This article theorizes gastro-driven gentrification as a strategic mechanism through which gastronomy operates as a driver of peri-urban transformation. Moving beyond descriptive overlaps between tourism gentrification, lifestyle migration, and second-home urbanism, the study conceptualizes gastro-driven gentrification as a mechanism synchronizing these processes through gastronomy as a territorially embedded amenity logic. Building on critical gentrification studies, the political economy of food, and research on extended urbanization, the article develops a tripartite framework: (i) gastrodevelopment as the driver, (ii) gentrification as the mediating process, and (iii) peri-urban transformation as the outcome. Empirically, the study examines Urla (İzmir, Türkiye) through a mixed-methods design combining statistical analysis, Geographical Information Systems and remote sensing, policy analysis, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews. The findings demonstrate that gastronomy in Urla operates as part of a multi-scalar urban food machine linking regional planning, municipal entrepreneurialism, supra-local symbolic economies, transnational tourism networks, and speculative land markets. The study further reveals that peri-urban transformation in Mediterranean and peripheral contexts operates less through classical inner-city rent-gap dynamics than through external demand, fragmented inheritance structures, declining agrarian viability, and amenity-oriented land speculation. Conceptually, the article contributes to debates on foodification and gastrofication by shifting the analytical focus from inner-city retail restructuring toward peri-urban operational landscapes embedded within broader circuits of extended urbanization.
This study evaluates the production efficiency of start-ups and fast-growing medium-sized firms in advanced technology (AT) sectors and examines how the regional knowledge base contributes to reducing inefficiency. Using micro-level data for the period 2009-2016, we examine production efficiency across European regions (NUTS2), sectors (two-digit NACE) and firm-size groups by applying stochastic frontier analysis. Our findings suggest that firms' fixed assets significantly affect production efficiency across firm types. Consequently, direct investments in these firms significantly shift the production possibility frontier of AT sectors throughout European regions. Among regional conditions, we included an indicator of the local knowledge base using the relatedness density measure on a sector-by-sector basis. This helped us evaluate how the combinatorial potential of regional technological capabilities influences firm performance. Our research reveals that regional conditions are particularly important for the performance of fast-growing medium-sized firms. This suggests that such firms may constitute a "missing middle" in regional innovation strategies, offering greater territorial returns than policies focusing solely on start-ups or large R&D firms. While start-ups can be efficient even in fragmented knowledge environments, medium-sized firms' growth potential is constrained without access to a broader knowledge base. This indicates a structural challenge for place-based policy, enabling knowledge flows and institutional capacity in regions to support the production efficiency of fast-growing medium-sized firms.
Over the past decade, Southern European cities have experienced an acute housing affordability crisis, manifested in escalating rents, intensifying displacement pressures and deepening socio-spatial inequalities. Far from representing an isolated malfunction of housing markets, this crisis is embedded in broader processes of urban restructuring, variously conceptualized as gentrification, touristification and housing financialization. Although these dynamics are often examined as distinct or even competing phenomena, this Special Issue argues that they are more productively understood as mutually constitutive and structurally intertwined processes that actively generate and sustain contemporary housing crises. Drawing on critical political economy and grounded in the Southern European experience, this article identifies the emergence of a specific nexus through which housing is progressively transformed into a financial asset and vehicle for rent extraction, rather than as a space of social reproduction. Within this nexus, successive waves of gentrification are articulated with shifting growth models, from construction-led development to tourism-oriented and finance-driven accumulation, while short-term rentals, platform-mediated markets and transnational investment flows consolidate new frontiers of assetization. The state plays a pivotal yet contradictory role, operating through hybrid governance arrangements that both facilitate capital accumulation and manage its social consequences. By placing the gentrification–touristification–housing financialization nexus at the centre of analysis, this Special Issue advances a research agenda that shifts attention towards the structural drivers, institutional architectures and financial actors underpinning contemporary housing crises, opening pathways for critically engaging with, and contesting, the evolving geographies of rentier capitalism.
