More and more people move to cities, urban areas become denser, space more scarce. As a consequence, house prices increase, leading to gentrification and displacement in city centres. At the same time, there is untapped potential for densification in suburban areas. Such suburban densification bears the potential of alleviating the negative consequences of housing shortage. In addition, densification is considered critical by urban planning to tackle climate change mitigation and adaptation by reducing net land uptake. But suburban densification is tricky as it meets plural rationalities of space, actors, and policies. Plural rationalities of space entail that suburban areas are socially constructed - conceived - by its landowners not by one logic, but multiple conceptions of space - space as territory, as economic asset, as social status, etc - coexist. In addition, there is often strong resistance to change in suburban areas, impeding the implementation of densification. Such resistance stems from different interpretations of densification by actors - i.e. landowners and local stakeholders. Furthermore, suburban densification policy by national or urban planning meets locationally specific politics of space. Public policy interventions in land – land policy – that does not take into account these plural rationalities of policy are deemed to fail. This project seeks to better understand the polyrationalities of space, actors and policies on suburban densification. It will explore how diverse strategies of land policy interact with landowners’ and local stakeholders’ interest and agency to shape suburban densification and their impact on suburbia across different planning systems. There are methodological and theoretical challenges with this aim of the project. Densification processes are analyzed in-depth in case studies. To explore polyrationalities, data science and spatial analysis is combined in this project with socio-anthropological approaches (Cultural Theory) and spatial planning across different institutional contexts. Such an endeavour implies to combine knowledge, methodologies and theories from different disciplines, able to reveal polyrationalities of each element alone - space, actors, and policies - and in combination. Ultimately, SUBDENSE combines geospatial and socio-demographic data to analyse and inform on polyrationalities. This entails to assess and enhance the fitness of data for comparative analysis of understanding densification phenomena on the ground as well as for communication and decision-making in a densification dashboard.

Cultural tourism is changing. The traditional forms still exist – museums, art galleries, landscapes, historical sites, festivals – but both cultural destinations and the tourists are under transformation. Many ‘cultural tourists’ see themselves neither as seeking culture nor as tourists; there is increasing evidence of people seeking to experience culture rather than merely observing it. That is: agri-tourism where visitors want to experience rural life; people wanting to visit the actual venues of TV crime thrillers; culture being explored by those using themed routes in winery regions or via pilgrimage. These trends provide opportunities to both revitalise poorer and rural areas through economic and social development while protecting local cultures and landscapes. The project brings an extension of existing policies and the promotion of new approaches. The project’s aim is to develop a new approach to understanding and addressing cultural tourism and to promote development of disadvantaged areas. Based on an Innovation Tool and digital technology the project identifies layers of data and capitalise on existing practice, explores emerging forms of cultural tourism, identifies opportunities and develop strategies allowing local people to gain local benefit from their precious cultural assets. The project uses case studies across 15 European regions, consolidates definitions of ‘cultural tourism’, engages academics and stakeholders in developing policy proposals in practice and posits means of generalising the lessons via an Innovation Tool to assist policy-makers at all levels as well as practitioners. Positive and negative aspects of cultural tourism exist; a balanced development path needs to be sought. The project will help to identify themes and areas where intervention at local, regional, national and European levels may assist in achieving successful developments, it will help in managing that balance and offering solutions.