Disputes about urban space

Abstract

The five sociological papers in this volume have one common feature – they all concern urban issues. Each of them is an attempt to assess the condition of a post-socialist and a post-industrial town. This condition is associated with the current status and the transformations of urban space. Hence, on the one hand, urban space appears to be extremely resident-friendly and supportive of civic activities and initiatives, but on the other hand, it shows to be affected by controversial consequences caused by the growing number of revitalising projects (including, in particular, gentrification of the revitalised urban areas). Many of the programmes aimed to activate urban residents fail, and even access to ‘tourist attractions’ (e.g. cultural institutions) proves unfair in practice. All the five papers aim to identify the main reasons (social, cultural, economic) that have rendered the attempts to democratise and improve the quality of urban space ineffective. They also seek to provide an answer to the question what needs to be done to avoid similar failures in the future.