Fairville - Data collection for inequalities’ impact analysis on political participation and democratic quality

This deliverable, “D1.1 Report on Document Analysis”, is published by FAIRVILLE and authored by Alfonso Alfonsi, Maresa Berliri, Federico Marta and Daniele Mezzana. It reports the early results of Work Package 1 (WP1) on data collection for analysing how inequalities affect political participation and democratic quality, with a focus on deprived neighbourhoods and resident participation.

The report’s stated aim is to build a reasoned, annotated repository of resources that provide data relevant to Fairville’s themes—environmental inequalities, housing and urban planning inequalities, and inequalities related to climate risks—alongside data on democracy and citizens’ participation. The document supports subsequent WP1 tasks, including the planned Deliverable D1.2 (“Mapping of the impact of inequalities on political participation and democratic quality”).

Task 1.1 (“Document data collection”, months 1–6) compiles data sources covering, as far as possible, the last 40 years. Sources are sought at global/national scale and at local/subnational scale, especially for eight Fairville Lab areas: Berlin (DE), Brussels (BE), Călărași (RO), Dakar (SN), Giza (EG), London (GB), Marseille (FR) and West Attica (EL). Each global/national source is standardised into a “card” capturing title, description, object type, source organisation, issues, time span, geographic coverage, link, and remarks/emerging interpretations.

The deliverable is split into two parts. Part One synthesises what has been found so far and how it can be interpreted. Part Two provides a searchable set of the resources collected. At global/national level, the report notes 51 resources overall, including 46 inequality-focused data sources and additional resources on political participation and democracy. At local level, it highlights 214 resources across the eight Lab areas, grouped into datasets/statistics, maps, portals/websites, and scientific literature/documents.

Among the 46 inequality data sources reviewed at global/national level, about half are datasets or dataset portals, while others are mixed portals or data-bearing documents (reports, articles). The initiating bodies are distributed across EU institutions (12), international organisations (12), universities (7), and NGOs/consortia/other actors (15). The report also distinguishes longitudinal sources (24 of 46) and notes that some run for more than 30 years (6), while others span 10–29 years (11) or less than 10 years (7).

The report identifies around 30 inequality topics for which data are available. The most prevalent is income (19 sources). Other frequently covered topics include employment/working life (9), wealth (9), health (8), gender (8), education (7), territory/spatial issues (5), environmental conditions/climate change (5), and disability (5). Housing and material living conditions appear as a distinct topic in 3 sources, and political participation/democracy/voice appears in 3 sources, reflecting the report’s emphasis on linking socio-economic conditions to democratic participation.

Beyond statistics, the report documents qualitative examples of “bottom-up” initiatives relevant to sustainable and inclusive urban development: parallel planning initiatives in Egypt (including resident-led alternatives to demolition/relocation plans), self-managed citizen initiatives to preserve and manage urban green spaces (including networks and community gardens), knowledge co-production efforts, “right to the city” mobilisation (including tenant movements resisting unaffordable rents), and citizen support networks. These cases are presented as complementary evidence to quantitative indicators, highlighting actors and practices often missing from standard democratic statistics.

For political participation and democracy, the report focuses especially on sources corresponding to cards #47–#51, covering topics such as democracy principles and measurement, voter turnout trends, participatory democracy, civil society participation, and citizen support for democracy. It reports that measurement frameworks commonly treat democracy as multidimensional and observes that sources highlight recent declines in democratic indicators, including concerns about autocratisation and decreasing voter turnout in many contexts.

For housing and sustainable neighbourhood transformation, the report’s core contribution is practical: it maps where data exist (and where gaps persist) to support evidence-based, participatory interventions in “left-behind” areas. By combining long-run inequality data, territorial/spatial indicators, climate-risk considerations, and documented participatory practices, it provides a structured evidence base intended to help local actors co-design urban regeneration and resilience strategies that address both social inequality and democratic participation.