Lessons learned from the largest tenure-mix operation in the world : right to buy in the United Kingdom

In the past few decades, urban regeneration policies have taken firm root in many Western European countries. Underlying these regeneration policies is a strong belief in the negative neighborhood effects of living in areas of concentrated poverty, often neighborhoods with a large share of social housing. In Europe, great importance is attached to creating a more diverse housing stock (in terms of tenure and dwelling types) as a means to establishing a more socially mixed neighborhood population. Mixed-housing strategies are embraced explicitly by governments in Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The idea is that mixing homeowners with social renters will create a more diverse socioeconomic mix in neighborhoods, removing the potential of negative neighborhood effects. By far the largest tenure-mixing operation in Europe is the Right to Buy (RTB) scheme in the United Kingdom. Since the 1970s, more than 2.7 million socially rented houses have sold at large discounts, mainly to sitting tenants. In this article, we synthesize the outcomes of RTB with regard to neighborhood effects: residualization, neighborhood stability, tenure and social mix, social interactions, and dwelling maintenance. Although we acknowledge substantial socioeconomic benefits of RTB for many individual residents, we find that the neighborhood outcomes of RTB are by no means solely beneficial.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Observations of Sand Waves, Megaripples, and Hummocks in the Dutch Coastal Area and their Relation to Currents and Combined Flow Conditions

[1] This paper aims to investigate the distribution and stability of large‐scale bed forms in response to storm and fair‐weather conditions in a shallow marine environment. Multibeam and side‐scan sonar data off the Dutch coast (median grain size 0.25–0.35 mm) were collected to monitor sand waves (λ = 100–800 m) and superimposed megaripples (λ = 1–40 m) through multiple storm and fair‐weather events. Box cores were used to observe the vertical bed structure and grain size. In the Dutch coastal area, two‐dimensional (2‐D) megaripples (λ = 1–15 m) are the dominant bed forms in current‐dominated (\u3e0.4 m/s) tidal flow regimes with oscillatory flowsLanice conchilegacolonies on bed form development are suspected but need further study. At slightly higher energy conditions, 3‐D megaripples (λ = 5–15 m) begin to form on the shoreface. After seasonal storms, at oscillatory flows \u3e0.4 m/s, undulating bed topography of mound‐like 3‐D bed forms (λ = 20–40 m) is observed. Immediately after storms, these bed forms are covered by smaller 3‐D megaripples, which are related to sets of low‐angle converging laminae in box cores, interpreted as hummocky cross stratification (HCS). The sand waves form compound bed forms of sets of 2‐D and 3‐D megaripples. The morphology of the sand waves is a function of the general wind‐wave climate of the marine environmental setting, with flat‐topped 3‐D sand waves occurring in shallow wave‐dominated settings and 2‐D sand waves occurring in the tide‐dominated environment farther offshore

The support paradox in community enterprise experiments in the Netherlands

In many European countries, community entrepreneurship is increasingly considered as a means to initiate small-scale urban regeneration in the context of austerity policies and welfare state retrenchment. However, residents in deprived neighbourhoods are often viewed to lack key entrepreneurial attributes and skills. While there is research on community entrepreneurship support, most evidence is based on cross-sectional studies and overly focussed on support provided through government policies. This paper extends the current body of knowledge by reporting a unique national experiment in the Netherlands with nascent community enterprises which received start-up support from a private foundation. The paper aims is to investigate how active citizens perceive the benefits and drawbacks of this support. The approached used is unique because of its longitudinal nature right from the start of the experiment. The paper provides an in-depth analysis of transcriptions of repeated semi-structured interviews with the same respondents (panel design) from nascent community enterprises in a number of Dutch deprived neighbourhoods. While positive feedback on the support is found, the study provides strong evidence for a ‘support paradox’: the support that was intended to overcome a number of entry barriers and difficulties on the road to community entrepreneurship has in fact significantly hampered progress among several of the studied community enterprises.PostprintPeer reviewe

Ambivalence in Place Attachment

This paper focuses on the influence of state-led urban redevelopment on the place attachment of deprived homeowners living in danwei communities that are facing demolition in Shenyang, China. It investigates lived experiences through in-depth interviews with homeowners at the pre-demolition phase. The paper reveals how these homeowners cleverly mobilize local resources, such as strong social bonds among homeowners, low living costs, flexibility on space usage and good neighbourhood location to cope with their life constraints, which is translated into their strong neighbourhood attachment. However, various forms of neighbourhood decline have decrease their quality of life. Meanwhile, they have to move due to the impending neighbourhood demolition. State-led urban redevelopment, therefore, confronts those deprived homeowners with a dilemma concerning their strong neighbourhood dependence and the desire for better living conditions. The impending neighbourhood demolition uncovers accumulated social issues in danwei communities in the context of market reforms and institutional changes in current China, such as the emergence of deprived social groups and their struggles for better housing

The path-dependency of lowincome neighborhood trajectories: An approach for analyzing neighborhood change

