Governing In and Against Austerity, a report edited by Jonathan S. Davies at De Montfort University, Leicester, highlights the responses in 8 cities to the impact of the Crisis of 2008.  The cities are Athens, Baltimore, Barcelona, Dublin, Leicester, Greater Dandenong Melbourne, Montreal and Nantes.  

Austerity, the report notes, demands greater citizen activism but makes this harder to achieve. Strong, inclusive and equitable social partnerships between citizens and governments proved to be difficult, but some cities succeeded in including cultural and ethnic diversity into their city strategies and branding. And yet, from a PASCAL perspective, several of these cities had assets in education already well above average.  

One of the more far-reaching findings is that regional and national governments resisted municipal challenges to policies that were damaging to their economic and social fabric.  

Full report featured below and attached...