While in the literature on informal greening practices in urban areas, these have often been discussed as political acts of guerilla gardening and commoning, representing a rebellion against neoliberal urban governance regimes and growth-oriented economies, in the cases from the Czech and Estonian context presented in this paper, the main protagonists experience these actions as mundane, everyday practices, or emotional acts of building connections with human and non-human beings in the city. Engaging in practices of care, production, gardening and provisioning, their modes of organisation rather follow an individualistic than a cooperative logic and at times they seek to avoid cooperation with other practitioners and institutional actors. Even though often not intended as transformative interventions and eluding the collaborative logics of commoning, the paper analyses the political consequences and transformative potential these informal greening practices might nevertheless entail, and discusses the wider implications for research and practice: What lessons can be drawn from these mundane practices for the green transition? Whose, if anybody’s, task is it to make these often hidden practices more visible, draw and communicate their political implications - and what are the potentials and risks of directing attention to these practices? We intend this paper to contribute to the debates on mundane informal practices that have hitherto received less attention but could give important insights in the light of socio-ecological transformations in the City.

Economic growth serves as a key organizing principle for urban systems, influencing processes from fiscal politics to spatial planning. However, recent findings suggest that continued reliance on growth-based development in already overconsuming geographies is likely to hinder the achievement of internationally agreed sustainability and justice targets, challenging planners to devise pathways beyond growth. Adopting an urban planning perspective, this paper explores the potential of centering 'the common good' in urban development as a foundation for post-growth municipalism. It focuses on the “Kleineschholz” district development project in Freiburg, Germany, which is being developed exclusively with actors oriented toward the common good. The involvement of community-led housing groups as key drivers in the project presents opportunities that extend beyond affordable and sustainable building to include the creation of community-led economies. Through an in-depth case study, the paper examines how the planning approach in Kleineschholz can shift local economies away from market- and growth-based principles towards sharing, inclusion, and sufficiency. At the same time, the creation of new building stock raises critical questions about its overall sustainability impacts and the generalizability of these developments. Ultimately, the findings highlight the highly context-specific nature of Kleineschholz while distilling general lessons for post-growth-oriented urban planning.

Growth-based urban development produces inequality, contributes to climate change and fails to deliver improvements in urban liveability for many urban residents. Yet, even progressive urban administrations are struggling to break away from growth dependency and to implement new models of socio-ecologically just urban development that is not based on growth. While a range of emancipatory policies and initiatives have been experimented with in recent years by progressive municipal administrations, many of them face contradictions due to continuously having to pursue growth to subsidize key public services and infrastructures, as well as to satisfy a hegemonic coalition of pro-growth elites.

It is therefore of high importance to first, better understand the growth dependencies faced by urban administrations. Second, we deem it essential to investigate the potential of municipalist postgrowth-oriented policies to contribute to breaking away from growth dependency, and to foster alternative models of urban development. These include policies around social reproduction, commoning, public provisioning, collectivizing infrastructure, housing, sufficiency, and others.

The proposed contribution introduces a framework for understanding and analysing urban growth dependencies. Moreover, I present a review of policies, interventions, and initiatives that have been implemented in municipalist cities and beyond, and how they have challenged urban growth dependencies. Finally, I present insights from a novel participatory methodology we are developing. The latter involves activists, public officials, policy makers and experts in a multi-step process aiming to understand the mechanisms trapping a specific city in growth dependency, and to identify leverage points and pathways to move beyond them. We are currently testing a pilot of this participatory methodology in the city of Girona, Catalonia. Girona is governed by a center-left coalition which has openly expressed interest in experimenting with postgrowth urban policy, and established an official collaboration agreement with several academic and other actors to explore possibilities with this regard.

From here, I want to spark discussions on our aim to create a practical toolkit for progressive municipalist administrations to effectively break with growth dependencies, work towards new, non growth-based models of urban developments and to create lasting conditions for a postgrowth spatial politics across different geographical scales.

This research is funded by the ERC, through the project REAL – A Postgrowth Deal.

There is a growing contradiction between the usual spatial and strategic planning approaches and the existential challenges of our future. Existing planning practices might innovate towards becoming more integrated, overcoming sectoral-silo thinking, taking the functional area as basis instead of planning within administrative boundaries, striving for better multi-level governance cooperation. However, it is very rare that spatial planning considers the limits of growth. The main question of the paper is how traditional planning can be confronted with ideas for resilience, which seem to be needed to avoid the worst climate and environmental consequences of the future. In other words, how traditional planning can be opened up to alternative futures, based on space-specific considerations how economic growth as the main objective can be replaced by focusing on sufficiency, equity and human wellbeing.

In some innovative urban areas already now traces of self-limiting future planning strategies can be found, regarding future trends in the building-housing sector (regeneration instead of new construction), in the spatial planning of new development opportunities (decentralisation, no more land take, TOD), in transport issues (accessibility instead of mobility), in green and blue infrastructure (ecological fairness), in social inequality issues (public services for all), etc. Examples can also be found on innovative elements of planning and implementation of the new ideas, using more inclusive methods of debate (citizen assemblies) and more open governance patterns (functional linkages across metropolitan areas).

Such elements of self-limiting, resiliency oriented future thinking are usually in experimental stage. Even so, they can be used as disruptive ideas to shake traditional spatial planning practices. In a first step planners of an urban area can be confronted with these unusual practices. From their reactions first hypotheses can be raised on the potential ‘resilience flexibility’ of the given urban planning system (which is obviously not the same as the political flexibility of future decisions).

The paper aims to develop the details of such a ‘resilience check’ of metropolitan planning systems. As a concrete application this analysis takes place in six Central European metropolitan areas in the spring of 2025 in the framework of an ongoing Interreg CE project.

This paper draws attention to the importance of temporal infrastructures as barriers to a just, post-growth transformation of societies in the face of planetary crisis. By placing the focus on time and temporalities, the paper argues that the prevailing international political economy perpetuates barriers to exiting planetary crisis towards a more ecologically sustainable societal relationship with nature. The paper outlines a model of the complex and nested temporalities in contemporary political economy and society. It identifies four key path-dependent and nested temporalities crucial for the scholarship of transition infrastructures: (1) geological time, (2) world-history time, (3) Capitalinian time, and (4) digital time.

