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Socio-spatial cohesion can be seen as one of the core issues of the European Union. However, the goal is far from being achieved. Diverging economic and social development patterns can be witnessed at various scales. This trend is closely linked to a shift in European cohesion policies in recent decades from redistributive to growth- and competitiveness-oriented policies. The results are parallel processes of centralisation and peripheralisation causing specific patterns of regional polarisation and affecting the ultimate goal to achieve territorial cohesion or, in other words, spatial justice. For this introductory chapter, we have identified three interconnected issues to look at when speaking about issues of socio-spatial polarisation and spatial justice: (1) the role of existing power relations in (re-)producing socio-spatial polarisation, (2) the failure of Cohesion Policy to support more balanced territorial development and, as a counterpoint, (3) the potentials of bottom-up initiatives and place-sensitive approaches to overcome current tendencies of polarisation. To each of these three issues, we directly link related conceptual and empirical contributions. Finally, we conclude with a call to rethink regional policies and find more just answers to current problems of regional development.

As part of the RegPol Project “Socio-economic and Political Responses to Regional Polarization in Central and Eastern Europe” the authors were invited to hold a wide-ranging conversation about critical economic geography and regional development. The context for the conversation was an ongoing research programme involving scholars based in Leipzig and their colleagues interested in the intense processes of regional change in Central and Eastern Europe. The wider project focused on two key issues: first, post-1989 political and economic transformation and the emergence of spatially complex forms of representative democracy and economic forms of private instead of state-led markets and, second, the more recent emergence of new forms of social and regional polarisation and the corresponding political renewal of authoritarian state power in several Visegrad countries. We hope this conversation on the theme of contemporary critical economic geography contributes to broader discussions about post-socialist regional futures.

In the context of the deep multidimensional crisis of the European Union that threatens its existence, this chapter discusses processes of uneven geographical development that produce and reproduce peripherality in Europe and beyond. In particular, it discusses two parameters. First, how imaginations of peripherality shape development theories and policies and, second, how such imaginations and development policies may contribute to deepening unevenness and peripherality. The chapter concludes by raising some questions concerning the current socio-spatial situation in the European Union.

Spatial planning in Europe is becoming an increasingly transnational process: the flows and networks of expertise and influence do not fit the patchwork of states, but combine national, sub-national, and inter-national elements in new and ever-changing combinations. Studying the process requires a methodological toolbox that is more flexible than the usual catalogue of national, regional, local, and European scales. This chapter uses EU-level diplomatic negotiation as an example to begin to unpack what such a methodological toolbox might look like. The author argues that a closer look at the everyday practice of policy-making brings out nuances about symbolic capital that the usual study of nation-states obscures.

This chapter’s authors conduct a critical review of academic and policy engagements with the concept of territorial cohesion as the guiding principle for the European Union’s regional policies. The authors discuss the limitations of the idea of territorial cohesion and frame some conceptual and more policy-related benefits that could arise from the notion of spatial justice. The authors argue that paying more attention to the academic literature on spatial justice, human capabilities and agency might help to spatialise the European Union’s social model in more effective ways. The authors conclude that applying more plural and long-term conceptions of ‘development’, ‘well-being’ and ‘justice’ could help to formulate regional policies that contribute more directly to the well-being and welfare of people in various parts of Europe.

In the arena of EU regional development, Cohesion Policy and Innovation Policy are converging into a common economic strategy. Nevertheless, a scholarly debate surrounding the theoretical incompatibilities between the two is especially relevant to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where the majority of regions are beneficiaries of Cohesion Policy while attempting to implement innovation strategies. Based on a multi-national comparative analysis of policy documents and expert interviews from Czechia, Estonia, Hungary and Slovakia, this chapter assesses how the policy areas are interrelated, asking whether they should be seen as furthering regional polarisation instead of territorial cohesion. Acknowledging differences in national responses, it is necessary to further articulate, and possibly separate, the objectives of the respective policies, in order to protect the integrity of cohesion initiatives.

This chapter employs computer-assisted text analysis (CATA) to measure changes in EU Cohesion Policy (CP) objectives and to illustrate their place-based consequences. The method confirms a major shift in focus from employment and social objectives under the Lisbon Agenda to growth and innovation objectives under the Europe 2020 strategy. At the regional level, the same tendency has been found in German and Czech cross-border cooperation programmes in the last two programming periods. However, a more in-depth analysis reveals that these changes are significantly more pronounced in older member states. The chapter interprets its findings as evidence for a divergence between an innovation-driven path to cohesion in older member states and an inclusion-driven path to cohesion in the new member states and offer some tentative explanations.

As part of a broader Europeanisation process, the general guidelines and principles of European spatial planning documents have been uncritically adopted in the Romanian spatial development system during the last two decades. One of them is related to the concept of polycentric development, translated in the Romanian planning system through the selection and development of growth poles. The main aim of this chapter is to evaluate the process and outcome of establishing urban growth poles as key elements of the new regional policy in Romania. In particular, the chapter addresses the question whether the high prioritisation of urban growth poles has reduced the level of regional disparities in Romania, or, in contrast, whether it has contributed to an increase of regional disparities. The chapter highlights the failure of regional policy in achieving its essential objective: the reduction of internal regional disparities in the long term. Even though the capital city, Bucharest, was excluded from the analysis and thus the level of disparities is underestimated, the authors found that disparities among cities and counties reduced during the programming period 2007–2013 and started to increase again as soon as the programme ended.

In recent decades Hungarian public policy interventions in the domain of housing have shown a strongly dualistic pattern, contributing to the reproduction of socio-spatial unevenness. The authors trace how capital investment in housing is channelled and mediated by public policies, and how these public policies are made dual along the lines of social class. The authors claim that state intervention in Hungary has deepened inequalities in the housing market at various scales—from the European to the neighbourhood. The analysis is based, on the one hand, on qualitative (and, more restrictedly, on quantitative) data related to the strategies of large economic actors of the housing market and, on the other hand, on qualitative research on housing-related public interventions in socio-economically deprived urban areas.

In light of the increasing polarisation affecting Central and Eastern Europe over the past two and a half decades, peripheries have been struggling with a range of economic and demographic issues, including selective out-migration. Using peripheries from Romania’s Sălaj County as a case study, the chapter draws on structured interviews with locals and public officials in order to: (1) identify how locals utilise different forms of mobility as strategies to cope with structural deficits aggravated by peripheralisation; and (2) highlight the impact of selective out-migration on the diminishing local development capacities of public officials in peripheries. Through this actor-based approach, the analysis can broadly identify the development strategies already employed in peripheries and what effect they truly have on decreasing core–periphery inequalities.