Download to read offline
![Cities of Europe 25
evidence for Dutch cities. Similar outcomes characterize European cities
in general, even though differences can be found in relation to the charac-
teristics of the welfare regimes within which cities are embedded. These
differences are also confirmed when we consider the housing conditions
of immigrants, who are in general one of the most vulnerable parts of
the population with higher levels of segregation than nationals. In order to
understand these differences, van Kempen makes a plea for a comprehens-
ive approach in which the state plays an important part and interacts in a
specific way with other dimensions (income, demographic structure, choice,
etc.). Concrete housing conditions result from the interrelation between
all these dimensions. Van Kempen shows that, despite the migrants–
nationals divide in segregation levels, social housing supply and local wel-
fare practices provide European cities with resources to reduce the levels
of segregation much more than is the case in US cities. Marcuse follows
the same line of reasoning, maintaining that social divisions within cities
depend upon state action which “can ameliorate the extremes of inequal-
ity in income, in the first instance, and it can directly control the spatial
patterns produced by [economic changes], in the second. State action in
fact makes the critical difference between European cities and cities in the
United States today” (Marcuse and van Kempen 2002: 29). However, the
situation is not homogeneous in Europe, and the ongoing rescaling pro-
cesses can bring about an increased differentiation at the local level, with
liberal and familistic regimes being the most diversified.
The different role of the state in regulating access to housing influences
the way in which gentrification processes take place and social mix is
encouraged. Simon (see Chapter 10) shows how the pace and intensity of
gentrification depend upon the flexibility of the housing market. Euro-
pean cities are, from this point of view, particularly resilient compared
with US cities. The prominent role of home ownership, of public investors,
and relatively low residential mobility limit de facto the negative effects of
gentrification processes and sharp divisions. Public intervention in the
renovation process and public urban planning in general tend to min-
imize the effects of the rent gap and to promote social mixing. Another
limitation comes from local communities. In order to understand the
processes at stake, Simon analyzes the case of Belleville in Paris. In par-
ticular, he addresses the implications of gentrification for the structuring
of social integration and social mixing as part of a wider process of urban
renewal in which different actors with different interests participate. In
this sense, he is interested in showing how the encounter of different
populations within the neighborhood changes the patterns of social inte-
gration. From this point of view, gentrifiers are not a homogenous group
and the resulting interactions with the local inhabitants point to complex
forms of mediation and interclass collaboration. Among gentrifying groups,
COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM
25](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2150794-250601120127-e3158f08/75/Cities-Of-Europe-Changing-Contexts-Local-Arrangements-And-The-Challenge-To-Urban-Cohesion-Yuri-Kazepov-50-2048.jpg)
More Related Content
Similar to Cities Of Europe Changing Contexts Local Arrangements And The Challenge To Urban Cohesion Yuri Kazepov
Cities Of Europe Changing Contexts Local Arrangements And The Challenge To Urban Cohesion Yuri Kazepov
- 1. Cities Of EuropeChanging Contexts Local Arrangements And The Challenge To Urban Cohesion Yuri Kazepov download https://ebookbell.com/product/cities-of-europe-changing-contexts- local-arrangements-and-the-challenge-to-urban-cohesion-yuri- kazepov-4301588 Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com
- 2. Here are somerecommended products that we believe you will be interested in. You can click the link to download. The Changing Face Of World Cities The Second Generation In Western Europe And The United States Maurice Crul John H Mollenkopf https://ebookbell.com/product/the-changing-face-of-world-cities-the- second-generation-in-western-europe-and-the-united-states-maurice- crul-john-h-mollenkopf-11056384 Green Cities Of Europe Global Lessons On Green Urbanism Beatley T https://ebookbell.com/product/green-cities-of-europe-global-lessons- on-green-urbanism-beatley-t-2619274 Green Cities Of Europe Global Lessons On Green Urbanism Prof Timothy Beatley Auth https://ebookbell.com/product/green-cities-of-europe-global-lessons- on-green-urbanism-prof-timothy-beatley-auth-4289528 Green Cities Of Europe Global Lessons On Green Urbanism Timothy Beatley Ed https://ebookbell.com/product/green-cities-of-europe-global-lessons- on-green-urbanism-timothy-beatley-ed-4384642
- 3. 100 Enchanting CitiesOf Europe Strolling The City With Exotic Towns Coffee Table Book Editions https://ebookbell.com/product/100-enchanting-cities-of-europe- strolling-the-city-with-exotic-towns-coffee-table-book- editions-232272088 Castles And Fortified Cities Of Medieval Europe An Illustrated History Jeandenis G G Lepage https://ebookbell.com/product/castles-and-fortified-cities-of- medieval-europe-an-illustrated-history-jeandenis-g-g-lepage-2203152 Castles And Fortified Cities Of Medieval Europe Jeandenis Gg Lepage https://ebookbell.com/product/castles-and-fortified-cities-of- medieval-europe-jeandenis-gg-lepage-11877470 Growth And Change In Postsocialist Cities Of Central Europe 1st Edition Waldemar Cudny Editor https://ebookbell.com/product/growth-and-change-in-postsocialist- cities-of-central-europe-1st-edition-waldemar-cudny-editor-42277740 Cities Of Strangers Making Lives In Medieval Europe Miri Rubin https://ebookbell.com/product/cities-of-strangers-making-lives-in- medieval-europe-miri-rubin-10741604
- 5. CITIES OF EUROPE COEA0115/10/04, 9:11 AM 1
- 6. Studies in Urbanand Social Change Published by Blackwell in association with the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Series editors: Harvey Molotch, Linda McDowell, Margit Mayer, Chris Pickvance The Blackwell Studies in Urban and Social Change aim to advance debates and empirical analyses stimulated by changes in the fortunes of cities and regions across the world. Topics range from monographs on single places to large-scale comparisons across East and West, North and South. The series is explicitly inter- disciplinary; the editors judge books by their contribution to intellectual solutions rather than according to disciplinary origin. Published Cities of Europe Yuri Kazepov (ed.) Cities, War, and Terrorism Stephen Graham (ed.) Cities and Visitors: Regulating People, Markets, and City Space Lily M. Hoffman, Susan S. Fainstein, and Dennis R. Judd (eds) Understanding the City: Contemporary and Future Perspectives John Eade and Christopher Mele (eds) The New Chinese City: Globalization and Market Reform John R. Logan (ed.) Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice (eds) The Social Control of Cities? A Comparative Perspective Sophie Body-Gendrot Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order? Peter Marcuse and Ronald van Kempen (eds) Contemporary Urban Japan: A Sociology of Consumption John Clammer Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City Linda McDowell Cities After Socialism: Urban and Regional Change and Conflict in Post-Socialist Societies Gregory Andrusz, Michael Harloe and Ivan Szelenyi (eds) The Politics of Ethnic Minorities in European Cities Romain Garbaye The People’s Home? Social Rented Housing in Europe and America Michael Harloe Post-Fordism Ash Amin (ed.) Free Markets and Food Riots John Walton and David Seddon Fragmented Societies Enzo Mingione Urban Poverty and the Underclass: A Reader Enzo Mingione Forthcoming Social Capital in Practice Talja Blokland and Mike Savage (eds) Cities and Regions in a Global Era Alan Harding (ed.) Urban South Africa Alan Mabin and Susan Parnell Urban Social Movements and the State Margit Mayer Social Capital Formation in Immigrant Neighborhoods Min Zhou COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 2
- 7. CITIES OF EUROPE CHANGING CONTEXTS,LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS, AND THE CHALLENGE TO URBAN COHESION Edited by Yuri Kazepov COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 3
- 8.
- 9. Contents Table of Contentsof the CD vii Notes on Contributors ix Acknowledgments xiii Series Editors’ Preface xvi Foreword xvii Saskia Sassen Introducing European Cities 1 1 Cities of Europe: Changing Contexts, Local Arrangements, and the Challenge to Social Cohesion 3 Yuri Kazepov 2 The European City: A Conceptual Framework and Normative Project 43 Hartmut Häussermann and Anne Haila Part I: The Changing Concept of European Cities 65 3 Urban Social Change: A Socio-Historical Framework of Analysis 67 Enzo Mingione COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 5
- 10. 4 Social Morphologyand Governance in the New Metropolis 90 Guido Martinotti 5 Capitalism and the City: Globalization, Flexibility, and Indifference 109 Richard Sennett 6 Urban Socio-Spatial Configurations and the Future of European Cities 123 Christian Kesteloot Part II: The Spatial Impact of Ongoing Transformation Processes 149 7 The Dynamics of Social Exclusion and Neighborhood Decline: Welfare Regimes, Decommodification, Housing, and Urban Inequality 151 Alan Murie 8 Social Exclusion, Segregation, and Neighborhood Effects 170 Sako Musterd and Wim Ostendorf 9 Segregation and Housing Conditions of Immigrants in Western European Cities 190 Ronald van Kempen 10 Gentrification of Old Neighborhoods and Social Integration in Europe 210 Patrick Simon Part III: Social Exclusion, Governance, and Social Cohesion in European Cities 233 11 Elusive Urban Policies in Europe 235 Patrick Le Galès 12 Changing Forms of Solidarity: Urban Development Programs in Europe 255 Jan Vranken 13 Challenging the Family: The New Urban Poverty in Southern Europe 277 Enrica Morlicchio 14 Minimum Income Policies to Combat Poverty: Local Practices and Social Justice in the “European Social Model” 301 Marisol García Visual Paths Through Urban Europe (CD-Rom) 325 Index 328 vi Contents COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 6
- 11. Table of Contentsof the CD Visual Paths Through Urban Europe (CD) I: The Changing Context of European Cities Non-Places Nico Giersig (Humboldt University, Berlin) Local Identity Maarten Loopmans (Catholic University of Leuven) De-industrialization Justin Beaumont (University of Utrecht) II: The Spatial Impact of Ongoing Transformation Processes Gentrification Nico Giersig (Humboldt University, Berlin) and Manuel B. Aalbers (University of Amsterdam) Social Housing Maarten Loopmans (Catholic University of Leuven) Sub-urbanization Manuel B. Aalbers (University of Amsterdam) COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 7
- 12. III: Social Exclusion,Governance, and Social Cohesion in European Cities Ethnic Villages Manuel B. Aalbers (University of Amsterdam) Local Community Manuel B. Aalbers (University of Amsterdam) Urban Poverty Nico Giersig (Humboldt University, Berlin) and Manuel B. Aalbers (University of Amsterdam) Additional text The Transformation of Inner and Outer Space. Reflections on Space after 9/11 Robin Harper (New York University) Interviews Susan Fainstein (Columbia University, NY) Hartmut Häussermann (Humboldt University, Berlin) Chris Hamnett (Kings College, London) Paul Kantor (Fordham University, NY) Chris Kesteloot (Catholic University of Leuven) Patrick Le Galès (Sciences Po, Paris) Peter Marcuse (Columbia University, NY) Guido Martinotti (University of Milan-Bicocca) Enzo Mingione (University of Milan-Bicocca) John Mollenkopf (City University of New York) Harvey Molotch (New York University) Saskia Sassen (University of Chicago) Richard Sennett (London School of Economics) The CD-Rom includes also about 2000 pictures, 14 city data sheets and more than 120 thematic maps. The credits of the CD mentions all those who participated. viii Table of Contents of the CD COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 8
- 13. Notes on Contributors MarisolGarcía is Professor of Sociology at the University of Barcelona (ES). She was the President of the International Sociological Association (ISA) RC21 on Urban and Regional Research, 1998–2002. She has been Fellow of the Citizenship Forum at the European University Institute in Florence (I) and has been involved for many years in European compar- ative research (ESOPO, INPART, SEDEC, EUREX, EUROPUB). She is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Her publications range from urban sociology to the ques- tion of social justice and citizenship. Anne Haila is Professor of Urban Studies at the Department of Social Policy at the University of Helsinki (FIN). From 1994 to 1998 she was Vice-President of the ISA Research Committee on Urban and Regional Development and its Scientific Secretary from 1998 to 2002. Since 1999 she has been a member of the editorial board of Planning Theory and Prac- tice. She has a strong international record of publications and research on globalization, East European cities and science parks. Hartmut Häussermann is Professor of Urban and Regional Sociology at the Institute of Social Sciences of Humboldt University, Berlin (D) and President of RC21, the Research Committee on Urban and Regional Development of the ISA. He is involved in a range of comparative research concerned with social and spatial inequalities, urban renewal, urban development policies such as URBEX and EUREX. He is a partner COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 9
- 14. in the UrbanEurope RTN project. He has published extensively on these issues. Yuri Kazepov is Professor of Urban Sociology and Compared Welfare Systems at the University of Urbino (I). He has been Jean Monet Fellow at the European University Institute (Fiesole, I) and Visiting Professor at the University of Bremen (Germany). Since the early 1990s he has been involved as national partner or as coordinator in several EU funded research projects on urban poverty and segregation, local social policy, welfare reforms and activation policy. For the period 2002–2006 he is the secretary of RC21 Research Committee on Urban and Regional develop- ment of the ISA and a founding member of ESPAnet (European Social Policies Analysis). Christian Kesteloot is Professor of Social and Economic Geography at the Catholic University of Leuven (B), and also teaches at the Free Uni- versity of Brussels, Belgium. He is a former Research Director of the Fund for Scientific Research, Flanders and member of URBEX and EUREX. He specializes in socio-spatial structures and urban restructuring in West European cities and participates in several European networks on these topics, including ethnic minorities, the socially excluded, and young people. He has published extensively on these issues. Patrick Le Galès is Directeur de Recherche au CNRS at CEVIPOF and Professor of Politics and Sociology at Sciences Po Paris (F). Previ- ously, he was at CRAPE (IEP Rennes, 1992–97). He has been also a Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Center (IUE Florence, 1996–97) and a Visiting Professor and Fellow at UCLA (1999) and at the University of Oxford (2002–03). He is Editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research and is involved in European comparative research on local societies, urban and regional governance, economic development, urban policies, and state restructuring. Guido Martinotti is Professor of Urban Sociology at the University of Milan-Bicocca (I). Since 1986 he has been Visiting Professor at the Department of Sociology of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). In the spring semester of 1998 he was Fellow of the E.M. Remarque Institute, New York University. Between 1992 and 1996 he was Chairman of the Standing Committee for the Social Sciences of the European Science Foundation (ESF). Since 1999 he has been a member of the External Advisory Group of DG Research on Improving the Human Potential and enlarging the socio-economic knowledge base of the European Union. Enzo Mingione is Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of Milan-Bicocca (I). He has been Visiting Professor at the University College of London (UK, 1974–75) and of the University of California, x Notes on Contributors COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 10
- 15. Los Angeles (UCLA,1992–93), LSE (2003) and Sciences Po Paris (2004). He has been a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research of which he is now a corresponding editor. He has been Italian Coordinator of ESOPO and of the National Research Council project on Governance and Economic Development. He is Pres- ident of the Bignaschi Foundation and responsible for the Observatory of Urban Poverty at the University of Milan-Bicocca (together with F. Zajczyk and Y. Kazepov). Enrica Morlicchio is Professor of Sociology of Development at the University of Naples Federico II (I) where she carries out research on segregation, ghettoization and poverty, with special reference to Southern Europe and in particular Italy. She has published extensively on the issue, both nationally and internationally. She was a member of the URBEX and EUREX projects and is a member of the UGIS project. Alan Murie is Professor of Urban and Regional Studies and Head of the School of Public Policy at the University of Birmingham (UK). He has published extensively, nationally and internationally, with a focus on social and spatial changes related to housing and residence and the policy issues associated with these. He was a member of the URBEX and EUREX pro- jects and is a member of the RESTATE project. Sako Musterd is Professor of Social Geography at the University of Amsterdam (NL). He specializes in segregation and integration and in urban development issues. Among the books he has edited are Urban Segregation and the Welfare State and Amsterdam Human Capital. He is on the management board of Housing Studies and is a corresponding editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. He has been the Interna- tional Coordinator of the URBEX research project and participates in the RESTATE (5th framework) program and in the EUREX online seminar. Wim Ostendorf is Associate Professor at the Department of Geography and Planning of the University of Amsterdam (NL), where he teaches research methodology, urban geography and geography of the Nether- lands. His main research interests concentrate on urbanization processes in metropolitan regions and on issues of population, segregation, and housing. On these topic he has published extensively, both nationally and internationally. He is engaged in comparative European research projects such as Cost Civitas, URBEX and RESTATE. Saskia Sassen is the Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the Univer- sity of Chicago, and Centennial Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. She is currently completing her forthcoming book Denation- alization: Territory, Authority and Rights in a Global Digital Age (Under contract with Princeton University Press 2004). She has also just completed for UNESCO a five-year project on sustainable human settlement for which Notes on Contributors xi COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 11
- 16. she set upa network of researchers and activists in over 50 countries. Her most recent books are, the edited Global Networks, Linked Cities (Routledge 2002), and the co-edited Socio-Digital Formations: New Architectures for Global Order (Princeton University Press 2004), and The Global City (fully updated edition in 2001). Richard Sennett is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Cities Pro- gramme at the London School of Economics (UK), an interdisciplinary teaching and research program joining urban visual design to the social sciences. In the Sociology Department he teaches courses on narrative theory and its application to practical ethnography, and the sociology of the arts. He is internationally well known through his publications: Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilisation (W.W. Norton, 1994) and The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism (W.W. Norton, 1998) and, more recently, Respect: The Welfare State, Inequality, and the City (Penguin, 2003). Patrick Simon is a senior researcher at Institut National d’Etudes Demographiques (INED) (F) where he studies, as socio-demographer, social and ethnic segregation in French cities, discrimination in social housing and the labor market, and the integration of ethnic minorities in European countries. He was a member of the URBEX and EUREX projects, is the coordinator of a European project on the measurement of discriminations, and represents INED in the Network of Excellence, International Migration and Social Cohesion in Europe (IMISCOE) in the 6th framework program. Ronald van Kempen is Professor of Urban Geography at the Univer- sity of Utrecht (NL). His research activities are focused on housing low-income groups and immigrants, neighborhood developments, segre- gation and the links between policy and theory in these fields. Many of his projects are internationally comparative projects. He has published in numerous international journals and has edited several books. He is currently managing an extensive project on large estates funded by the European Union (RESTATE). Jan Vranken is a Professor at the University of Antwerpen (B). He teaches courses on social inequality and stratification, poverty and social exclusion, and social problems, and coordinates the Research Unit on Poverty, Social Exclusion and the City (OASeS) (www.ua.ac.be/oases). Since the late 1970s he has participated in several European poverty programs and initiatives. From 2000 to 2003 he coordinated a large project on Governance in European cities (UGIS) within FP6. Recently he became a member of the Management Committee of COST-A26 on European City-Regions. xii Notes on Contributors COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 12