This paper examines the specific role of digital time. It argues that irrespective of ‘efficiencies’ promised by digital transformation, as long as contemporary digital temporalities exist within the existing political economy of compounding economic growth on a planet with biophysical limits, the character of digital time will always take the form of encouraging and increasing acceleration. Thus, the paper draws on concepts of ‘dynamic stabilisation’ of mature capitalist economies (Rosa et al 2017), its material and environmental impacts (Taffel 2022), along with the social acceleration and acceleration of the pace of life deepened by digital media (Rosa 2013; Wajcman 2022, 2015). It explores how continued social acceleration through digital temporalities can be exemplified in the so-called AI ‘revolution’. This critical approach to digital temporalities reveals how the primary function of AI is to increase efficiency and productivity, offering faster speed/pace of research, learning, and creative outputs, all within an existing ‘business as usual’ political economy centred on maximising growth and productivity, while ignoring the continued material impacts of these infrastructures.

The paper concludes that temporal infrastructures in the digital age require urgent attention. This would enhance understanding of how societies transition away from growth and ‘efficiency models’ that merely ‘fix’ environmental issues in time and space, towards ‘sufficiency’ models where traditionally marginalised activities of care, conviviality and collaboration are favoured as more socially necessary than GDP growth. It concludes by advocating a Global Commons approach to systemic transformation that takes account of uneven geographical harms of planetary crisis.

Cities have gained increasing attention in the debate on how to tackle the global environmental crisis. However, urban strategies for sustainability have often been criticized for being insufficient in effectively mitigating environmental impacts due to externalisation and cost-shifting, and for producing social contradictions, such as ecological gentrification. Rather than considering these critiques as reasons to abandon ecological urban transformations, this article advocates for the right to the ecological city, for which the goals of ecological sustainability and social justice need to be reconciled through a degrowth strategy based on the principles of sufficiency, reuse and sharing. However, this theoretical framework encounters several challenges in urban practice. These challenges are discussed through the author’s lens as an observant participant in the Fondazione di Comunità Porta Palazzo, a community foundation involved in the transformation of the neighbourhoods of Aurora and Porta Palazzo in Turin, Italy, through projects focused on public space and housing, such as the realisation of Italy's first Community Land Trust. The discussion of these challenges suggests that while the right to the ecological city is a hard to achieve, it remains an important goal in the transformation of cities and neighbourhoods, one that must rely on structural change driven by diverse actors across multiple scales.

This paper examines the move from growth to post growth infrastructures. It begins briefly sketching out the ways in which conventional infrastructure is often conceived as engines of growth, driven by logics of growth and configured accordingly. A situation that has conditioned the vast majority of the infrastructural networks through which any transition must be conducted. Some of these infrastructures may be suitable to the task and some suitable for reconfiguration either through alternative use, reuse or shifting governance regimes. Other infrastructures, however, may generate path dependencies and barriers to transition that need to be addressed through regulating, abandoning and allowing the decline of those less suitable to a world without growth. Planning, at the local, city, regional and national scale, emerges as a key practice through which decisions about which infrastructures are suitable, how they may be governed or allowed to decline can be made in dialogue with the publics (human, non-human, and those yet born). Decisions about which, where and when infrastructures are appropriate for the necessary transition away from the consequences of regimes oriented towards growth are often finely balanced and context specific. Thus, planning offers a granular working out of the process of transition often absent when such issues are considered at the abstract level of the economy, ecology or society. Instead, it offers a, albeit messy (in the absence of techno, modernist, neoliberal or populist ‘fixes’ to the problems infrastructures are constituted to solve) mechanism through which both traditional governance bodies, citizens and infrastructural publics can learn to live well among the ruins of growth.

Increasingly, studies and projects declare areas of different scales as “left-behind“, ranging from neighbourhood to whole countries, while often neglecting the perspective of local population. Instead of setting container spaces and measuring aspects such as (im)mobility and migration inside these containers, we plea for an actual place-based perspective, which first examines the perspective of local population on their place of living, and its development, and only then measures their perceived “left-behindness“ and its influence on their (im)mobility aspirations.
Based on a mixed methods approach that combines data from the Re-Place survey and qualitative interviews, we analyse the impact of “left-behindness“ on the intention to stay. Our understanding of “left-behindness” goes beyond a mere statistical categorization but rather includes the perception of development on the local (municipality) level through the eyes of their inhabitants.We therefore developed an index which measures perceived local development. By employing regression analysis, we show the extent of self-perceived “left-behindness“ on a personal expectation to stay. To expand our research, we conducted in-depth interviews with the local population in a German municipality containing different (im)mobility groups. The perspectives of permanent/long-term stayers, returnees, as well as internal and international immigrants were analysed with qualitative content analysis. They revealed how one´s own perception of municipality development impacts future aspirations to stay.
This paper argues for a more sensitive implementation of the “left-behind” places concept in academic research by highlighting the importance of a people-centred place-based approach. It brings differentiation to the discussion about (im)mobility in “left-behind“ places by focusing on people as agents and not only seeing them as involuntary stayers.

The paper examines feelings of place attachment among immigrants and returnees in several European countries. We ask what kind of influences international mobility has on levels of place attachment. While leaving can disrupt the bonds of place attachment, returning can reinforce them, potentially leading to returnees having a stronger sense of place attachment compared to natives with no mobility experiences. On the other hand, some returnees might find that they no longer feel at home after return. We ask whether living in a new country is systematically linked with weaker levels of place attachment and whether return does indeed reinforce and strengthen individuals’ bonds to their places of origin. We also explore how a large array of other important determinants of place attachment, e.g., socio-economic status, employment, social capital, duration and movements in and out of the locality, locality characteristics and individuals’ perceptions about the locality moderate and mediate the relationship between migration status and place attachment. In developing and interpreting our model results, we rely on several theoretical frameworks, such as place identity, social capital, social integration, and transnationalism.

We explore these questions using data from the 2024 Re-Place survey, a survey on nationally representative online panels for Germany, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, and Spain. The survey also included oversamples of returnees and immigrants, allowing for more in-depth analyses and conclusions regarding these groups and comparisons with natives with no international migration experience.

