Abstract

The article proposes a new theoretical, methodological and axiological approach for urban regeneration processes. It takes, as its theoretical point of departure, Axel Honneth’s paradigm of recognition, expanded through a concept of responsibility towards all living organisms (interorganismic recognition) and made to interact with a critique of alienation. In the first part, we define the concept of recognition and we delineate the idea of social alienation. In the second part, we propose our theoretical, methodological, and axiological approach for the analysis of urban issues. It focuses on the impact of interorganismic (mis-)recognition in an urban community and expounds its implications for urban planning. Subsequently, we outline an ideal principle that can counter social alienation and non/mis-recognition, and we identify, as tools for realizing it, the struggles for recognition theorized by Honneth, as well as an extension of democratic processes (also of a deliberative and participatory kind). Finally, we propose to inscribe urban interventions, and in particular urban regeneration interventions, into a broader policy of recognition.