Book review of: Fedeli, V., Lenzi, C., Briata, P., and Pedrazzini, L. (2019) ‘EU Regional and Urban Policy: Innovations and Experiences from the 2014-2020 Programming Period’

Since its origins in the 1970s, EU Regional Policy has been central in the process of European integration and has grown significantly in importance and sophistication. Every round of the EU budget has been accompanied by a variation in the amount of resources allocated to EU Regional Policy and, most notably, by reforms in its logic and approach to development promotion. The 2014-2020 programming period has seen one of the most radical transformations in the history of Cohesion Policy. In their book, ‘EU Regional and Urban Policy: Innovations and Experiences from the 2014-2020 Programming Period’, Valeria Fedeli, Camilla Lenzi, Paola Briata, and Luisa Pedrazzini provide an in-depth and thorough examination of some of the crucial changes the policy has undergone for the 2014-2020 period. The focus is on key concepts, innovations and policy experimentations involving the regional and the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy. This attention to both the regional and urban aspect of Cohesion Policy is in line with the conceptual underpinnings of the reformed policy, adopting a ‘place-based’ approach to regional and local development promotion (Barca, 2009; Barca et al., 2012). The book’s coherent structure lucidly guides the reader along key principles and policy tools inspiring the renovated Cohesion Policy in the 2014-2020 programming period, reviewing their role and possible shortcomings, moving from a regional to an urban perspective.