Socio-spatial polarization is increasing in large cities throughout Europe (Tammaru et al., 2016). Socio-spatial polarization refers to the process where the gap between the rich and the poor is increasing, which is translated into spatial segregation along ethnic or socioeconomic lines. In the European context, this has resulted in distinctive spatial patterns in large cities where the rich are increasingly located in historic city centres, while the poor reside in the more disadvantaged outer-city neighborhoods (cf. Hulchanski, 2010; Van Eijk, 2010). Despite substantial government investments to counteract such socio-spatial polarization over the past few decades, this process seems to be persistent, though it varies over time and between places (Bailey, 2012). In most of the studies on socio-spatial polarization the continuous dynamic character of neighborhoods is neglected, reducing neighborhood change to comparing two points in time. However, neighborhoods are constantly changing in their population composition as the result of residential mobility and demographic events, thereby changing the aggregate status of neighborhoods. Many studies investigating neighborhood change focus on exceptional cases of gentrifying or declining neighborhoods (Bailey, 2012; Bailey et al., 2013; Bailey & Livingston, 2007; Clark et al., 2006; Finney, 2013; Hochstenbach & Van Gent, 2015; Jivraj, 2013; Van Ham et al., 2013). Although these studies have provided important insight in the drivers behind neighborhood change, they are typically limited to time-specific case-studies in particular cities. As a result, we do not know if neighborhoods with similar characteristics experience similar processes of change over time – or if processes of gentrification or downgrading are the exception to the rule. In addition, we have limited understanding of how processes of gentrification and downgrading affect other neighborhoods. As neighborhoods do not operate in a societal and policy vacuum, changes in one neighborhood are likely to affect other neighborhoods as well. It has, for example, been argued that processes of urban restructuring or gentrification are likely to lead to new concentrations of deprivation in other neighborhoods through the displacement of low-income groups (Bolt et al., 2009). As such, the upgrading of one neighborhood might go hand-in-hand with the deterioration of another neighborhood (Bråmå, 2013; Musterd & Ostendorf, 2005a). In addition, many studies in this field rely on percentile shifts and point-in-time measures to analyze change, neglecting the possibility that development over time might be more non-linear than linear or need much more time to take effect (see also Van Ham & Manley, 2012). Because the physical structure of neighborhoods hardly changes, neighborhoods can maintain their overall status over longer periods of time (Meen et al., 2013; Tunstall, 2016). However, selective mobility and demographic events lead to a constantly changing population composition (Van Ham et al., 2013). In this paper we argue that to fully understand processes of neighborhood change, the next step in neighborhood research is to focus on detailed neighborhood trajectories and to identify typologies of neighborhood change over longer periods of time. Analyzing interrelated neighborhood trajectories and understanding why some neighborhoods are more prone to change than others is therefore highly relevant to the debate on spatial manifestations of inequality and neighborhood development. In this paper, we present an approach for analyzing neighborhood change by focusing on long-term neighborhood change combined with a detailed analysis of neighborhood trajectories. Focusing on the trajectories of low-income neighborhoods in the Netherlands over the period 1971-2013, we analyze the role of physical characteristics in neighborhoods change. In the Dutch context, neighborhood and housing quality is often related to the debate on neighborhood change, however, few empirical studies try to analyze to what extent physical characteristics are related to today’s spatial patterns. Different starting positions in terms of housing quality can have long-lasting effects on neighborhood status through processes of path-dependency (Meen et al., 2013). In addition, because the Dutch government has invested heavily in urban restructuring by changing the share of owner-occupied and social-rented dwellings in particular neighborhoods, we analyze the effect of demolition and construction on the different neighborhood trajectories. Changes to the housing stock generate mobility processes and may thus affect neighborhoods in both direct and indirect ways. To analyze neighborhood trajectories we use a combination of methods. Sequence analysis allows for the analysis of complete pathways through time and is therefore a promising method for longitudinal neighborhood research. Sequence analysis is gaining popularity in the social sciences and is increasingly used by researchers interested in patterns of socio-spatial inequalities (e.g. Coulter & Van Ham, 2013; Hedman et al., 2015; Van Ham et al., 2014). However, sequence analysis is ultimately a descriptive method and its potential for explaining trajectories is limited. Researchers have therefore developed a methodological framework that combines sequence analysis and a treestructured discrepancy analysis, allowing for the analysis of the relationship between covariates and sequences (Studer et al., 2011). As such, this framework can provide insight in how different covariates affect neighborhood trajectories in different ways. To our knowledge, this paper offers the first empirical application of this combination in the field of urban research, constituting a new approach towards researching neighborhood dynamics and a move towards the visualization and analysis of complex trajectories. In this paper, we only highlight the most important aspects of the combination between sequence analysis and a tree-structured discrepancy analysis. Based on our presentation, researchers should be able to get a basic understanding of both methods (for a full understanding of sequence analysis researchers are referred to Gabadinho et al., 2011; for a tree-structured discrepancy analysis to Studer et al., 2011). The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. We start with expounding our approach for analyzing neighborhood change. We then move to describe the combination of sequence analysis and the tree-structured discrepancy analysis in more detail. In the data and method section, we elaborate on the structure of the dataset and the methodological choices made. We then discuss the substantive results and reflect on the applicability of the methods for neighborhood research

