Urban renaissance: from physical beautification to social empowerment

Will culture increasingly become a constellation of highly profitable niche markets, only accessible to the better‐off middle class? And will it therefore join the movement of market fundamentalism that, in many Western societies, has abandoned social housing, emancipatory education and public space for the exclusive game of high profitability investments and upper‐class ideology‐formation, in which the beautification of run‐down urban neighbourhoods plays a leading role? Or are we witnessing a revival of popular culture that will contribute to the integration of excluded groups within the social fabric? This special feature examines these questions, always central ones for City, and explains how strategies to democratize culture offer solutions for the paradoxes (insurmountable contradictions, as the capitalist class would argue) of the workfare state and urban renewal policies. The feature flows from an event organized in Bruges as a challenge and a critique to the city's year as 'Cultural Capital of Europe’ and includes contributions from artists, local historians and activists, a schoolteacher and scholars from the universities. The diversity of voices is intentional.