- 17. Acknowledgments The complexity ofthe editorial project which brought about the publica- tion of this book and the enclosed CD, would have never been managed without the help of many people and the financial and infrastructural support of several institutions. Let me first thank the University of Urbino, in particular the Institute of Sociology and Guido Maggioni, who was heading it at the time the manuscript has been prepared. The freedom I had in developing new ideas and to embark into such an ambitious project are rare to be found in any institution. The European Commission should also be gratefully mentioned as it allowed this project to become real by providing generous funding within the stream of accompanying measures targeted to dissemination of the Improving Human Potential programme of the DG Research, contract (Nr. HPHA-CT2000-00057). The EU official in charge of the project, Fadila Boughanemi supported me with all its capacity and competence helping the project through all bureaucratic complexities. The link to the European Commission and its research policies is even stronger. In fact, most of the chapters make an explicit or implicit refer- ence to empirical results from EU funded research in which most of the authors were involved in the recent past. The following projects and their coordinators should be gratefully mentioned: 1) ESOPO: Evaluating SOcial POlicy. A project on local policies against poverty, coordinated by Chiara Saraceno (University of Turin, Italy). COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 13
- 18. 2) URBEX: URbanpoverty, EXclusion and segregation. A project on the spatial impact of socio-economic transformations, coordinated by Sako Musterd (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands). 3) UGIS: Urban Governance. A project on governance issues tackling mainly regeneration projects at the local level, coordinated by Jan Vranken (University of Antwerp, Belgium). 4) EUREX: Online seminar on Poverty, Exclusion and Governance in European Cities, coordinated by myself within the Minerva pro- gramme of DG Culture. To the authors of the chapters go many thanks for supporting the ambitious project of a young colleague with comments and constructive criticism aimed at improving the accessibility and readability of the book. Warmest gratitude goes also to Patrick Le Galès and Harvey Molotch for their support throughout the whole project. Being a non-native speaker I benefited from the help of Terry McBride, who also prepared the first version of the manuscript according to the publishers guidelines. My introductory chapter benefited from comments by Alberta Andreotti, David Benassi, Domenico Carbone, Angela Genova, Patrick Le Galès, Harvey Molotch, Enzo Mingione, and Matteo Villa to whom I express my gratitude for their help. The usual disclaimers apply. Very special thanks go also to all those involved in the realization of the CD-Rom on visual paths through urban Europe. The CD is the result of a really very complex collaborative work, which involved more than 80 people from 11 countries and different scientific backgrounds and institutions. To all of them – named in the credits section of the CD-Rom – goes my deepest gratitude for their commitment and support throughout the whole project. In particular I would like to thank Daniele Barbieri pro- fessor at ISIA (Istituto Superiore Industrie Artistiche, Urbino), who codir- ected with me the realization of the CD-Rom, for his immense patience toward my never-ending requests. Valter Toni, also a professor at ISIA, provided essential technical support during the final rush. Daniela de Bartolo and Daniela Gravina, who were students of ISIA at the time in which the CD has been finalized, provided the concept and the nice graphic design of the CD, implementing most of its functions and surfing options. Franco Mariani, director of ISIA made the framework for this fruitful collaboration possible and should be gratefully mentioned for that. Among the many other people who helped me, I would like to mention Eduardo Barberis and Giovanni Torrisi, who not only helped me with excellent technical and editorial support for both the book and the CD, but were always available when needed with their problem-solving oriented minds, a rare quality. xiv Acknowledgments COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 14
- 19. Henning Moser, AnjaNothelfer and Erica Barbiani provided not only pictures, but also extensive visual advice and support. The editorial team for the CD included Manuel Aalbers, Eduardo Barberis, Nico Giersig, Maarten Loopmans, and Justin Beaumont, who enthusiastically provided texts, pictures, and comments. They helped me also revizing the whole written and visual material in the CD. Maarten Loopmans played also a substantial role in linking the images with the chapters. Finally, there are no words which can express my deep gratitude to Simona, my wife, and Alexander, my son. They gave me the energy to bridge the difficult moments simply existing. This book owes much to them and to them it is dedicated. Acknowledgments xv COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 15
- 20. Series Editors’ Preface TheBlackwell Studies in Urban and Social Change series aims to advance theoretical debates and empirical analyses stimulated by changes in the fortunes of cities and regions across the world. Among topics taken up in past volumes and welcomed for future submissions are: • Connections between economic restructuring and urban change • Urban divisions, difference and diversity • Convergence and divergence among regions of east and west, north and south • Urban and environmental movements • International migration and capital flows • Trends in urban political economy • Patterns of urban-based consumption The series is explicitly interdisciplinary; the editors judge books by their con- tribution to intellectual solutions rather than according to disciplinary origin. Proposals may be submitted to members of the series Editorial Committee: Harvey Molotch Linda McDowell Margit Mayer Chris Pickvance COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 16
- 21. Foreword The city haslong been a site for the exploration of major subjects con- fronting society and the social sciences. In the mid-1900s it lost that heur- istic capability. This had partly to do with the actual urban condition; the city of the mid-1900s is no longer the entity that captures the foundational dislocations of an epoch as it had been at the turn of the century and into the early 1900s. The massive effort to regulate the urban social and spatial order had succeeded to a certain extent. Further, and in my view crucial, the strategic dynamics shaping society found their critical loci in the gov- ernment (the Fordist contract, the Keynesian state project) and in mass manufacturing, including the mass production of suburbs. Today the city is once again emerging as a strategic lens for producing critical knowledge, not only about the urban condition but also about major social, economic, and cultural refigurings in our societies. Large complex cities have once again become a strategic site for a whole range of new types of operations – political, economic, cultural, subjective – both urban and non-urban. They are also in part the spaces for post-colonial history-in-the-making. One question, then, is whether studying cities can today, as in past periods, help us produce critical knowledge and analytic tools for understanding the broader social transformation underway. The old categories, however, are not enough. Some of the major conditions in cities today challenge many, though not all, of the well-established forms of theorization and empirical analysis. COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 17
- 22. One set ofchallenges arises out of the intersection of major macro- social trends and their particular spatial patterns. The city and the metro- politan region emerge as one of the key sites where these macro-social trends instantiate and hence can be constituted as objects of study. In this regard then, the complex city or city-region becomes a heuristic zone: it actually can produce knowledge about, and make legible, some of the major transformations and dynamics shaping society. This is the city not as a bounded unit, but as a complex structure that can articulate a variety of macro-social processes and reconstitute them as a partly urbanized condition. This volume is an important contribution to this larger effort. Its par- ticular contribution lies in the specification of a European city type. In a conceptual and historical tour de force, Häussermann and Haila locate this European city type for us and set the stage for the volume. The effort of this volume is not to find homogeneity. Rather, together the chapters document the fact of enormous heterogeneity among European cities, but within a framework that does not deborder the European city type. In a strong, detailed and illuminating introduction, Kazepov shows us the complexity of the notion of a European city. Kazepov notes that what binds these chapters into a European type is their emphasis, whether explicit or not, on the regulatory heritage and current policy apparatus within which these cities function. A critical variable for all authors is the set of changes that came about in the 1980s and the pressures they pro- duced on welfare states throughout Europe. In sharp contrast with cities in the USA subject to similar pressures, in Europe the welfare states and the role of the state remain strong and consequential. It is at this juncture that the model of a European city finds one of its key moorings. Within this broader framing, each author focuses in great detail on one particular feature. This makes reading these chapters truly rewarding as they go, as I like to say, digging into their issue. It raises the level of com- plexity in the specification of a type of European city. At the most general level, one consequence of the changes emerging in the 1970s and 1980s in Europe has been the development of new forms of governance through which different actors have become increasingly involved in policy design and delivery. In an earlier phase, the notion of urban policies, Le Galès emphasizes, was related to national efforts to address the threats of urban violence, delinquency, and the fear of the working class. Urban policy is the development of welfare state policies; often they are simply public state policies. Le Galès examines the increasingly constructivist frame within which urban policies are produced today. The complex processes of stucturation include a wider range of actors coming from different sectors of society, with different interests and acting at different levels. This brings about a xviii Foreword COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 18
- 23. field of experimentationby local actors, who are no longer simply imple- menting decisions taken at other levels of government, but are active participants in redesigning policy. Cities become a key site for aggrega- tion and representation of interests. For Le Galès, organizing a mode of governance is critical, and it is here that European cities reveal themselves as different from US cities. The ongoing importance of the welfare state in Europe also means that urban elites are less dependent on business interests. Introducing complexities, Martinotti shows us how specific populations with specific interests today cut across older class differences and so make regulation more difficult. Most of the social problems in today’s metro- politan societies are related to the way in which potential conflicts among inhabitants, commuters, city users, and businesspeople are played out and are structured. Despite some measure of convergence with US cities, the fact remains that the less market-oriented local governance arrangements and the more binding regulation systems and urban planning constraints give European cities more control over the tensions different interests can produce. The effect is to temper the consequences of economic globalization and neoliberal adjustment, the spread of flexibility and of vulnerability. However, Vranken, on his part, finds limits in the governance approach to cities and their problems. He shows how urban policies have not captured the complexity and the key dynamics of cities in seeking to address the breakdowns of cohesion: the mix of organic and mechanical forms of solidarity present in a city, the particular dynamics through which cohesion can be achieved (e.g., by allowing a community to estab- lish its identity), the need to recognize that edges and borders can be fruitful zones contributing to cohesion rather than strengthening divisions. Kesteloot emphasizes that even as state action makes the critical dif- ference in Europe compared with the USA, state action varies across Europe. The social issues confronting European cities may be the same but the socio-spatial arrangements of cities vary and have different effects on how the social issues are handled. The socio-spatial structure of the city results from historical processes: older spatializations of economic, social and political processes; the material and social modes for collective organization and consumption of older periods; the organization of the economy and the conditions for class struggle. These differences can shape different futures for these cities, especially their social relations. The weight of these differences in social relations comes sharply to life in the disturbing findings by Mingione and Morlicchio, respectively. Each notes the differences between Northern and Southern Europe. In the latter, the importance of clientelism, segmented labor markets, locally fragmented social assistance schemes, and unsupported family responsibilities, pro- duce specific burdens and major responsibilities on families rather than Foreword xix COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 19
- 24. the state asin Northern Europe. The redistribution of resources is con- fined to the family, thereby trumping the European welfare state. This reproduces already high inequality. But the vicious cycle goes deeper. Mingione shows how the instability arising out of changes in the market and the family spilled over into the welfare state, affecting its capabilities and leading to breakdown in its fiscal and crisis management capacities. Murie adds to this type of analysis by emphasizing the importance of going beyond income when we measure and explain poverty. His findings also point to a particular kind of trumping of the welfare state. He is concerned with the resources households can draw on, resources that can determine their life chances. Murie emphasizes the importance of a wider definition of poverty, one that specifies the terms of access to resources other than income and employment. Important in this context are decommodified services (not provided through markets) and how poor families can access them. Different neighborhoods are positioned differ- ently as a result of a variety of conditions such as stereotyping, racism, mobility, and transiency. We cannot assume that such decommodified services will be evenly distributed and that they go to all those who need them. This can in turn generate inequalities. Poverty is then a far more dynamic and embedded condition than indicated by income and by the features of the welfare state. García addresses the challenge to social citizenship, crucial to the Euro- pean city, contained in the fact of the persistence of poverty. She emphas- izes the importance of a broader form of social inclusion, not only income, in order to secure social citizenship. Given increasing inequality in the terms of inclusion into the social, political, and economic spheres, García wants to make more explicit the implicit notions of social justice emerging in the policy context for addressing poverty in the European Union (EU). To some extent, social citizenship has been realized in the EU (welfare regimes, Social Europe), but the context has changed from strong welfare to one where more private/market mechanisms enter the picture. Hence new understandings of social justice need to be developed in today’s Europe. It comes down to a specification of what we mean by social inclusion: an increasing focus on the multidimensional causes of poverty beyond narrow economic definition, highlighting the importance of participation in society. In yet another twist on the limits of welfare states, Ronald van Kempen shows us how the housing conditions of migrants in Europe are still worse than those of nationals. He finds that segregation persists in all the cities examined and that it has failed to decline over time; for some groups it has increased. He also finds, interestingly, sharp differences for the same group across countries and, within a given city, sharp differences for dif- ferent groups and among cities in a country. Different dynamics in each xx Foreword COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 20
- 25. city, country orgroup may be part of the explanation. Van Kempen finds that spatial segregation exists in different combinations with inequality. Musterd and Ostendorf focus on ongoing segregation and social exclu- sion and their potential reinforcement through the spatial clustering of socially excluded people. They find a mix of dynamics: that the extent of social welfare development has a significant effect on the reduction of polarization, that higher unemployment can result from structural or spatial mismatch, and that globalization has reduced the role of the state in welfare and increased that of the market. In their detailed analysis they find that welfare states and urban histories make a difference, and explain much of the difference in social segregation and exclusion between US and European cities. Further, the types of welfare policies also make a difference. Thus, in Dutch segregated neighborhoods the authors find that those who were in a stronger position (e.g., had a job) in a weak neighborhood, fared worse after losing the job than those who start out unemployed in a weak neighborhood. Current Dutch welfare policies can neutralize the negative effects in the second case but not in the first. The major policy implication is that government policy should not target areas but do more individual targeting. The question of politics as distinct from governance is addressed in oblique ways in the last two chapters I discuss here. In his study of a gentrifying neighborhood, Simon shows us the diversity of possible pat- terns. While he recognizes that this is perhaps the less common situation, he emphasizes that we need to recognize it is one trajectory. The gentrifiers are particular types. However, at the same time within this self-selected group there are differences, one group wanting to preserve the diversity which includes the long-term poorer residents, and the other group acting according to the familiar image in the gentrification literature, i.e. trying to drive the long-term residents out. The latter group fails, in good part because of the efforts of the former gentrifiers who seek to ensure that even if old-time residents are forced to leave their housing because of price rises, that they relocate in the same neighborhood. Thereby these gentrifiers are not only protecting the old-time residents but also their own interest in having a diverse neighborhood, and one where they can be certain to be able to stay too. Simon retheorizes class relations by showing the possibility of political projects that join different classes. Sennett reminds us that the peculiar value of urban life, even in decay- ing cities, is that cities are places where learning to live with strangers and with those who are not like ourselves, can happen directly. Cosmopolitanism arises from this. Urban life can teach people how to live with multiplicity inside themselves: it is not just about registering differences – of identity, language, etc. – out there. As we interact with others who are different, there also is a shift in who we are. How our identity is constructed will Foreword xxi COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 21
- 26. vary in differenttypes of interactions. Urban life then, gives us the concrete materials for developing that consciousness. Crucial for Sennett is that this is a possibility, not an inevitability. There are cities whose features actively exclude that possibility. In this sense, European cities are far more amenable than US cities to this possibility. Saskia Sassen University of Chicago and London School of Economics xxii Foreword COEA01 15/10/04, 9:11 AM 22
- 27. Cities of Europe1 Introducing European Cities 1 Cities of Europe: Changing Contexts, Local Arrangements, and the Challenge to Social Cohesion Yuri Kazepov 2 The European City: A Conceptual Framework and Normative Project Hartmut Häussermann and Anne Haila COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 1
