ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the problems associated with the challenges cities face at the beginning of the 21st century. In the 1990s, local governments in various national contexts were increasingly put under stress, the major causes being budgetary tensions, globalization, and social differentiation. Fragmentation should be assessed through relational indicators such as restrictions to social mobility and ethnic discrimination on the housing market and the labour market. The concept of social cohesion refers to the ties between persons within society or within a city or a neighbourhood. A framework for mapping urban governance in different policy areas might be borrowed from the policy network approach. The chapter identifies how the different countries and cities are constructing this link between traditional and institutional solidarity mechanisms and how they are organizing the transformation of this social governance. Social and urban policies are viewed as rigid and obstructing the necessary adaptation of the system.