We pay particular attention to the construction of a cross-nationally comparable, multi-dimensional measure of place attachment, by employing a confirmatory factor analysis approach and tests of cross-national measurement invariance. We then construct a series of regression models adding blocks of predictors in a sequential order (hierarchical regressions) aimed at disentangling the role of other predictors in explaining the relationship between mobility status and place attachment.

The investigation of migration aspirations has a long tradition in migration studies, but the topic has benefited from a substantial increase in attention during the last decade. This is connected with the rise in interest in predicting international flows as well as with finding out more about the determinants of migration. The recent increase in interest for aspirations to internationally migrate is paralleled in migration studies by the interest in immobility. Immobility is more and more conceptualized not only as the reference for mobility (rather the result of difficulties or lack of resources to migrate), but also as a voluntary choice.

Starting from these recent developments, we formulated our research questions: what are the determinants of the preferences for international migration or stay (understood here as non-international migration)? How does the previous own experience with international migration (i.e. being a non-international migrant; an immigrant or a returnee) impact these preferences?

We explore these questions using data from the 2024 Re-Place survey, a survey on nationally representative online samples for Germany, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, and Spain. The survey also included oversamples of returnees and immigrants, allowing for more in-depth analyses and conclusions regarding these groups and comparisons with natives with no international migration experience.

Our preliminary results, based on multiple regressions models, show that immigrants and returnees are more likely to express preferences for residence in another country, compared to natives, with immigrants being more likely than returnees to prefer to move.

Even after controlling for relevant socio-demographic characteristics, the presence of relatives abroad is a factor that increases the likelihood of expressing preferences for future international mobility.

In accordance with the previous studies, our analyses indicate well-being and place attachment as a pair of factors that lower the probability of a future international move. The same pair of factors (well-being and place attachment) play an important role in the decision to not internationally migrate, with place attachment playing a more important role.

Left-behind regions in Europe are often characterized as areas from which people — particularly the younger population — tend to migrate, primarily due to limited employment opportunities, especially in advanced sectors. These regions face challenges of progressive depopulation driven by out-migration and aging populations. To date, regional development policies have struggled to reverse these trends. However, emerging “weak signals” suggest the possibility of alternative futures for such areas.
This paper adopts a theoretical framework centred on human mobility and explores diverse mobility patterns to identify and interpret these “weak signals.” We conduct a comparative analysis of 12 case studies across six EU countries (Germany, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, and Spain), leveraging insights from key stakeholders, including representatives of institutions, businesses, and local communities. Our study examines the local factors influencing individuals' decisions to stay, move, or return, with a focus on dynamics that extend beyond purely economic considerations. By doing so, we aim to classify left-behind areas based on varying types of (im)mobilities.
The findings presented in this paper stem from preliminary results of research conducted as part of the Horizon Europe Re-Place project (https://replace-horizon.eu/).

Studies on diverse mobilities provide a broader holistic understanding of how mobilities impact social and economic life in left-behind areas. Spatial mobilities encompass a wide range of movements, including daily commuting, residential mobility, return, internal, circular mobility, international migration and geographical and spatialised mobilities related to life transitions (Geist & McManus, 2008; Kesselring, 2014; Greene & Rau, 2018). This innovative approach is used in the Horizon Europe project RE-PLACE to understand the experiences of people living in left-behind areas. The literature highlights the importance of spatial exclusion and its impact on social and economic structures in left-behind areas. Grasping the dynamics of mobilities or immobilities in left-behind areas hinges on a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted nature of mobility and its far-reaching impact on various societal aspects. As a result, there is a need to examine the dynamics of (im)mobility at various scales and understand the experiences of individuals in these areas.

The study's findings reveal a complex interplay of factors shaping mobility profiles in the two case study areas in Latvia, with significant implications for local development and policy-making. Everyday substantive forms of mobility emerged as a critical theme, highlighting residents' routine travel behaviours and reliance on various modes of transportation. Limited public transportation options, particularly in rural and peripheral regions, often force residents to depend on private vehicles, creating disparities in accessibility based on income and car ownership.

The availability and quality of amenities also play a significant role in shaping mobility patterns. Participants highlighted challenges such as insufficient healthcare services, educational institutions, and cultural facilities within reasonable distances. These deficits compel residents to travel longer distances, exacerbating mobility inequalities and contributing to feelings of marginalisation.

Left-behind places are characterized by limited socio-economic opportunities, often reflected in restricted access to stable, well-paid employment due to local labor market constraints. These limitations may also manifest in other forms, such as inadequate educational resources or negative peer influences. An expected consequence is reduced intergenerational social mobility, where children raised in these areas frequently attain lower socio-economic status compared to their peers elsewhere.

This study investigates whether spatial mobility—through either moving or commuting—can serve as a strategy to counteract the disadvantages of growing up and living in left-behind places, and facilitate upward social mobility. Both forms of spatial mobility have the potential to mitigate the constraints of regional opportunity structures and contribute to individual socio-economic advancement.

In my presentation, I will explore the interplay between intergenerational social mobility, residential relocation, and commuting. Using comprehensive data from the Czech Household Panel Study, supplemented with contextual information on childhood and adulthood places of residence, I examine how social status achievement is influenced by the interaction of family background, early-life residence, and spatial mobility in adulthood. Particular emphasis is placed on individuals originating from left-behind places, shedding light on the spatial mechanisms that shape and potentially disrupt regional inequality in opportunity.

In the face of economic decline and rural depopulation, regions like Beiras e Serra da Estrela in Portugal are striving to revitalize their communities and combat their “left-behindness”. This presentation focuses on the policies and actions taken by the local government in the mid-sized city of Fundão, and how they successfully attracted new investments and new residents in a period of 10 years.

Local investment focused initially on business attraction strategies, generating employment opportunities for a labour force from abroad. Newcomers came with different backgrounds, expectations, capacities and needs, putting some pressure on local authorities for renewed integration and social cohesion policies. Inspired by other European cities, Fundão embraced the opportunity and built an awarded ecosystem for migrants’ integration[1] and autonomy that is recognized by both, migrant, and hosting communities.

Today, Fundão has a thriving migrant community that includes qualified workers in high tech jobs, lifestyle migrants, digital nomads, low skilled seasonal workers and international students. These migrants have changed the landscape of the city, adding new local shops, permaculture farms, religious sites and migrants’ associative movements.

