The importance of subnational welfare measures, and their complex embeddedness in wider multilevel governance systems, has often been underplayed in both urban studies and social policy analysis.

This Handbook gives readers the analytical tools to understand urban social policies in context and bridges the gap in research. It provides a novel perspective of social policy analysis, answering the common debates such as: what is the role of local institutions in welfare provisions? Do they exert an influence beyond their jurisdiction? What difference can we trace among different types of locales (e.g. urban vs. rural)? How does the role of cities change in different national regulatory systems? Chapters disentangle the interplay between jurisdictions, politics, policy instruments and contexts in the spatial construction of social policies. Thanks to the impressive selection of contributors, the volume discusses urban social policies with broad geographical coverage including cases from Europe, North America, South America and Asia, and provides cursory references to the COVID-19 pandemic in different policy fields.



This book will be of interest to a broad range of students in different fields from welfare to urban studies, as well as those interested in multilevel governance and policy analysis. Scholars interested in comparative social policy, but also in social innovation, public administration and political science, will also find this book a good companion.