Abstract:
Growing inequalities in Europe, even in the most egalitarian countries, are a major
challenge threatening the sustainability of urban communities and the competiveness
of European cities. Surprisingly, though, there is a lack of systematic and
representative research on the spatial dimension of rising inequalities. This gap
is filled by our book project Socio-Economic Segregation in European Capital
Cities: East Meets West, with empirical evidence from Amsterdam, Athens,
Budapest, London, Madrid, Milan, Oslo, Prague, Riga, Stockholm, Tallinn, Vienna
and Vilnius. This introductory chapter outlines the background to this international
comparative research and introduces a multi-factor approach to studying
socio-economic segregation. The chapter focuses on four underlying universal
structural factors: social inequalities, global city status, welfare regime and the
housing system. Based on these factors, we propose a hypothetical ranking of
segregation levels in the thirteen case study cities. As the conclusions of this book
show, the hypothetical ranking and the actual ranking of cities by segregation
levels only match partly; the explanation for this can be sought in context-specific
factors which will be discussed in-depth in each of the case study chapters.