- 28. Cities of Europe3 1 Cities of Europe: Changing Contexts, Local Arrangements, and the Challenge to Social Cohesion Yuri Kazepov Introduction European cities are back on the agenda of researchers in social sciences as a distinct topic. In the last few years scientific production has markedly increased, highlighting their distinctiveness in comparative terms.1 This increased interest towards difference is the outcome of the scientific debate and empirical research emerged from the need to understand the trans- formation trends set in motion at the end of the 1970s, their impacts and the resulting growing diversity at different territorial levels. The deep process of spatial reorganization which began in the after- math of the crisis of Fordism brought about two apparently contradictory directions of change, running partly parallel and bringing about this dis- tictiveness. From the economic point of view, the extensive globalization of production strategies and consumption behaviors, with multinational firms and financial markets playing a decisive part, has been paralleled by an increased localization of production into regional economies and indus- trial districts with varying impacts at the local level. From the political point of view, the rise of supranational institutions and political configura- tions (e.g., the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization (WTO)) gaining strategic guidance in foster- ing the mobility of capital, goods, services and labor, has been paralleled by a transfer of regulatory authority downwards to subnational territories, namely regions and cities. COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 3
- 29. 4 Yuri Kazepov Theseprocesses bring about a growing complexity which needs to be disentangled and this book is one of the few available contributions in that direction from the perspective of European cities. In fact, the way in which converging trends characterized by the spread of market regulation mechan- isms in a framework of increased and global economic competition have been played out is characterized by diverging impacts bringing about an increased heterogeneity at different territorial levels. This points to some distinctive elements that European cities have retained in this process, a distinctiveness that derives, according to an emerging body of literature with which I tie in, from the regulatory framework that structures the processes of social cohesion and integration taking place at the urban level. As will become evident, these opposing directions of change do not occur in an institutional vacuum, but take full advantage of the regulatory heritage within which they are embedded. Even though not all chapters explicitly address the distinctiveness of European cities as their main focus, their difference from other contexts – in particular the USA – emerges as a recurrent trait. The varied and partly mitigated impact of resurging inequality and poverty linked to the spread of market relations, the new forms of governance linked to the emergence of new local actors and innovative policies are just a few ex- amples of how change might produce new contexts for cities. Investigat- ing these changes in Western European urban societies, understanding the tensions they might give rise to, their multiple dimensions, the poten- tial patterns of social vulnerability that might emerge, the impacts on the built environment, and the solutions provided are the aims of this book. The authors address these issues, providing the reader with a rich and diversified set of analytical tools and empirical evidence from comparative research to understand these processes. The book is complemented by a highly innovative CD-Rom on visual paths through urban Europe to which all authors of the book refer to for any visual accounts given in the individual chapters (see the specific section on the CD-Rom). The chapters have been grouped into three main sections. The first section addresses the changing contexts and the link with the local dimen- sion this process might have. The second section concentrates on the impact of these transformations on the built environment in European cities, in particular investigating potential neighborhood effects, segrega- tion and gentrification. The third section deals with the governance and social cohesion issues arising, and in particular the local policies against social exclusion and poverty. The three sections are complemented by two opening chapters focusing on European cities at a more abstract and theoretical level. In particular, in order to understand and frame the distinctiveness of European cities, I divided this introductory chapter into three parts. In the first part I propose COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 4
- 30. Cities of Europe5 a specific explanatory path, starting from a relatively abstract level of analysis of how regulation frames work and the need to understand their institutional context. This implies bringing in also not specifically urban issues that are relevant to understand how the distinctive elements of European cities become structured. The second part briefly presents the institutional mixes characterizing the European context. This discussion intersects with the ongoing debates on urban change and is not separate from the structure of the book, being fuelled with the arguments put forward by the different authors. These are briefly presented in the third part where I connect them with my explanatory path. I will not sum up here the theories and the empirical evidence presented in the current literature and in the different chapters of this book. The literature on the topic has been extensively reported by Le Galès (2002) and Chapter 2 reviews the conceptual framework and normative project within which ‘the European city’ as an analytical category is in general embedded. Moreover, the different chapters provide – in most cases – an introduc- tion and discussion of the main contributions in the literature of the topic they are dealing with, so I would have run the risk of being repetitive. Therefore, my strategy is aimed rather at understanding what cuts across most chapters and what I consider crucial in understanding the character- istics of European cities. The Importance of Considering the Context Let me start with an obvious and rather theoretical statement: context matters. Scholars from most disciplines of the social sciences increasingly underline its importance: it is not possible to understand social phenom- ena without embedding them in their context, but what does this really mean for the analysis of European cities? Is it enough to say that the context of European cities is different from other contexts and therefore European cities are different? Such a tautological answer only shifts the question to another – more abstract – level. We have therefore to define first what a context is, what are its dimensions, which are relevant and how they intermix. The next step is to consider the implications of different mixes. It is those specific mixes that contribute to define differences. Most theoretical approaches in social sciences refer – implicitly or explicitly – to the concept of “context” as a quite powerful tool at the very basis of their investigations. This is true for sociological thought since its foundation as a discipline: the classical dichotomy of Gemeinschaft (com- munity) and Gesellschaft (society) is clearly a contrast of contexts, in which different dimensions interact in a relatively coherent way, providing two different sets of constraints and opportunities to actors. The concept of COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 5
- 31. 6 Yuri Kazepov embeddedness,which characterizes most of the debates on the working of the economy and its social foundations (from Polanyi 1944 onwards), has at its very analytical basis the crucial role of contexts. The same is true for the analysis of cities and urban governance. The concept of nested cities (Swyngedouw 2000; Hill and Fujita 2003; Hill 2004), besides highlight- ing the interconnectedness among cities and different territorial levels of regulation, makes explicit the need to consider cities as open systems, nested (or embedded) in a wider context of social, institutional, and economic relations (see also DiGaetano and Strom 2003). But what is a context? Generally, it can be defined as a set of alternatives made of constraints and enablements, within which individual (or collective) actors can or have to choose. In this sense, a context implies a classification exercise that allows actors to define events as constraining or enabling, to posit meanings and to act strategically. This quite abstract and loose definition is scalable in different directions: different levels of abstraction can be contexts to one another; the same is true for different territorial levels and timescales. The nation-state and regions are contexts for the city, just as the past is a context for the present. The concept was used for the first time by Bateson (1972), who was interested in understanding how learning processes take place and work at different levels of abstraction. Actors learn, but they also learn to learn: they acquire frames through which they interpret the world, consolidating routines and structuring Weltanschauungen (world views). From this perspec- tive actors acquire – interacting with the context – both the cognitive frameworks to refer to and the routines that point to a shared understand- ing of reality. Sociologists usually investigate these processes in order to understand how the social bond is produced and reproduced in the tension between agency and structure. From their disciplinary point of view, contexts are usu- ally considered the structural dimension of social life. This identification, however, is not so clear-cut, because contexts entail founding relational characteristics in which agency and structure are contexts for one another. For this reason, after the 1970s, sociologists increasingly focused on the process of structuration (Giddens 1984; Archer 1995, 2003). This entailed the recognition that social (cultural, economic, political, etc.) constraints have the power to impede or to facilitate different kinds of projects expressed by agents and, at the same time, that agency – through human reflexive abilities in interacting strategically with constraints – influences structural settings and mitigates their impact in a dialectical process that puts the two in relation with one another.2 As we will see, these two dimensions acquire specific features in Europe. At the intersection of macro-social constraining logics and the micro- social foundations of agency we find institutions, which have a crucial and COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 6
- 32. Cities of Europe7 mediating role. On the one hand they provide specific contexts, and on the other they reflect the results of the institutionalization process of actors’ action. They incorporate structural features reaffirmed through recursive praxis (Giddens 1984) but, at the same time, they express a genuine structural constraint, external to the individual (or collective) actor, defining the space for free action (Archer 1995, 2003). Institutions as contexts The crucial and mediating role of institutions has been underlined in most of the chapters included in this book as a strategic starting point for understanding cities and their emergent role. It is at this level that we should begin asking about the distinctiveness of different urban settings, including the question of why European cities are different from other cities. The answer is again banal: European cities are different because they are embedded in different institutional arrangements, providing specific contexts to actors, characterized by a specific mix of constraints and enablements, and structuring specific Weltanschauungen. But how, and which institutions are structuring specific contextual mixes? In what ways do they differ in Europe? These are difficult questions, which need some preliminary definition of what an institution is.3 In the sociological tradition some founding differences can be traced back to Durkheim and Weber. In his classical work De la division du travail social, Durkheim used the legal system as a proxy for the existing forms of solidarity, assuming that it institutionalizes the social bond holding society together (1893: 24–5). In doing so, he addressed the underlying collective normative framework institutionalized in the legal system, highlighting its constraints on human action. This concern also characterized Weber’s analysis, even though he was more interested in understanding the ways in which cultural rules define social structures and govern social behavior, influencing the meaning actors give to their actions. His more actor- centered perspective aimed at developing an interpretative understanding of social action in order to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects (1922/1972: 1). Here, he pioneered a context-bound rationality approach, maintaining that rationality and choice must be understood within the context of the institutional framework of a given society and historical epoch (Nee 1998: 6). The divide between the two classics4 is reflected in the shifting focus of new institutionalism.5 Despite the fact that there is no consensus on all characteristics of new institutionalism, it is possible to synthesize the dif- ference between the old and the new in the higher degree of autonomy credited to the individual actor and to the role of culture. Actors are COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 7
- 33. 8 Yuri Kazepov supposednot only to interiorize social norms during their primary social- ization process, but they are also considered more proactive in the con- struction of their cognitive framework of reference and their institutions. Considering the different existing theoretical positions, Scott provided an omnibus definition of institutions as “cognitive, normative and regulat- ive structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to social behavior” (1995: 33). The implications of these characteristics – which are strictly interwoven with one another and are separated only analytically – are that institutions provide a structured context for action. On the one hand, their constraints (normative, cognitive, and regulative) limit and modify the free play of interactions; on the other, they provide resources for actions to take place. In other words, they define through complex social inter- actions borders, i.e. in–out relations. From the normative, cognitive, and regulative points of view, defining borders implies defining identities and differences, as well as the related processes of social inclusion and exclu- sion, i.e. processes of social closure (Weber 1972). In this sense, institutions are the result of power relations that became institutionalized, i.e. they reflect the outcome of conflicts and struggles resulting from agency taking place within a framework of specific power asymmetries. These are trans- lated into regulations and define the roles of actors, who is in and who is out and – more particularly – who gets what, when and for how long in the redistributive process (Korpi 2001). The path-dependent character of institutions The above-outlined characteristics last over time because institutions are considered by most scholars to be path-dependent, i.e. they constrain choice to a limited range of possible alternatives, reducing the probability of path changes and presenting an evolutionary tendency, given the acquired routines. Agency takes place within a given context and path dependency is one of the most likely (but not the only) results of the interaction between the two, which brings about relative stability. There are many reasons why this is the case. For example, the reproduction of the institu- tional context occurs through recursive reflexive action. This implies, from the cognitive point of view, inevitable learning effects. Routines, taken- for-granted, and practices tend to consolidate the existing institutional settings. Moreover, the regulative nature of institutions, by establishing more formal rules (through the state) or fewer (through communitarian arrangements), contributes to the formation of mutual expectations – “a system of nested rules, which are increasingly costly to change” (Goodin 1996: 23) – and produces a self-reinforcing effect over time. Both examples show that the stabilization process works through the crucial mechanism COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 8
- 34. Cities of Europe9 of “increasing returns,” i.e. positive feedbacks, which encourage actors to focus on a single alternative and to continue on a particular path once initial steps are taken (Pierson 2000a). At the very basis of all this lies the law of parsimony, which consists precisely in not re-examining the premises of habits, routines and rules every time they are used (Bateson 1972: 276). This tendency should not bring us to conceive of institutions as uniquely targeted to maintain stability. The other side of the coin is that institutions are not only constraining but also enabling contexts. Being at the intersec- tion between path-dependent structural inertia (North 1990) and path- shaping activities, institutions provide a theoretical and empirical bridge between macro-social trends and micro-social foundations. As Jessop and Nielsen put it: “institutions always need to be re-interpreted and re-negotiated, they can never fully determine action; but nor do they permit any action whatsoever so that life is no more than the product of purely wilful contingency” (2003: 4; see also Berger and Luckmann 1967: 87). This implies that the path-dependent character of institutions has to do with the interplay of agency and structure, their different temporal frame of reference and the evident long dureé of the latter. This interpreta- tion implies that paths might be changed, but connects this possibility to the given contextual opportunities. Institutional mixes and regulation All the chapters in this book implicitly or explicitly underline the import- ance of contexts and institutions: living in a European city is quite differ- ent from living in a North American city, just considering the Western industrialized world. Even within Europe, living in a Scandinavian city is different from living in a South European city (see Chapter 14). Where do the differences lie? Most chapters here agree that they lie in the peculiar mix of institutions regulating social interaction in the different European states and cities (e.g., see Chapters 3 and 6) and in the differences between them and the other industrialized countries. But how does the issue of dif- ference become concrete and empirically investigable? A favorite starting point has been the analysis of the regulative framework that institutions provide (Regini and Lange 1989: 13). In particular, the fact that they are: • coordinating the relationship between different actors; • regulating the allocation of resources; and • structuring conflicts. These intrinsic structural qualities of institutions in mediating agency and structures have influenced the building typologies exercise, which most COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 9
- 35. 10 Yuri Kazepov socialscientists use for reducing social complexities and explaining differ- ences in comparative work. The advantage of this perspective is to con- sider laws as a crucial starting point, but to go beyond the formal settings and to include also the practices different actors put forward, and the struggles implicit in the political process. At least since Polanyi (1968, 1977), it has become quite popular in scientific debate to identify the family (community), the state and the market as the relevant institutions to be considered in analyzing the different types and mixes. The literature on the issue is constantly growing in a quite articulated way. Some scholars added associations or organized social inter- ests (Streeck and Schmitter 1985) as a further relevant institution working through specific mechanisms of regulation. Others stick to the dualism between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft outlined by classical thinkers such as Weber and Durkheim (e.g., Mingione 1991). We briefly discuss some of the typologies and the classification exercise later on. Here it is enough to say that these institutions regulate social interaction through their specific cognitive frameworks, the norms they put forward and the rules and resources they mobilize. In short, these institutions define – through their own specific principles of reference – specific modes of coordination and regulation, addressing what Polanyi defined as mechanisms of socio-economic integration. The integrative effect emerges – according to Polanyi’s holistic view of society – out of the economic process which consolidates, through specific movements of goods, the interdependence of individuals within institutionalized social relations. Within this framework, economic relations are considered to be both a means of fostering and consolidating social integration and the expression of wider social relations (Polanyi 1977). This implies not only defining specific contexts of constraints and enablements, but also the patterns through which social order is produced, and the crucial mediating role institutions have in putting agencies and structures in relation to one another. Family, state, and market and the underlying principles of regulation have been widely used to construct typologies aimed at simplifying the complexity of society and explaining differences, at least descriptively. The prominence of one regulating institution produces an ideal typical configuration that – according to the different disciplines and models – helps to investigate analytically specific social systems of production (e.g., Hollingsworth and Boyer 1997; Crouch et al. 2001), particular welfare regimes (e.g., Esping-Andersen 1990, 1999; Mingione 1991; Gallie and Paugam 2000) and certain modes of governance (e.g., Jessop 2002; Le Galès 2002; DiGaetano and Strom 2003). Unfortunately, the com- plementarities between these approaches have been rarely investigated (for some exceptions see Ebbinghaus and Manow 2001; Huber and Stephens 2001; Hall and Soskice 2001). What all approaches share is the COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 10
