Geographies of (in)justice and the (in)effectiveness of place-based policies in Greece

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the policy context of spatial injustice in Greece. Given the polarized nature of the economy and the centralized structure of the public sector, the paper examines whether place-based policies that attempt to strengthen the local level and mobilize local assets would be better opt to deliver a fair and equitable distribution of socially valued resources and opportunities in space. In this context, the paper presents and discusses the findings of four case studies and four policy-driven actions related to the design and implementation of a post-lignite local strategy, the establishment of a credible innovation strategy in a metropolitan area, the development of social economy in a lagging region and the upscaling of local government in a medium-sized city. The case studies investigate the conditioning factors that encourage or obstruct the local level to implement effective place-based policies that can contribute to spatial justice. On this basis, the paper evaluates the capability of the current policy and institutional setting to generate spatial justice and provides policy recommendations that will empower the local level in confronting socio-economic challenges and unbalanced spatial growth.

KEYWORDS:

• Spatial justice
• place-based policy
• inequalities
• governance

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank two anonymous referees and the editors of the Special Issue for helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The ‘Just Transition Mechanism’ recently launched by the EU (EC, 2020), in parallel with the National Plan for Energy and Climate indicate the importance of the problems faced by the region.

2 Almost 65% of local revenues in Greece are grants and subsidies provided by the State.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 727097, project RELOCAL (Resituating the local in cohesion and territorial development), 2016–2021.