This paper addresses the question of how ordinary cities cope with State restructuring and retrenchment in times of recession. It compares two mid-sized European cities – Metz in France and Udine in Italy- whose urban and economic development has been deeply influenced by national defense policies. Both cities are facing processes of shrinkage of expenditures in this sector, and the closedown of sites with new brownfields. The paper seeks to explain the political responses which are being elaborated in order to cope with the restructuring of a policy sector in the current crisis, and the incapacity to implement policies of urban regeneration. Since the 1990s, local governments have come to be considered as having institutional and economic capacities both for innovating and for elaborating responses to State retrenchment and to the readjustment of their productive systems. This paper addresses the question of whether the concomitant crises of capitalist accumulation and of public finances are having a disrupting effect in terms of this (sometimes allegedly) urban capacity to cope with change. Are these two effects mutually reinforcing in a vicious circle which prevents any kind of response? The analysis of the political responses which are given to the restructuring of this sector shows similar policy outputs but different policy narratives and agendas. Both cities marginalized classic policies of brownfield redevelopment as a policy option, because of the lack of public and private investment capacity and the surplus of land supply over demand. However, they differ significantly when considering their broader development agendas which are elaborated by officials elected after 2008, one having a narrative about urban reconversion and the other not. The differentiation between similarities in policy outputs and different agendas provides elements for disentangling short and long-term responses to the crises, and can lead to a differentiation in long-term outputs.
