ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a particular type of trend characterizing the artistic and cultural field, presenting the evolution of the social innovation stream of “place-regeneration initiatives driven by arts and culture to achieve social cohesion”. Given the lack of studies focused on the role of culture as a driver of social cohesion in deprived urban areas, it explores the evolution of this social innovation in a comparative and dynamic way. The chapter analyzes which initiatives and which actors contributed to the development of the stream over time in different geographical settings located in Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and France. It aims at assessing common trends or constraints in the spreading of this social innovation in the arts and cultural field. The development of the stream in the Netherlands was marked by the creation of bottom-up cultural initiatives to face societal challenges, fostering the societal participation of particular target groups.
