Project summary

The project investigates the impacts of policies and practices that attempt to prevent residential segregation and tackle its negative effects on the most vulnerable social groups. The fulfillment of its main goal to assess the effects of these policies requires conceptualization and discussion of the mechanisms of socio-spatial exclusion and residential segregation in relation to socio-economic and demographic developments, personal choices as well as deliberate political and policy decisions. Second, the project investigates segregation as a major barrier to social interaction and inclusion of vulnerable groups to education, labour market and other spheres of social life. Finally, while the negative effects of residential segregation are well known, it remains largely unaddressed by the national and local policies. Hence, the research will analyse how residential segregation is defined and operationalised in social inclusion and urban and regional development strategies and measures in different local and national contexts, and internationally. Furthermore, it will pay attention to factors that shape policies and practices, including societal and cultural patterns, such as the structural and institutional racism, individual attitudes or biases of decision-makers, lack of knowledge and low political priority for social inclusion (and desegregation) agendas.

Selected publications of the research group

Sýkora, L. (2020) Postsocialist Cities. In: Kobayashi, A., ed., International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2nd edition. vol. 10, Elsevier, pp. 357–363.

Bouzarovski, Stefan, Luděk Sýkora a Roman Matoušek (2016) Locked in post-socialism: rolling path dependencies in Liberec’s district heating system. Eurasian Geography and Economics.

Stanilov, Kiril a Luděk Sýkora, eds (2014) Confronting Suburbanization: Urban Decentralization in Postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe. Studies in Urban and Social Change. Wiley-Blackwell.

Sýkora, Luděk and Stefan Bouzarovski (2012) Multiple Transformations: Conceptualising Post-Communist Urban Transition. Urban Studies, 2012, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 41–58.

Sýkora, L. (2009) New socio-spatial formations: places of residential segregation and separation in Czechia. TESG Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie (Journal of Economic & Social Geography) 100 (4), 417-435.

Current research projects of the group

2019-2022: Evolutionary dynamics of segregation and social exclusion (Vývojová dynamika segregace a sociálního vyloučení v území), TAČR

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