformation that gradually reshapes the park’s overall affective atmosphere through ideas of fear, insecurity, and stigmatisation of the (racialized and classed) “other”.

Approaching Le Cascine not simply as living but also as lived urban text, this contribution presents an arts-based urban-geographic research with a three-fold aim: to question the dominant affective atmosphere; to invent ways to enter inside it together with people who cross it; and to contribute to its remoulding in inclusive, creative, and participatory ways. The “Vis-à-vis with the park” project, a collaboration between three geographers and an illustrator, consists of a handcrafted photo booth simulation popping up in the park wherein passers-by can enter to become research participants. Departing from one out of seven available panoramas of the Cascine (designed purposefully so as to represent the park’s variable aspects), the illustrator intervenes on the panorama inspired by the unfolding guided discussion around the participant’s relationship with the park.

Inside the park’s abstracted affective atmosphere, “Vis-à-vis” produces an intimate spatiality that enables the emergence of emotions, memories and personal relations. Therefore, an alternative inter-subjective micro-atmosphere is shaped momentarily allowing us to reveal the park’s alternative affective dimensions, as well as to give space to the participants’ agency in knowledge production: With the researchers remaining outside of the booth to not disrupt the intimacy, the participant’s words guide the illustrator’s hand thus co-producing a personalised visual product. The project is telling also in performative terms: The booth’s out-of-place visibility, reinforced by the structure’s temporary, pop-up character, allows us to reach a sample of park users that would have been difficult to reach through “conventional” methods. Moreover, the unusual, playful and mysterious character of the practice resulted in a spontaneous engagement of participants.

Whilst the dominant affective atmosphere constructs textually Le Cascine as a potential spatial “other” to Florence’s homogenized and pacified city centre, the creative, affective and performative dimensions of the “Vis-à-vis”, together with its artistic-geographic representations, allows for a counter-atmosphere based on intimacy, inter-subjectivity, and the more-than-textual.

This paper introduces printmaking as an innovative arts-based research method that enhances the study of urban spaces by visualizing the layered, complex and multifaceted perceptions of urban citizens. Printmaking techniques are used not only as a tool to explore physical spaces but also as a mean to make on-site interventions and visualize ideas, emotions, and experiences of participants. For this contribution we engage children and elderly people in a typical Viennese park located in the 16th district, to explore the question how different users experience, perceive and use the space. Through the use of various stencil techniques, we provide participants with a medium to express feelings, memories and ideas connected to the park, allowing for a nuanced exploration of how different groups experience the same urban environment. The use of printmaking as a participatory tool not only empowers participants but also contributes to the co-creation of urban knowledge, revealing layers of identity, belonging, and emotional attachment that are often excluded from conventional research. In particular, the method mirrors the layering effect of stencils, revealing multiple perspectives that would otherwise be overlooked in traditional research approaches. The paper argues that printmaking as an arts-based method can expand the toolkit of urban studies by offering new ways to represent urban spaces and experiences. It demonstrates how this approach makes it possible to include often overlooked voices and to adapt the research tools according to the needs of research participants. For example, when working with small children, it is possible to let them design and visualize memories and ideas concerning a particular place and its surroundings. Similarly, when working with elderly people, printmaking offers an accessible and creative medium that allows for the expression of their personal histories, emotions, and connections to urban spaces.

The transition to sustainable living necessitates systemic knowledge-driven transformations that merge traditional, experiential, and scientific insights. This study explores the emergence of a social economy of knowledge within rural Europe, focusing on the case of lifestyle migrants at Cold Mountain Shelter in Hungary. These migrants have revitalized abandoned vineyards through innovative agro-ecological practices, bringing with them diverse resources such as knowledge, social capital, and financial investment. However, their journey illustrates the duality of such transformations: while they create value and resilience within rural areas, they also face significant challenges, including infrastructural inadequacies, policy misalignments, and limited community integration.
Drawing on workshops conducted with the Cold Mountain Shelter participants, the study examines how formal and informal knowledge systems interact in shaping rural sustainability. It highlights how lifestyle migrants act as agents of change, contributing not only to rural regeneration but also to the diffusion of transformative knowledge within and beyond their localities. The findings underscore the need for supportive governance and collaborative frameworks to address the challenges of rural gentrification while fostering synergies between newcomers and long-established communities.
By situating the experiences of Cold Mountain Shelter within broader discussions on ruralisation and the knowledge economy, this study provides valuable insights into the processes of rural transformation. It emphasizes the importance of creating inclusive knowledge networks that leverage the diverse resources brought by urban-to-rural migrants, offering actionable perspectives for policymakers and practitioners striving for sustainable rural development.

The phenomenon of depopulation and ageing, coupled with its accelerating pace in recent years, has livened up the debate around the ‘demographic winter’ (Blangiardo, 2024). This concept highlights the critical demographic challenges particularly facing Italy, where projections indicate an average age exceeding 50 years by 2080 and widespread depopulation in inner areas.

Depopulation is not merely a numerical decline but a multifaceted issue with profound and far-reaching consequences. The combination of low birth rates, ageing populations, and emigration undermines the demographic structure, leading to the obliteration of settlement heritage, loosening of social networks, and weakening of infrastructural and economic systems. Such challenges threaten not only the sustainability of these regions, but also their cultural and historical identity.

Two theoretical approaches have been proposed to address these challenges. The first, based on the concept of a ‘revenge’ of the so-called ‘places that don't matter’ (Rodriguez-Pose, 2018), calls for empowering local stakeholders to optimise their territorial development potential. This perspective emphasises the need for bottom-up solutions that mobilise local resources and communities. The second approach, the ‘place-based theory’ (Barca, 2019), warns against the dangers of a ‘local under-development trap,’ where local elites are partly responsible for hindering progress. It advocates a top-down external governance intervention to introduce new planning energies.