- 36. Cities of Europe11 relevance of the systematic interconnectedness and complementarity among the different institutions and their organizational characteristics, which mutually adjusted over long periods of time. Referring to Gramsci’s (1949/ 1971) concept of hegemony6 and to the Regulation School (Aglietta 1979; Boyer 1986), the terms “regime” and “system” have often been used to underline precisely this aspect.7 How the interconnectedness is achieved and the way it gave rise to varieties of capitalism is, nevertheless, a matter of how agency and context structured one another over time, i.e. how the different dimensions interacted – through conflicts and struggle – bringing about specific historical paths of change. The Prominence of the Political and the European Context Within the picture outlined above, the state has a particular position. The command over resources and the capacity to enforce its regulation frame- work puts the state at a different level of abstraction compared with the other institutions. The state is not just one of the sources of regulation, but the regulative institution, which defines the role of the other institutions through its ability to impose decisions that concern the whole society or parts of it. As Hollingsworth and Boyer maintain: “it is the state that sanctions and regulates the various non-state coordinating mechanisms, that defines and enforces property rights, and that manipulates fiscal and monetary policy” (1997: 13). In so doing, the state establishes the promin- ence of the political by linking the different institutions through its policies, which explicitly (through rights and duties, resources redistribution, and so on) or implicitly (e.g., without intervening in or regulating specific issues) define the social responsibilities of the other institutions, their obligations and constraints on one side and the rewards and opportunities on the other. From this point of view, political power has an intrinsic paramountcy (Poggi 1991). This does not mean that the other institutions are irrelevant; on the contrary, but their “jurisdiction” has to be defined in relation to that of the state which regulates their functioning. This was not always the case. The state emerged as a regulatory institu- tion in Europe in the sixteenth century (Tilly 1975; Rokkan 1999), but its effectiveness increased only after the French and the industrial revolu- tions, when it extended its supremacy in regulatory terms over most other institutions through the rule of law. This increased role of the legal dimen- sion of political processes defined rights and duties as the outcome of the institutionalization of political choices and struggle (Poggi 1991). Under- lying this crucial historic shift was the fact that the state became the means through which political rights were defined and the participation of the COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 11
- 37. 12 Yuri Kazepov populationregulated (Tilly 1975). This situation was further consolidated after the two World Wars, when the development of national compulsory insurance schemes and the removal of rigid guild systems and corporatist protections, most often organized at the local level, established new spaces for social membership (Marshall 1950; Alber 1982). Economic growth fuelled the nation-state with resources to be redistributed through welfare provisions and services. Underlining the importance of the state and the political already defines the framework I will mainly refer to for understanding the context of European cities. However, the political is not separated from social reality. Despite important intra-European differences, to which we will return, we can identify, along with Kaelble (1987), Therborn (1995) and Crouch (1999), some broader commonalities characterizing (West) European countries on the eve of the nineteenth century. Here I will just mention some that distinguish them from other industrializing coun- tries at that time, most prominently the USA. 1 European countries had a relatively low degree of religious diversity with just one (Catholic) or two dominant institutionalized Christian churches (Catholic and Protestant). Other religious diversities were limited to small and marginal groups (Crouch 1999). The religious cleavages have been linked for a long time with parties influencing the policy-making process in specific directions (Alber 1982; Rokkan 1999; Huber and Stephens 2001). These cleavages were not given in the USA, where the existing complexities, also in terms of ethnicity, brought about a bipartitism that was completely detached from religious values. 2 In European countries, some family structures, such as single young adults and nuclear families, were over-represented and, comparatively, later marriages characterized their reproductive strategies. These char- acteristics were present elsewhere, but not altogether and at the same time. According to Kaelble (1987: 14–23), this had three major implica- tions. First, the development of social policies, which were needed to back up the nuclear families’ weak sheltering capacities in the industrialization phase. Only South European countries followed a different path; stronger primary social networks have been accompanied on the whole by weaker states and other redistributive means. Second, late marriages contributed to the availability of a considerable and potentially mobile workforce. Third, the presence of single young adults might have had political consequences in the participation in mass political movements during the extension of voting rights. Even though it is not possible to speak about a unique European family model for the time being, it is nonetheless possible to differentiate it from the USA where the transformation processes have not been accompanied by the development of social policies. COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 12
- 38. Cities of Europe13 3 European societies were characterized by widespread industrialization and a significant share of industrial employment, which favored class consciousness, cleavage and conflict. Nowhere else did industrial em- ployment become as large a part of the economically active popula- tion as in Europe (Therborn 1995). This brought about a high level of class stratification with relatively low inter-class social mobility but, at the same time, also created greater political mobilization opportunities for the lower socio-economic classes, which brought about a more equal redistribution of resources and the development of the welfare state. 4 European societies since the Middle Ages developed a dense network of medium-sized cities (Hohenberg and Lees 1996), which had some important common traits, summarized by Bagnasco and Le Galès (2000) and Le Galès (2002). First, their morphology and history. European cities developed in most cases between the tenth and the fourteenth century, predominantly around a central place where political power and citizenry had, and still have, their symbols. This picture contrasts quite sharply with the grid structure of North American cities, their central business districts and the tendency towards suburbanization. Second, European cities have political and social structures that are embedded in relatively generous and still structuring nation-states. This implies, given the higher public expenditures, a relatively high share of employees in the public sector, who make the city’s economy – in contrast to US cities – less dependent on market forces. Also, the low geographic mobility helps to stabilize urban contexts, favoring the development of collective actors. Third, European cities present public services and infrastructures that are strongly related to the regulative capacity and planning traditions of the respective nation-states. There are, of course, important differences among countries and cities (and this book reports some of them); nevertheless, they mitigate tendencies to segregation and poverty, which are quite widespread in the USA. These characteristics are historically interconnected. European cities, for instance, had an important role in the development of the nation-state itself (Tilly 1975; Rokkan 1999; Le Galès 2002). Cities were political and cultural laboratories of participation and government. The specific admin- istrative tools and techniques developed at the urban level – from town planning to differentiated functional roles and tax collection – were cru- cial to the rising nation-states, which extended their remit to the whole of society, promoting new mechanisms for regulating associative life. In his analysis of power carried out within Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Weber devoted one chapter to the city (1922/1972: 727–814), underlining precisely the importance of this aspect. He considered the way in which the political deliberative processes were organized to be a crucial analyt- ical dimension for understanding differences. Comparatively, he highlighted COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 13
- 39. 14 Yuri Kazepov thepeculiarity of the medieval European city, where the Bürger’s member- ship was based on his individual involvement in the regulation of social matters as a citizen and bearer of rights and duties, subject to common legislation (see Chapter 2). This was considered by Weber to be quite revolutionary for that time, because it contributed in the long run to free the individual from communitarian and ascribed bonds, and to set in motion a deep process of change, giving rise to the building of the nation- state on the one hand and to the development of capitalism on the other. Once these processes were completed – in Europe it was with the unifica- tion of Italy (1860) and Germany (1871) – state domination became the strongest organizing principle of the European urban system. Cities lost their autonomy and became agents of the state as local and regional bases for putting national policies into practice and for legitimizing the forms of territorial management defined by the State (Le Galès 2002: 76). Institutional configurations and welfare regimes as structuring contexts All the distinctive elements briefly outlined above are related to the specific role institutional configurations have in addressing and structuring social life. How do scholars deal with these differences? We mentioned previously the use of typologies as a heuristic device. A first distinction is provided by comparative political economy approaches which, addressing social systems of pro- duction, consider European countries – with the partial exception now of the UK and Ireland – as coordinated market economies and contrast them with uncoordinated ones, such as the USA. This approach provides a sys- temic view of how institutions and economic systems interact and considers institutions not only as a constraint on actor’s (firms) behavior, but also as an opportunity to increase competitive advantages through the provision of collective public goods (Fligstein 1996; Hall and Soskice 2001: 31; Le Galès and Voelzkow 2001). This implies, for instance, that educational policies are important to attain a skilled labor force, and that social policies are important in managing social risks. They stabilize consumption and deter social tensions from degenerating. But where do the differences lie? They do not lie in the economic performance of the two models, as neoliberal rhetoric would suggest. In fact, as Hall and Soskice (2001) maintained, both liberal and coordinated market economies were able to provide satisfactory levels of economic performance and competitiveness. The World Economic Forum (2004), by ranking Finland, Denmark and Sweden among the top five most competitive countries in the world, contradicts neoliberal assumptions about the negative role of the state on competitiveness. These countries are, in fact, also the highest welfare spenders. Differences lie more in the explicit and important role of institutional arrangements in COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 14
- 40. Cities of Europe15 shaping – through their complementarities – the two social systems of production. These arrangements bring about relatively coherent outcomes (e.g., in terms of social protection, labor market structure, financial markets) and reinforce the differences between the two kinds of political economy. However, despite the revitalization of the convergence hypo- thesis (for the debate see Berger and Dore 1996; Crouch and Streeck 1997), coordinated market economies show that a considerable diversity in na- tional responses to exogenous (e.g., global competitiveness and trade liber- alization) and endogenous (e.g., demographic structure, institutional inertia) pressures still prevails. The debate on welfare regimes provides insightful elements to understand these differences. The term coordinated market soci- eties is, in fact, too vague. What becomes crucial is how they are coordin- ated, besides the institutions targeted directly at regulating market forces. The important work by Esping-Andersen (1990, 1999) takes us a step further. Esping-Andersen uses the prominence of one regulative dimension as the main criteria to identify specific welfare regimes. The market, the family, and the state intermix in a peculiar way, giving rise to the three worlds of welfare capitalism: the liberal, the conservative and the social-democratic regime. The three regimes are characterized by different relations of dependence/ independence from the market8 in relation to meeting one’s own needs, and by specific outcomes in terms of social stratification and inequality. In the liberal regime, market-dependency is the greatest and inequality the highest (Förster 2000). In the conservative regime, we have an intermedi- ate level of market-dependency, related to position in the labor market, with a tendency to maintain the status quo. Finally, in the social-democratic regime market-dependency is the lowest and redistribution the highest. Esping-Andersen’s model is well known and much debated,9 so we do not need to go deeper into it here. Its advantages lie in the plausible simplification it operates, which can be considered a good starting point to systematically address the intra-European differences among coordinated market economies. In order to give an adequate picture of these differ- ences, however, several scholars criticized Esping-Andersen’s typology and made a plea for grouping the specificities of South European coun- tries into a specific regime (e.g., Mingione 1991; Leibfried 1992; Ferrera 1996, 1998; Gallie and Paugam 2000). The importance of clientelism, segmented labor markets, locally fragmented social assistance schemes, and unsupported family responsibilities underline the important differ- ences between these countries and those of the conservative regime. For more details see Chapters 2 and 12, which address the specificities, oppor- tunities, and threats of this particular regime, under particular stress as a result of the ongoing changes. Table 1.1 provides a series of important indicators to understand the main characteristics of the four welfare regimes of social Europe resulting COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 15
- 41.
- 42. Cities of Europe17 Poverty 60% median pre-transfers 16 32 29 29 23 22 20 23 21 26 23 60% median post-transfers 16 20 19 10 11 15 10 20 18 17 15 Gini index 17 n.a 33 n.a. 23 n.a. 28 n.a. 33 n.a. 31 Competitiveness 18 Growth 2003 ranking n.a. 15 n.a. 4 n.a. 13 n.a. 41 n.a. n.a. Business 2003 ranking n.a. 6 n.a. 4 n.a. 5 n.a. 24 n.a. n.a. 1 Old age index: people over 65 years as a percentage of the working age population (15–64 years). Source: Eurostat (2003a) 2 Children (0–14 years) living in families with only one adult as a percentage of all children living in families with two adults. Source: Eurostat (2003b) 3 Data for non EU-immigrants first year 1994. Source: Eurostat (2003b) 4 As a percentage of all live births. For Italy, Denmark and EU-15, last year 1999. Source: Eurostat (2003a) 5 Per 1000 persons. Source: Eurostat (2003b) 6 Employed persons as a share of the total population aged 15–64. Last year 2001. Source: Eurostat (2003b) 7 Source: OECD (2002) 8 For Germany, first year 1993. Source: Eurostat (2003b) 9 Long-term unemployed (12 months or more) as percentage of all unemployed. Source: Eurostat (2003b) 10 In PPS ( purchasing power standards). Source: Eurostat (2003b) 11 First year 1991, last year 1999. Source: Eurostat (2003a) 12 As a percentage of social benefits. Source: Eurostat (2003b) 13 As a percentage of GDP, last year 2001. Source: Eurostat (2003b) 14 Unemployed covered by unemployment benefits. Source: ECHP version 2001, first year 1994 (wave 1), last year 1998 (wave 5). Calculations by Carbone (2003) 15 Guaranteed minimum income (social assistance and existing relevant benefits/allowances) for one parent plus one child aged 2 years 11 months. PPP = purchasing power parities (Euro = 1). Situation July 31, 2001. Source: Bradshaw and Finch (2002) 16 Eurostat (2003a). First year 1995, last year 2000 17 EU-13. Source: Marlier and Cohen-Solal (2000) 18 Source: World Economic Forum (2004). The CGI (competitiveness growth index) and the the BCI (business competitiveness index) aim at ranking countries according to the factors that favor the growth and business of an economy. It considers at its very basis a mix of qualitative and quantitative set of indicators and a survey conducted on 7707 senior business leaders in 101 countries. The report and full methodological details are available online at: www.weforum.org. Retrieved: September 15, 2003 COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 17
- 43. 18 Yuri Kazepov fromthis typologic readjustment. We clearly see that data confirm to a large extent the clustering of the four models, their relative internal coher- ence and the different part played by the peculiar mixes of institutional arrangements.10 Just a few examples will make this more concrete. Within the conservative regime the family is considered to have a major role (Esping-Andersen 1999). This role is socially recognized and supported by the state through active subsidiarity (García and Kazepov 2002), which implies family allowances and services only slightly less generous than in the social-democratic regime. Women balance caring activities with an European Union (EU) average activity rate and there are slightly fewer children born out of wedlock than in the EU average. In general, reciprocity relations are backed up by state intervention, and even though market dependence is higher than in the social-democratic regime, it is definitely lower than in the liberal and the familistic regimes. If a person becomes unemployed, there is an unemployment benefit that replaces wages by approximately 60 percent for a minimum of 6 months up to 2.5 years, according to age and length of paid contributions. After this period of time people can claim unemployment assistance or, most prob- ably, social assistance as long as the condition of need persists. Replace- ment income rates are lower, but benefits allow individuals and families to be just above the poverty line (Kazepov and Sabatinelli 2001). Labor activation policies (training, requalification, job insertion) accompany passive policies. All these indicators point to an institutional context in which the state and the family provide, through a specific mix of redistributive and reci- procity relations, a set of resources aimed at protecting families from social risks. Poverty is kept at relatively low levels and the relation to the market is mediated through the provision of public goods that bring about relatively competitive coordinated market economies. South European countries of the familistic regime, despite some com- monalities with the conservative regime, present quite a different picture. Passive subsidiarity characterizes the way in which the state supports the family. Family allowances are very low, in-kind services rare and locally fragmented. Women’s activity rates are much lower than the EU average (Schmid and Gazier 2002), as are divorce rates and children born out of wedlock. Protection is (was, if we consider the recent reform trends) pro- vided more than anywhere else through the male breadwinner. Relatively low unemployment rates for male adults, but high ones for youth and women point in this direction. The same is true for the high share of public expenditure absorbed by pensions vis-à-vis other social protection policies, which are left aside. Unemployment benefits are much lower than in other regimes (40 percent of the last net income for 6 to a max- imum of 9 months) and other income-maintenance schemes aimed at the COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 18