For this presentation, data from the 2011 and 2021 Population Census was analysed, 20 in depth interviews with key stakeholders were conducted, including migrants’ organizations and registered businesses. Then, 8 focus groups with migrants and a World café to discuss some recommendations were held.

Participants shared their experiences, highlighting the barriers and strategies in achieving autonomy and their expectations for the future. Findings indicate that along with covering basic needs and rights as housing and employment, migrants are improving their social life, want to mix more with the Portuguese community, show their culture and live as new and full citizens of Fundão

The example of Fundão demonstrates how the local investment in welcoming a diverse workforce of migrants promotes positive leadership and successfully boosts the rural development process, well beyond issues of integration. This study highlights the importance of articulated local policies that promote the mix autonomous migrants and nationals in shared goals, in strengthening community connections and enabling migrants to not only adapt, but also support others and excel.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/just/items/795863/en

The proposed contribution considers the presence of foreign citizens in Italian left behind areas – with respect to which depopulation is a crucial issue (Albrecht et al., 2022) – as a potential resource for their repopulation and socioeconomic revitalisation (Membretti et al., 2022). In particular, I focus on people seeking international protection who, as a consequence of Italian migration policies and reception system, have been placed to live – not by choice – in these marginal areas. A strategy that combines the efforts in terms of repopulation, with a vision that wants the so-called integration of these people in small towns to be ‘easier’.

The logic that sees foreign nationals as resources for these areas, however, risks reducing their presence to a utilitarian purpose that reflects colonial approaches. In this sense, Mezzadra (2019) defines ‘reception logistics’ as the rationality that combines, in the migrant reception system in Italy, economic calculation, humanitarian logic, control and military logic with the aim of governing mobility in order to channel it to certain places and according to specific interests.

This contribution investigates the mobile sense of place (Butcher, 2010) of migrants. In particular, the following questions are central: what does it mean to move, live, work and operate in peripheral territories for these people? What kind of perceptions, representations and lived experiences do they have of peripheral areas? The contribution presents the results of interviews and mental mapping of two case studies located in mountainous areas of Abruzzo (Italy).

Albrecht, M., Halonen, M., Syssner, J. (2023). “Depopulation and shrinkage in a Northern context: geographical perspectives, spatial processes and policies”, Fennia - International Journal of Geography, 200(2), 91-97.

Butcher, M. (2010). From ‘fish out of water’ to ‘fitting in’: the challenge of re-placing home in a mobile world, Popul. Space Place, 16 (1), pp. 23-36.

Membretti, A., Dax, T., Krasteva, A. (2022). The Renaissance of Remote Places. MATILDE Manifesto, Routledge.

Mezzadra, S. (2022). “Logistica, mobilità e migrazioni. Un’agenda emergente per la ricerca sulle migrazioni?”, in Cuppini N., Peano, I., Un mondo logistico: Sguardi critici su lavoro, migrazioni, politica e globalizzazione, Milano, Ledizioni, 45‑62.

In the wake of the crisis that began in 2008, the issue of housing - especially evictions and, as a consequence, apartment occupations - has become a matter of growing social concern.

While eviction processes were a recurrent problem in the last decade, when the economy began to recover, difficulties in accessing affordable housing became a central issue in the political and social debate in Spain. The shortage of social housing due to the lack of public investment in housing construction, together with the pressure exerted on cities by the development of tourist housing platforms, which have expanded at an accelerated pace, contribute to stressing the residential market and are an exponent of social and economic inequalities.

In this context of serious difficulties associated with residential insecurity, this paper aims to approach the processes of marginalization and fragmentation in the city of Barcelona, one of the most affected by housing problems, based on a study of housing occupation in different neighborhoods of the city. The analysis of housing ads in the most important real estate portals, such as Idealista, allows us to identify the areas most affected by this problem and to characterize the housing typologies in the case of Barcelona. The results highlight the dissymmetries between different neighborhoods and show the geographies of the processes of residential exclusion.

In the current context of scarcity of affordable housing stock, local governments have regained the interest in neighbourhoods characterised by decaying mass housing estates at the margin of the metropolitan core. However, persistent issues of social exclusion among their residents, along with high degree of social stigmatisation, significantly hinder the success of long-term urban regeneration and redevelopment processes. This paper analyses whether urban fragmentation is being consolidated in this type of neighbourhoods even if significant metropolitan-scale interventions have been undertaken.

To this end, this contribution focuses on the urban sector between the Fòrum-Besòs and La Mina neighbourhood in the core of the metropolitan area of Barcelona. Since the 2000s, this area has been defined by traditional mass housing estates undergoing a long and complex transformation programme, as well as the extension of the Diagonal axis to the Mediterranean Sea. This last intervention has both included the development of high-profile cultural facilities and led to a redesign of the seafront.

Using a mixed-method approach—including socio-economic data analysis, formal analysis of urban fabric, semi-structured interviews, and guided walks with key stakeholders and residents of these neighbourhoods—this paper examines both the evolution of persistent forms of marginality and the physical and mental urban barriers that reshape these urban spaces. The findings from this case study in Barcelona encourage a discussion of how urban regeneration processes, which aim to transform consolidated urban fabrics and promote greater social integration of marginalised neighbourhoods, may paradoxically lead to the emergence of new forms of urban fragmentation. On the one hand, social marginality may be reproduced in certain parts of the stigmatised neighbourhoods; on the other, stakeholders and residents identify new barriers that delineate contrasting urban fragments.

Since the mid-2010s, the difficulties in accessing housing, whether through ownership or rental, have been increasing, to the point that the housing issue has now become the main social problem for Spaniards. This situation, in addition to fostering housing exclusion, is driving processes of segregation and residential fragmentation. In this context, several regulatory texts have been approved in recent years with the aim of reversing the situation. The recent 2023 Housing Law, passed by the Spanish Parliament, opens the possibility of declaring areas with regulated rents (zonas tensionadas) to control rental prices.
This contribution aims to highlight the housing emergency currently unfolding in Spain and to analyze one of the most controversial measures: the declaration of areas with regulated rents. Using secondary statistical sources, regulatory analysis, and the study of reports, the goal is to provide a concise overview of the severity of the problem and its causes, the principles and instruments involved in declaring these new areas, and the results that have been achieved so far.

