Fostering innovation in area-based initiatives for deprived neighbourhoods: a multi-level approach

The paper proposes and tests a framework for the analysis of innovation dynamics in urban regeneration by combining established frameworks from the field of urban studies with a model known as Multi-Level Perspective. This allows the acknowledgement of socio-technical dimensions of innovations besides the socio-political one and contributes to overcome a linear perception of innovations by emphasising a co-evolutionary and multi-level perspective. The framework is applied to the analysis of an extensive policy promoted since 2006 by the Apulia regional government, Italy, aiming to improve the quality of life in deprived neighbourhoods. The policy, which involved more than one hundred municipalities, tried to introduce a new integrated and participatory area-based approach into a (weak) tradition of urban renewal policies centred on physical and functional aspects. A discussion of its achievements and failures sheds light on innovation dynamics as well as on key leverages and barriers to change.