Plenary session 3: The EU Urban Agenda and cities’ role in the creation of growth and jobs

Urban Poverty: Findings from TiPSESabine Weck, ILS Dortmund

ESPON Open Seminar 2014

“Opportunities and threats for territorial cohesion: Blue Growth and Urban Poverty”

• Poverty and Social Exclusion have a strong regional dimension

• Poverty risk higher in urban areas: Central European countries AT, BE, DE, NL

• Poverty risk especially high in rural areas in Mediterranean countries, PT, IT; EL, ES, with high poverty levels in their capital cities

Growth, Poverty and Exclusion: The Role of Cities_1

Source: ESPON TiPSE Poverty Mapping, based on EU-SILC (NUTS3-level) & ESPON Typologies, CEECs excluded)

• Economic growth does not automatically deliver social inclusion

• Cities have an important role in fighting poverty and social exclusion (active inclusion strategies, social and health services, subsidised labour schemes, anti-discrimination policies, integrative area-based initiatives)

• Effective “local welfare systems” depend on support from higher policy levels: The need for a multi-level approach

• Impact of the financial and economic crisis on cities: Shrinking labour markets on the one hand, and severe cutbacks of public spending on the other hand, due to austerity measures

Growth, Poverty and Exclusion: The Role of Cities_2

TiPSE urban case studies: •Porto•Athens•Dortmund•Izmir•Botkyrka/Stockholm

• Unemployment of young highly qualified

• University education in the context of a shrinking labour market does not protect against exclusion from the labour market

• Wide-spread feelings of disillusion and resignation, also out-migration

Tackling Negative Effects of the Economic Downturn_1

“I have young people here, and when I ask ‘Are you planning to go to university’ they answer ‘For what? There are no jobs for graduates, that is why I directly start working. I will try to get a job … because I cannot see that the investment to go to university could be worth it.’” (Local expert, Porto)

Unemployed by age group and education level in Porto, 2011Source: INE (Census 2011)

Source. ESPON TiPSE Case Study Report, Ramos Lobato, 2013

Botkyrka, Stockholm

•High levels of residential ethnic segregation & concentrations of persons with low resources --- In the context of a comprehensive welfare state regime, a regionally booming economy and an immigration-friendly society

The Role of Functional and Integrated Responses

Active role of the municipality in promoting coherent and integrated local level response

• Integrating socio-economic with infrastructural measures

• Evaluation of development projects’ impacts on the local community

• Actively promoting interculturalism

• Funding community-outreach activities and citizen-driven projects

Source: ESPON TiPSE Case Study Report, Dymén & Reardon, 2013

Photos: M. Reardon, 2013

The Role of Functional and Integrated Responses