One of Hägerstrand's main contributions to the study of daily activities was the development of a technique that allows for the three-dimensional representation of practices through space-time prisms (Hägerstrand, 1970). These prisms form the contexts in which individuals carry out their daily lives. The so-called Geographies of Everyday Life (GEL) constitute a widely explored field within the analysis of socio-spatial relations in urban spaces. Academically, this has been approached from four key perspectives: mobility, places, settings, and routines or patterns (Lindón, 2006). However, these analytical perspectives often overlook the meanings, motivations, and contexts underlying individual decisions regarding the potential range of available activities (Ellegård, 1999). In fact, Hägerstrand’s prisms have been criticized for their focus on observable events, neglecting the subjectivity of individuals, as well as their experiences and internal motivations, a limitation acknowledged by the author himself (Hägerstrand, 1978).

The aim of this presentation is to analyse the daily lives of 16 individuals with diverse profiles selected from extreme neighbourhoods in a medium-sized Spanish city (Lleida), neighbourhoods previously identified based on radically opposed socioeconomic characteristics (Bellet et al., 2024). The analysis is carried out through the construction of space-time prisms that incorporate contextual elements transcending traditional geographical analysis. These prisms are constructed using weekly GPS tracking, complemented by interviews conducted with the same individuals.

Thus, this study proposes moving beyond Hägerstrand’s original prism framework, exploring the possibility of integrating additional contexts that characterize everyday activities (Ellegård, 1999). Such contexts are essential to understand the processes of segregation and social exclusion that extend beyond the residential space (Bertrand & Chevalier, 1998). Through this methodological approach, the study seeks to illustrate, using space-time lines, a reflection on the shared urban spaces by the subject of study beyond their strict localization.

In an increasingly fragmented urban reality, do shared urban spaces exist that facilitate interaction between socially differentiated groups? Could such spaces become repositories of shared contexts?

Our long term project concentrate on local housing markets in Hungarian regional centres. As a part of this project we focused on the changing urban (and suburban) space of our cities and their functional urban areas. To deepen our knowledge in this area, we used the detailed dataset of National Census (2011, 2022) in the case of Szeged, to see, how the suburbanisation process is going on.

Comparing to other regional centres, in Szeged, the suburbanisation (as relative deconcentration of inhabitants, housing, urban activities, workplaces etc.) did not mean an emergence of small settlement inside the FUR of the city, but mostly a dynamic deconcentration process inside the administrative borders.

In a wider historical context, we identified symbolic ‘borders’ in the urban area and hot spots of social marginalisation (segregated zones) before the transformation (at the end of socialistic period till the end of the 1980s). We made data-analysis and case-study research in the related areas, concentrating the changing movement of symbolic borders.

The most important result were:

• the segregated zones were partly demolished, but relocated inside the continuous residential areas of the city.
• the symbolic borders were moving out comparing its former location (the “Dam”), eliminating the differences in lifestyle between traditional and new residential zones. The new border of marginalisation laying in between built up areas and scattered farmsteads and some of former gardening zones at 2022.
• The symbolic borders in the minds of local residents living much longer, than the data-analysis suggest, even in the case of local decision makers and professionals (developers, urbanists, housing market actors).

The processes of economic transformation are causing significant changes in the industrial structure - resulting in the decline and closure of numerous large workplaces. In the cities, hitherto developed based on industry, extensive zones of disused factories and devastated post-industrial buildings are emerging. In parallel, there are profound functional changes occurring in urban centres: a major increase in the significance of service functions is taking place, particularly in commerce, including large-scale retail.

The previous trend of urban population growth is turning into stagnation and permanent depopulation - zones of decapitalised and deprived housing are emerging in the Upper Silesian conurbation. Internal migration (local and regional) shifts the population of Upper Silesian urban centres into the surrounding and more remote, but attractive rural areas. The balance of external migration, with the largest metropolises in Poland and abroad, is also negative.

New housing is only being developed in selected parts of the most important urban centres, mostly in open areas previously used for agriculture, and more rarely on regenerated brownfield areas.

New economic ventures associated with the established Special Industrial Zone are located entirely in the outer zones of the conurbation's cities, using previously uninvested areas (so-called greenfields).

The revitalisation and development activities undertaken do not keep pace with the processes of decapitalisation of residential, service and industrial facilities. The process of local marginalisation of many parts of cities is progressing - as a result, symptoms of progressive fragmentation of the urban environment of the Upper Silesian conurbation are appearing.

The aim of the paper is to show that socio-economic and cultural phenomena combined with the process of marginalisation in local systems (in cities, urban agglomerations) result (among other things) in the fragmentation of urban spaces and the growing development problems of such urban centres. Overcoming the negative changes in the urban space structure of the urban centres of the Upper Silesian conurbation requires long-term external intervention combined with intensive public sector development and the introduction of new growth impulses.

In our presentation we intend to present some basic constitutive elements of geographical marginality concept and how it is similar and different from the concept of peripheral areas in the Center-Periphery model. As geographical marginnality is a result of marginalisation we intennd to describe some of the most important drivers of marginalisation wiith special focus on the marginalisation processes that are changing existing or new urban areas into areas marked with marginalised social groups and the kind of spatial transformation that the presence of predominantly marginalised population causes.

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.

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.

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 recent years urban scholarship has framed cities, particularly in the ‘global south’, in contrasting ways overlooking some of the more grounded realities in these cities. On one hand scholars have viewed the Third World city as a site of unprecedented extraction, subjugation and marginalisation (Lees, Shin and López Morales, 2016; Roy 2009; Watson 2014). This view asserts that cities in the global south have become the sites of accumulation of global capital flows through the dispossession of a majority of its residents (Anjaria and McFarlane 2011; Bayat, 2012; Harvey, 2010; Varley 2013). Another perspective however, views the same urban centres to enable productive reconfigurations of space, politics, economy and social relations . In other words, this view holds that majority of urban residents albeit in situations of marginalisation are resilient and agents of productive change. Both these views however view marginality as urban exceptions that need to be remedied. Both these views perpetuate Euro-centric gaze of urbanity and overlook the existent ontologies of city making. Drawing on more recent works, this paper focusing on the question of ‘how people live in the city’ to query the dominant practices of ‘housing’ that shape urban space and society (Banerjee, 2022; 2023). By dominant practices of ‘housing’, this paper first critically reflects housing developmentalism that often roll out through provision of certain kinds of welfare housing, establishment of (carceral) housing such as institutional shelters, and productions of exclusions (such as cut off dates). In doing so, the paper also counters the popular understanding of the Third World city where the ‘slum’ works a a metonym of its global representation. Focusing attention on the unhoused-inhabitation, i.e. practices of dwelling in urban spaces and built environments outside the formal structure of what is popularly known as a house, this paper offers two epistemologies about overlooked cityness. One it counters that conflation of house and home that has majorly crept into the hegemonic understanding of housing and two it counters western translations of ‘homelessness’ to govern and manage unhoused populations in the Third World city.

