Regeneration as Rewriting Exploring the Authors of the Narrative in Neoliberal Urban Redevelopment Projects

Abstract

The PhD research titled Public housing and private interests: The experience of ageing in place in public housing in Italy and Austria explores the effects of neoliberal urban regeneration on the housing conditions of older adults, through case studies in Milan, Italy and Vienna, Austria. The research project compares the transformation of neoliberal urban policies, the role of private and public housing policies, and how differing approaches to urban regeneration have affected the housing conditions of older adults in public housing. At the heart of this research lies the complex question of authorship over the narrative of urban regeneration: What narratives are inscribed upon the urban space undergoing transformation, by whom and in what ways? This paper examines how neoliberal urban projects are subject to overlapping, conflicting narratives, and interrogates their authorship together with the role of the researcher in shaping and reconstructing these narratives.

Keywords: ageing in place, urban regeneration, urban experience