The mountainous inner areas of the Central Apennines, notably in the Abruzzo and Molise regions, exemplify these challenges. These regions have experienced a significant decline in demographic, cultural, and economic vitality, largely driven by emigration, also due to their proximity to coastal urbanised areas.

Only in recent years, tailored policies have been developed to counter the risk of disappearance of these small municipalities. These initiatives include financial incentives to attract new residents, refurbishment of housing stock, and enhancement of cultural and historical assets. By creating a welcoming environment, these measures aim to sustain and revitalise local communities.

The case of the Central Apennines underscores the urgent need for customised, multifaceted strategies to safeguard the identity and heritage of rural and mountainous inner areas.

Counterurbanization, understood as migration from cities to rural areas beyond the commuting hinterland, has been present in Western literature since the 1970s. However, in Central and Eastern Europe, internal migration patterns following the political and economic transformations of the late 1980s and early 1990s have been dominated by suburbanization and rural depopulation. Counterurbanization has been studied much less frequently, and its specific characteristics in the region remain largely unexplored.

In this context, a novel research question arises: does Central Europe experience counterurbanization with a delay resulting from its history of socialist urbanization and the emergence of market economy only in the 1990s? The talk is a presentation of the results of a quantitative study on the intensity and directions of migration from metropolitan areas to the peripheries in Poland between 1989 and 2023. It also situates counterurbanization within the broader context of other types of internal migration and key events in Poland's and Europe’s recent history, such as accession to the European Union and the COVID-19 pandemic. The research is based on an analysis of matrices of registered inter-municipal migrations - one of the largest and most detailed datasets of its kind in Europe. The interpretation of post-pandemic trends is further enriched by findings from a parallel qualitative study.

After the change of regime, the employment and housing structure went through radical changes in Budapest, just like in most cities of the post-socialist countries, due to deindustrialization and privatization (including mass housing privatization). In the 1990s, the housing constructions stopped and despite the privatization, the residential mobility remained low within the city. Those who had resources after purchased their flat moved to the suburbia. Those who had resources after purchased their flat moved to the suburbia. The situation changed at the end of the decade, the economic recovery and new financial instruments helped the housing market.

New housing constructions restarted together with the demolition of old tenement houses and working-class estates from the turn of the century. The newly built flats were very expensive and no new social housing was constructed, thus the lower social strata had less and less opportunity to find home. This situation was further aggravated by the 2008-2012 financial crisis. Masses of mortgage borrowers lost their home. As a result, homelessness increased, families moved to the countryside, and the outmigration strengthened.

The study focuses on the neighborhoods with a high concentration of lower strata inhabitants who were hit hardest by the crisis. The research questions are: Where had been the least affluent groups concentrated before the crisis and how it changed after? Which neighborhoods became poorer after the crisis period and which ones transformed into middle class areas?

The authors compare the subdistrict level 2001, 2011 and 2022 census data of Budapest in order to identify the old and new low status areas. An in-depth analysis of their location and residential environment may reveal how the socio-spatial cleavage has evolved during the last two decades.

Who are “the rich” and how should their residential patterns be studied? In society, the rich are defined not only by their high income but also —and perhaps more importantly— by their high wealth. However, while income is closely monitored and taxed, wealth often remains less scrutinized, particularly in the context of segregation research. This study explores how the spatial patterns of affluence and poverty differ when considering wealth versus income and discusses their implications. By analyzing geo-coded microdata from the Netherlands, we reveal that wealth segregation is much higher than income segregation, and that roughly the top tenth richest households in terms of wealth are far more isolated from the rest of the population than what the income-based literature would report. Our findings also demonstrate other three key insights: (1) Whereas financial wealth is more unequally distributed than real estate wealth across society, it is more equally distributed across space. (2) Wealth segregation is notably more sensitive to the spatial scale of measurement compared to income segregation. (3) The temporal trends of income and wealth segregation diverge: while the former is decreasing in most urban areas, wealth segregation is rising almost everywhere in the Netherlands. This stresses the necessity of incorporating wealth into studies of segregation not as an alternative operationalization, but as a different perspective on the concentration of affluence which captures the role of capital, social class and the residential dynamics of the well-off individuals in a way that income-based approaches cannot render.

Residential segregation is one of the most visible manifestations of social inequality in cities. However, segregation is not merely a reflection of these inequalities but also a mechanism that actively contributes to their maintenance and reproduction over time. Thus, analysing socioeconomic inequalities requires considering both inequalities between places (Milanović, 2016) and inequalities within places (Piketty, 2013, 2023).

In this context, the article examines the dynamics of residential segregation in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region, focusing on the evolution of socioeconomic disparities within its 164 municipalities and in relation to the metropolitan average. The research posits that segregation has reached a metropolitan scale, going beyond municipal boundaries, with vulnerable social groups increasingly concentrated in major cities, while wealthier groups tend to relocate to other areas.This dynamic generates a paradox in which the most disadvantaged populations tent to concentrated in municipalities with fewer local resources and greater difficulties in providing public services.

The study approaches residential segregation through two methodological perspectives. First, it proposes a taxonomy of metropolitan municipalities that combines the evolution of economic inequalities within each municipality with their relative position in terms of average net income per household within the Barcelona Metropolitan Region. This phase uses data from the Atlas de Distribución de Renta de los Hogares for the period 2015–2022 at the census tract, municipal, and metropolitan scales.