The concept of “left behindness” offers novel insights into the long-lasting debates on territorial inequalities by establishing a nexus between spatial marginalization and a feeling of neglect among the inhabitants (Lang and Görmar 2019; MacKinnon, Béal, and Leibert 2024). The predominant perspective among leading authors such as Rodriguez-Pose (Rodríguez-Pose 2018; 2020) or Dijkstra (Dijkstra, Poelman, and Rodríguez-Pose 2020), aligns this phenomenon with the voting patterns of right-wing populist, anti-establishment parties and situates these primarily in areas designated as rural or post-industrial.

We argue that the concept exhibits deficiencies at this nexus, as it goes hand in hand with a dichotomous understanding of urban prosperity and rural/post-industrial decline. This produces a “blind spot” concerning territorial inequality, detaching the discussion from similar dynamics unfolding in prosperous metropolitan centres, where neighbourhoods with high concentrations of low-income, migrant, and racialized populations also endure economic stagnation and underinvestment (Nijman and Wei 2020). Taking electoral results as a point of departure as well as equalizing territorial neglect and the feeling of discontent with a specific voting behaviour is simplifying complex narratives and everyday struggles of residents in deprived areas. It risks obscuring the intricacies of positionalities as well as the multi-faced strategies employed by individuals in these areas. Moreover, it may perpetuate the framing of inequality by right-wing populist parties, disregarding the experiences of migrants and racialized communities who encounter similar challenges and are additionally confronted with stigmatization, being portrayed as "the problem," or made invisible (Bhambra 2017; Isakjee and Lorne 2019).

This paper proposes an intersectional ethnographic approach to enhance the concept by including the thus understudied realities of migrant and racialized residents in so called “left behind places”. Building on the insights from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the (post-)industrial town of Ternitz, Austria, it showcases differing effects of territorial inequality as well as the different forms of narratives and coping strategies employed by residents. We argue that an intersectional perspective on so called “left behind places”, is key to deepening the understanding of territorial inequality and promoting a holistic approach towards spatial justice (Barbieri et al. 2019).

Literature

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Dijkstra, Lewis, Hugo Poelman, and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose. 2020. ‘The Geography of EU Discontent’. Regional Studies 54 (6): 737–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2019.1654603.

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MacKinnon, Danny, Vincent Béal, and Tim Leibert. 2024. ‘Rethinking “Left-behind” Places in a Context of Rising Spatial Inequalities and Political Discontent’. Regional Studies 58 (6): 1161–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2023.2291581.

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Like other post-Soviet urban spaces, Armenian cities were once shaped by Soviet industrial logic. The design of industrial infrastructures, housing, public spaces, and other public and functional areas reflected the socialist organization of industry and society. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia's once-powerful industrial system fell apart, leaving these cities exposed to new forces and power struggles. Elites—including oligarchs and criminal groups—compete for control, while ordinary citizens remain on the margins, grappling with the ruins of their former industrial past and struggling to survive in an uncertain future. In this contested urban landscape, the remnants of Soviet-era industrial glory remain—crumbling, long-abandoned skeletons of factories and infrastructure. Public spaces, once central to communal life, have been privatized and repurposed for narrow, commercial interests, while the streets, courtyards, and squares of the past have been swallowed by the uninspired architecture of profit-driven ventures. Nostalgic voids interrupt the modern cityscape, creating a stark contrast between what was and what is.

The ordinary citizen finds themselves alienated amid the weakening of central authority. Left with little choice, they assume responsibility for their survival, sometimes joining the struggle for resources and influence on their level. The citizen also becomes a participant in reshaping the city, contributing to a new, complex power dynamic that defines this post-Soviet urban reality. Armenian towns have become arenas of both conflict and indifference between three key players: the ordinary citizen, the new power elites, and the state. Through their interactions, a new urban morphology has emerged—a layered, often conflicted, subordination of spaces, each acquiring new meanings and functions.

We seek to explore the transformative biography of Armenia’s small industrial towns, examining how their urban forms and functions have been redefined in the post-Soviet era. By analyzing the biography of Armenian towns we aim to shed light on the actors’ cognitive and behavioural practices of legitimation of new morphologies and the reinterpretation of spaces and their spatial subordination.

In the Dutch and European context, intermediate cities could be considered examples of ‘overlooked urbanities’. The Netherlands is a country with only few large cities, but many intermediate cities. These cities are modest in terms of population, economy and available services, but they have a vital importance as regional centres and intermediaries between metropolitan areas and less urbanized parts of the country. In the coming decades they will also play a key role in solving the Dutch housing shortage. Still, such cities lack the research attention they would deserve from urban studies scholars, and they have to struggle for acknowledgement in national urban and regional development policies.

Recently and in the coming years, many of these intermediate cities have developed or are developing large-scale urban transformation projects. Typical locations of such projects are former industrial and business areas and railway zones adjacent to historic inner cities. The scale and complexity of these projects, while meanwhile quite common in large cities, are unprecedented in intermediate cities, and may fundamentally change these cities in many ways. This results in debates and controversies about the shapes and dimensions of these projects (e.g. densification, verticality) and whether such developments fit well enough in an intermediate city context.

