Urban Governance and Social Innovations

Abstract

This chapter highlights the urban governance arrangements identified by the European project Welfare Innovations at the Local Level in Favour of Cohesion (WILCO). These arrangements provide very different opportunity structures for social innovations. They are characterised by four dimensions: The governance of cooperation, characterised by a general orientation on innovation in politics and economics, the search of synergies between economics and social policies to foster the urban character of the city; the governance of growth, which prioritises economics and economic interest groups; the governance of social challenges that develops social policies through state-oriented initiatives coordinated with private non-profits; and the conflicting governance of social and economic challenges. The latter describes policy developments based on a concurrence for public investment in economic or social initiatives.