Facing inequalities and democratic challenges through co-production in cities

If the link between inequalities and declining levels of trust in the political institutions of democracy in Europe has already been shown,
the various ways in which both citizens and institutions are trying to face these inequalities and (re)build a sustainable common future
remain somewhat under-documented. Indeed, this lacuna becomes even more pronounced when one considers those attempts that go
beyond conventional forms of state-led participation. Responding to this gap, the aim of Fairville is to both document and propose
pilot models of urban intervention that engage local academics, -authorities, -community-based organisations, -residents and -users in
the collective improvement of deprived urban neighbourhoods via a deepening of resident and user participation in new and existing
democratic processes. The idea that urban policies should not be made "for" populations but rather “with" them is a potentially profound
engine ofsocial transformation and empowerment. However, the realisation ofsuch co-production processesis often marked by epistemic
inequalities and unequal power relations. Cognisant of this issue, the Fairville pilot cases all place an emphasis on exploring the ways in
which academic researchers, local communities and local authority representatives can work together to reduce the power and information
asymmetries that exist between them. Clustered around three major themes - environmental inequalities, inequalities related to housing
and urban planning and inequalities related to climate risks – and ranging from co-diagnosis to co-planning and intervention, the pilots
will be carried out as action research and include the implementation of observation, capitalisation and co-evaluation mechanisms.
The results of these pilot cases will be widely disseminated to the institutions and citizens concerned and we will work collectively to
encourage policy transfer and outreach.