Coping with Socio-economic Consequences of the Crisis in Athens

Abstract

Athens, like most Greek urban centres, has been severely affected by the economic crisis that began in 2008. The city‘s economics badly suffered from impacts of the crisis that, unfortunately for the society, resulted in serious difficulties of social and economic sectors, such as growing unemployment, a rapidly increasing inflation rate, high cuts in medical care and the pension system (KENTIKELENIS et al. 2011: p. 1457). These and other strictly-related to crisis outcomes strongly affected the increase of general poverty, as well as vulnerability and, therefore, a sudden decrease of liveability factor in the city (PETRAKI 2013: p. 8, SAKELLARI 2013). For planning, these economic and social changes imply dealing with multiple uncertainties and complexities that cannot be predicted. It presents the challenge of exploring flexible and innovative forms of governance which have to address specific local vulnerabilities and build capacity to accommodate future transformation - the resilient city becomes a planning goal.