The international colloquium arises in the framework of the axis Cities, territories, citizenships 2017-2019 of the Casa de Velázquez and takes part of one of the lines of research of the programme Metropolis: crisis y changes, funded by the French School of Rome. The aim is to consider the transformation of the metropolitan spatiality in the light of a reflection on the new power relations and the recompositions that they imply in terms of local public policies. The scientist team organiser of this initiative is composed by Nacima Baron, professor of the University París Este, and Joan Romero, Juan Miguel Albertos, Julia Salom, Joaquín Farinós, María Dolores Pitarch and Carme Melo, professors of the Universitat de València and member of IIDL.

Valencia, say the organizers, “is a privileged place to develop a critical approach to the potential for reorientation of South European metropolitan models”. The trajectory of the metropolis, they explain, “represents a singular case of a speculative spiral based on forms of proximity and collusion between leaders and businessmen, especially around megaprojects”. The suspension of these programmes and the outbreak of political-financial scandals, add, “made Valencia one of a symbols from which the media constructed an account of the crisis, divulging terms (corruption, waste) associated with certain Valencian urban monuments. Valencian metropolis offers also a social-spatial panorama that favours the apprehension of the complexity of post-crisis public action. The arrival of new majorities in the municipal and regional administrations generates pressing expectations in terms of socio-spatial justice, as well as potential conflicts due to limited means of action”.

Built on the basis of a unique local context, says Professor Nacima Baron, "the colloquium intertwines analysis of the conditions for the reorientation of local governance models based on territorial culture and social innovation in other cities in the north of the Mediterranean".

Regarding the professor Joan Romero, several factors reveal the need to address the forms, scales and modalities of metropolitan public action, despite the very unequal degree of institutionalisation of supra-municipal powers in Valencia and in the cities of southern Europe. First reason, explains, “is that, in the decades of 1990 and 2000, the dynamics of metropolitanization was the main driving force behind the process of accumulation, with the help of a neoliberal turn that ended with the creation of a speculative bubble and a serious crisis in public financing. The crisis brought some processes to a standstill, while at the same time exacerbating underlying trends and social fractures, partly due to the management of the crisis by the public authorities. It also meant in many cases the emergence of new social movements and changes in the political cycle in cities and regions of southern Europe, which have marked the beginning of a new stage in the political agendas and priorities inspired by alternative narratives to the hegemonic neoliberal model up to that point.

The second reason, adds Romero, “is that the metropolitan fact is also critically unfolding at the most recent juncture that can be described as post-crisis moment. From 2014-2015, the return of growth and financing capacities is linked to the reduction of interest rates, bank restructuring, the return of international investment and the reduction of family and corporate debt. The partial absorption of houses excess and the recovery of property market prices in spaces that retain their demand value due to their specificity (inside and outside the city) reactivate the real estate production, although very unevenly across the territory, which benefits the service sector and job creation. At the same time, the increase in the phenomena of socio-spatial polarisation and the expectations in terms of services and infrastructures raise the question of a coherent metropolitan planning between land use and other territorial policies”.

Valencia, concludes Joan Romero, “has lived in 2015 the end of a stage, and the change in the political cycle, meant a change of direction which, with its doubts and hesitations, based on more realistic diagnoses, presented an alternative model to the pre-existing one, reinforcing the social pillar, giving greater prominence to the public sphere and perhaps opening up a new path for more rational and sustainable urban development at both local and metropolitan levels. The failure of the city model espectacularised and of the metropolitan area government in Valencia gave way to a new political agenda: restoring reputation to the public sphere, demanding a fair financing model, addressing social emergencies and child poverty, reviewing urban planning, promoting new sustainable mobility and metropolitan transport policies, remunicipating some public services, developing a new policy for local commerce, finding a different and consensual solution for the El Cabanyal neighbourhood, recovering policies of regeneration, revitalisation and rehabilitation of the historic centre, promoting a sustainable and respectful project for the port, reviewing all failed major event politics, make room for and to accompany new initiatives of social innovation, to promote policies of protection and reconnection of the city and orchard and thinking about metropolitan key, among other questions.

The colloquium is supported by the Universitat de València (Chair City of Valencia and Territorial Valencian Culture), the University of París Este, the Labex Dynamite and la Marina de Valencia.