The second phase focuses on analyzing the evolution of residential segregation through the use of the multivariate residential segregation index previously used in the research Barris i Crisi (Blanco & Nel·lo, 2018), completing the temporal series for the years 2001, 2011, and 2021. This methodology examines the territorial distribution of four key variables, interrelated with the income: (a) the percentage of the unemployed population; (b) the percentage of the foreign population; (c) the cadastral value of housing; and (d) the average housing size. Data is collected at the census tract level using the 2021 Population Census.

This dual approach provides an in-depth understanding of segregation and inequality patterns in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region, contributing to debates on public policies and the territorial distribution of resources.

In 1997, Amin and Graham pointed to the media's prevalent focus on urban crises and 'regeneration', which oscillates between gloomy predictions of urban collapse and optimistic portrayals of renewal, often simplifying the actual complexities. These observations remain pertinent and reflect a persistent but simplistic dichotomy of urban decay and revitalisation driven by neoliberal agendas (Pinson, 2022). The concept of urban regeneration has been criticised for lacking a defined theoretical basis (Leary and McCarthy, 2013) and for using stigmatising metaphors that exacerbate socio-spatial inequalities (Marcuse, 2005). Such metaphors target areas labelled as 'abject' (Sibley, 1998), potentially exacerbating marginalisation (Porter, 2009). Urban problems are often framed in dystopian terms to justify interventions as necessary treatments for perceived urban ills (Furbey, 1999), perpetuating 'hypochondriac geographies' (Baeten, 2002). The schematic approaches of the current literature require a socio-theoretical extension of urban regeneration (Lovering, 2007). Feminist geographers argue that urban theory overlooks the transformative potential of care that is essential for a just city (Power and Hall, 2018). This requires a new ethical framework that places the transformative ethos of care at the centre (de la Bellacasa, 2011; Lawson, 2007).

This study utilises relational and new institutionalist perspectives (Healey, 1999; Rydin, 2021) to examine urban regeneration along three axes: metaphorical/symbolic, instrumental/discursive and procedural/socio-spatial. The focus is on the south-east coast of Palermo, which has evolved from a bustling industrial zone in the early 20th century to a place of urban sprawl and decay. 'Sacco di Palermo' in the 1970s triggered a profound urban transformation that led to the construction of massive social housing projects that further blanketed the coast with rubble, the so-called mammelloni. As part of the NRRP, the city has launched four “eco-sustainable” projects to address these environmental and social challenges. The study aims to introduce the ethics of care as a relational lens into urban research, to explore the discursive impact of NRRP initiatives on urban imaginaries that can move away from pathologising approaches, and to assess how urban regeneration in Palermo unfolds on the ground, enabling agency. Methodologically, it combines critical discourse analysis and ethnographic fieldwork.

The manifesto for fieldwork is a participatory project that issues a call to attention and creates spaces for collaboration around a vision for the future of fieldwork in geography. The manifesto is an ongoing project that is growing out of our shared interests in the pedagogies and practices of teaching and learning in the field. The manifesto offers an invitation to engage in pedagogic discussions that seek to articulate visions for the future of inclusive and ethical fieldwork. It is motivated by a Fieldwork has long been a signature pedagogy in geography, but the place of fieldwork in curricula is changing. At the same time when curriculum projects in many universities are advocating for more experiential learning in authentic and real-world context, the climate and nature crises, pandemics, financial pressures, technology, and the importance of addressing inclusivity and accessibility are remaking field teaching. In place of a talk our intention is to offer provocative statements as a starting point to prompt discussion and then use activities to make a space for co-creating visions for the future of fieldwork. Our hope is that the talk is part of ongoing conversations that can articulate a renewed and robust vision for the place and importance of fieldwork in geography education, as well as promote accountability in the design and practice of fieldwork.

Within geography in higher education there is a growing emphasis on the importance of inclusive practices, not just in the classroom and curriculum, but specifically in outdoor learning. The literature highlights that fieldwork can exclude students based on factors such as ability, race, class, gender and sexuality. Educators often address these issues reactively through requests from individual students, but what are broader student perceptions on the inclusivity of fieldwork? The use of pre and post hoc surveys to capture students lived experiences of fieldwork has proved a useful method to improve engagement and participation in fieldwork (Peasland et al., 2021; Scott et al., 2019). However, uncovering student experiences in the field has received less attention in regards to explicitly improving inclusivity, particularly within human geography (Hughes, 2016). This presentation discusses student experiences of a human geography fieldwork, addressing a range of potential exclusive factors, the mechanisms therein, and the variety among both students and experiences.

We will present the results of pre and post fieldwork surveys given to students within the Human Geography and Spatial Planning department of Utrecht University, the Netherlands. We aim specifically to gain a deeper understanding into student perceptions of the inclusivity of fieldwork using a lens of intersectionality, which recognises that multiple marginalising factors may affect ones lived experience. Drawing from Hughes’ (2016) study of Black and Ethnic Minority students’ experiences in the field, we expand on her instrument to include intersectional barriers such as socioeconomic status, physical ability and at-home duties. These insights will help us to address the inclusivity of a mandatory year 1 course with residential fieldwork in European border regions. Preliminary results demonstrate a need to inform students in greater detail about the realities of fieldwork beforehand. While fieldwork is integral to human geography education, a priori students have little understanding of what a day in the field looks like. This survey comprises the initial stages of a larger project addressing barriers to inclusive fieldwork in human geography in Dutch tertiary education. This presentation shares outcomes of our study, and invites educators and researchers to collectively generate insights for developing inclusive practices.

