Regional Divides, Territorial Cohesion, and Urban Inclusion. The Role of Social Services

This paper proposes a reflection on the role that social services play in the dynamics of territorial cohesion and social and urban inclusion, also in the light of some suggestions deriving from the recent debate on citizenship gaps (Bianchi and Fraschilla, 2020, Martinelli, 2019) and on the city of proximity (Martinelli et al., 2023). We will adopt the concept of 'universalist social services' proposed by Martinelli (2017) who considers as structural features of them: equal access for all people characterized by a given need and the guarantee of the same level of quality, regardless of gender, ethnicity, income and place of residence. We will focus in particular on the last-mentioned dimension - 'the place' - which, despite being considered crucial in the dynamics of territorial cohesion, often appears neglected, even in the most advanced welfare systems such as those of the Nordic countries (Martinelli, 2017). Recent contributions by Martinelli (2017; 2019; Bianchi and Fraschilla 2020) underline how social services are both a cause of development gaps between regions, and a potential device capable to activate virtuous forms of territorial rebalancing and social and urban inclusion. In this contribution we will dwell largely on the Italian case, also picking out possible assonances/dissonances with other European countries. Our privileged 'place' of observation will be Calabria and the fragile social groups on which we will focus will be immigrants, elderly and children. In this reflection, starting from field researches conducted in the last years (Martinelli et al., 2019; Barillà et al., 2020; Martinelli and Sarlo, 2023), we will focus in particular on path-dependency and path-breaking trajectories and on social innovation processes and practices.