Alkmaar is an intermediate city in which a large-scale urban redevelopment project is currently being developed. Alkmaar is a central city in its own city-region, while being situated in the ‘agglomeration shadow’ of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area at the same time. The city is being crossed by the Noordhollands Kanaal, constructed in the 19^th century to connect Amsterdam with the North Sea. Until the 1960s, the canal was at the city edge and featured a mix of farms, factories and typical urban fringe activities. Meanwhile, though, it is in the middle of the city instead. First plans to redevelop parts of the canal waterfront were developed in the 1990s and 2000s, but a comprehensive redevelopment vision and strategy was developed more recently. The ‘Alkmaars Kanaal’ plan should result in several mixed-use residential, business and leisure areas along the canal, including 15,000 new dwellings for about 30,000 people. This paper will discuss: how and why this plan emerged; how it has been received and discussed in local society; how it has developed and changed in response to societal and political changes and unforeseen obstacles along the way; and to what extent its high ambition level can be realized.

This contribution is set within the framework of social-nature studies (Castree & Braun, 2001) and climate security studies (Diez et al., 2016; von Lucke 2020). Its aim is to investigate what kind of nature is framed and understood in climate change policy, with which purposes, and with what socio-ecological effects.

Through a policy analysis, this contribution investigates and discusses typologies of “nature” and their use in international climate policy settings. In particular, the analysis considers the period between 2015, when Paris Agreement was approved, and 2024 when the Baku Conference of Parties took place. Aspects of consumption and reductionism are especially considered, seeking to understand how the concept of nature is instrumentalised within climate policies and how this represents a reiteration of the anthropocentric perspective on climate change and its solutions. Within this discussion, a further key of analysis is adopted, offered by climate security studies. In particular, the work considers how “nature” and “climate” are functional to security-oriented narratives.

What emerges is that a paradigm shift has taken place with Paris Agreement that sees “nature” increasingly at the centre of the climate change debate and security-oriented discourse. In particular, two new ways of looking at nature have been found. The first sees nature as a "tool" for adaptation and mitigation policies, to promote the construction of “hybrid” geographies in which the boundaries between nature and society are questioned and redefined. This includes the increasing claims to adopt nature-based solutions or natural climate solutions. The second addresses the “loss of nature”, opening a debate on the loss and damage mechanism and the risks to human security.

This contribution presents an initial analysis of a novel approach to managing Nature-based Solutions (NbS) through the lens of Vegetal Geography. NbS, which encompass efforts to protect, conserve, restore and sustainably use the environment, pose significant challenges for local governments. Often launched with temporary funding from higher institutions such as ministries or the European Union, these initiatives require long-term integration into local policy strategies. Local governments continually face resource constraints and bureaucratic barriers that hinder the transformative potential of NbS. These solutions rely on collaborative governance involving public administrations, private companies, NGOs and citizens.
Vegetal geography, the study of plants and their interactions with their environment, offers new insights into the complex relationships between plant species and humans. This research shows how Vegetal Geography challenges traditional views of plants and recognises them as having their own agency. In terms of public policy, Vegetal Geography can propose an alternative management model that ensures a long-term vision for NbS. By incorporating these perspectives, policy makers could develop policies that strengthen the connection between people and the environment, thereby supporting the sustainability of different ecosystems, including urban ones.

European cities increasingly adopt innovative planning tools to address the climate transition, redefining the city-nature relationship while advancing urban planning methodologies. Approximately 60% of Europe’s population resides in small and medium-sized cities (10,000–250,000 inhabitants) (Selada et al., 2010), which often contend with climate challenges while lacking sufficient resources. These cities frequently rely on external funding through competitive tenders to embed adaptation and mitigation strategies into ordinary planning frameworks, fostering sustainable development and resilience.

This study investigates the interaction between local communities and green spaces, alongside interpretations of nature within climate adaptation plans of medium-sized Italian cities. It identifies urban spaces embodying distinct approaches to urban nature, contrasting conservation efforts with the development of “new natures” aimed at mitigating heat, improving drainage, and enhancing biodiversity. Urban planning’s historical emphasis on hygiene has evolved into a systemic perspective, encompassing biodiversity preservation, urban drainage, and recreational objectives. From Howard’s Garden City to contemporary strategies, green spaces have consistently been integral to enhancing urban living conditions.

Climate adaptation and mitigation policies, particularly those under competitive tenders, frequently adopt experimental approaches (Bulkeley and Broto, 2013; Caprotti and Cowley, 2016). Assessing the socio-ecological efficacy of such experiments is critical. Drawing upon the concept of Social Nature (Castree and Braun, 2001) and Urban Political Ecology (Heynen et al., 2005), this research examines the ideological and practical frameworks shaping nature-based interventions. It focuses on the socionatures (Swyngedouw, 1998) constructed by these strategies and critically evaluates their social and political ramifications, particularly inequalities emerging from spatial and design decisions.

The methodology employs a comparative analysis of climate transition strategies in medium-sized cities in northern Italy, developed through a shared funding framework. It explores the commodification of nature in climate policies, the rebranding of urban identities, and the socionatures that transform human-nature interactions. Furthermore, it evaluates how global climate objectives are localized to address specific conservation, enhancement, and reproduction needs of natural elements. By examining localized climate strategies, this study contributes to understanding how global and continental policies are translated into local actions, addressing the diverse requirements of communities and territories.

This presentation focuses on the Pančevo Marshes, an area north of the Danube River in Belgrade, Serbia’s capital and biggest city. This area was a virtually uninhabited floodplain of the Danube and Tamiš rivers until the early 20^th century. Like many other wetland areas, it too was considered a wasteland, which led to plans for “reclamations” and “improvement” through infrastructural development. Over the course of several decades, approximately 90 km of embankments were constructed to protect the floodplain from seasonal flooding of the Danube and the Tamiš, 600 km of canals were dug to regulate the groundwater level, and several pumps were installed to pump excess water out of the area. Following these changes, small sections of wetlands remain in the Pančevo Marshes, yet there are constant pressures that may destroy these ecosystems. These pressures range from plans to create new industrial zones and port terminals through landfilling, to illegal construction of weekend houses and gravel exploitation lots along the Danube, to omnipresent wastewater dumping that causes pollution. Some residents of the Pančevo Marshes organize with the aim of protecting the remaining wetlands. Instead of unbridled development and attendant corruption, they propose the Belgrade Danube Park as a positive vision of co-existence with nature that would harness the benefits of ecosystem services in the context of climate change. Their discourse acknowledges the complex infrastructural history of the area that created a specific socio-natural hybrid, valuable in its own right and constantly jeopardized by human activities. Based on long-term ethnographic engagement (including participant observation, interviews, media accounts, and social media discussions), I examine these activists’ work to ask: How is the relationship between society and nature rearticulated in grassroots ideas about transitional pathways in the Anthropocene?