References:

Hughes, A. (2016). Exploring normative whiteness: Ensuring inclusive pedagogic practice in undergraduate fieldwork teaching and learning. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 40(3), 460–477. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2016.1155206

Peasland, E. L., Henri, D. C., Morrell, L. J., & Scott, G. W. (2021). Why do some students opt out of fieldwork? Using expectancy-value theory to explore the hidden voices of non-participants. International Journal of Science Education, 43(10), 1576–1599. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2021.1923080

Scott, G. W., Humphries, S., & Henri, D. C. (2019). Expectation, motivation, engagement and ownership: Using student reflections in the conative and affective domains to enhance residential field courses. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 43(3), 280–298. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2019.1608516

All kinds of digital tools, VR, big data and AI, have diversified the ways in which research in social sciences can be done. Nevertheless, fieldwork activities in Human Geography programmes are still very much rooted in direct experiences and observations of a place and face-to-face interactions through interviewing or surveying. The ethics, outcomes and the universality of these fieldwork experiences are, however increasingly challenged. Scholars stress that reflective practice and creative resources are crucial to engage students in experiential and substantive reflection on ethical challenges. This project aims to design an evidence based tool to guide inclusive and effective fieldwork activities in human geography programmes.

For this project students fieldwork diaries were thematically analysed generating valuable insights into the diversity of students’ fieldwork experiences (eg. accounts of racism, anxiety) and what ethical aspects tend to be ignored or missed, providing input for guidelines to improve fieldwork activities. A survey amongst students (n=50) and additional interviews with students (n=10) and teachers (n=10) show a wide variety of perspectives on ethics, the value of fieldwork and a lack of coherence throughout courses and fieldwork activities. The outcomes raise important and challenging questions about the design and guidelines for future large scale fieldwork courses.

This conference contribution presents The Ethics Conversation Tool, aiming to align fieldwork activities and stimulating ongoing conversations and ethical competences throughout the bachelor programme. The tool is developed based on the student and teacher perspectives on ethics in fieldwork activities and my personal experience of teaching a large scale fieldwork course (90 students) on a sensitive topic (attitudes towards asylum seeker centres in small towns) for over 10 years.

Fieldwork is a core pedagogy in geography education (France & Haigh 2018). However, many standard practices within fieldwork pose challenges related to accessibility and inclusion. Educators often address these issues reactively, responding to individual requests for amendments. As not all students self-disclose their need for accommodations, this approach results in unaddressed barriers to participation in fieldwork (Hall & Healey, 2005). These barriers can be manifold and intersectional, including socio-economic status, physical ability or involvement in caring duties. Fieldwork thus requires a proactive approach by educators that starts at the design stages to allow all students the opportunity to be and feel appropriately included. Examples of such an approach are scarce in the literature beyond Lawrence and Dowey’s (2022) six design principles that focus on both the planning stages and the actual time in the field and the need for a conversation between staff and students.

In this storytelling inspired presentation we will discuss the development of a multiday fieldwork designed for first year human geography students at Utrecht University (Netherlands). The redesign of this fieldwork takes a proactive approach to inclusivity and draws upon the framework of Universal Design for Learning to more effectively anticipate for potential barriers students might meet and that prevent their full participation in fieldwork activities (Higgins & Maxwell, 2021). This framework suggests providing flexibility and multiplicity in learning regarding modes of engagement, representation and expression.

In this presentation we will take you along on our journey towards more inclusive fieldwork and present the rationale for our trip, it’s highlights, the hurdles we encountered, and the lessons learned. We hope this journey inspires others to join us on the same path towards inclusive fieldwork for all.

References:

Lawrence, A. & Dowey, N. (2022) Six simple steps towards making GEES fieldwork more accessible and inclusive, Area (54(1), 52-59

France, D. & Haigh, M. (2018) Fieldwork @40: fieldwork in geography higher education, Journal of Geography in Higher Education 42(4), 498-514

Hall, T., & Healey, M. (2005). Disabled Students’ Experiences of Fieldwork. Area, 37(4), 446–449.

Higgins, A. K., & Maxwell, A. E. (2021). Universal Design for Learning in the Geosciences for Access and Equity in Our Classrooms. The Journal of Applied Instructional Design, 10(1), 69–83. https://doi.org/10.59668/223.3752

The development of cities is shaped by planning processes that coordinate growth and by bottom-up initiatives that drive urban and community development. Local communities play a key role in shaping cities. Unequal opportunities for involvement in decision-making processes can lead to urban conflicts and serious problems in city management. The actions taken by residents to adapt cities to climate change may become more radical if their voices remain unheard and local authorities continue to adhere to a business-as-usual approach.

The aim of the research is to determine the impact of pro-environmental social movements on urban policy in Polish metropolitan areas. Building on the concept of environmental justice, our comparative analysis of grassroots initiatives emphasizes the role of local communities in the improving the quality of the urban environment. The study analysed activities by local communities aimed at improving air and water quality and preserving green areas in major metropolitan areas in Poland—Krakow, Warsaw, Wroclaw, and Tricity. The research addressed the following questions: What actions do urban activists take to improve the urban environment and ensure fair access to environmental resources? How bottom up civic initiatives could influence local governments in the creation of an urban environment?

The actions and effects of bottom-up initiatives were identified based on the content of policy documents, programs, media discourse analysis, participant observation, and in-depth interviews. The research results take into account good practices, e.g. in the field of improving air quality, as well as long-term efforts to protect green areas in cities. The article presents alternative models of city development that implement pro-environmental and social goals, which emerged due to pressure from grassroots initiatives. The research is carried out as part of the project " Social processes of shaping urban space in time of adaptation to climate change” financed by the National Science Center, Sonata-17 program.

