Cohesion on the ground: Perspectives and experiences

All across Europe, inequality is rising. This is vis-ible in the persistent social and economic divides between countries, between regions, and between cities and rural areas. In response to this inequal-ity, the regional policy of the European Union has striven to strengthen the Union’s territorial cohesion. However, the policy response of the EU’s individ-ual Member States to regional inequality tends to diverge from the EU’s focus on territorial cohesion, and examples of Member State policies and practic-es that correspond with the EU vision of enhanced cohesion are more rare. In this handbook, we exam-ine some of the Member State policies and initiatives that do seem to work towards a vision similar to the EU vision for a territorially cohesive Union.The handbook presents the findings and recommen-dations of the international research project Inequal-ity, urbanization and territorial cohesion: Developing the European social model of economic growth and democratic capacity (COHSMO). COHSMO is based on 21 case studies carried out in seven European countries: Denmark, Austria, the United Kingdom, Greece, Poland, Italy and Lithu