ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses policies and agency responses, and considers the issues of social innovation, urban commons, the diffusion of sharing economies and new practices of solidarity and alternative welfare at the local level. He raises the question of the importance of urban social agencies responding to and contrasting the disrupting tensions raised by globalized capitalism. Before continuing the discussion on the question of inequalities and social rights, it may be useful to briefly explore various forms of new practices of social innovation, social support, and sharing economy in European cities. The transformation of societies towards more localized, active, mixed and diversified social bonds and social support is everywhere reflecting and sometimes magnifying the growth of social and geographical inequalities and eroding the system of divided but standardized rights. Within the interpretative framework, the necessity of reshaping social relations in order to produce a livelihood compatible with commodification constitutes the core of processes of social change.