Within a variety of existing forms of social movement, protest camps, where people stay and live in the countryside for the limited period of time (e.g. Climate Camp) have become increasingly visible and important. Previous research has regarded protest camps as transnational routinized repertoires and less so as the lifestyle movement that emerge from the interaction between membership and the environment at the time. This research focuses on the improvisation process of repairing the architecture of protest camps to suit their membership and clarifies how autonomy is carried out through the formation of infrastructure in protest camps.

Based on participant observation, this study identifies the emergence of internal autonomy by analyzing the improvised repair process of the infrastructure in the Takayama Architecture Seminar School (TASS) protest camp in Hida-Takayama moutanious area, Japan. The TASS protest camp is held every year and participants stay in one big old house for some days. Participants lived together away from everyday life in urban lifestyles and consumer societies and engaged in creation alongside their daily lives, such as eating and sleeping.

Based on the findings of the TASS protest camp, this research shows that autonomy is not achieved by reproducing repertoires that have emerged from the outside and that it is not a matter of shaping the values of membership to conform to transnational norms of political activism and social movements; rather, they are shaped by the people who make up the community at that time and place through repeated experimentation and failure, with elements of repair and improvisation. The concept of improvisation used in this study is also useful for freeing the rich experiences and backgrounds of individual participants in protest camps from the mold of a regularized repertoire.
From the improvised repair process, activists try to determine how to feel commonality and create openness in their protest camp in a different way from the routinized and regularized repertoires in transnational protest camps. This study presents an alternative methodology to create autonomy based on previous research on protest camps and expands the scope of the concept of improvisation.

This paper investigates the role of social movements and urban commons in creating resilient alternatives to housing commodification in the creative city Groningen, the Northern Netherlands. Located at the fringes of the city, the abandoned COVA factory site has long served as a communal area for a variety of subcultural groups. In the early-2000s, the municipality of Groningen started to acknowledge the creative energy at the site. Consequently, the area became subject to the "Stad aan het Water" (City alongside the Water) redevelopment scheme amid a shift towards creative city policies. Soon after its publication, critical arguments emerged concerning the number of affordable dwellings after promises of the city council to provide a mixed-income neighborhood. Concurrently, the area transformed into an urban commons called "Betonbos" (Concrete Jungle) which is being squatted by urban artists. With the municipal plans in full swing, Betonbos residents shortly realized that their chances to return to living in the area were close to nil. However, Betonbos residents showed that they would not be displaced that easily. In fact, the Betonbos community turned out to be part of a larger and hidden undercurrent of self-authorized artists contesting the commercial housing trajectories of the city council.

This research attempts to answer the following question: "How do social movements and urban commons challenge housing commodification in the creative city Groningen?". Through eleven qualitative walking interviews with urban artists, findings illuminate how social movements in Groningen resist commodification and empower marginalized communities to reclaim their right to housing. In this context, Betonbos turned to squatting to de-commodify housing. Punks, anarchists, environmental activists, squatters, and graffiti artists with strong roots in the urban art scene politically mobilized under the name “De Groningse Onderstroom” (The Groninger Undercurrent). The Betonbos commons and its ally, Groningen Undercurrent, exemplify how collective action can cultivate empowering social infrastructures. Through prioritizing shared governance and use value, the Betonbos experience demonstrates the potential for a reimagined urban landscape beyond commodification. Ultimately, these ongoing housing struggles demonstrate the need for a creative city framework that embraces the transformative power of collective action in creating non-commodified urban spaces.

The legacies of socialist modernism across Central and Eastern Europe have undergone a tumultuous journey in the decades following the collapse of communism. Initially marginalized or demolished in favor of neoliberal urban development, these structures—once emblematic of ideological and functional modernity—are now becoming sites of contention and cultural resurgence. This lecture explores how local communities, activists, and urban movements have re-engaged with these heritage sites, shifting the mechanisms of heritagization from elite-driven processes to grassroots initiatives.

By examining diverse case studies, including the protests against the demolition of Kyiv’s Kvity Ukrainy, Prague’s Hotel Praha, Belgrade’s Hotel Jugoslavija, Krakow's Hotel Cracowia, and Skopje’s GTC mall, this analysis highlights the multifaceted and creative ways communities are reclaiming and reinterpreting socialist modernist heritage. These movements reveal the broader socio-political dynamics of post-socialist societies, where heritage preservation intersects with critiques of unregulated urbanization, corruption, and democratic deficits.

This grassroots activism demonstrates a significant shift in the perception of socialist modernist heritage, from symbols of a contested past to platforms for articulating identity, memory, and civic resistance. Activists, often in collaboration with architects, artists, and historians, have employed diverse repertoires of contention, ranging from protests and petitions to artistic performances and symbolic acts, such as human chains. These efforts have not only challenged the erasure of socialist modernist heritage but have also fostered a reimagining of public spaces as inclusive, dynamic, and meaningful.

How do these initiatives negotiate contested legacies, build legitimacy and express opposition to stagnant ways of remembering, contributing to the bottom-up construction of heritage and transforming often dissonant heritage into vibrant cultural resources or arenas of political contestation?

