Power asymmetries in urban regeneration discourse: an analytic toolkit for neighborhood narrative assessment

Urban regeneration is a complex social, economic, and physical phenomenon encompassing multiple disciplines and affecting a wide variety of stakeholders with markedly different interests (Roberts & Sykes, 2000). Its transformative impact can raise issues of sustainability as well as set off processes of gentrification that risk intensifying social disparities in the area (Tan & Altrock, 2016). The successful implementation of regeneration projects is mediated by the multiple discursive constructions (including discourses of resistance) that arise around it (Todolì, 2007). The interplay of conflicting, as well as converging, discourses and interests is rarely played out on a level field: the high-stakes nature of these interventions highlights the power asymmetries inherent in the production and reach of discourse by the different stakeholders involved, whereby powerful actors (that is, public institutions and private developers) control most discourse (Mullenbach, 2021) and determine the inclusion or exclusion of other, less influential, actors from urban narratives (Karsten, 2009). This paper reflects on these dynamics by presenting a pilot study developed in collaboration with Milano&Partners, Milan’s destination management organization. A corpus of texts by newspapers, real estate developers, and grassroots associations about a regeneration project involving the Milano Certosa District was collected and processed using SketchEngine to investigate the narratives about the neighborhood from a critical discourse analysis perspective (van Dijk, 1997). The analysis focused on framing, metaphors, agency attribution, and social actors, and aimed to provide the agency’s partners with insights about the overall representation of the neighborhood’s regeneration project from multiple vantage points, thus laying bare the often-tacit ideological underpinnings, and the potential practical implications, of the project itself. As a final output, the project produced an operational toolkit for developers to assess their discursive practices together with guidelines on how to better align their communication strategies to their organization’s values and vision for the city.