*Background*

This study brings together three subjects: urban rehabilitation, social innovation, and new working spaces, envisaging how public sector action can affect all three in a particular city.

Although the correlation between these factors has emerged due to current urban realities, the scientific literature linking them is often lacking. In this case, we aim to look at Lisbon. We wish to bring about particular interventions with a view to social innovation and the creation of new working spaces, taking into account a multilevel perspective (looking at the metropolitan level) whenever possible.

Some authors imply that the creation of new working spaces should germinate from the overall urban planning architecture, which then leads to social innovation. However, this article will show that bringing the public institutional realm to the forefront of the debate, as Mieg supports in [2], is crucial.

It is not uncommon to find that the scientific literature tends to be detached from the planning practice due to its specificity. According to Stiftel [3], in some cities it does not even interact with the academic urban and planning realm to work towards general social, economic, and environmental advances.

There is considerable consensus regarding the need for the rehabilitation and repopulation of older city centres [4,5]. Jacobs (1961) [6] and Gehl (1971) [7] introduced the advantages offered by older, traditional districts characterised by diversity and liveability —in a nutshell, this fits the post-modern view of the 15-min city, or even the previous 'vicinity unit' concept. The conditions necessitated by COVID-19, e.g., lockdowns and quarantining, along with the absence of daily commuting, raised the public's awareness of neighbourhoods and the diverse commercial services and amenities they could offer to the public.

Urban rehabilitation and urban regeneration have been addressed in urbanism, specifically in countries with a Romanistic background, where the material quality of space, by design, is synonymous with cultural practices in the construction and the life of a city [8]. However, there are differences between urban rehabilitation and regeneration that are meaningful under the remit of urban planning cultures in terms of the institutional, spatial, urban planning, and design domains [9].

Under this umbrella, urban rehabilitation is promoted publicly, envisaging the material improvement and the functional update and activation of the pre-existing urban fabric buildings and public spaces—safeguarding residents and improving their quality of life, i.e., avoiding gentrification [10].

Thus, methodologies, technical teams, partnerships, and participation are vital in this process. This has become a consistent practice in historical centres and suburban areas, where public space qualification and the introduction of functional diversity and jobs is used to promote the public's involvement in the rehabilitation of their own neighbourhoods [10].

In this specific sense, one may argue that urban rehabilitation is intrinsically related to social innovation, when the strategies and planning involved address an urban–social ecosystem driven by different actors seeking to build capacity within the different social layers, through a specific co-creation driver that allows for a positive transformation towards local and interpersonal innovation, bringing effective transformation to the area [11,12].

Furthermore, choosing co-creative environs as drivers of urban fabric rehabilitation and involving local communities in the improvement of their quality of life and wellbeing introduces the third factor that we aim to address, i.e., publicly promoted new working spaces. In the context of this study, international agendas [13], social innovation, and cocreation as a participatory process come together in the design of the public realm [14–16].

Therefore, social innovation emerges as a relevant target for a diverse and inclusive city, strengthening the economy and diversifying the ecosystem of activities—bringing a city back to life. It could be said that social innovation is framed towards a European public policy view, as since the 1980s the regional economic approach has been looking for a way to balance regional disparities. Moulaert (see Chapter 1 (*Social Innovation*: *Institutionally Embedded*, *Territorially*) [17]) argues that, concerning territory, social innovation seeks, among other goals, to transform social relations and the interlinks between space, identity, and culture (what architects and other urban-related professionals address as "place") and to establish governance structures, either regional or local. Domanski [18] refers to social innovation as a critical topic in Horizon 2020, the latest European Union (EU) Framework and, since most of the funding is dependent on EU agreements, goals, and policies, several policies address it specifically.

Conversely, Roberts and Sykes [19] focus on urban regeneration under the Anglo-Saxon Land Use Management wings, stressing the economic and funding aspects of urban development, resorting to the agency model. In the chapter *Evolution*, *Definition and Purpose*,

Sykes refers to the need for "a comprehensive and integrated vision", i.e., strategy, aiming to provide lasting "economic, physical, social and environmental" improvement (p. 17) [19]. From this line of thought, one finds a direct thread to the importance of economic activities as supporters of jobs and communities and, often, to the involvement of the private sector, such as the real estate market and the international networks of NWS providers.

This study builds on the typology of NWS as considered by COST CA18214—The Geography of New Working Spaces and the Impact on the Periphery—funded by Horizon 2020. This includes (i) collaborative and creative working spaces (coworking spaces and smart work centres); (ii) makerspaces and other technical spaces (fablabs and open workshops); (iii) other new working spaces (hackerspaces, living lab, and corporate labs); (iv) informal new working spaces (coffee shops and libraries) [1].

COST CA18214 provides robust evidence of new working spaces' typology and their location patterns. The location of new working spaces in Lisbon (using open databases such as Google Maps and CoWorker) appear to follow the open real estate market, either as company networks (e.g., international such as Regus) or in older, more traditional districts at a smaller scale, or in more experimental spaces as an option to rent places that have lost their commercial or housing prospects [1,19–25].

Nevertheless, when the intention is to look for new working spaces' role in concrete urban rehabilitation, their capacity to contribute is limited without the will of a public stakeholder, such as a municipality, that has the capacity to draw links between strategy, urban planning, and further implementation and has the leverage to find funding.

Having secured the urban rehabilitation spark, following the waves of free-market choices is an easier way to catalyse urban regeneration, thus following and interacting with a comprehensive set of local urban plans and designs for the city.

Hence, in a welfare state, as in the case study addressed below, the vision of a city usually provides the strategic location for NWSs, considering that:

