New neighbourhoods, places of Europe

To paraphrase an oft-quoted Shakespearean line, neighbourhoods and places are “such stuff as dreams are made of”. In present day usage, "the stuff of dreams" refers to wishes and desires: in the poem and in this book, the "stuff of dreams" refers to the materials that create an illusion. Are the new neighbourhoods developed across Europe just an illusion? Not at all, of course: on the contrary, they are the material, often dull, contested, heavy substance that fashions the dream of the 21st century city. This latter is often sold as an illusion, the appeased image of the renaissance city, hub of creativity, tolerance, growth and competitiveness. These are profound ideological images, deeply rooted inside the common wisdom of urban policies that often misguide urban research. The nature and ideology of ongoing urban change is difficult to ascertain: discourse and reality are strictly interwoven and hard to unravel. The book tries to reveal some of the materials that have created such an illusion: politics, economics, design materials, and more symbolic “stuff” as well. Eventually, the investigation of matter and dreams, built space and public images, leads to a better understanding of the political constitution of new neighbourhoods.