Common European Framework of Reference for Languages:
Urban and regional development
Strategic themes:
Internationalisation
General description
The course focuses on regional development and instruments for managing asymmetries that stem from spatial and socio-economic transformations in Europe. Of special interest are the various mechanisms to adapt to urban, regional, enlargement-related and other territorial dynamics that challenge economic, social and even political cohesion. These mechanisms are studied on micro and macro levels alike, ranging from local communities to complex frameworks of governance.
Learning outcomes
Participants to this course have the basic understanding of the interests and challenges of producing and representing information on territorial phenomena and working with it in policy and decision-making situations, and the role that urban and metropolitan systems have in these processes. They also have an overview of some of the key origins of regional disparities in Europe, known as the challenge of cohesion. Institutions, mechanisms and processes that seek to alleviate cohesion-related problems as well as the more general dynamics that intensify international exchange and interaction are particularly addressed, as are the often local and regional initiatives and networks for identifying and working with the issues of spatial development.
Contents
1. Introduction: perceptions of Europe and spatial imaginaries
2. Mapping and managing the challenges urban and regional development
3. Trajectories and situations in European territorial developments: the question of scales
4. Mechanisms, institutions and interests in governing the “regional problem”
5. European regional and cohesion policy frameworks
6. European localities and the scope for development from below