Introduction

Throughout Europe, structural integration has proceeded in parallel with a growing concern about the disintegration of everyday social relations. Global changes clearly affect all of Europe: competition with the tiger economies, fundamental technological change and new communications technologies, pressure from migrants moving east to west and south to north. The ongoing unification of western European space and the transformation of its component welfare states is having a major impact on shaping its cities and societies. Whether experiencing economic growth or decline, all major European cities are witnessing the symptoms of growing social exclusion: increasing long-term unemployment, male joblessness and the feminisation of an increasingly casualised workforce, widening gaps in income levels, increasing disparities in educational and skill levels, deteriorating health and life expectancies for the poorest members of society. In many cities, these changes are especially visible in the spatial concentration of immigrant and ethnic minority communities and in large areas with deteriorating environmental conditions.