This commentary situates the ongoing European housing crisis within ongoing processes of housing financialization, challenging approaches adopted in the European Commission’s Affordable Housing Plan that treat housing unaffordability primarily as a problem of supply shortages and investment gaps. In this way, we argue that such an approach neglects the key role of finance and the increasingly active role of state actors in reshaping housing markets in favor of financial capital. Drawing on contributions from this special issue, we focus on two interrelated developments: the diversification of housing into specialized sectors for investments and the supporting role of the state in processes of asset-based accumulation. These processes unfold unevenly across urban contexts, contributing to new modes of dispossession and displacement. Building on this, we argue that the European housing crisis requires answers that involve reprioritizing housing as a social right rather than an asset class.
The transition to a circular economy (CE) is essential to address pressing environmental challenges. This transition heavily relies on technological progress and innovation. However, the geography of CE innovations is uneven, with some regions outperforming others in developing CE-related inventions. In this paper, we aim to deepen the understanding of the geography of CE innovations and its drivers at the regional level. Specifically, we investigate how the composition of regional knowledge bases is associated with CE innovation, distinguishing between knowledge related to the invention of novel products (product knowledge) and knowledge related to the development of new production processes (process knowledge). Our empirical analysis draws on two unique datasets: one uses natural language processing to identify CE inventions from patent data, while the other identifies process and product knowledge from patent data. Combining these datasets, we analyze data from 283 European NUTS-2 regions and 128 CPC technology fields between 1980 and 2016. Our findings reveal that a higher share of process knowledge within a region’s knowledge base is associated with greater regional intensity of CE innovations. These results contribute to the literature on the geography of the CE, highlighting the importance of place-based policy approaches to foster CE innovation. JEL codes: O31, R11, R12
The regional scale provides an important focus of research into the geographies of sustainability transitions. To date, this debate has been separate from research into the potential of a circular economy to drive sustainable economic development at the regional scale. Both literatures recognise the importance of collaboration between policymakers and industry, with network-building feasible at the regional scale seen as favourable for developing collaborations. However, insufficient consideration has been given in circular economy debates to the contrasting scalar contexts of regionally based public and private sector stakeholders. This article addresses the potential for a regional-scale sustainability transition based on circular economy strategies (especially industrial symbiosis) given scalar constraints on the agency of regionally based public and private sector stakeholders. The research draws on interviews and observations in two case study regions: North Humberside, England and Styria, Austria. Cross-sectoral scalar constraints outweigh the apparent embeddedness of companies in their respective regions, even with the formal regional scale of governance in Austria. We recommend better integration of different policy sectors and more empowerment to policymakers at the regional level for more spatially nuanced policies.
This study examines the evolving role of digital innovation hubs (DIHs) as territorial intermediaries within the European Union's (EU's) digital transformation strategy. DIHs, designed to foster digital innovation and support the digitalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), are pivotal actors in aligning European digital policies with the specific needs of regional ecosystems. Through a qualitative analysis based on 43 in-depth interviews with DIH and European digital innovation hubs (EDIH) representatives, European Commission stakeholders and DIH network coordinators, this research explores the mechanisms through which DIHs facilitate digitalisation and act as crucial intermediaries. Our findings reveal the diverse roles played by DIHs-as promoters, facilitators and enablers-adapting their strategies to address regional disparities in digital maturity. Despite their significant contributions, our analysis highlights persistent mismatches between EU policy objectives and local implementation, particularly in less digitally advanced regions. This study contributes to refining the concept of territorial intermediation by emphasising the need for flexible, context-specific approaches to maximise the impact of DIHs. Policy implications underscore the importance of tailored support mechanisms, proactive needs assessment and enhanced cooperation to effectively bridge regional digital gaps and foster a more inclusive digital transformation across Europe.
This paper examines Industrial Symbiosis (IS), the exchange of by-products and pre-consumer waste within industrial networks. Drawing on an established dataset of 46 international cases, we employ a fuzzy set ideal type analysis to identify four IS configurations: Local Related Multilateral Exchanges, Regional Unrelated Bilateral Exchanges, Regional Unrelated Multilateral Exchanges, and Local Unrelated Multilateral Exchanges. We then illustrate these four different configurations in more detail by analysing IS cases from Germany. The analysis indicates that industry diversity, geographic proximity, and network size play a different role in different types of exchanges, underscoring the importance of a nuanced socio-spatial perspective. Findings indicate that different IS types may follow different socio-spatial logics and thus require specific tailored policy approaches. Focusing on by-product exchanges as the core of IS allows us to more effectively address the contingent characteristics and materiality of the resources involved.
