Inner-city Renewal. Revanchist Utopianism and Stadtschmerz

Abstract: This dissertation seeks to describe, analyse and explain the contemporary poverty urban deprivation research and policies. By looking at the post-war planning policy of two specific urban neighbourhoods, the South Bank in London and the Leopold Quarter in Brussels, it seeks to demonstrate and clarify: 1) the growing political impotence of urban strategies, plans, policies and research projects that attempt to tacke deprivation; 2) the dystopianisation of the contemporary city in general and inner-city neighbourhoods in particular and the absence of comprehensive visions for solving urban problems; 3) the transformation of inner-city misery into a 'spectacle' that serves the well-defined interests of elitist groups in urban societies; 4) the tactics of rescaling poverty and prosperity which are embedded in processes of empowerment and disempowerment.