Exploring the Inclusive City: Definitions and Dimensions

The political and public interest in issues of inclusion and inclusiveness has grown steadily in recent years. Keeping different segments of society together in the aftermath of a neo-liberal era where much of the social tissue underlying market operations has been eaten up by the prevalence of those same market values is a key concern to many public and private actors. The popularity of the label ‘inclusive city’ can also be observed in its increased use among municipal governments worldwide for city branding purposes and its surge in the academic literature. Its relevance notwithstanding, the meaning of the term ‘inclusive’ is not always clearly defined and often multi-dimensional. In this chapter, a state-of-the art overview will be offered of what is currently known about this city label in the academic literature and look both at journal articles and books in the timeframe 2000–2022. Key finding in this study, which builds on and further develops earlier work is that based on both bibliometric research of academic articles and a systematic review of books, book chapters and grey literature, we find six different dimensions of inclusion (spatial, social, environmental, economic, political and cultural) with their own connotations and associations. Taking this variety into account is essential to a more sophisticated understanding of what developing an inclusive city entails and what variations and variety of developmental paths exist.