Through a historical comparative analysis of the two Swiss cantons of Neuch & acirc;tel and Glarus, this study seeks to answer the question of how regional governments perceive and address emigration in contexts where it is not prioritised at the national level. Regional responses are significant, as emigration can deepen territorial imbalances and undermine state cohesion. Empirically, the article is based on a qualitative analysis of policy documents and interviews with regional policymakers and officials. It finds that emigration policies are highly selective, embedded within other policy frameworks, and best understood through political intent rather than explicit policy labels. Additionally, emigration is not always problematic and can sometimes serve as a solution, and responses involve incorporating residential-based development strategies rather than relying solely on export-oriented models.
Exploring the factors driving new industrial activities is vital to regional economies. Regional diversification typically involves leveraging local capabilities related to those underpinning their existing industrial base to develop new industrial specialisations that branch out from established ones, which is captured by the concept of relatedness . Despite growing scholarly interest, our understanding of how relatedness drives regional diversification across varied regional contexts remains limited. This study addresses this gap by focusing on skills as the micro-foundations of regional capabilities and examining how skill relatedness across two distinct types: technical-digital (TD) and social-cognitive (SC), shapes the likelihood of new manufacturing specialisations across four types of UK regions. Our findings show that the marginal effect of TD skill relatedness on regional diversification is stronger in left-behind regions and that SC skill relatedness further amplifies this effect. However, the magnitude and nature of these effects vary across regional contexts. These results enrich evolutionary economic geography debates by embedding insights into how different skill compositions and their interactions shape the place-based dynamics of regional diversification. We conclude by discussing policy implications for integrating regional skill policies within place-based industrial strategies and identifying avenues for future research.
Since 2011, the Baltic States have undergone a profound demographic reconfiguration marked by sustained rural depopulation alongside suburban expansion around major metropolitan centres. While population decline in peripheral regions is not unique to post-socialist Europe, the pace, spatial selectivity, and policy implications of change in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania require closer examination. Based on national population statistics and high-resolution GIS-based spatial analysis, this Euro Commentary examines population redistribution across settlement hierarchies between 2011 and 2025, using Lithuania as an illustrative case. The analysis highlights four interrelated dynamics: accelerating depopulation of rural and small-town settlements, widespread vacancy in detached rural housing, continued demographic concentration in metropolitan cores, and selective growth in peri-urban zones linked to suburbanisation. Detached rural housing has been particularly affected, with vacancy approaching half of the stock by 2025, reflecting ageing, migration, and the long-term decline of small-scale farming. These processes are reshaping settlement systems and exposing the limitations of existing spatial planning frameworks, which often remain oriented towards growth rather than decline. The commentary concludes that more adaptive and spatially differentiated governance approaches are required, particularly in managing shrinking rural regions and expanding peri-urban areas across the Baltic region.
The transition towards a more circular economy (CE) is advancing slowly and is even faltering. Recent CE literature has therefore urged for a more plural-political perspective and for more focus on the region as a practical site or 'ecosystem' of transformation. Meeting these calls, this paper develops and applies a conceptual framework bridging plural politics, policy-making and a view of the region as value-based ecosystems. We thus contribute to a plural-political framework of transformation (ranging from top-down formal politics to bottom-up 'subpolitics'), propelled by ambitions and initiatives towards change from all institutional spheres (business, communities, authorities, education, etc.). Our case study entails two Dutch CE frontrunners, Rijk van Nijmegen and the Province of Friesland. We draw various conclusions. The regions differ markedly in how they navigate different (sub)political modes, through different forms of collaboration. Yet they all meet wider market and regulatory limitations, which need to be overcome for the transition to advance. Moreover, ecosystem development and impact strongly depend on 'heroic', well-connected individuals, thereby limiting concerted policy impact.
