JUNE 2020

“Urban Renewal through Social Capital Building: The ‘New’ Urban Renewal Strategy?” 

LUCY LYONS

ARTICLES

Published June 2020

ABSTRACT

Many neoliberal urban planners claim that spurring gentrification in a city is the 
only way to enact urban renewal. This is problematic, however, because 
gentrification poses an active threat to democracy in cities. This paper 
investigates the possibility of renewing cities in an alternative, less damaging 
way: through building social capital. It uses two examples from Berlin, Germany, 
of interventions that have spurred social capital—and, in turn, revived urban 
neighborhoods—to reveal realistic models for opposing state-sanctioned 
neoliberal gentrification. The concluding argument is that there are other, more 
democratic ways to make our cities better places, which urban planners must 
investigate with urgency.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33682/q67j-72nr
PDF

HOW TO CITE (CHICAGO):
Lyons, Lucy. "Urban Renewal through Social Capital Building: The 'New' Urban Renewal Strategy?" The Interdependent 1 (2020): 127-55. https://doi.org/10.33682/q67j-72nr