Irregular migrants tend to live in dense urban settings. Cities therefore formulate various policies in support of irregular migrants. Given the US phenomenon of sanctuary cities, the study of these policies has been rather US-centric so far. This letter examines urban policies in support of irregular migrants in Europe's 95 largest cities. Only 27 per cent of European cities formulate these types of policies. We discovered two relevant policy categories: status and services. Only five cities formulate policies that aim to award irregular migrants with a (more) secure status, and 24 cities formulate policies that facilitate access to city services. Our mixed-methods analysis suggests that status policies take advantage of policy-making discretion whereas service policies hinge on the availability of local resources. Yet, there are no simple explanations for the observed policy diversity that is the product of place-based policy-making.

Łódź and Tampere share an industrial and political past. Part of the Russian empire, the cities became major textile hubs crucial for Tsarist industrial economy.1 The cities were also Red strongholds. Historically, they can be seen as socio-economic “experiments” and “islands of modernization” within largely rural societies. Since the 1980s (in case of Tampere) and the 1990s (in case of Łódź) both cities have undergone substantial social and economic transformations connected with the collapse or decline of traditional industries. How do the two cities choose to represent their working-class heritage today? This essay compares how city museums in Tampere and Łódź represent their working-class history in selective and contradictory ways.

In this article, we investigate economic and political developments in Turkey’s construction sector over the last decade and consider their implications. We find that during the first term of the government of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), thanks to administrative and economic incentives, both private and public construction rose considerably. Despite the construction sector’s contribution to growth, there is also evidence of a transfer from the industrial sector toward the construction sector, which led to significant decline in the trend growth of the industrial sector in the era prior to 2006. Such evidence disappears in the post-crisis period, when the growth of private construction slows. However, overcentralization, clientelism, an absence of transparency, and limitations on citizen participation in urban planning remain as problems that need to be addressed through urban reform.