Enabling the Governance of Spatial Change through Culture: Insights from the Piraeus Avenue in Athens, Greece

Abstract

The increasing socio-economic problems characterizing urban development processes and the discontinuity if not fragmentation of urban planning policies in Europe, since the beginning of the 1990s, has incentivized theoretical, research and policy debate regarding the making of alternative development approaches and integrated local development strategies. This entails among others an emphasis on multi-sectoral urban revitalization initiatives and strategic rethinking of urban development processes. Contemporary approaches have brought into the urban agenda many differentiated factors that can be considered structural in the making of an alternative developmental rationale. Among these, culture; that has attracted significant interest as an advantageous factor in building local development strategies.

In this context, a multiplicity of cultural formations has been adopted as impact-pertinent domains in support of innovative interventions in the urban field. In this respect, cultural institutions themselves could act as challenges and enablers of socio-spatial innovation and change. The paper investigates the role of three culture-related assets of different scale/ governance outlook and their contribution to triggering new spatial change dynamics in the Piraeus Avenue area in Athens, Greece.