The basic function of modern zoos, associated within international nature conservation organizations, is to save endangered species of wild animals and provide them with appropriate living conditions. They contribute to the maintenance or increase of healthy populations of animals threatened with extinction in captivity. The Wrocław Zoo (ZOO Wrocław sp. z o.o.), as part of the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums (EAZA), carries out the mission of modern zoos, participating in the international transport of endangered animal species (Piasecka 2023).

The purpose of this contribution is to explain how the international transport of wild animals between zoos associated in EAZA contributes to the preservation of biodiversity of animal species in the world. The analysed case study is the Wrocław Zoo, which is both the oldest and the largest facility in Poland in terms of the number of animals and their species.

During the presentation, the main causes and legal conditions regarding the transport of wild animals between zoos will be determined. The required transport conditions for specific species of wild animals will also be presented.

Next, the subject of changes in the frequency and directions of international transport of wild animals will be discussed, on the example of the Wrocław Zoo. The considerations will concern both the number of transported animals and the network of contacts created together with other zoological institutions.

As climate change becomes an everyday reality and we begin to grapple with the changing environment around us, some scholars have started to question, are we mourning the loss of Nature and aligning our actions to match this feeling of loss? In Palermo, Italy, this question has a physical manifestation: The Radici Piccolo Museo della Natura (Small Museum of Nature), which memorializes social Nature while functioning as an important social infrastructure, as conceptualized first by Eric Klinenberg. The aim of this contribution is to combine the ideas of social Nature and social infrastructures with the objective to investigate a possible solution to the loss of Nature and a way to improve the relationship between society and Nature. The radical existence of this museum reproduces Nature indoors as an expression of “Nature mourning” and response to climate change.

Given that Nature is inherently social, its valorization in a museum context defines discursively and materially what counts as Nature. Many actors are included in this process of defining Nature. We ask ourselves, then, who constructs this idea of Nature, and, what are the social implications of these choices? This question connects social Nature with the concept of social infrastructures. Besides functioning as a museum, the space is well-loved for socializing, working, or dining at the cafe, and hosts events such as children's acting classes and presentations. The space physically feels like a refuge from the city center’s chaos. Its role as a social infrastructure layers another meaning to the term social Nature, suggesting that the communal desire to connect with Nature has created an important gathering place for city residents.

Starting from the analysis of this experience, the research addresses some broader questions: How do we integrate the relationship with society and Nature in concrete practice? What does dedicating a museum to Nature as a human construct suggest about our evolving relationship, and growing grief, towards a changing part of our world? What does the value of this space as a social infrastructure suggest about the relationship building power of gathering in Nature, even if done indoors? The research answers these questions by relying on a qualitative methodology based on discourse analysis, participant observation, and semi-structured in-depth interviews.

The human-nature relationship evolves over time, encompassing a continuum of interactions that oscillate between synergistic and exploitative extremes. This spectrum spans from ecocentric perspectives, with nature seen as an autonomous entity external to human society, to social paradigms that emphasize the inextricable interconnection between humans and nature. The climate crisis has highlighted the critical challenges of this dichotomy, revealing how the natural cycles of climate change have significantly accelerated because of anthropogenic activities.

With both immediate and long-term impacts becoming evident, the climate crisis is profoundly affecting young people, who are called to endure with present effects and develop adaptation strategies for future impacts. Against this backdrop, this study aims to examine the perception of younger generations on the climate risk and the overall human-nature relationship, as well as their preferred communication strategies. The objective is to explore how integrating scientific knowledge with different narrative formats can foster more effective risk communication among young people and improve global understanding of the environmental challenges laying ahead.

The analysis focuses on independent study projects developed by students enrolled in the master’s degree program in Environmental Risk and Civil Protection at the Università Politecnica delle Marche, in Ancona (Italy), over the decade 2014 - 2024. These students were tasked with identifying potentially effective narratives and critically reflecting on the climate crisis storytelling through the analysis of literary, oral, and audiovisual works addressing its ethical, emotional, and moral dimensions. The sources they examined ranged from the writings of Pope Francis to the speeches of various public figures, as well as artistic representation of climate change. Through these narratives, students engaged with the idea that environmental issues are inherently cross-cutting and require not only scientific solutions but also ethical and emotional commitments.

The findings suggest that students perceive the need to envision alternative models of human-nature interaction to engage the wider community. These new models should facilitate deeper exploration of a shared concern: human accountability for climate change. Such an approach seems to enhance young people’s sense of responsibility while broadening their horizon towards adaptive social models that harmonize scientific rationality with human sensitivity.

Integral ecology, as defined by Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si’ (2015) was received in France by some as a call to radically transform their way of life. It has given some Christians the opportunity to put an end to the idea that Christianity is responsible for the death of nature (White, 1967). Motivated by this holistic vision of social, environmental and spiritual ecology, these activists – anxious about the climate change – have organized themselves in eco-villages, in a “back to nature” movement (Stuppia, 2016). This quest for authenticity and “ecologization” of life could be assimilated to romantic utopias such as their vision of nature seemed a priori largely fantasised (Löwy, 2002; Hervieu-Léger, 2005). Yet, far from seeking untouched nature, their model reflects a rethinking of their entire environment: social, human, environmental and religious. This study would examine how these eco-villages embody an “integral ecology” by recreating a “village spirit” adapted to modern ecological and social challenges. Between ancestral crafts, organic gardening, permaculture and Christian eco-spirituality, what are the ways of living an integral ecology?

I propose to bring a sociological look at these new living spaces. The aim is to describe these new militant ecosystems through the complicity of various methodological tools: Through ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation and semi-structured interviews in places and communities organized around an integral ecology. I explore the lived realities of Christian eco-villages in France such as the eco-hameau of la Bénisson-Dieu, the ‘Ferme Espérance’ or the Campus de la transition. Thus, this research contributes to social and human geography, by analysing how nature is articulated in these micro-societies, redefining human-environment relationships, nature and community in contemporary Europe.