- 44. Cities of Europe19 unemployed provide a fragmented landscape of access criteria and bene- fits which protect only selected categories. Social assistance schemes are in most cases local and intervene only residually. As we will see in Chap- ters 3 and 13, within this framework families become overloaded with social and caring responsibilities and are not able to redistribute resources except within the family itself. This brings about an unequal distribution of income (i.e. a relatively high value of the Gini index) and also a drop in fertility rates. Having children becomes extremely costly (De Sandre et al. 1999). There are, of course, exceptions, which are located in economically and institutionally more dynamic regions of Southern Europe (e.g., the Basque country in Spain, some North-Eastern regions in Italy), but they confirm the overall problematic situation. The typology briefly outlined in this section considers the nation-state as the main organizing territorial unit in the type-building exercise of welfare regimes. The same is also true of the coordinated market eco- nomies, which operate mainly through institutional settings defined at the national level. This prominent position of the nation-state has been widely challenged in the last 30 years, bringing about processes of rescaling and redesign. Does this mean that we are looking through the wrong lenses, if we focus on nation-states to understand European cities? In the following sections I try to show how the national frame of reference is still important and that the growing importance of cities (and regions) has to be con- sidered through this perspective. In particular, I proceed on two parallel tracks. On one side I pursue my main argument about the distinctiveness of European cities rooted in the political dimension and the role of the welfare state; on the other side I present some of the main arguments put forward by the authors of the chapters collected in the three sections of this book as examples of this line of thought. Changing Contexts Undoubtedly, nation-states are changing. The issue is much debated in the literature on welfare capitalism and globalization11 as well as among urban scholars.12 Changes are emerging out of specific endogenous and exogenous pressures that the nation-state has to face. These pressures have had various sources since the virtuous synergies of the post-war welfare capitalist economies, which fed the expansion of public expenditure, were interrupted in the 1970s. Economic restructuring, technical innovation, and shifts between sectors brought about deep changes in employment and working conditions: relatively stable jobs in the manufacturing sector declined and flexible forms of employment in the service sector increased together with an increase in women’s activity rates. Demographic changes, COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 19
- 45. 20 Yuri Kazepov likethe aging of the population or the weakening of families’ sheltering capacities, brought about increasing welfare demands for pensions and care services (Gullenstad and Segalen 1997). As Mingione notes in Chap- ter 3, the instability emerging from these changes in the market and the family spilled over into the protection capacities of the welfare state, giving rise to its fiscal crisis and that of its crisis management mechanisms (Offe 1984). This brought about a deep process of institutional redesign and rescaling, which Mingione sketches in relation to its diversified spatial impact on the different welfare regimes. In particular, he focuses on the consequences for the familistic regime, providing a picture within which the emerging patterns are, together with the liberal regime, the most fragmented and diversified. On the one hand, local institutions and family networks foster flexible and innovative competitiveness in self- employment or in small and medium-sized enterprises, like in the Third Italy or Catalonia (Bagnasco 1977; Piore and Sabel 1984). On the other hand, cities and regions with chronically high rates of unemployment and poverty remain locked in their situation, like in the Italian Mezzogiorno. The reasons for these differences are complex and both historically and institutionally rooted. The problems lie in the fact that the changing socio-economic and demographic contexts seem to exacerbate pre-existing differences. Cities and regions tend to polarize according to their ability to lessen the burden of caring responsibilities and to make strategic use of local social capital in addressing flexible and economically innovative arrangements. Within this picture, the nation-state has an important role. It provides only selectively the local economies with competitive public goods and it has difficulty keeping the divergent trends under control, because it is no longer able to guarantee its redistributive functions. Institutionally, the reliance on the family bears the risk of reproducing inequalities if the family’s role is not backed up by state intervention. Resources are pooled just within the smaller Gemeinschaft. In other welfare regimes – including the liberal one, even though at a lower level – these protective functions, despite the increasing diversity, are still provided by the nation-state. There, the tensions generated by the changing contexts are kept under control through new forms of governance based on innov- ative mixes between passive national and active local policies. It is within this framework that we should view the scenario presented and the trends highlighted by Martinotti, Sennett and Kesteloot in Chap- ters 4, 5 and 6 of the first section of the book on changing contexts. The existing regulative settings also influence the way in which the changing morphology of cities and the resulting urbanization patterns are filtered into concrete socio-spatial configurations. The outlined changes make cities more complex, and to understand this complexity we have to refine our analytical tools. Martinotti proposes COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 20
- 46. Cities of Europe21 to focus on how different populations, with different interests, cut across traditional class cleavages and make regulation much more complicated. Most of the social problems contemporary metropolitan societies experi- ence are related to the way in which potential conflicts among inhabit- ants, commuters, city users, and metropolitan businesspeople are played out and are structured historically. Despite certain degrees of convergence with US cities, however, less market-oriented local governance arrange- ments, embedded in more binding regulation systems and urban plan- ning, provide European cities with a higher degree of control over the tensions these different interests might bring about. These tensions are related to the ways in which the consequences of economic globalization and neoliberal adjustment are dealt with and, in particular, with the under- lying spread of flexibility and vulnerability (Castel 2000). Sennett, in Chapter 5, addresses the implications of this trend on the social virtues of urban life: sociability and subjectivity. In particular, he maintains that just as flexible production brings about more short-term relations at work, it creates a regime of superficial and disengaged relations in the city, weaken- ing the social bond. This is true, in general, but it should not be forgotten that it is also crucial how flexibility is dealt with in institutional terms. Sennett does not develop on that, but he warns us of the intrinsic risks institutions have to face. Flexibility undermines citizenship practices, which have to recompose increasingly fragmented interests. In this sense, we can surely affirm that the way in which flexibilization impacts on individuals’ interaction patterns and feelings of insecurity depends also on the ways in which it has been institutionalized in different welfare regimes. Being a protected flexiworker in a system that bridges conditions of work instability through extensive and generous coverage, rather than a precarious worker left alone within unstable market relations, makes an important difference (see Table 1.1 for some relevant data supporting this argument). Kesteloot, in Chapter 6, takes up Sennett’s warning and deploys it in relation to the socio-spatial configurations of European cities. Using a geologic metaphor combined with an adapted regulationist approach, he shows how different types of residential environments are associated with the organization of the economy, the conditions of class struggle, the types of housing and the material and institutional modes of organiza- tion for collective consumption existing at the time they were built. These spatial patterns overlay and combine with the patterns produced in previ- ous periods in a complex and historically rooted mosaic, which varies across cities, regions and countries. This results – according to Kesteloot – from the specific balance of power between employers and workers exist- ing in the different accumulation regimes. As we have seen, however, this relation is strongly mediated by state policies, which influence levels, security, and replacement rates in case of market failure. Consequently, COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 21
- 47. 22 Yuri Kazepov production,consumption, and housing patterns are molded according to the ways in which taxation and social security contributions are redis- tributed through services and provisions. Our claim is that this produces different socio-spatial configurations in different welfare regimes. The neoliberal turn and the emergence of a flexible accumulation regime after the 1970s challenges the forms of mediation and negotiation that were institutionalized in the post-war period, and tends to polarize the possible directions of change (see also Jessop 2002). Kesteloot suggests two options. The first points towards a repressive city, where fear and insecurity develop into spatial displacement and concentrations of less privileged social groups. The second points towards a negotiated city, in which new forms of governance institutionalize the legitimacy of different populations to participate in the co-definition of socially relevant goals and how to attain them. Rescaling and redesigning welfare One of the consequences of the above-mentioned changes is that the local dimension is becoming more important in regulatory terms. This can occur in different ways. On the one hand, the state can decentralize some of its functions to lower levels of government, reforming the existing sys- tem. On the other hand, there might be an implicit decentralization result- ing from a shift in the relevance of different policies, operating one at the national and the other at the local level. The two ways usually co-evolve and feed reciprocally. Let me give an example that shows how the two relate to one another. I will mainly refer to social assistance schemes and how they have changed in the last 15–20 years.13 The causal sequence of events is well known: the rise in unemploy- ment in the late 1970s, triggered by deindustrialization and economic restructuring, brought about the spread of long-term unemployment by the mid-1980s. Unemployment benefits are based on contributions and regulated at the national level in most European countries. They aim at providing benefits up to a certain period of time. After that period, unemployed people who are unable to re-enter the labor market shift to unemployment assistance or, most probably, to social assistance schemes. The latter are regulated mainly at the local level (e.g., in terms of funding and accompanying measures) and operate on the basis of the means test (see Figure 1.1 on the CD-Rom). The increased number of unemployed claiming social assistance exerted growing financial pressure on cities, which stirred the debate on welfare dependency and how to hinder it, high- lighting mainly the potential poverty and unemployment traps (Dean and Taylor-Gooby 1992) that passive social assistance measures bear. COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 22
- 48. Cities of Europe23 This paved the way for deep reforms of most of the social assistance schemes in Europe. Not being passive anymore become the new slogan from Scandinavian cities to the Southern European ones, heading towards what Jessop called the “Schumpeterian Workfare Postnational Regime” (2002). Activation has become the magic word for finding a solution to depend- ency and attaining, at the same time, two goals: 1 Getting people off the payrolls, thereby cutting public expenditure on social assistance and unemployment measures and reducing the social costs of poverty and unemployment. 2 Empowering the people out of work by improving their life conditions and increasing their opportunities through wide social support provided by ad hoc designed accompanying measures. Despite the fact that the tools developed for the attainment of these goals are relatively similar (e.g., providing subsidized jobs, training, requalification), European welfare regimes differ in relation to con- ditionality, compulsion, generosity, and to the local fragmentation these policies give rise to.14 The emerging differences cluster relatively coher- ently around the four welfare regimes that characterize Europe’s social model. The stronger accent on compulsory activation and conditionality is to be found in the liberal regime, even though all other regimes also introduced it. The social-democratic regime fosters more empowering policies, while the conservative (corporative) regime balances obligation and empower- ment. The familistic regime is the most problematic one because, despite the path-breaking reforms of the second half of the 1990s introducing Revenue Minimum d’Insertion (RMI)-like schemes (e.g., in Spain, Portu- gal, and part of Italy), their implementation still reproduces in most cases past arrangements. The latter regime is also the one in which spatial differentiation is the highest in Europe (see also Mingione et al. 2002). These trends are not just occurring within social assistance schemes. They reflect a more general shift towards local regulation, which took place in social policies throughout the 1990s (OECD 2003). In general, this regulatory shift addresses mainly in-kind services, public employment services, local partnerships, activation and accompanying measures rather than the definition of thresholds and the level of benefits. These are still defined at the national level. Even where they are defined at the local or regional level, as in Germany for instance, the variation is negligible. This holds true in all European welfare regimes, with some limitations in the familistic one where, on the contrary, the differences existing in access criteria and welfare provisions are not able to compensate existing differ- ences in the other spheres of regulation, ending up institutionally repro- ducing and reinforcing the existing conditions of inclusion and exclusion. COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 23
- 49. 24 Yuri Kazepov Thespatial impact of ongoing transformation processes The implications of the increasing differentiation in local welfare state services and practices are highlighted by Alan Murie in Chapter 7. Their role in addressing the social consequences of the changes described above is becoming more and more important, because they are structuring the ways in which vulnerability and poverty are becoming concrete in cities and neighborhoods. The processes of social exclusion are, in fact, increas- ingly triggered by differential access to participation, redistribution, and rights, which are also shaped by local practices (see also Mingione 1996). Where you live makes a difference, and the rescaling process that welfare regimes are undergoing increasingly constrains and enables individual and families’ agency according to the qualities of decommodified services they can have access to at the local level. This implies, as all the chapters in the second part of this book highlight, that the patterns of social stratification emerging in European cities increasingly incorporate space as an important dimension in the structuring process of social exclusion and inclusion. Musterd and Ostendorf (see Chapter 8), for instance, investigate the role of space in relation to segregation in cities. In particular, they address the possible neighborhood effects of spatial concentration of social dis- advantage. The assumption in the literature is that the changing socio- economic and demographic contexts tend to increase inequality. Increasing socio-economic inequality is assumed to activate processes of spatial segregation, which negatively influence opportunities for social mobility, particularly in socially and economically weak neighborhoods (Wilson 1987; for a review, see also Burgers and Musterd 2002). Inhabitants of these neighborhoods become trapped in their condition of disadvantage. This question has been much debated in the North American literature. The evidence from comparative research shows that in European cities the impact of ongoing transformation processes does not automatically translate into high levels of segregation (Musterd and Ostendorf 1998). European cities have only moderate levels of segregation compared with US cities. Even in neighborhoods that concentrate social and economic conditions of disadvantage, people can easily “get in touch with the other” and experience socially mixed environments. The role of social policies in this process – in particular, welfare transfers coupled with targeted area-based projects – is considered to be particularly relevant in reducing segregation and neutralizing the neighborhood effect for the poor and socially excluded. Institutions (including the family and reciprocity net- works) mediate the consequences of the changing contexts and mitigate their impact on people’s living conditions. The authors report empirical COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 24
- 50. Cities of Europe25 evidence for Dutch cities. Similar outcomes characterize European cities in general, even though differences can be found in relation to the charac- teristics of the welfare regimes within which cities are embedded. These differences are also confirmed when we consider the housing conditions of immigrants, who are in general one of the most vulnerable parts of the population with higher levels of segregation than nationals. In order to understand these differences, van Kempen makes a plea for a comprehens- ive approach in which the state plays an important part and interacts in a specific way with other dimensions (income, demographic structure, choice, etc.). Concrete housing conditions result from the interrelation between all these dimensions. Van Kempen shows that, despite the migrants– nationals divide in segregation levels, social housing supply and local wel- fare practices provide European cities with resources to reduce the levels of segregation much more than is the case in US cities. Marcuse follows the same line of reasoning, maintaining that social divisions within cities depend upon state action which “can ameliorate the extremes of inequal- ity in income, in the first instance, and it can directly control the spatial patterns produced by [economic changes], in the second. State action in fact makes the critical difference between European cities and cities in the United States today” (Marcuse and van Kempen 2002: 29). However, the situation is not homogeneous in Europe, and the ongoing rescaling pro- cesses can bring about an increased differentiation at the local level, with liberal and familistic regimes being the most diversified. The different role of the state in regulating access to housing influences the way in which gentrification processes take place and social mix is encouraged. Simon (see Chapter 10) shows how the pace and intensity of gentrification depend upon the flexibility of the housing market. Euro- pean cities are, from this point of view, particularly resilient compared with US cities. The prominent role of home ownership, of public investors, and relatively low residential mobility limit de facto the negative effects of gentrification processes and sharp divisions. Public intervention in the renovation process and public urban planning in general tend to min- imize the effects of the rent gap and to promote social mixing. Another limitation comes from local communities. In order to understand the processes at stake, Simon analyzes the case of Belleville in Paris. In par- ticular, he addresses the implications of gentrification for the structuring of social integration and social mixing as part of a wider process of urban renewal in which different actors with different interests participate. In this sense, he is interested in showing how the encounter of different populations within the neighborhood changes the patterns of social inte- gration. From this point of view, gentrifiers are not a homogenous group and the resulting interactions with the local inhabitants point to complex forms of mediation and interclass collaboration. Among gentrifying groups, COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 25
- 51. 26 Yuri Kazepov newmiddle-class multiculturals – as Simon calls those who enjoy social and ethnic mixes, look for an atmosphere and are willing a priori to respect the neighborhood – might mediate between business and politics, bringing about new forms of social cohesion from below, which are increasingly gaining ground in European cities. Local governments, new forms of governance, and social cohesion Within the trends of decentralization and devolution emerging at the end of the 1970s, cities gained autonomy and became actively involved in the policy design exercise. The basic assumption underlying these trends is that local policies should facilitate more targeted and flexible solutions which are able to adapt to increasingly varying social needs in differenti- ated local contexts. The degrees of freedom localities have, however, vary across countries and regions and depend very much on the institutional frames of reference, which constrain and enable context-specific options at the different territorial levels. The relationship these policies retain with national regulatory contexts remains crucial in understanding the impact devolution has in fragmenting and differentiating access to resources and establishing and institutionalizing new territorial inequalities. The four regimes characterizing the European social model present, from this point of view, distinct even though partly converging path-dependent patterns. This implies that similar policies embedded in different institutional contexts produce different impacts.15 To understand the complexity of this process and the fragmenting effect it might bear, we have to consider preliminarily that decentralization is often accompanied by a broader process of privatization and diffusion of neoliberal principles of regulation within public social services (Ascoli and Ranci 2002). Besides introducing new public management criteria in- spired by the rhetoric of efficiency and the adoption of cost–benefit rela- tions and performance indicators within public services and administrative bodies, this has brought about an increasing separation between funding and delivering services. In this context, public bodies are funding and regulating contracted-out services, which are supplied by third parties, mainly non-profit actors. According to Ascoli and Ranci (2002), these changes are transversal to any welfare regime and should no longer be seen as a mere devolution of management responsibilities from public to private actors driven only by neoliberal ideology. Rather, they reflect increasingly also processes of sys- temic realignment of the spheres of regulation, implemented to meet the new emerging needs. These processes of realignment do not necessarily neglect the role of the state, but involve a reorganization of the institutional COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 26