This study explores the intersection of smart rurality, social innovation and human-wildlife coexistence as a way to address socio-spatial inequalities in marginalized rural areas. Against a backdrop of rural decline and rising human-wildlife conflicts, it investigates participatory processes implemented in the LIFE ARCPROM project and traces how small technologies, namely electric fences, livestock guarding dogs and bear-proof garbage bins, were adapted and adopted to promote co-existence with brown bears in three Greek National Parks located in some of Europe's most marginalized areas. Findings show that small technologies become effective through iterative refinement and contextual adaptation. Participatory processes fostered local ownership, enabling communities to optimize each tool through collective intelligence and experimentation: electric fences through soil-specific modifications, livestock guarding dogs through socially embedded trans-local breeding networks and bear-proof garbage containers/bins through integration into everyday waste management routines. Findings also highlight that rural innovation is often more-than-human, a relational achievement of hybrid socio-natures in which humans, non-humans and rural infrastructures co-evolve. Our study underscores that rural 'smartness' should extend beyond digital solutions, to align small technology with community-driven processes so that smart rurality can mitigate socio-spatial inequalities and deliver equitable, sustainable conservation outcomes. EU rural development policy should pivot from technology-push paradigms to relational, place-based innovation models in which 'smartness' is also co-produced through collective, hybrid intelligence and the adaptive (re)use of small-scale tools embedded in local socio-ecological contexts. By institutionalizing networks that link communities, human and non-human agency, this model can recast marginalized rural territories as catalytic nodes of Europe's green and just transition.
The relationship between social inequality and residential segregation is neither linear nor straightforward, and the same applies to the link between segregation and the expansion of residential compounds - housing developments with shared amenities and varying degrees of physical or symbolic enclosure. While much of the literature assumes that these developments contribute to increasing segregation - particularly in the case of gated communities, which represent the most enclosed form of residential compounds - this relationship has rarely been examined empirically in Europe. A major limitation lies in the lack of systematic data to capture the scale, diversity and spatial embedding of residential compounds. This gap has constrained empirical assessments of their role in contemporary processes of urban differentiation and has tended to overemphasise their most enclosed forms. This article examines the evolution and spatial distribution of residential compounds in the Granada metropolitan area (Southern Spain) over the last four decades. It draws on an original and exhaustive inventory of 642 developments, combined with census-based socio-economic data (1991-2021) and income records from the Spanish Tax Agency (2021), to analyse their relationship with changes in social structure and residential segregation. The findings show that the expansion of residential compounds has not led to higher levels of residential segregation at the metropolitan scale. Instead, it has contributed to a more diffuse pattern of socio-spatial fragmentation, characterised by micro-scale forms of differentiation that are not fully captured by conventional segregation indicators. These results qualify prevailing assumptions about the segregation effects of residential compounds and provide new insights into the dynamics of urban inequality in Mediterranean metropolitan contexts.
While housing is increasingly viewed as an asset, transformations in housing policy have shifted towards supporting rental investment, contributing to the rentierization of housing in advanced economies. Yet, the political economy of housing often overlooks the spatial dimensions of this process. This research seeks to make an empirical contribution to the analysis of the geographical forms of state action, based on the case of tax subsidies for build-to-rent investments by households (TBH) in France and their transformation from 2009 to 2022. Drawing on an original database that tracks changes in TBH eligibility perimeters across France, supplemented by public data on municipal social composition, property markets and parliamentary debates, this article argues that the geographical concentration of TBH fuelled a spatially selective rentierization of the French housing sector. Over the decade of 2010, the fiscal cost of TBH quadrupled, while eligibility was progressively restricted to denser and more socially privileged municipalities. This article shows that this relationship is directly tied to one of the primary objectives of narrowing the areas eligible for TBH: safeguarding household investors from financial losses. By analyzing the spatial selectivity of TBH as an institutional fix, this article highlights how state regulation of housing production operates as a system comprising three interdependent components: the strategies of private actors (investors and developers), housing market dynamics, and the spatial and strategic selectivity of the state. This framework contributes to understanding the fiscal geography of rental investment and its role in shaping uneven housing development.
Reflecting on recent research and publications, I consider the possibilities for 'green transitions' in Europe's 'old' industrial regions (OIRs) and more widely in the global economy. The wider changes in the global political economy are not only undermining any possibility of a 'just' green transition in Europe's OIRs but that of green transitions more generally.
