Austerity and Rescaling: The Entrepreneurial Shift of Athenian Urban Governance

Τhe notion of ‘rescaling’ attempts to delineate a broad range of purposeful state spatial restructuring initiatives and concerted policy innovations, aiming at the re-orientation of scalar actions towards new goals and practices. In this paper we focus on Greece and we explore rescaling trajectories at the urban (municipal) level. Municipalities in Greece have been the object of consistent rescaling attempts during the last three decades, aiming to pass on to cities the prime responsibility for local prospects, in collaboration with the civil society and the private sector. The overall record of local partnerships, however, has been appraised, up until recently, as underdeveloped. In this light, we look at the latest austerity driven re-organization of state spatial contour (2010). The influence of this rescaling attempt on local relational attributes and collaborative dynamics is explored in the City of Athens. The pivotal role assigned by the municipality to partner groups and organizations in key development priorities and ventures, suggests that austerity is creating new collaborative parameters for the governance of the city.