ABSTRACT
The city and the urban are today both significant and contested concepts and phenomena. Urban development is a subject of political debate. The city becomes a good for sale, marketed and branded, and cities are dissolving spatially through urban sprawl. European cities also are becoming increasingly multicultural and diverse in terms of lifestyle and socioeconomic conditions. Many European metropolises are seeing recurrent social uprisings – some being explicit in their actions for a “right to the city”, signalling frustration and disbelief in the capacity to find affordable homes, jobs and space in the city.