Measuring and Manipulating the Rhine River Branches: Interactions of Theory and Embodied Understanding in Eighteenth Century River Hydraulics

Eighteenth century river hydraulics used both theory and measurement to address problems of flood safety, navigation and defense related to the rivers. In the late eighteenth century the Dutch overseer of the rivers, Christiaan Brunings, integrated hydraulic theory and meteorological practices, which enabled him to design a unique instrument for measuring river flow. The question is whether the unprecedented detail of measurements fits the putative empirical stance in the eighteenth century. The interactions between theory, instrument, measurement, and other knowledge practices are here assessed using experiences in similar measurement practices. I argue that Brunings had theoretical and embodied understanding of hydrodynamics, as he knew how to design an instrument for flow measurement of sufficient accuracy for his purpose in the sociopolitical context of river management

Divided Cities: Increasing Socio-Spatial Polarization within Large Cities in the Netherlands

There is increasing evidence that our societies are polarizing. Most studies focus on labour market and educational outcomes and show a socioeconomic polarization of the bottom and top ends of the population distribution. Processes of social polarization have a spatial dimension which should be visible in the changing mosaic of neighbourhoods in cities. Many studies treat neighbourhoods as more or less static entities, but urban researchers are now increasingly interested in neighbourhood trajectories, moving away from point-in-time measures and enabling a close examination of processes of change. Sequence analysis allows for a visualization of complete trajectories, and is therefore gaining popularity in the social sciences. However, sequence analysis is mainly a descriptive method and statisticians have argued for the use of a tree-structured discrepancy analysis to examine to what extent outcome variability can be explained by a set of predictors. This paper offers a first empirical application of sequence analysis combined with a tree-structured discrepancy analysis. This paper contributes to the debate on urban renewal programs by offering a unique viewpoint on longitudinal neighbourhood change. Our findings show a clear pattern of socio-spatial polarization in Dutch cities, raising questions about the effects of area-based policies and the importance of path-dependency

Ethnic differences in realising desires to leave urban neighbourhoods

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007–2013)/ERC Grant Agreement no. 615159 (ERC Consolidator Grant DEPRIVEDHOODS, socio-spatial inequality, deprived neighbourhoods and neighbourhood effects) and from the Marie Curie programme under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007–2013)/Career Integration Grant no. PCIG10-GA-2011-303728 (CIG Grant NBHCHOICE, neighbourhood choice, neighbourhood sorting and neighbourhood effects).Selective mobility into and out of urban neighbourhoods is one of the main driving forces of segregation. Earlier research has found group differences in who wants to leave or who leaves certain types of neighbourhoods. A factor that has received little attention so far is that some residents will have a desire to leave their neighbourhood, but are unable to do so. If there are differences between population groups in the realisation of desires to leave the neighbourhood, this might lead to involuntary segregation. This paper uses a unique combination of register data and survey data. We combine data from a large housing survey in the Netherlands (WoON) with longitudinal register data from the Netherlands (SSD) which contains individual-level information on residential mobility histories. This allows us to study whether households with a desire to leave their neighbourhood do realise this desire and which households are successful in leaving which neighbourhoods. A more thorough insight in who wants to leave which neighbourhoods but is unable to do so will contribute to a better understanding of selective mobility and segregation. We find that ethnic minorities and low-income households are less likely to realise a desire to leave their neighbourhood. We expected that ethnic minorities would be especially unsuccessful in realising desires to leave minority concentration neighbourhoods; however, for none of the ethnic groups we found an effect of neighbourhood ethnic composition on the realisation of desires to leave.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Ethnic Differences in Realising Desires to Leave the Neighbourhood

Selective mobility into and out of neighbourhoods is one of the driving forces of segregation. Empirical research has revealed who wants to leave certain types of neighbourhoods or who leaves certain neighbourhoods. A factor which has received little attention so far is that some residents will have a desire to leave their neighbourhood, but are unable to do so. The residential mobility literature shows that the discrepancy between moving desires and actual mobility is larger for ethnic minorities than for natives. This paper uses a unique combination of register data and survey data. We combine data from a large housing survey in the Netherlands (WoON) with longitudinal register data from the Netherlands (SSB), which contains individual level information on residential mobility histories. This allows us to study which households with a wish to leave their neighbourhood are actually successful, and to which neighbourhoods they move. A more thorough insight in who wants to leave which neighbourhoods but is unable to do so will contribute to a better understanding of the drivers of segregation, especially in the context of the debate on voluntary segregation versus segregation due to a lack of choice. We find that ethnic minority groups are less likely to realise a desire to leave their neighbourhood and that if they succeed in moving from an ethnic minority concentration or poverty neighbourhood, they are more likely to end up in another minority concentration or poverty neighbourhood than native residents