Conceptualising, exploring and operationalising different meanings of social cohesion to make them useful for studying the dynamics of 'cities and social cohesion' in urban Europe: that is what this Special Issue aims at. It is based on research on 'Social Cohesion in European Cities' within the FP7-SSH-Project Social Polis, the first social platform funded by the EC SSH programme. 1 Decades of European research on urban development and economy, urban social fabric, housing and labour market, social, cultural and political fragmentation and, more recently, on security issues and citizenship in the city have produced an extensive body of results in different disciplines that are relevant to urban social cohesion research. Social cohesion is given various meanings in the scientific circles, social milieux and policy arenas in which it is addressed. Most frequently, it is presented as a policy objective with reference both to the social forces and public actions that are needed for the inclusion of all groups,

This paper argues that dominant research practices in the urban transport field add to rather than subtract from social cohesion and mobility inequities. While this is recognised as an ongoing political struggle, it is also explained through a failure to mobilise consistently a broad definition of social cohesion in transport research and policy-making; and a technology fixation among communities of transport research and practice, particularly in the commissioning of European Commission research. Elements of a new urban mobility agenda are proposed to address mobility challenges and to improve the fostering of urban social cohesion.

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This paper critically examines the character, development and implementation of master plans as vehicles of urban change. The case of Sheffield's city centre master planning is used to analyse how the city was reimagined from the early 1990s to the mid-2010s, and how the economic, cultural, social and political dimensions of urban regeneration were addressed. The paper argues that, in comparison to the postwar, welfare-state master plans, the master plans of the neoliberal period had a narrower spatial and thematic focus, linking place qualities to economic considerations, to be delivered through real estate investment. As such, social considerations were marginalized and, when a major economic crisis occurred, the new generation master plans' lack of flexibility and vulnerability to economic fluctuations became apparent, much the same as their predecessors. This shows how master plans can be effective instruments for mobilizing investment and coordinating development around a selective spatial vision in periods of economic growth, but their utility is severely curtailed in economic downturns, when their coordinative potential is much diminished. They run the risk of becoming top-down technical devices to coordinate speculative real estate investment, without durable connections to the local economic and social capacities and needs. Around the turn of the century, British cities went through a period of intense transformation, which was branded an urban renaissance (Urban Task Force, 1999). One of the key instruments of this transformation was the master plan, aimed at steering the large-scale and complex processes of change (Bell, 2005). While some master plans were linked to the aftermath of a catastrophic event, such as the bombing of central Manchester, most were parts of fundamental shifts in the national urban economic and social trajectories. Although widely used in British urban regeneration, master plans were not limited to any particular type of function or place, as evidenced by many examples from around the world (

Recent contributions to strategic spatial planning theory claim to develop a relational perspective on planning and space. In this paper, we explore this perspective further from its origins to the ways in which it conceptualizes various aspects of space. We focus on strategicrelational institutionalist (SRI) theory and introduce the Cultural Park for Children in Cairo as a case to question the relational perception and conceptions of space, and spatial strategies of different actants, spatial representations and frames. We conclude by indicating how a SRI approach may contribute to a greater understanding of the spatial dynamics of actants and their institutional frames and argue for the inclusion of more pluralist conceptions of space in planning processes.

This article enquires into the transformative potential of the London National Park City. In doing so it situates the vision for, the becoming, and the Charter of an urban national park in relational thinking about metropolitan nature and sustainable urbanisation. It looks at hopes and pitfalls of the London National Park City in the face of growing socio-environmental injustice and the climate crisis. First, the article explores the National Park City as a form of ecological reflexivity and social practice in the context of relational concepts of nature and the city. Second, it examines opportunities offered by the Park City with respect to urban environmental sustainability, health and wellbeing, connected diversity, socio-economic inclusion and political agency. Third, it looks at pitfalls of the National Park City relating to environmental gentrification, as well as to trade-offs between grassroots creativity and capability to bring about material change. Last but not least, the article advocates for negotiation of synergies between ‘green’ and ‘grey’ urban natures as a strategy to address the climate crisis.

This Chapter investigates the qualities of urban travel time by looking at daily mobilities as time-spaces of encounter wherein various actions are performed. Following the 'new mobilities paradigm' we regard everyday urban mobility not only as a 'means to an end', but also as 'end in itself'. This implies a move from instrumental, utilitarian and deterministic understanding of urban travel time towards a holistic conceptualisation of urban mobility that calls for embedding social qualities of urban travel in urban planning and design. We argue that urban public transport networks are political sites of the everyday wherein emancipatory and discriminatory practices are not only enacted, but also reshaped through different events, encounters, and processes. Hence, we challenge traditional time-saving strategies in transport appraisal and call for a more complex and politicized approach to time in policy-making that would highlight a socially-just consideration of speed, efficiency and qualitative aspects of urban travel. "To be teleported would be to lose something."

This document is the author's post-print version, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer-review process. Some differences between the published version and this version may remain and you are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it.