Alessio Varenna

New SMARTDEST publication: Setting up a University City. Geographies of Exclusion in North Turin

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The article aims to explore the production of geographies of exclusion that cannot be simply linked to the negative impacts directly exerted by the increased pressure of students’ mobilities and concentrations on specific neighbourhoods. They can also be related to the specific form that urban development strategies driven by higher education institutions take in post-industrial cities. The case of Turin, Italy, shows that a dominant narrative on the role of universities has triggered various stakeholders’ strategic orientation and that, therefore, variegated transformations can be interpreted as the effects of capital investments that materialize in university-related ‘fixes’.

The article is accessible at the following link.

Alessio Varenna

New SMARTDEST publication: The role of the state in the touristification of Lisbon

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by Ana Estevens, Agustín Cocola-Gant, Antonio Lopés-Gay, Fabiana Pavel

This paper shows how the touristification of Lisbon has been a political project in which the state served the needs of capital and allowed developers to build the most profitable product with no limitations: Airbnbs, hotels, and luxury housing for transnational users. We estimate the weight of tourism in the rehabilitation of the housing stock, showing that > 50% of housing in the historic centre is registered as short-term rentals; that there are > 500 buildings entirely used as Airbnbs; while the population has decreased 25% in 10 years. The political project that we refer, used a neoliberal urban planning narrative, advocating that property markets work better when the state allows developers to behave ‘undisturbed’ by regulations. In reality, the paper shows how this is a perverse process by which taxpayers unwillingly subsidised their own displacement and the production of a city that is not for them.

The publication is accessible at the following https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2023.104275