- 52. Cities of Europe27 forms through which services are being delivered, financed, and coordin- ated. Social expenditure did not decline radically as heralded and the state did not disappear. The territorial impact of these changes, however, depends on how they intersect with the existing institutional settings. As the chapters of the last part of the book clearly show, this situation is char- acterized by highly ambiguous synergies. On the one hand, they open up new opportunities for developing local partnerships and democratic par- ticipation in the co-definition of goals; on the other hand, they might have negative and unequal effects in terms of redistribution of both economic resources and opportunities (Geddes 2000; Geddes and Le Galès 2001). One of the consequences of the above-mentioned changes from the mid-1980s onwards has been the development of new forms of govern- ance through which different actors have become increasingly involved in policy design and delivery. Le Galès (see Chapter 11) addresses these issues, disentangling the elusive nature of urban policies and underlining the increasingly constructivist frame within which they are produced. Urban policies are, in fact, becoming more fluid as a result of a complex process of structuration, during which a widening range of actors, from different sectors of society, with different interests and acting at different levels, interact and produce policies. This brings about “an immense field of experimentation undertaken by local actors,” who are no longer merely implementing decisions taken at other levels of government, but are taking an active part in the redesign of public policies through conflicts and negotiations. In this framework, urban government has not disappeared; on the contrary, cities become a privileged site of aggregation and repre- sentation of interests. The crucial issue is then, as Le Galès clearly under- lines, “bringing them together to organize a mode of city governance.” In this exercise, European cities present important differences compared with US cities. They still have strong capacities for initiatives and control, and – most importantly – they can rely on a welfare state with powerful mechanisms of redistribution. These provide relative stability, an institu- tional milieu that the new forms of governance can build upon: “a political domain in which the structural context of economic and state structuring and restructuring, political culture and the political actors intersect in the process of urban governance” (DiGaetano and Strom 2003: 363). The relevant role of the welfare state in European cities provides a specific political domain and makes European urban elites less dependent upon business interests. Not only do large groups within cities mobilize against radical cuts, but the vast majority of the population in Europe defends the welfare state (Gallie and Paugam 2002). It is true that state restructuring has partly weakened the protection from market forces and there is general agreement that competition is growing ( Jensen-Butler et al. 1997). How- ever, according to Le Galès, “the reality of competition translates into COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 27
- 53. 28 Yuri Kazepov publicpolicies presented in the language of competition” to make cities more attractive to investors, also through the production of local collective competition goods (see also Le Galès and Voelzkow 2001). This tendency is supported by new forms of European-wide urban coalitions, which emerged with the support of the European Commission and its funding policies, promoting the new forms of urban governance with the aim of balancing competitiveness and cohesion (Geddes 2000; Le Galès 2002). A good example of how the new forms of governance work and what impact they might have at the local level is provided by urban develop- ment programs, which are the focus of Jan Vranken in Chapter 12. These programs, developed throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, target a wide range of issues, from poverty and social exclusion in specific neighborhoods to the promotion of social cohesion and economic dynamism at the city level. Vranken’s analysis focuses on the implications of these programs for the changing patterns of solidarity and cohesion in the city. Do they impact on the life chances of the inhabitants? Are they just displacing a problem from the neighborhood in which they intervene to the neighborhood where they do not intervene? Does the intrinsic integrated approach foster solidarity and cohesion? Vranken’s answer is yes to all three questions, but under certain conditions. We have to consider how the context of action is structured, who are the actors involved, who is excluded and whose interests are represented. Vranken shows that the most recent urban development programs tend to be rather comprehensive, foreseeing also the participation of inhabit- ants (or claimants) in the planning and implementation processes. This participatory turn dramatically improves the life chances of the poor and the excluded, and effectively fosters solidarity and cohesion. However, target- ing some neighborhoods or areas might bring about varying degrees of territorial displacement, increasing inequalities within the city by isolating neighborhoods from their wider urban context. Here Vranken ties in with Le Galès and underlines another important aspect: the complementary nature of these programs to social policies, which cannot be substituted, because it “would imply an important breach of basic principles of solid- arity.” This also has important implications in relation to fragmentation and to the ability of these programs to recompose the “pieces of the puzzle.” Their success depends not only on their ability to pull together actors, interests and available resources, but also on the quality of the resources social policies can provide. This latter aspect implies that the characteristics of social policies influence the types of urban development programs that can be promoted in different welfare regimes and their degrees of freedom. In short, they help to structure the emerging modes of governance, coordination, and regulation, without determining them. COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 28
- 54. Cities of Europe29 In the last few years, several scholars have tried to systematize the debate, developing typologies to understand the different underlying prin- ciples making the different modes of governance work (e.g., Pierre 1999; Geddes and Le Galès 2001; Jessop 2002; DiGaetano and Strom 2003). The aim of these scholars has been to understand how the public–private resource mobilization takes place, how partnerships are built and how actors interact, with a major focus on economic activities. Despite some divergence in the construction of the typologies in terms of criteria adopted and resulting types, there seems to be wide consensus on the driving forces fuelling the spread of new governance arrangements (e.g., economic restructuring, devolution of state authority). There also appears to be con- sensus on the crucial importance of the nation-state and the institutional embeddedness of these new forms of governance. Institutions reflect values, norms, and practices, providing, at the same time, the context for actors’ bounded rationality. What clearly emerges from the analysis that the different scholars provide is, again, the tendency to develop forms of gov- ernance that seem to be in keeping with the existing institutional settings. According to DiGaetano and Strom (2003), different institutional milieus, with their structural contexts and political cultures, seem to furnish envir- onments that are more receptive to some modes of governance than others. This depends on the fact that urban governance is related to the role of local governments (Pierre 1999: 375), which implies different insti- tutional settings – also defined at the national level – and underlying values, norms, beliefs, and practices. Geddes and Le Galès (2001) refer to the four welfare regimes prevalent in Europe, as does Jessop (2002) in an adapted form. Taking up the example of increasingly localized activation and social assistance policies mentioned earlier, we can recognize – using Jessop’s classification (2002: 247–75) – some degrees of coherence between welfare regimes and the emerging new forms of partnership and governance (Lehto 2000). The prefix neo underlines the path-dependent character of the four regimes. In the neoliberal welfare regime, typical of Anglo-Saxon countries (e.g., the UK), we find broad multi-actor partnerships, with a strong presence of private actors. Delivery through partnership characterizes employer coalitions, which provide a wide array of training and job insertion opportunities in a privatized market context in which variety is high and the claimant cannot necessarily choose. Efficiency, accountability, competitiveness, and con- tractual forms of relations regulate claimants’ activation in a trend towards increased use of compulsory work activity and conditionality in defining access to means-tested benefits (Trickey and Walker 2000; Evans 2001). In the neostatist welfare regime, typical of North European countries (e.g., Denmark), we find partnerships in which the main partners are state COEC01 15/10/04, 9:20 AM 29
- 55. Another Random Documenton Scribd Without Any Related Topics
- 56. "You've forgotten me,but I quite understand. You see so many people. I'm Miss Lance. I sent you my little magazine, 'Simplicity,' once, and you acknowledged it so sweetly, though, of course, I understood you had not the time to write for it." She continued for several minutes, smiling up at him, her hands clasping and unclasping themselves behind a back clothed with some glittering coloured material that rather fascinated him by its sheen. She kept raising herself on her toes and sinking back again in a series of jerky rhythms. He gave her his delightful smile. "Oh, Dr. Fillery!" she exclaimed, with pleasure, leading him to a divan, upon which he let himself down in such a position that he could observe the door from the street as well as the door where LeVallon had disappeared. "This is really too good-natured of you. Your book set me on fire simply"—her eyes wandering to the other door—"and what a wonderful looking person you've brought with you——" "I fear it's not very easy reading," he interposed patiently. "To me it was too delightful for words," she rattled on, pleased by the compliment implied. "I devour all your books and always review them myself in the magazine. I wouldn't trust them to anyone else. I simply can't tell you how physiology stimulates me. Humanity needs imaginative books, especially just now." She broke off with a deprecatory smile. "I do what I can," she added, as he made no remark, "to make them known, though in such a very small way, I fear." Her interest, however, was divided, the two powerful attractions making her quite incoherent. "Your friend," she ventured again, "he must be Eastern perhaps? Or is that merely sunburn? He looks most unusual." "Sunburn merely, Miss Lance. You must have a chat with him later." "Oh, thank you, thank you, Dr. Fillery. I do so love unusual people...."
- 57. He listened gravely.He was gentle, while she confided to him her little inner hopes and dreams about the "simple life." She introduced adjectives she believed would sound correct, if spoken very quickly, until, between the torrent of "psychical," "physiological" and once or twice, "psychological," she became positively incoherent in a final entanglement from which there was no issue but a convulsive gesture. None the less, she was bathed in bliss. She monopolized the great man for a whole ten minutes on a divan where everybody could see that they talked earnestly, intimately, perhaps even intellectually, together side by side. He observed the room, meanwhile, without her noticing it, scanning the buzzing throng with interest. There was confusion somewhere, something was lacking, no system prevailed; he was aware of a general sense of waiting for a leader. All looked, he knew, for Nayan to appear. Without her presence, there was no centre, for, though not a member of the Society herself, she was the heart always of their gatherings, without which they straggled somewhat aimlessly. And "heart," he remembered, with a smile that Miss Lance took proudly for herself, was the appropriate word. Nayan mothered them. They were but children, after all.... "When you talk of a 'New Age,' what exactly do you mean? I wish you'd define the term for me," Devonham meanwhile was saying to an interlocutor, not far away, while with a corner of his eye he watched both Fillery and the private door. He still stood near the entrance, looking more than ever like a disapproving floor-walker in a big department store, and it was with H. Millington Povey that he talked, the Honorary Secretary of the Society. The Secretary had aimed at Fillery, but Miss Lance had been too quick for him. He was obliged to put up with Devonham as second best, and his temper suffered accordingly. He was in aggressive mood. Povey, facing him, was talking with almost violent zeal. A small, thin, nervous man, on the verge of middle age, his head prematurely bald, with wildish tufts of patchy hair, a thin, scraggy neck that he lengthened and shortened between high hunched shoulders, Povey
- 58. resembled an eagervulture. His keen bright eyes, hooked nose, and a habit of twisting head and neck apart from his body, which held motionless, increased this likeness to a bird of prey. Possessed of considerable powers of organization, he kept the Society together. It was he who insisted upon some special "psychic gift" as a qualification of membership; an applicant must prove this gift to a committee of Povey's choosing, though these proofs were never circulated for general reading in the Society's Reports. Talkers, dreamers, faddists were not desired; a member must possess some definite abnormal power before he could be elected. He must be clairvoyant or clairaudient, an automatic writer, trance-painter, medium, ghost-seer, prophet, priest or king. Members, therefore, stated their special qualification to each other without false modesty: "I'm a trance medium," for instance; "Oh, really! I see auras, of course"; while others had written automatic poetry, spoken in trance—"inspirational speakers," that is— photographed a spirit, appeared to someone at a distance, or dreamed a prophetic dream that later had come true. Mediums, spirit-photographers, and prophetic dreamers were, perhaps, the most popular qualifications to offer, but there were many who remembered past lives and not a few could leave their bodies consciously at will. Memberships cost two guineas, the hat was occasionally passed round for special purposes, there was a monthly dinner in Soho, when members stood up, like saved sinners at a revivalist meeting, and gave personal testimony of conversion or related some new strange incident. The Prometheans were full of stolen fire and life. Among them were ambitious souls who desired to start a new religion, deeming the Church past hope. Others, like the water- dowsers and telepathists, were humbler. There was an Inner Circle which sought to revive the Mysteries, and gave very private performances of dramatic and symbolic kind, based upon recovered secret knowledge, at the solstices and equinoxes. New Thought members despised these, believing nothing connected with the past
- 59. had value; theylooked ahead; "live in the present," "do it now" was their watchword. Astrologers were numerous too. These cast horoscopes, or, for a small fee, revealed one's secret name, true colour, lucky number, day of the week and month, and so forth. One lady had a tame "Elemental." Students of Magic and Casters of Spells, wearers of talismans and intricate designs in precious or inferior metal, according to taste and means, were well represented, and one and all believed, of course, in spirits. None, however, belonged to any Sect of the day, whatever it might be; they wore no labels; they were seekers, questers, inquirers whom no set of rules or dogmas dared confine within fixed limits. An entirely open mind and no prejudices, they prided themselves, distinguished them. "Define it in scientific terms, this New Age—I cannot," replied Povey in his shrill voice, "for science deals only with the examination of the known. Yet you only have to look round you at the world to- day to see its obvious signs. Humanity is changing, new powers everywhere——" Devonham interrupted unkindly, before the other could assume he had proved something by merely stating it: "What are these signs, if I may ask?" he questioned sharply. "For if you can name them, we can examine them —er—scientifically." He used the word with malice, knowing it was ever on the Promethean lips. "There you are, at cross-purposes at once," declared Povey. "I refer to hints, half-lights, intuitions, signs that only the most sensitive among us, those with psychic divination, with spiritual discernment—that only the privileged and those developed in advance of the Race—can know. And, instantly you produce your microscope, as though I offered you the muscles of a tadpole to dissect." They glared at one another. "We shall never get progress your way," Povey fumed, withdrawing his head and neck between his
- 60. shoulders. "Returning to theMiddle Ages, on the other hand," mentioned Devonham, "seems like advancing in a circle, doesn't it?" "Dr. Devonham," interrupted a pretty, fair-haired girl with an intense manner, "forgive me for breaking up your interesting talk, but you come so seldom, you know, and there's a lady here who is dying to be introduced. She has just seen crimson flashing in your aura, and she wants to ask—do you mind very much?" She smiled so sweetly at him, and at Mr. Povey, too, who was said to be engaged to her, though none believed it, that annoyance was not possible. "She says she simply must ask you if you were feeling anger. Anger, you know, produces red or crimson in one's visible atmosphere," she explained charmingly. She led him off, forgetting, however, her purpose en route, since they presently sat down side by side in a quiet corner and began to enjoy what seemed an interesting tête-à- tête, while the aura-seeing lady waited impatiently and observed them, without the aid of clairvoyance, from a distance. "And your qualifications for membership?" asked Devonham. "I wonder if I may ask——?" "But you'd laugh at me, if I told you," she answered simply, fingering a silver talisman that hung from her neck, a six-pointed star with zodiacal signs traced round a rose, rosa mystica, evidently. "I'm so afraid of doctors." Devonham shook his head decidedly, asserting vehemently his interest, whereupon she told him her little private dream delightfully, without pose or affectation, yet shyly and so sincerely that he proved his assertion by a genuine interest. "And does that protect you among your daily troubles?" he asked, pointing to her little silver talisman. He had already commented sympathetically upon her account of saving her new puppies from drowning, having dreamed the night before that she saw them gasping in a pail of water, the cruel under-gardener looking on. "Do you wear it always, or only on special occasions like this?"
- 61. "Oh, Miss Milliganmade that," she told him, blushing a little. "She's rather poor. She earns her living by designing——" "Oh!" "But I don't mean that. She tells you your Sign and works it in metal for you. I bought one. Mine is Pisces." She became earnest. "I was born in Pisces, you see." "And what does Pisces do for you?" he inquired, remembering the heightened colour. The sincerity of this Rose Mystica delighted him, and he already anticipated her reply with interest. Here, he felt, was the credulous, religious type in its naked purity, forced to believe in something marvellous. "Well, if you wear your Sign next your skin it brings good luck—it makes the things you want happen." The blush reappeared becomingly. She did not lower her eyes. "Have your things happened then?" She hesitated. "Well, I've had an awfully good time ever since I wore it——" "Proposals?" he asked gently. "Dr. Devonham!" she exclaimed. "How ever did you guess?" She looked very charming in her innocent confusion. He laughed. "If you don't take it off at once," he told her solemnly, "you may get another." "It was two in a single week," she confided a little tremulously. "Fancy!" "The important thing, then," he suggested, "is to wear your talisman at the right moment, and with the right person." But she corrected him promptly. "Oh, no. It brings the right moment and the right person together, don't you see, and if the other person is a Pisces person, you understand each other, of course, at once."
