We intend to mobilize contemporary knowledge of the main sociological patterns of analysis of the city and urban issues, based on the complex and mediated relations between spatial morphology and sociocultural configurations, bearing in mind the diverse European social realities. Besides, we need to develop the ability to analyze, from the sociological point of view, in a comparative way, interventions within the scope of the city within the horizon of a culture of critical and reflexive citizenship.
We purpose one general and three specific sessions:
- Spaces of ideas: the urban issue and the importance of sociological questions about the city in a time of crisis and change: the progressive autonomization of the spatial issue in sociology; the dialectics between spatial forms and social structures; the new configurations of the urban environment; the recent mutations in the post-industrial city;
- Spaces of exclusion: Gentrification, urban renewal, «social filtering» and spaces of exclusion: towards the dual city?
- Spaces of intervention: From the «crisis» of public spaces to the «attempts» of revitalization. Brief balance.
In a time of crisis and change, cities and urban spaces are the locus of conflicts, but also of territorial politics where we can discuss the relations between state, the social dimension and future of «city-providence», housing politics and its differentiated social impact, «urban violence» and the politicization of the answers.
