The research aims to investigate whether, and how, in a Southern European context area-based programmes in deprived and ethnically diverse neighbourhoods effectively decrease socio-spatial inequalities at neighbourhood and city level; and whether more equal opportunities and access to resources have emerged, fostering the upward social mobility of the different social and ethnic groups. It will first develop a theoretical and conceptual framework for the analysis of the impacts of area-based and mixed community programmes from a redistributive perspective and within a multi-scalar thinking. Drawing on different European cases, it will intersect current international debates on social cohesion (e.g. urban inequality and segregation, local welfare system, and diversity), focusing on inequality of opportunities within the remit of social mobility and neighbourhood (de-)commodification. The multidimensional framework will then be applied to two neighbourhood case studies in Barcelona to assess the social and spatial effects of the PERI renewal programmes on the long-term residents and the wider consequences at neighbourhood and city level. Quantitative and qualitative longitudinal analyses will look at changes in housing, professional, educational, and demographic indicators and their geography (1986-2011) and interpret their correlations within the broader social and urban transformations of the city. Qualitative analysis of few paradigmatic social and ethnic groups will investigate processes of social and spatial mobility in relation to changes in socio-economic opportunities (production: i.e. employment, training), access to resources (consumption: i.e. public services, public spaces, housing affordability/progression) and neighbourhood affordability. Finally, reflections on management and delivery of the programmes are explored in relation to wider mechanisms of spatial and social differentiation and (re)-commodification of welfare services occurring in the city.