Urban Change and the European Left

This book helps make sense of the shape of contemporary urban change and describes the way in which cities are central to the construction of place-based political identities.
This work journeys through the cityscapes of one of the favorite holiday destinations of the contemporary European left - Barcelona. Taking five themes current to debates on the future of socialism in the city - Marxism and memory; European regionalism and city-states; social democrat new realism; the future of the urban social movements celebrated by Manuel Castells; and a "designer" socialism of architecture and public space - the book looks at the way politicians and critics use the city to ground their political messages. Through the mixing of methods and genres, the book explores local narratives of urban change through ethnography, biography, travelogue, and social history. Drawing on novels, architectural commentaries, urban plans, political speeches, history and autobiography, it provides accounts of public art, architecture, grassroots struggle from the Seat car factory to the peripheral housing estates of Nou Barris, battles for control of the 1992 Olympics, and the city and Catalan identity.