YSI-RSA Webinars on Regional Inequalities and Perceived Left-Behindness: Policy, Perception and Place

The YSI Urban and Regional Economics, and Behavior and Society Working Groups, in partnership with the Regional Studies Association (RSA) invite students, early scholars and all members to join the Webinar Series on Regional Inequalities and Perceived Left-Behindness.

The objective is to explore the growing relevance of perceived left-behindness and subjective well-being in economics. Over four sessions, we will delve into how feelings of relative deprivation, spatial inequalities, and socio-economic discontent are reshaping regional trajectories and influencing economic outcomes. By bringing together scholars working at the intersection of perception, well-being, and place, the series aims to foster a deeper understanding of how these dimensions can enrich regional analysis, inform policy, and ultimately contribute to more inclusive territorial development.

4) November 12, 2025 (15:00-16:00 CEST) – Policy, Perception and Place: Rethinking Regional Development Strategies (Malin Roiha & Emma Fàbrega – European Social Research Unit & University of Barcelona, Spain)

Concluding the series, this webinar will focus on how subjective indicators and local perceptions can be better integrated into policy-making. We’ll explore innovative approaches and the challenges of designing place-sensitive strategies that address both material and perceived inequalities.

Previous sessions:

1) July 16, 2025 (15:00-16:00 CEST) – Subjective well-being and spatial inequalities (Paolo Veneri – GSSI, Italy)

The literature from the last decade has highlighted the paradox of urban well-being, where cities offer economic advantages at a cost to residents’ life satisfaction. However, this is not true everywhere. This webinar focuses on subjective well-being spatial differences and on the factors driving those differences. After accounting for observable individual characteristics, evidence on the urban-rural gap in life satisfaction is provided across different world regions, together with the factors associated with such gaps. Subsequently, focusing on European cities, we review how individual and city characteristics drive observed differences in life satisfaction, drawing on novel empirical analysis and on the most recent contributions in the literature.

2) September 16, 2025 (15:00-16:00 CEST) – Spatial imaginaries of ‘left behind places’ in policy discourse (Grete Gansauer – University of Wyoming, US)

The “left behind place” is an emerging spatial imaginary which evokes an idealized set of social, economic and political conditions assigned to a generalized type of place. This session will untangle how left-behindness is imagined and explore how spatial imaginaries manifest themselves in different regional and political discources. We’ll examine the roots of such perceptions, their links to territorial inequalities, and offer empirical insights into how spatial imaginaries of ‘left behind places’ shape regional development trajectories.

3) October 15, 2025 (15:00-16:00 CEST) – Electoral outcomes as a form of discontent (Arndt Leininger – Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany)

This session explores how electoral results can reflect underlying socio-economic and territorial discontent. Drawing on recent research, the discussion will examine how votes for populist, extremist, or anti-establishment parties often signal perceived inequalities, loss of status, and a sense of being “left behind” among certain groups and regions.