Job creation in Western Europe and North America

Here the authors attempt to assess the extent to which job creation programmes in Western Europe and North America have met their main objectives. It is argued that moves are being made to adapt programmes to expected changes in employment markets in the future.     

Long‐term Effects of Fiscal Stimulus and Austerity in Europe

We analyze whether there are ne gative (positive) long‐term effects of austerity measures (stimulus measures) on potential output growth. Based on the approach of Blanchard and Leigh ( 2013 ) and Fatás and Summers ( 2018 ) and using a novel data set of narratively identified fiscal policy shocks, we estimate the impact of these shocks on potential output. We robustly find a considerable underestimation of multiplier effects and their persistence for most European countries in the early years after the financial crisis and subsequent Euro Area crisis. We conclude that fiscal consolidation was badly timed and thus not only deepened the crisis but may have caused evitable hysteresis effects.     

Recasting Urban Governance through Leeds City Lab: Developing Alternatives to Neoliberal Urban Austerity in Co‐production Laboratories

This article reports on a research project, Leeds City Lab, that brought together partner organizations to explore the meanings and practices of co‐production in the context of urban change. Our intention is to offer a response to the crisis in urban governance by combining the growing academic and practitioner debates on co‐production and urban laboratories in order to explore radically different institutional personae that can respond to deficits in contemporary urban governance, especially relating to participation and disenfranchisement, and ultimately unlock improved ways of designing, managing and living in cities. Our analysis has identified four key ways in which co‐production labs can recast urban governance to more progressive ends: by moving beyond traditional organizational identities and working practices, embracing grey spaces of new civic interfaces, foregrounding emotions and power and committing to durable solutions. Ultimately, what we point towards is that urban governance can be more effectively enacted in co‐production labs that bring together universities and the public, private and civil society sectors on a basis of equality, trust and openness. These spaces have the potential to unlock a city's knowledge, resources and assets, to unpack complex challenges and to build capacity to deliver improved city‐wide solutions.     

Power Relations and Social Mix in Metropolitan Neighbourhoods in North America and Europe: Moving Beyond Gentrification?

Research on spatial segregation has suggested that social mix may be a temporary phase in class displacement, where relations between different groups are at best divided or ‘tectonic’, for instance in England. Political and policy discourses, by contrast, tend to uncritically valorize social mix as a means to breaking up concentrations of poverty and providing neighbourhoods with a middle‐class voice. In the literature, little attention has been paid to power dynamics in socially mixed neighbourhoods and the implications this may have for understanding theory and policy. The five articles that make up this symposium address the ways in which social and ethnic groups interact in major cities in Europe and North America and, as the title suggests, this involves taking into account power relations, domination and negotiation between the different groups. There is a need to connect the experience of the deployment of power within neighbourhoods (and between them) with the discussions of power mechanisms at work in wider urban processes.     

Managing Austerity: Comparing municipal austerity plans in the Netherlands and North Rhine-Westphalia

This article attempts to clarify the relationships between the politico-administrative system and responses to austerity by comparing municipal austerity plans in the Netherlands and North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). Although austerity is a major topic in both states, the approaches differ. In our sample, Dutch municipalities have used the crisis as an opportunity to realize reforms, whereas NRW municipalities have regarded the challenge as a temporary issue and chosen fiscal discipline and stability. Although municipalities seem to deploy similar measures, an in-depth analysis of austerity plans illustrates a wider variety in chosen responses. This variety is shaped by financial autonomy and administrative culture.