- 62. "Would that Itoo were Pisces!" he exclaimed, seeing that she was flattered by his interest. "I'm probably"—taking a sign at random —"Scorpio." "No," she said with grave disappointment, "I'm afraid you're Capricornus, you know. I can tell by your nose and eyes—and cleverness. But—I wanted really to ask you," she went on half shyly, "if I might——" She stuck fast. "You want to know," he said, glancing at her with quick understanding, "who he is." He pointed to the door. "Isn't that it?" She nodded her head, while a divine little blush spread over her face. Devonham became more interested. "Why?" he asked. "Did he impress you so?" "Rather," she replied with emphasis, and there was something in her earnestness curiously convincing. A sincere impression had been registered. "His appearance, you mean?" She nodded again; the blush deepened; but it was not, he saw, an ordinary blush. The sensitive young girl had awe in her. "He's a friend of Dr. Fillery's," he told her; "a young man who's lived in the wilds all his life. But, tell me—why are you so interested? Did he make any particular impression on you?" He watched her. His own thoughts dropped back suddenly to a strange memory of woods and mountains ... a sunset, a blazing fire ... a hint of panic. "Yes," she said, her tone lower, "he did." "Something very definite?" She made no answer. "What did you see?" he persisted gently. From woods and mountains, memory stepped back to a railway station and a customs official....
- 63. Her manner, obviouslytruthful, had deep wonder, mystery, even worship in it. He was aware of a nervous reaction he disliked, almost a chill. He listened for her next words with an interest he could hardly account for. "Wings," she replied, an odd hush in her voice. "I thought of wings. He seemed to carry me off the earth with great rushing wings, as the wind blows a leaf. It was too lovely: I felt like a dancing flame. I thought he was——" "What?" Something in his mind held its breath a moment. "You won't laugh, Dr. Devonham, will you? I thought—for a second —of—an angel." Her voice died away. For a second the part of his mood that held its breath struggled between anger and laughter. A moment's confusion in him there certainly was. "That makes two in the room," he said gently, recovering himself. He smiled. But she did not hear the playful compliment; she did not see the smile. "You've a delightful, poetic little soul," he added under his breath, watching the big earnest eyes whose rapt expression met his own so honestly. Having made her confession she was still engrossed, absorbed, he saw, in her own emotion.... So this was the picture that LeVallon, by his mere appearance alone, left upon an impressionable young girl, an impression, he realized, that was profound and true and absolute, whatever value her own individual interpretation of it might have. Her mention of space, wind, fire, speed, he noticed in particular—"off the earth ... rushing wind ... dancing flame ... an angel!" It was easy, of course, to jeer. Yet, somehow, he did not jeer at all. She relapsed into silence, which proved how great had been the emotional discharge accompanying the confession, temporarily exhausting her. Dr. Devonham keenly registered the small, important details.
- 64. "Entertaining an angelunawares in a Chelsea Studio," he said, laughingly; then reminding her presently that there was a lady who was "dying to be introduced" to him, made his escape, and for the next ten minutes found himself listening to a disquisition on auras which described "visible atmospheres whose colour changes with emotion ... radioactivity ... the halo worn by saints" ... the effect of light noticed about very good people and of blackness that the wicked emanated, and ending up with the "radiant atmosphere that shone round the figure of Christ and was believed to show the most lovely and complicated geometrical designs." "God geometrizes—you, doubtless, know the ancient saying?" Mrs. Towzer said it like a challenge. "I have heard it," admitted her listener shortly, his first opportunity of making himself audible. "Plato said some other fine things too ——" "I felt sure you were feeling cross just now," the lady went on, "because I saw lines and arrows of crimson darting and flashing through your aura while you were talking to Mr. Povey. He is very annoying sometimes, isn't he? I often wonder where all our subscriptions go to. I never could understand a balance-sheet. Can you?" But Devonham, having noticed Dr. Fillery moving across the room, did not answer, even if he heard the question. Fillery, he saw, was now standing near the door where Khilkoff and LeVallon had disappeared to see the sculpture, an oddly rapt expression on his face. He was talking with a member called Father Collins. The buzz of voices, the incessant kaleidoscope of colour and moving figures, made the atmosphere a little electric. Extricating himself with a neat excuse, he crossed towards his colleague, but the latter was already surrounded before he reached him. A forest of coloured scarves, odd coiffures, gleaming talismans, intervened; he saw men's faces of intense, eager, preoccupied expression, old and young, long hair and bald; there was a new perfume in the air, incense evidently; tea, coffee, lemonade were being served, with stronger drink for the few
- 65. who liked it,and cigarettes were everywhere. The note everywhere was exalté rather. Out of the excited throng his eyes then by chance, apparently, picked up the figure of Lady Gleeson, smoking her cigarette alone in a big armchair, a half-empty glass of wine-cup beside her. She caught his attention instantly, this "pretty Lady Gleeson," although personally he found neither title nor adjective justified. The dark hair framed a very white skin. The face was shallow, trivial, yet with a direct intensity in the shining eyes that won for her the reputation of being attractive to certain men. Her smile added to the notoriety she loved, a curious smile that lifted the lip oddly, showing the little pointed teeth. To him, it seemed somehow a face that had been over-kissed; everything had been kissed out of it; the mouth, the lips, were worn and barren in an appearance otherwise still young. She was very expensively dressed, and deemed her legs of such symmetry that it were a shame to hide them; clad in tight silk stockings, and looking like strips of polished steel, they were now visible almost to the knee, where the edge of the skirt, neatly trimmed in fur, cut them off sharply. Some wag in the Society, paraphrasing the syllables of her name, wittily if unkindly, had christened her fille de joie. When she heard it she was rather pleased than otherwise. Lady Gleeson, too, he saw now, was watching the private door. The same moment, as so often occurred between himself and his colleague at some significant point in time and space, he was aware of Fillery's eye upon his own across the intervening heads and shoulders. Fillery, also, had noticed that Lady Gleeson watched that door. His changed position in the room was partly explained. A slightly cynical smile touched Dr. Devonham's lips, but vanished again quickly, as he approached the lady, bowed politely, and asked if he might bring her some refreshment. He was too discerning to say "more" refreshment. But she dotted every i, she had no half tones.
- 66. "Thanks, kind Dr.Devonham," she said in a decided tone, her voice thin, a trifle husky, yet not entirely unmusical. It held a strange throaty quality. "It's so absurdly light," she added, holding out the glass she first emptied. "The mystics don't hold with anything strong apparently. But I'm tired, and you discovered it. That's clever of you. It'll do me good." He, malevolently, assured her that it would. "Who's your friend?" she asked point blank, with an air that meant to have a proper answer, as he brought the glass and took a chair near her. "He looks unusual. More like a hurdle-race champion than a visionary." A sneer lurked in the voice. She fixed her determined clear grey eyes upon his, eyes sparkling with interest, curiosity in life, desire, the last-named quality of unmistakable kind. "I think I should like to know him perhaps." It was mentioned as a favour to the other. Devonham, who disliked and disapproved of all these people collectively, felt angry suddenly with Fillery for having brought LeVallon among them. It was after all a foolish experiment; the atmosphere was dangerous for anyone of unstable, possibly of hysterical temperament. He had vengeance to discharge. He answered with deliberate malice, leading her on that he might watch her reactions. She was so transparently sincere. "I hardly think Mr. LeVallon would interest you," he said lightly. "He is neither modern nor educated. He has spent his life in the backwoods, and knows nothing but plants and stars and weather and—animals. You would find him dull." "No man with a face and figure like that can be dull," she said quickly, her eyes alight. He glanced at her rings, the jewelry round her neck, her expensive gown that would keep a patient for a year or two. He remembered
- 67. her millionaire SouthAfrican husband who was her foolish slave. She lived, he knew, entirely for her own small, selfish pleasure. Although he meant to use her, his gorge rose. He produced his happiest smile. "You are a keen observer, Lady Gleeson," he remarked. "He doesn't look quite ordinary, I admit." After a pause he added, "It's a curious thing, but Mr. LeVallon doesn't care for the charms that we other men succumb to so easily. He seems indifferent. What he wants is knowledge only.... Apparently he's more interested in stars than in girls." "Rubbish," she rejoined. "He hasn't met any in his woods, that's all." Her directness rather disconcerted him. At the same time, it charmed him a little, though he did not know it. His dislike of the woman, however, remained. The idle, self-centred rich annoyed him. They were so useless. The fabulous jewelry hanging upon such trash now stirred his bile. He was conscious of the lust for pleasure in her. "Yet, after all, he's rather an interesting fellow perhaps," he told her, as with an air of sudden enthusiasm. "Do you know he talks of rather wonderful things, too. Mere dreams, of course, yet, for all that, out of the ordinary. He has vague memories, it seems, of another state of existence altogether. He speaks sometimes of—of marvellous women, compared to whom our women here, our little dressed-up dolls, seem commonplace and insignificant." And, to his keen enjoyment, Lady Gleeson took the bait with open mouth. She recrossed her shapely legs. She wriggled a little in her chair. Her be- ringed fingers began fidgeting along the priceless necklace. "Just what I should expect," she replied in her throaty voice, "from a young man who looks as he does." She began to play her own cards then, mentioning that her husband was interested in Dr. Fillery's Clinique. Devonham, however, at once headed her off. He described the work of the Home with enthusiasm. "It's fortunate that Dr. Fillery is rich," he observed carelessly, "and can follow out his own ideas exactly as he likes. I,
- 68. personally, should neverhave joined him had he been dependent upon the mere philanthropist." "How wise of you," she returned. "And I should never have joined this mad Society but for the chance of coming across unusual people. Now, your Mr. LeVallon is one. You may introduce him to me," she repeated as an ultimatum. Her directness was the one thing he admired in her. At her own level, she was real. He was aware of the semi-erotic atmosphere about these Meetings and realized that Lady Gleeson came in search of excitement, also that she was too sincere to hide it. She wore her insignia unconcealed. Her talisman was of base metal, the one cheap thing she wore, yet real. This foolish woman, after all, might be of use unwittingly. She might capture LeVallon, if only for a moment, before Nayan Khilkoff enchanted him with that wondrous sweetness to which no man could remain indifferent. For he had long ago divined the natural, unspoken passion between his Chief and the daughter of his host, and with his whole heart he desired to advance it. "My husband, too, would like to meet him, I'm sure," he heard her saying, while he smiled at the reappearance of the gilded bait. "My husband, you know, is interested in spirit photography and Dr. Frood's unconscious theories." He rose, without even a smile. "I'll try and find him at once," he said, "and bring him to you. I only hope," he added as an afterthought, "that Miss Khilkoff hasn't monopolized him already——" "She hasn't come," Lady Gleeson betrayed herself. Instinctively she knew her rival, he saw, with an inward chuckle, as he rose to fetch the desired male. He found him the centre of a little group just inside the door leading into the sculptor's private studio, where Khilkoff had evidently been showing his new group of elemental figures. Fillery, a few feet away, observing everything at close range, was still talking eagerly with Father Collins. LeVallon and Kempster, the pacifist, were
- 69. in the middleof an earnest talk, of which Devonham caught an interesting fragment. Kempster's qualification for membership was an occasional display of telepathy. He was a neat little man exceedingly well dressed, over-dressed in fact, for his tailor's dummy appearance betrayed that he thought too much about his personal appearance. LeVallon, towering over him like some flaming giant, spoke quietly, but with rare good sense, it seemed. Fillery's condensed education had worked wonders on his mind. Devonham was astonished. About the pair others had collected, listening, sometimes interjecting opinions of their own, many women among them leaning against the furniture or sitting on cushions and movable, dump-like divans on the floor. It was a picturesque little scene. But LeVallon somehow dwarfed the others. "I really think," Kempster was saying, "we might now become a comfortable little third-rate Power—like Spain, for instance—enjoy ourselves a bit, live on our splendid past, and take the sun in ease." He looked about him with a self-satisfied smirk, as though he had himself played a fine rôle in the splendid past. LeVallon's reply surprised him perhaps, but it surprised Devonham still more. The real, the central self, LeVallon, he thought with satisfaction, was waking and developing. His choice of words was odd too. "No, no! You—the English are the leaders of the world; the best quality is in you. If you give up, the world goes down and backwards." The deep, musical tones vibrated through the little room. The speaker, though so quiet, had the air of a powerful athlete, ready to strike. His pose was admirable. Faces turned up and stared. There was a murmur of approval. "We're so tired of that talk," replied Kempster, no whit disconcerted by the evident signs of his unpopularity. "Each race should take its turn. We've borne the white man's burden long enough. Why not drop it, and let another nation do its bit? We've earned a rest, I think." His precise, high voice was persuasive. He was a good public speaker, wholly impervious to another point of
- 70. view. But theresonant tones of LeVallon's rejoinder seemed to bury him, voice, exquisite clothes and all. "There is no other—unless you hand it back to weaker shoulders. No other race has the qualities of generosity, of big careless courage of the unselfish kind required. Above all, you alone have the chivalry." Two things Devonham noted as he heard: behind the natural resonance in the big voice lay a curious deepness that made him think of thunder, a volume of sound suppressed, potential, roaring, which, if let loose, might overwhelm, submerge. It belonged to an earnestness as yet unsuspected in him, a strength of conviction based on a great purpose that was evidently subconscious in him, as though he served it, belonged to it, without realizing that he did so. He stood there like some new young prophet, proclaiming a message not entirely his own. Also he said "you" in place of the natural "we." Devonham listened attentively. Here, too, at any rate, was an exchange of ideas above the "psychic" level he so disliked. LeVallon, he noticed at once, showed no evidence of emotion, though his eyes shone brightly and his voice was earnest. "America——" began Kempster, but was knocked down by a fact before he could continue. "Has deliberately made itself a Province again. America saw the ideal, then drew back, afraid. It is once more provincial, cut off from the planet, a big island again, concerned with local affairs of its own. Your Democracy has failed." "As it always must," put in Kempster, glad perhaps to shift the point, when he found no ready answer. "The wider the circle from which statesmen are drawn, the lower the level of ability. We should be patriotic for ideas, not for places. The success of one country means the downfall of another. That's not spiritual...." He continued at high speed, but Devonham missed the words. He was too preoccupied with the other's language, penetration, point of view.
