Urban policies as multi-level policy mixes. The comparative urban portfolio analysis to study the strategies of integral urban development initiatives

Abstract

Urban policy is an increasingly important policy domain in international and national agendas, intended to cope with the complexity of urban problems. The use of integral interventions across various policy sectors involving different types of actors from the public and private spheres is a common orientation in urban policy. This implies that urban policies should be understand as multilevel policy mixes, and appropriate research strategies should be developed to analyse them from a comparative perspective. This article introduces main analytical elements to analyse urban policies as multi-level policy mixes and proposes an original methodological approach (the comparative urban portfolio analysis). To illustrate and show the face validity of the proposal, policy measures included in 78 local plans under three urban policies in Spain representing policy approach identified in international literature are analysed. Main results show the importance of two basic orientations (contextual and redistributive) to understand the intervention strategy of local plans and urban policies as policy mixes. Differences within policies show the multi-level character of urban policies, and differences between them resemble the orientation of policy frame they represent, showing the face validity of the proposal to analyse urban policies as multi-level policy mixes from a comparative perspective.