The Special Issue “INCLUSIVE CITIES and LEARNING TERRITORIES” opens a debate on the effects of mass movement of people and cultures in urban and territorial transformation processes. These include permanence and movement, localism and cooperation, progress and regression, concentration of wealth and new forms of poverty, and individualism and new solidarity and so on.
If urban territories are learning spaces, how do they encourage learning processes for their inhabitants? How do they allow them to be aware of the constant movement caused by flows of people due to global interdependencies, the effects of climate change, different wealth distributions, the results of development cooperation failures and so forth?
Which strategies and actions can be projected in the cities to deal with these complex dynamics that generate more and more social inequalities, spatial injustices, expulsions, and new approaches to security on an international level?
To tackle these challenges, it is crucial to be aware of what can be defined as “citizenship”.
From the perspective of authors, citizenship is considered a life project, a collective form and capacity for self-determination. It is a social project which takes place in inclusive cities. This gives rise to dynamic processes of collective learning which depend on the quality of places, within a strong relationship between different populations, welcoming urban spaces, and inclusive public policies. It is about a sense of social responsibility that can produce a different urban perspective fostering new forms of co-existence and solidarity. In addition, new methods of cooperation between different countries can be oriented through these fundamental standpoints.
Learning cities are inclusive cities: on the one hand they are highly dependent on the micro-diversities of local cultures, symbolic worlds, and implicit local knowledge. On the other hand, they open up a dialogue with the multiplicity of contexts with which they relate to, stimulating innovative forms of interaction between cultures.
The Special Issue investigates research, case studies, projects, and new models of cooperation between territories which can generate new collective intelligence and social awareness within territories. One that is open to the challenges of the contemporary world and that acts to redesign rights, responsibilities and a sense of belonging.
