ABSTRACT
The authors analyse the potentials of place-based policy interventions to remedy local perceptions of spatial injustice. The place-based approach has been the guiding principle of EU Cohesion Policy for a decade. Building on the idea that place matters, the place-based narrative advocates that socio-spatial inequalities can be overcome by the production of place-tailored public goods designed and implemented through integrated and deliberative policy decisions. Place-based public policies can make a positive contribution to spatial justice through participative procedures for a more equitable distribution of public resources. The role of external agents is to help local actors to mobilize resources ‘from below’ through an enabling regulative framework. Within the EU’s multi-level governance system, the EU can provide incentives for place-based policies, but the implementation of these interventions is strongly embedded in national policy regimes. Drawing on selected case studies of the RELOCAL research project this chapter presents patterns of local perceptions on spatial injustice and place-based policy responses to these challenges. Local perceptions of spatial injustice generally refer to large-scale institutional and structural factors, such as access to public services, employment possibilities, demographic changes and spatial isolation of rural areas, stigmatization and other labelling processes of places and of specific social groups. However, the actions designed to counteract these problems were typically ‘localized’, generating a mismatch between local perceptions and solutions. Our findings suggest that injustices rooted in large-scale structural processes will never be completely erased without changing the roots of the initial structural problems. In the same vein, the upscaling of place-based interventions is only possible if they are accommodated in a domestic policy field of a ‘benevolent state’ committed to principles of spatial justice. In the absence of such commitments, the state can in fact hijack place-based initiatives in order to promote national policy objectives rather than furthering social cohesion.
