18 - Putting deprived neighborhoods back at the core of EU urban policy

Summary

Urban poverty began to lose relevance as a policy problem at the EU level in the early 2000s. By the end of that decade, however, the impact of the global financial and economic crisis brought urban exclusion back to the fore. The importance of the issue remains undiminished. After years of post-crisis “austerity”, Europe's economies appear to be recovering. Even in wealthier countries and regions, however, urban poverty is still high.

The Seventh Report of Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion of the EU (European Commission 2017a: xv) shows that the risk of poverty or social exclusion remains higher than before the crisis in cities, towns, and suburbs in those countries that were members of the EU before May 2004 (the EU-15). In 2014 there were 34 million people in the EU at risk of poverty or social exclusion living in cities, and 24.2 million people living in towns, and suburbs (Eurostat 2019). Most of these people are concentrated in deprived neighborhoods. These are areas that should become specific policy objectives of the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy in the post-2020 period.

There are other powerful reasons to place the focus for EU Cohesion Policy on deprived neighborhoods. Long-term developments related to demographic trends, technological innovation, climate change, and social interaction will have a stronger negative impact on the inhabitants of deprived urban areas. At the same time, the EU adopted Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development of the United Nations and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. SDG number 1 is no poverty.

This short chapter proposes a critical review of the experience developed by the EEC and, from 1993, the EU in addressing the problems of deprived neighborhoods from the early 1990s to the present. That temporal perspective is useful in revealing the changing definition of the “urban problem” and the evolution of policy priorities over time. A longitudinal analysis also helps to underscore the lessons learned through the development of a specific policy for tackling deprived neighborhoods over the past two decades. That experience can be the starting point for the creation of a new specific instrument in EU Cohesion Policy to face the problems of vulnerable urban areas after 2020.