In this lecture, I demonstrate a case study to show how the issue of energy transition is structured in a metropolitan locality and how it conflicts with heritage conservation concerns. The case study is set in a pre-1945 housing estate of single and two-storey twin and condominium houses in a major Hungarian city, which estate has architectural value. The research is based on semi-structured interviews with 12 local civil society activists and an additional 4 experts, involved in heritage conservation and energy transition issues.
Results of the research show that heritage conservation is associated with concepts of aesthetics, respect for the spirit of place, immobility and nuisance, while energy transition is associated with concepts of practicality, financial return, self-care, and the possibility of solving natural and social challenges. In many cases, the two sets of concepts are linked: in that both are technology-oriented, linked to local traditions, there is a certain pessimism that runs through them, and this stems from another common point: the effort of civil work for a struggling, labelled right cause, while local and national authorities cause in many cases barriers to resolving the conflict.
In the lecture, I argue that local societies, and in particular the population of the metropolitan area under study, have recognised the potential of green transtition, and the civil society movements under study have an immense contribution to make in informing local societies. Although no major breakthroughs have been made so far in terms of national regulation, the hope that a critical mass of local people and civil society movements will force change is still alive. In fact, the creation of energy communities is the intermediate state that would bring not a compromise but a lasting consensus in this situation - solving both the issue of a climate-conscious and energy-resilient local society, while avoiding ad hoc autonomous and individual solutions.

The term "energy transition" is often oversimplified in public discourse, reduced to a focus on emissions-free energy targets while black-boxing the intricate global supply chains and material flows that sustain them (Nadaï and Wallenborn, 2019). Rather than a uniform shift, energy transitions involve reconfigurations of socio-technical systems that reshape landscapes, infrastructures, and daily practices across geographies (Rotmans et al., 2001; Gailing and Moss, 2016; Buell, 2017). This abstraction risks misrepresenting the uneven spatial manifestations of transitions, where some regions advance while others remain burdened by legacy systems (Fuenfschilling and Binz, 2018).

Understanding the complexity of energy transitions requires analytical tools that reveal how global supply chains unfold in local contexts, materialising as production facilities, infrastructure, and worker settlements, all embedded in specific environmental conditions. Current approaches lack the tools to trace and represent material flows across scales while simultaneously capturing their spatial configurations and territorial transformations. To address this gap, this study proposes a cross-scale mapping methodology that traces how solar energy generation shapes production networks, infrastructure, and settlement patterns across interconnected sites. This approach situates energy transitions within multi-scalar networks, linking chemical processes to physical landscapes and technological artefacts to urban agglomerations.

The methodology integrates GIS-based territorial analysis with drawings, process diagrams, and ethnographic methods to visualise the spatiality of these material assemblages. By mapping material flows across interconnected sites, the study reveals how renewable energy technologies shape heterogeneous spatial arrangements within global production networks (Castán Broto, 2019). These arrangements reveal how energy transitions co-produce both immediate spatial consequences and broader territorial transformations, reflecting historical path dependencies and inequalities often overlooked in sustainability frameworks.

The analysis begins in the Lusatian mining district, Germany, tracing its evolution from agrarian roots to a coal-powered industrial hub and its reinvention as a renewable “Energiedistrikt.” It then examines Weesow-Willmersdorf, Germany’s largest solar park, exploring the spatial and infrastructural challenges of scaling solar energy to meet ambitious regional targets. Finally, the study extends to Suqian, China – a key supplier for Weesow-Willmersdorf and a global hub for solar panel manufacturing – to examine the spatial impacts of rising downstream energy demands, including urban expansion, resource monopolisation, and the hidden transformation consequences of intensified production.

The transition to renewable energy is central to strategies for achieving resilience, sustainability, and digital transformation, particularly within the framework of the EU Green Deal and its evolving policy priorities. This research focuses on mapping and understanding the dynamics of solar energy development, with an emphasis on ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV) systems in Italy, and the Tuscany region in particular.

Using a machine learning approach, this study analyzes the expansion of large-scale PV systems (≥1 MW) and their impact on agricultural land. In 2023 alone, approximately 400 hectares of agricultural land (9.5% of total land lost) were converted to PV installations. By integrating geographic, environmental, economic, and regulatory factors, identified through an extensive literature review, a random forest model was developed to identify areas with high potential for future PV installations. The resulting GIS maps provide actionable insights into optimal locations for solar energy projects, balancing energy goals with land-use preservation.

This study highlights the transformative potential of digital tools in energy planning, showcasing how machine learning and geospatial analysis can support sustainable governance. The findings emphasize the importance of place-based approaches to managing conflicts between renewable energy expansion and agricultural preservation, offering a pathway for regions to navigate socio-economic and environmental challenges in their energy transition strategies.

This contribution is proposed at a decisive moment in the development of Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) in order to examine the role of different configuration and observe how they can be actively modelled, perceived and conceptualized through the processes which take place within and around them. The aim is to bring to light what these communities are doing differently and the peculiar character of social innovation that has paved the way towards a new paradigm of commitment and involvement of people, SMEs and associations in decentralized energy systems. In order to do this, a mixed method qualitative research programme conducted in Italy was implemented. Some CERs have reinvented ways of being together, in achieving the energy transition goals in the European Union’s Clean Energy Package adopted in 2019, encouraging participation and action towards possible alternatives. Thanks to the field research conducted in Italy, the contribution adds to the amplification of knowledge of some ways to promote fast transition to a decarbonized and resilient energy system. It also offers a glimpse of some attempts to promote sustainability in the societal agenda and the relative experiences of members who inhabit these RECs. Therefore, it contributes to the literature on the geographies of the transition and, at the same time, it offers critical issues from an Italian perspective, providing ideas and insights to energy policy makers and those who handle building the decarbonization policies of tomorrow

The healthcare system on 50 inhabited Croatian islands is confronted with a complex set of challenges, primarily driven by geographic isolation and social marginalization. In relative terms, considering the geographical differentiation of Croatian islands, we divide them into into large and small, near and offshore islands, each with distinct healthcare needs. These geographical differences are important for understanding the disparities in healthcare access and infrastructure.