What potentials and pitfalls emerge through digital formats in participation processes in rural regional development? The paper discusses, focusing on six regional case studies, how digital formats are used in civic participation in regional development processes in German rural areas. Results show (1) that digital participation formats vary in terms of level of complexity, serve different objectives, are in their success highly dependent on other context factors (e.g. participation culture, socio-economic factors and digital competency) and do not automatically enable more participation by hardly represented groups. In terms of spatial relations, (2) there is a lack of specifically rural examples as urban areas are overrepresented in contexts of digitalisation. Consequently, opportunities for action remain limited by spatial structures, and the engagement of individuals remains pivotal. Regarding the impact on practices of communication and interaction, (3) the main objective of digital formats is to strengthen citizens' identification with the region, and digital formats turn out to qualify to varying degrees for implementing participation. Municipal and regional administrations, in particular, are key drivers for digital transitions in rural areas. Regarding chances of participation, we conclude that digital formats can create easier access, especially when linked with everyday practices. Hence, they contribute to a culture of participation. Yet, reaching target groups underrepresented in participatory processes remains a challenge.
The territorial distribution patterns of the foreign-born population in large cities are primarily determined by intra-urban mobility, which redistributes its population among the city's neighbourhoods, significantly influencing their social and demographic composition. Using data from Madrid and Barcelona, this study analyses the intra-urban mobility patterns of immigrant groups in cities that have experienced significant growth in the foreign-born population over the last two decades, reaching 28.0% and 32.9% of the resident population, respectively. The period considered is 2007-2021, divided into four phases according to economic cycles. Six groups of countries are identified, and flows between origin and destination neighbourhoods are analysed using specific migration rates. The main objectives are (1) to characterise the evolution of intra-urban residential changes by origin; (2) to study the impact of different economic periods on these flows; (3) to determine the impact of internal mobility on the territorial distribution patterns of different origins and (4) to compare Madrid and Barcelona. The study applies spatial econometric techniques, including Global Moran's I, Local Indicators of Spatial Association and Spatial Focusing, to measure spatial dependence, clustering and the degree of concentration or dispersion in mobility patterns. The results confirm that intra-urban mobility follows structured spatial patterns influenced by economic and demographic factors. Economic downturns tend to facilitate intra-urban mobility, resulting in increased spatial concentration, whereas during periods of economic growth, housing market pressures constrain mobility and promote a more dispersed pattern of internal flows.
Portugal's housing crisis, intensified by the 2008 financial crash and subsequent austerity policies, has sparked diverse forms of resistance, including artistic expression. This article explores how music functions as a mode of protest and political articulation in response to real estate speculation and tourist gentrification, focusing on a corpus of 36 songs and 20 video clips produced between 2016 and 2024, primarily in Lisbon and Porto. Drawing on autoethnographic research and critical discourse analysis, the study examines how musicians denounce neoliberal urban transformations, express collective grievances and contribute to framing housing rights as both a political and cultural issue. It identifies three core thematic axes in these musical narratives: the commodification of housing, displacement driven by tourism and the intersection of precarity, inequality and low wages. By bridging urban sociology, cultural resistance and critical housing studies, the article highlights how music operates not only as expression but as infrastructure of protest: mobilizing affects, sustaining memory and amplifying counter-hegemonic imaginaries in contexts of deepening socio-spatial injustice.
Rental housing markets in Germany and other European countries are experiencing profound transformations, generating new forms of inequality. While existing research often emphasises binary divisions, such as between owners and tenants, or across generations, it rarely captures the layered stratifications within the rental sector itself. This paper uses original household survey data from Leipzig-Connewitz (n = 427), a neighbourhood marked by post-socialist restructuring and rapid investment influx, to explore how socio-temporal inequalities are shaped by residence duration and landlord type. The analysis develops an empirically grounded typology of rental housing experiences, ordered along a continuum from stability to vulnerability: (i) residents in public and non-profit housing enjoying security and rent affordability; (ii) affluent tenants in high-end private rentals, largely shielded from market pressures; (iii) tenants in corporate housing who face insecurity despite high incomes; and (iv) households in the financially fragile segment of the private rental market, with low rents but limited economic security. These types reflect how tenure structures intersect with socio-economic and temporal dimensions to produce differentiated patterns of housing security and vulnerability. By moving beyond conventional tenure binaries, the research provides a nuanced understanding of contemporary rental markets, particularly in housing systems with high tenant protection and significant non-profit segments. The typology developed here contributes to international housing debates by highlighting how post-reunification legacies, institutional diversity and temporal positioning shape uneven tenant experiences. It provides a conceptual lens for analysing stratification within rental-dominated contexts across East Germany and other regulated housing regimes facing significant investment dynamics.
