New planning approaches in the Netherlands. How urban development is reinventing itself

For a long time, urban development in the Netherlands was a primarily state-driven activity, in which a golden triangle consisting of the national government, social housing corporations and municipalities worked together to realise large-scale urban extensions. This was enabled by an active municipal land policy, which allowed municipalities to steer development and often to generate additional income through internalising of the planning gain. However, this development model resulted in large-scale residential areas which often lacked character. The financial risks of this model were unveiled during the global financial crisis in recent years, when municipalities experienced great financial losses due to decreasing book values of their land accounts. This may have resulted in a turning point in Dutch urban planning, moving away from state-led large-scale urban development towards new organic and flexible forms of development with a key role for bottom-up initiatives. The article presents two innovative cases of organic development: Amsterdam Buiksloterham and Almere Oosterwold. Here, planners wanted to allow for maximum flexibility in the development of the two areas through a "light" set of rules to stimulate bottom-up initiatives rather than prescribing specific spatial outcomes

Duitse Regionalen: succesverhaal voor regio's?

Sinds enige jaren experimenteert Duitsland met ontwikkelingsprogramma’s waarin regionale samenwerking en identiteitsvorming bevorderd wordt. Elke twee jaar wordt in een van de regio’s van Noordrijn-Westfalen een zogenoemde ‘Regionale’ georganiseerd. Zo’n tentoonstelling van regionale projecten heeft inmiddels vier keer plaatsgevonden. Wat zijn de resultaten van deze beleidsstrategie en op welke manier zouden regionale planners in Nederland hiermee hun voordeel kunnen doen

Manufacturing the creative city: Symbols and politics of Amsterdam North

Experimentation and urban innovation are becoming central references in the discourses of local politicians and urban policymakers aiming to trigger spatial change in times of austerity. Emerging electoral parties and political groups frequently make use of symbolic references to advocate new urban agendas, especially when urban change has high socio-political impacts. This paper explores the relation between political change and spatial interventions by examining how symbols are used to carry out post-industrial urban development. Amsterdam North, once a historical stronghold of the Labor electorate, is today the living laboratory for liberal-progressive parties. Despite initial political dissent against transformation in the area, the planning approach employed in the redevelopment of North currently inspires a new urban agenda for the city. Looking at symbolic acts, languages and objects, we explain how this political change was conveyed through symbols that link past images of manufacturing industry and human labor to emerging narratives of creative urbanism and entrepreneurialism