The research aimed to evaluate the state of healthcare infrastructure on islands and assess the satisfaction of islanders with the quality and accessibility of healthcare services. Given the geographic diversity of the islands, their distinct demographic, socio-economic characteristics, and complex administrative structures, the study sought to categorize the islands based on the development of their healthcare systems and to propose targeted solutions for addressing critical deficiencies that limit islanders’ access to adequate healthcare. Furthermore, the research identified the most pressing shortcomings and highlighted the services that islanders deem essential for their well-being and sustainable living on the islands.

The methodology encompasses a thorough analysis of healthcare facilities across islands, focusing on identifying service provision gaps relative to island size and distance from the mainland. This is complemented by a survey of nearly 500 respondents. The survey collected insights into the state of healthcare infrastructure on the islands and examined islanders' perceptions of different facets of healthcare services.

The research findings indicate that social marginalization exacerbates healthcare disparities on Croatian islands. Island residents express dissatisfaction with the state of healthcare services and infrastructure on the islands. Residents are unhappy with the inadequate equipment in the medical clinics and fear that doctors may leave the islands due to poor working conditions. They view the Ministry of Health as primarily responsible for the state of healthcare, followed by local governments. Another challenge to the sustainable development of islands is the seasonal strain on the healthcare system caused by tourism, which reduces the availability of services during peak periods. The research seeks to offer insights into potential policy solutions that could improve healthcare provision across islands, especially for the most vulnerable and remote communities.

Islands and archipelagos are often considered as laboratories, with their apparent isolation deemed to be an ideal condition for research. But their isolation is as much a social construction as a reality. Cabo Verde (CV), an island nation in the Atlantic, off Western Africa and a former Portuguese colony, since the beginning of its inhabitation has been shaped by its connections with other places. An arid archipelago with limited agricultural potential – and a colonial history of non-exploitation of this potential –, CV has suffered over centuries from cyclical droughts, the absence of effective policies to guarantee food security by Portugal and mortal famines as a consequence. Since shortly before their independence, the islands have greatly benefited from large investments in food imports which today cover 85-90% of demand, achieving a socio-economic condition in which hunger since 1949, is not, any more, a recurring phenomenon. At the same time, CV’s greater social well-being depends on processes of global development and economic growth – e.g., a global food system – which are at the basis of the global socio-ecological crisis which today again threatens not only CV’s food security. The article explores this contradictory situation, scrutinising the meaning of concepts like food sovereignty and food security, the role of local production and food trade, in the context of CV’s condition of interconnected islandness.

This contribution presents reflections and findings from "Islands 4 Future," an interdisciplinary project conducted firstly on the island of Ponza (Italy), and later transferred to other insular contexts. It involves geographers, anthropologists, and pedagogists, aiming to define a research model exploring the proactive role of younger generations in addressing the marginalization of micro-insular territories and enhancing their cultural heritage.

The research posits that challenging monoseasonal tourist exploitation and the structural weaknesses of local agency—exemplified by Ponza—requires integrating education in sustainability and environmental care with the promotion of local heritage. A forward-looking approach is essential, emphasizing the active agency of young people towards the construction of future opportunities and valorization pathways.

The project developed through five phases:
a) bibliographic research to create an interdisciplinary framework and thematic library;
b) analysis of EU, national, and regional policies on local development, marginalization, youth, and education, exploring the interaction between micro and macro levels;
c) ethnographic fieldwork in Ponza to study its specific context;
d) participatory workshops with high school students on Ponza and the Venice archipelago, including a program to create a collaborative film reflecting perceptions of the island’s cultural heritage;
e) extension of the framework to other micro-islands, such as Elba.

This research trajectory across various island contexts offers insights into the perspectives of young people on Italian small islands, both adolescents and young adults. Moreover, it creates a virtual archipelago (#OurCommonIslandFuture); an inter-island network connecting youth from different but comparable contexts. Inter-island dialogue proves vital for developing shared protocols, transferring results, and adapting the models to other cases.

The contribution highlights outcomes such as a digital atlas of Italy’s small islands and creative methodological tools developed during the process, such as participatory cartography and filmmaking. It aims to present a replicable toolkit for similar projects, recognizing that effective political strategies must shift from macro to micro scales. Empowering young people as key agents is essential for shaping sustainable futures of small islands.

Who cares? This is a timely question amidst the growing care crisis across Europe, driven by political and socio-economic changes, such as neoliberal state reforms, ageing populations, and rising living costs. The care crisis highlights the increasing precarity of care systems and labor, and stresses the impact of austerity, privatisation, and commodification of care services, and the growing deficit in informal care. It is an intersectional crisis that widens gender, racial, and socio-economic inequalities, and its far-reaching impacts affect everyone. The overarching aim of this project is to gain an in-depth and holistic understanding of how the care crisis materialises in different locations and contexts. Our main question is: how does the care crisis shape the situated, emplaced impacts and everyday experiences of social care?

Care has proven to be challenging to address, both in theory and practice. It is a complex and, at times, conflicting concept. It cuts across different dimensions of life, from daily routines to moments of crisis. Care is both paid and unpaid practices, comprising a dialectic relationship between formal services like institutional elderly care and informal support among community members. Therefore, rather than examining pre-defined conceptualisations of care, this project begins with the lived realities and experiences of the everyday. Furthermore, a critical infrastructure lens is applied, which perceives care as both a physical, material, institutional, and embodied infrastructure that sustains everyday life.