- 71. LeVallon had, indeed,progressed. There was nothing of the alternative personality in this, nothing of the wild, strange, nature- being whom he called "N. H." "Patriotism, of course, is vulgar rubbish," he heard Kempster finishing his tirade. "It is local, provincial. The world is a whole." But LeVallon did not let him escape so easily. It was admirable really. This half-educated countryman from the woods and mountains had a clear, concentrated mind. He had risen too. Whence came his comprehensive outlook? "Chivalry—you call it sporting instinct—is the first essential of a race that is to lead the world. It is a topmost quality. Your race has it. It has come down even into your play. It is instinctive in you more than any other. And chivalry is unselfish. It is divine. You have conquered the sun. The hot races all obey you." The thunder broke through the strange but simple words which, in that voice, and with that quiet earnestness, carried some weight of meaning in them that print cannot convey. The women gazed at him with unconcealed, if not with understanding admiration. "Lead us, inspire us, at any rate!" their eyes said plainly; "but love us, O love us, passionately, above all!" Devonham, hardly able to believe his ears and eyes, turned to see if Fillery had heard the scrap of talk. Judging by the expression on his face, he had not heard it. Father Collins seemed saying things that held his attention too closely. Yet Fillery, for all his apparent absorption, had heard it, though he read it otherwise than his somewhat literal colleague. It was, nevertheless, an interesting revelation to him, since it proved to him again how unreal "LeVallon" was; how easily, quickly this educated simulacrum caught up, assimilated and reproduced as his own, yet honestly, whatever was in the air at the moment. For the words he had spoken were not his own, but Fillery's. They lay, or something like them lay, unuttered in Fillery's mind just at that very moment. Yet, even while listening attentively to Father Collins, his close interest in LeVallon was so
- 72. keen, so watchful,that another portion of his mind was listening to this second conversation, even taking part in it inaudibly. LeVallon caught his language from the air.... Devonham made his opportunity, leading LeVallon off to be introduced to Lady Gleeson, who still sat waiting for them on the divan in the outer studio. As they made their way through the buzzing throng into the larger room, Devonham guessed suddenly that Lady Gleeson must somehow have heard in advance that LeVallon would be present; her flair for new men was singular; the sexual instinct, unduly developed, seemed aware of its prey anywhere within a big radius. He owed his friend a hint of guidance possibly. "A little woman," he explained as they crossed over, "who has a weakness for big men and will probably pay you compliments. She comes here to amuse herself with what she calls 'the freaks.' Sometimes she lends her great house for the meetings. Her husband's a millionaire." To which the other, in his deep, quiet voice, replied: "Thank you, Dr. Devonham." "She's known as 'the pretty Lady Gleeson.'" "That?" exclaimed the other, looking towards her. "Hush!" his companion warned him. As they approached, Lady Gleeson, waiting with keen impatience, saw them coming and made her preparations. The frown of annoyance at the long delay was replaced by a smile of welcome that lifted the upper lip on one side only, showing the white even teeth with odd effect. She stared at LeVallon, thought Devonham, as a wolf eyes its prey. Deftly lowering her dress—betraying thereby that she knew it was too high, and a detail now best omitted from the picture—she half rose from her seat as they came up. The instinctive art of deference, though instantly corrected, did not escape Paul Devonham's too observant eye. "You were kind enough to say I might introduce my friend," murmured he. "Mr. LeVallon is new to our big London, and a
- 73. stranger among allthese people." LeVallon bowed in his calm, dignified fashion, saying no word, but Lady Gleeson put her hand out, and, finding his own, shook it with her air of brilliant welcome. Determination lay in her smile and in her gesture, in her voice as well, as she said familiarly at once: "But, Mr. LeVallon, how tall are you, really? You seem to me a perfect giant." She made room for him beside her on the divan. "Everybody here looks undersized beside you!" She became intense. "I am six feet and three inches," he replied literally, but without expression in his face. There was no smile. He was examining her as frankly as she examined him. Devonham was examining the pair of them. The lack of interest, the cold indifference in LeVallon, he reflected, must put the young woman on her mettle, accustomed as she was to quick submission in her victims. LeVallon, however, did not accept the offered seat; perhaps he had not noticed the invitation. He showed no interest, though polite and gentle. "He towers over all of us," Devonham put in, to help an awkward pause. Yet he meant it more than literally; the empty prettiness of the shallow little face before him, the triviality of Miss Rosa Mystica, the cheapness of Povey, Kempster, Mrs. Towzer, the foolish air of otherworldly expectancy in the whole room, of deliberate exaggeration, of eyes big with wonder for sensation as story followed story—all this came upon him with its note of poverty and tawdriness as he used the words. Something in the atmosphere of LeVallon had this effect—whence did it come? he questioned, puzzled—of dwarfing all about him. "All London, remember, isn't like this," he heard Lady Gleeson saying, a dangerous purr audible in the throaty voice. "Do sit down here and tell me what you think about it. I feel you don't belong here quite, do you know? London cramps you, doesn't it? And you find the women dull and insipid?" She deliberately made more room, patting the cushions invitingly with a flashing hand, that alone,
- 74. thought Devonham contemptuously,could have endowed at least two big Cliniques. "Tell me about yourself, Mr. LeVallon. I'm dying to hear about your life in the woods and mountains. Do talk to me. I am so bored!" What followed surprised Devonham more than any of the three perhaps. He ascribed it to what Fillery had called the "natural gentleman," while Lady Gleeson, doubtless, ascribed it to her own personal witchery. With that easy grace of his he sat down instantly beside her on the low divan, his height and big frame contriving the awkward movement without a sign of clumsiness. His indifference was obvious—to Devonham, but the vain eyes of the woman did not notice it. "That's better," she again welcomed him with a happy laugh. She edged closer a little. "Now, do make yourself comfortable"—she arranged the cushions again—"and please tell me about your wild life in the forests, or wherever it was. You know a lot about the stars, I hear." She devoured his face and figure with her shining eyes. The upper lip was lifted for a second above a gleaming tooth. Devonham had the feeling she was about to eat him, licking her lips already in anticipation. He himself would be dismissed, he well knew, in another moment, for Lady Gleeson would not tolerate a third person at the meal. Before he was sent about his business, however, he had the good fortune to hear LeVallon's opening answer to the foolish invitation. Amazement filled him. He wished Fillery could have heard it with him, seen the play of expression on the faces too—the bewilderment of sensational hunger for something new in Lady Gleeson's staring eyes, arrested instantaneously; the calm, cold look of power, yet power tempered by a touch of pity, in LeVallon's glance, a glance that was only barely aware of her proximity. He smiled as he spoke, and the smile increased his natural radiance. He looked extraordinarily handsome, yet with a new touch of
- 75. strangeness that heldeven the cautious doctor momentarily almost spellbound. "Stars—yes, but I rarely see them here in London, and they seem so far away. They comfort me. They bring me—they and women bring me—nearest to a condition that is gone from me. I have lost it." He looked straight into her face, so that she blinked and screwed up her eyes, while her breathing came more rapidly. "But stars and women," he went on, his voice vibrating with music in spite of its quietness, "remind me that it is recoverable. Both give me this sweet message. I read it in stars and in the eyes of women. And it is true because no words convey it. For women cannot express themselves, I see; and stars, too, are silent—here." The same soft thunder as before sounded below the gently spoken words; Lady Gleeson was trembling a little; she made a movement by means of which she shifted herself yet nearer to her companion in what seemed a natural and unconscious way. It was doubtless his proximity rather than his words that stirred her. Her face was set, though the lips quivered a trifle and the voice was less shrill than usual as she spoke, holding out her empty glass. "Thank you, Dr. Devonham," she said icily. The determined gesture, a toss of the head, with the glare of sharp impatience in the eyes, he could not ignore; yet he accepted his curt dismissal slowly enough to catch her murmured words to LeVallon: "How wonderful! How wonderful you are! And what sort of women...?" followed him as he moved away. In his heart rose again an uncomfortable memory of a Jura valley blazing in the sunset, and of a half-naked figure worshipping before a great wood fire on the rocks.... He fancied he caught, too, in the voice, a suggestion of a lilt, a chanting resonance, that increased his uneasiness further. One thing was certain: it was not quite the ordinary "LeVallon" that answered the silly woman. The reaction was of a different kind. Was,
- 76. then, the otherself awake and stirring? Was it "N. H." after all, as his colleague claimed? Allowing a considerable interval to pass, he returned with a glass —of lemonade—reaching the divan in its dim-lit corner just in time to see a flashing hand withdrawn quickly from LeVallon's arm, and to intercept a glance that told him the intrigue evidently had not developed altogether according to Lady Gleeson's plan, although her air was one of confidence and keenest self-satisfaction. LeVallon sat like a marble figure, cold, indifferent, looking straight before him, listening, if only with half an ear, to a stream of words whose import it was not difficult to guess. This Devonham's practised eye read in the flashing look she shot at him, and in the quick way she thanked him. "Coffee, dear Dr. Devonham, I asked for." Her move was so quick, his desire to watch them a moment longer together so keen, that for an instant he appeared to hesitate. It was more than appearance; he did hesitate—an instant merely, yet long enough for Lady Gleeson to shoot at him a second swift glance of concentrated virulence, and also long enough for LeVallon to spring lightly to his feet, take the glass from his hand and vanish in the direction of the refreshment table before anything could prevent. "I will get your coffee for you," still sounded in the air, so quickly was the adroit manœuvre executed. LeVallon had cleverly escaped. "How stupid of me," said Devonham quickly, referring to the pretended mistake. Lady Gleeson made no reply. Her inward fury betrayed itself, however, in the tight-set lips and the hard glitter of her brilliant little eyes. "He won't be a moment," the other added. "Do you find him interesting? He's not very talkative as a rule, but perhaps with you——" He hardly knew what words he used. The look she gave him stopped him, so intense was the bitterness in the eyes. His interruption, then, must indeed have been worse—or better?—timed than he had imagined. She made no pretence of
- 77. speaking. Turning herglance in the direction whence the coffee must presently appear, she waited, and Devonham might have been a dummy for all the sign she gave of his being there. He had made an enemy for life, he felt, a feeling confirmed by what almost immediately then followed. Neither the coffee nor its bearer came that evening to pretty Lady Gleeson in the way she had desired. She laid the blame at Devonham's door. For at that moment, as he stood before her, secretly enjoying her anger a little, yet feeling foolish, perhaps, as well, a chord sounded on the piano, and a hush passed instantly over the entire room. Someone was about to sing. Nayan Khilkoff had come in, unnoticed, by the door of the private room. Her singing invariably formed a part of these entertainments. The song, too, was the one invariably asked for, its music written by herself. All talk and movement stopped at the sound of the little prelude, as though a tap had been turned off. Even Devonham, most unmusical of men, prepared to listen with enjoyment. He tried to see Nayan at the piano, but too many people came between. He saw, instead, LeVallon standing close at his side, the cup of coffee in his hand. He had that instant returned. "For Lady Gleeson. Will you pass it to her? Who's going to sing?" he whispered all in the same breath. And Devonham told him, as he bent down to give the cup. "Nayan Khilkoff. Hush! It's a lovely song. I know it—'The Vagrant's Epitaph.'" They stood motionless to listen, as the pure voice of the girl, singing very simply but with the sweetness and truth of sincere feeling, filled the room. Every word, too, was clearly audible:
- 78. "Change was hismistress; Chance his counsellor. Love could not hold him; Duty forged no chain. The wide seas and the mountains called him, And grey dawns saw his camp-fires in the rain. "Sweet hands might tremble!—aye, but he must go. Revel might hold him for a little space; But, turning past the laughter and the lamps, His eyes must ever catch the luring Face. "Dear eyes might question! Yea, and melt again; Rare lips a-quiver, silently implore But he must ever turn his furtive head, And hear that other summons at the door. "Change was his mistress; Chance his counsellor. The dark firs knew his whistle up the trail. Why tarries he to-day?... And yesternight Adventure lit her stars without avail."
- 79. L CHAPTER XIII ADY GLEESON,owing to an outraged vanity and jealousy she was unable to control, missed the final scene, for before the song was actually finished she was gone. Being near a passage that was draped only by a curtain, she slipped out easily, flung herself into a luxurious motor, and vanished into the bleak autumn night. She had seen enough. Her little heart raged with selfish fury. What followed was told her later by word of mouth. Never could she forgive herself that she had left the studio before the thing had happened. She blamed Devonham for that too. For LeVallon, it appears, having passed the cup of coffee to her through a third person—in itself an insult of indifference and neglect —stood absorbed in the words and music of the song. Being head and shoulders above the throng, he easily saw the girl at the piano. No one, unless it was Fillery, a few yards away, watched him as closely as did Devonham and Lady Gleeson, though all three for different reasons. It was Devonham, however, who made the most accurate note of what he saw, though Fillery's memory was possibly the truer, since his own inner being supplied the fuller and more sympathetic interpretation. LeVallon, tall and poised, stood there like a great figure shaped in bronze. He was very calm. His bright hair seemed to rise a little; his eyes, steady and wondering, gazed fixedly; his features, though set, were mobile in the sense that any instant they might leap into the alive and fluid expression of some strong emotion. His whole being, in a word, stood at attention, alert for instant action of some uncontrollable, perhaps terrific kind. "He seemed like a glowing pillar of metal that must burst into flame the very next instant," as a Member told Lady Gleeson later.
- 80. Devonham watched him.LeVallon seemed transfixed. He stared above the intervening tousled heads. He drew a series of deep breaths that squared his shoulders and made his chest expand. His very muscles ached apparently for instant action. An intensity of wondering joy and admiration that lit his face made the eyes shine like stars. He watched the singing girl as a tiger watches the keeper who brings its long-expected food. The instant the bar is up, it springs, it leaps, it carries off, devours. Only, in this case, there were no bars. Nor was the wild desire for nourishment of a carnal kind. It was companionship, it was intercourse with his own that he desired so intensely. "He divines the motherhood in her," thought Fillery, watching closely, pain and happiness mingled in his heart. "The protective, selfless, upbuilding power lies close to Nature." And as this flashed across him he caught a glimpse by chance of its exact opposite—in Lady Gleeson's peering, glittering eyes—the destructive lust, the selfish passion, the bird of prey. "The dark firs knew his whistle up the trail," the song in that soft true voice drew to its close. LeVallon was trembling. "Good Heavens!" thought Devonham. "Is it 'N. H.'? Is it 'N. H.,' after all, waking—rising to take possession?" He, too, trembled. It was here that Lady Gleeson, close, intuitive observer of her escaping prey, rose up and slipped away, her going hardly noticed by the half-entranced, half-dreaming hearts about her, each intent upon its own small heaven of neat desire. She went as unobtrusively as an animal that is aware of untoward conditions and surroundings, showing her teeth, feeling her claws, yet knowing herself helpless. Not even Devonham, his mind ever keenly alert, observed her going. Fillery, alone, conscious of LeVallon's eyes across the room, took note of it. She left, her violent little will intent upon vengeance of a later victory that she still promised herself with concentrated passion.
- 81. Yet Devonham, thoughhe failed to notice the slim animal of prey in exit, noticed this—that the face he watched so closely changed quickly even as he watched, and that the new expression, growing upon it as heat grows upon metal set in a flame, was an expression he had seen before. He had seen it in that lonely mountain valley where a setting sun poured gold upon a burning pyre, upon a dancing, chanting figure, upon a human face he now watched in this ridiculous little Chelsea studio. The sharpness of the air, the very perfume, stole over him as he stared, perplexed, excited and uneasy. That strange, wild, innocent and tender face, that power, that infinite yearning! LeVallon had disappeared. It was "N. H." that stood and watched the singer at the little modern piano. Then with the end of the song came the rush, the bustle of applause, the confusion of many people rising, trotting forward, all talking at once, all moving towards the singer—when LeVallon, hitherto motionless as a statue, suddenly leaped past and through them like a vehement wind through a whirl of crackling dead leaves. Only his deft, skilful movement, of poise and perfect balance combined with accurate swiftness, could have managed it without bruised bodies and angry cries. There was no clumsiness, no visible effort, no appearance of undue speed. He seemed to move quietly, though he moved like fire. In a moment he was by the piano, and Nayan, in the act of rising from her stool, gazed straight up into his great lighted eyes. It was singular how all made way for him, drew back, looked on. Confusion threatened. Emotion surged like a rising sea. Without a leader there might easily have been tumult; even a scene. But Fillery was there. His figure intervened at once. "Nayan," he said in a steady voice, "this is my friend, Mr. LeVallon. He wants to thank you." But, before she could answer, LeVallon, his hand upon her arm, said quickly, yet so quietly that few heard the actual words, perhaps —his voice resonant, his eyes alight with joy: "You are here too—
- 82. with me, withFillery. We are all exiles together. But you know the way out—the way back! You remember!..." She stared with delicious wonder into his eyes as he went on: "O star and woman! Your voice is wind and fire. Come!" And he tried to seize her. "We wilt go back together. We work here in vain!..." His arms were round her; almost their faces touched. The girl rose instantly, took a step towards him, then hung back; the stool fell over with a crash; a hubbub of voices rose in the room behind; Povey, Kempster, a dozen Members with them, pressed up; the women, with half-shocked, half-frightened eyes, gaped and gasped over the forest of intervening male shoulders. A universal shuffle followed. The confusion was absurd and futile. Both male and female stood aghast and stupid before what they saw, for behind the mere words and gestures there was something that filled the little scene with a strange shaking power, touching the panic sense. LeVallon lifted her across his shoulders. The beautiful girl was radiant, the man wore the sudden semblance of a god. Their very stature increased. They stood alone. Yet Fillery, close by, stood with them. There seemed a magic circle none dared cross about the three. Something immense, unearthly, had come into the room, bursting its little space. Even Devonham, breaking with vehemence through the human ring, came to a sudden halt. In a voice of thunder—though it was not actually loud—LeVallon cried: "Their little personal loves! They cannot understand!" He bore Nayan in his arms as wind might lift a loose flower and whirl it aloft. "Come back with me, come home! The Sun forgets us here, the Wind is silent. There is no Fire. Our work, our service calls us." He turned to Fillery. "You too. Come!" His voice boomed like a thundering wind against the astonished frightened faces staring at him. It rose to a cry of intense emotion:
- 83. Welcome to ourwebsite – the perfect destination for book lovers and knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world, offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth. That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to self-development guides and children's books. More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading. Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and personal growth every day! ebookbell.com