We specifically look to (small) islands for two reasons. Firstly, the pressure on social care is exacerbated due to their isolation, both physical, economic, social, and political, and significant demographic shifts. Secondly, islands' confined environments make them ideal for studying complex social phenomena and understanding local impacts of global changes, which can provide valuable insights for care in other regions. This is a longer project that will comprise three different island cases, the Faroe Islands, Lesvos (Greece), and the Wadden Islands (the Netherlands). The first empirical work will start in early spring 2025, and will provide qualitative, comprehensive and nuanced insights into the complexity of changing everyday care infrastructures and their intersections with island contexts.

The refraction of digitalisation through the lens of rural space recasts the meaning ascribed to rural digitalisation to extend beyond broadband and high-speed connectivity. This paper explores the challenges and potential of digitalisation in rural areas, particularly in the post-analogue era, where the digital divide is starkly evident and the global push for digitalisation has highlighted the tensions inherent in rural decline and degrowth. The paper aims to understand how rural communities perceive and adopt digitalisation by interviewing experts and practitioners in rural development and digital data. In such exploration, Halfacree’s (2006) threefold framework of rural space is applied, considering digitalisation through rural localities, formal representations and everyday lives. The case study is the Irish context which exemplifies the state of the rural in terms of decline on the one hand and the emerging focus on and incorporation of the digital as the way forward on the other. The research finds that while digitalisation offers transformative potential, its success depends on community needs, capacity, and a co-produced approach. The research also underscores the importance of local involvement and tailoring digital solutions to specific rural contexts.

Telemedicine is seen as having particular potential in rural regions. Where daily journeys are long for doctors and patients, it seems close at hand to overcome spatial distances using digital information and communication technologies. However, this is not the only reason why it is worth looking at telemedicine in the light of specific rural conditions. In line with other studies, my exploratory expert interviews conducted in 2022-2024 (Mettenberger 2024) showed socio-spatial divides between urban and rural regions when it comes to the hurdles and limits of telemedicine. Those divides are not only result of diverging infrastructural pre-conditions (e.g., regarding broadband or mobile coverage), but may also be constituted through the agency of doctors and other health professionals, using or not using telemedical opportunities. Especially rural general practitioners are often said to be comparatively sceptic of digital technologies, having a strong preference for face-to-face interactions. Hence, the professional self-image of being a rural doctor can be at odds with the digitalisation of everyday communication.

This is where my current empirical analysis comes in. I am interested in doctors practising in rural areas, who came into contact with video consultations or teleconsultations several years ago through initial projects or pilot schemes, having continued to use or having discarded these solutions in the subsequent period. Taking a retrospective view, I question, how these doctors assess the added value and limitations of telemedical solutions in view of the specific contextual conditions of rural surroundings. Therefore, I currently realize regional case studies in rural Germany, doing qualitative Interviews, which will be the empirical base of my conference presentation.

Based on my empirical findings, I want to argue, how the attitudes and everyday experiences of doctors at place contribute to the spread or stagnation of rural telemedicine. Thereby I relate to the theoretical backgrounds of technology acceptance research and constructivist rurality approaches on a micro level as well as work on digital divides, spatial justice and symbolic peripheralization on a macro level.

Mettenberger, Tobias (2024): Telemedizin in der ländlichen Gesundheitsversorgung - Potenziale und Hürden aus Expert:innensicht. Z'GuG 47(2):180-198, DOI:10.5771/2701-4193-2024-2-180

“What is smart development supposed to mean anyway?” was a central question phrased by participants of our interview study conducted among decision-makers and community-developers in four Estonian rural and small-town municipalities. As part of an ongoing digital transformation, the smartification debate has exponentially expanded in recent decades – with an imperative evolving around „smart development”, which is dominated by rather technology-, market- and urban-based understandings of smartness. This is particularly relevant in the context of Estonia’s rapid e-country development which strives towards the establishment of a post-digital nation. Situated at the boundaries of peripheralization, digital social innovation and smart rurality research, the results of the interview study discuss (1) how relevant and meaningful the concept of smart development is locally, (2) the alternative meanings attached to it, and (3) the needs to tailor it to the rural and small town context. As a result, we will outline alternative „edgy” discourses in rural localities that question hegemonic meanings of smart development and have hitherto remained rather invisible under the digital nation umbrella known as “e-Estonia”. This has implications not only for the ways ‘digital’ peripheries are imagined and governed in smart development processes, but also for the way we imagine smart development itself.

This article considers smart rurality within wider European debates and policies addressing innovation in peripheries, exploring the meaning of ‘smart’ through a critical reading of the smart villages concept in official communications including webpages and linked documents. In doing so, we ask how smart village is defined and differentiated amongst EU sources. The content and structure of key EU websites on smart villages are analysed, followed by a framing of the EU discourse on smart villages that seeks to characterize the problem(s) that smart rural development aims to address, its causes, effects and prescribed solutions. Partly due to the early-stage formation of the concept, a lack of richness in the discourse is found. The sources indicate a range of problem definitions and limited treatment solutions, while the causal interpretation and moral evaluation behind smart villages are both lacking. To gain a better understanding of the potentials for smartness, implementation challenges and recommendations for smart villages are discussed, drawing lessons from experiences with similar innovation and smart specialization initiatives. Finally, an outlook for conceptual development is proposed – considering distinctions between smartness as a system characteristic and as a community value – which can be used as a framework to stimulate wider thinking around the meaning of smartness. To underpin notions of weak or strong smartness in smart village strategies and projects, we point again to aspects of the framing analysis that warrant further development to better legitimize smart villages as a policy concept.

Smart(er) rural areas – Framing ‘smart villages’ for improved conceptual development and policy in the EU