Partnerships in urban restructuring: building long-term relationships or a pragmatic managerial tool?

In urban governance literature, much attention is paid to the ideas and ideals of cooperation in policy networks, in particular to the motives and objectives of cooperation at the start of urban restructuring processes. However, little consideration has been given to the dynamics of working in partnerships or to the conditions for long-term joint capacity building. In this article, we call attention to these issues. The main question addressed is: Which factors contribute to long-term cooperation? We have elicited the information required to answer the question through in-depth interviews with professionals and residents' representatives working in six Dutch urban restructuring neighbourhoods. Although we found some attempts to build long-term joint working capacity to address residents' needs, the findings indicate that this endeavour is impeded by the dominance of a scaled neoliberal governance arrangement in Dutch urban restructuring that features a strong market rationality with fragmentation in policies, time, space and decision-making power. We show that this situation hampers success in integrally addressing residents' needs in urban restructuring neighbourhoods. We conclude that, for more inclusive and coherent policies, the abandonment of neoliberal rationalities in urban policies is a first requirement for developing a real joint working capacity to address residents' needs in distressed neighbourhood

Between dreams and reality : urban governance in the process of Dutch urban restructuring

Between Dreams and Reality, Urban governance in the process of Dutch urban restructuring Abstract The ambition to redevelop post-World-War Two [post-WWII] neighbourhoods (built between 1950-1975) is derived from the slow degradation process that often affected them during the last decades. The urban-restructuring processes mostly take place through the renewal of the housing stock by the demolition, upgrading, and selling of social housing, the building of more expensive dwellings, and the renewal of the public space and all kinds of facilities. We might expect that the neoliberal reforms of the Dutch welfare state since the 1980s have triggered intensive cooperation in urban restructuring policies between government layers, between the local authority and the housing associations, and with residents’ committees: urban governance (the processes of steering and coordinating urban policies between the public, private, and voluntary sectors to achieve collectively-agreed goals). Network-theory approaches stress this self-steering dimension of networks. In contrast, however, the political-economy approach of multi-scalar meta-governance emphasises the strong steering of the central state in local governance arrangements. Therefore, more insight in the usefulness of various theoretical governance approaches is important in the construction of a more appropriate explanation. Furthermore, the differences in perceptions among stakeholders might impair the cooperation processes and have not as yet been systematically researched. Therefore, the research focus is on local stakeholders’ perceptions with respect to intergovernmental relationships in urban policies, the problems and policies for urban restructuring neighbourhoods, and their roles and tasks in the collaboration process. How do local stakeholders enact the management of networks, and the sustaining of the relationships in the area-based partnerships? Moreover, urban restructuring processes require very high investments in social and financial terms. Identifying the factors that contribute to effective urban policies and well-functioning cooperation processes and those factors that hinder this is thus extremely important. We used a qualitative case study approach to investigate local stakeholders’ perceptions. During 2004-2008 79 semi-structured in-depth interviews were carried out in eight post-WWII urban restructuring neighbourhoods. These case studies are located in both medium-sized and large cities on several geographical locations in the Netherlands. The main conclusion is that institutional changes in Dutch urban restructuring shape the perceptions of the key actors about effective urban restructuring policy and effective urban governance in the area-based urban restructuring partnerships. They perceive a strong role for the market and closed governance arrangements that in turn restrict effective network management and a broad long-term joint-working capacity. This is in strong contrast with what we might expect from network theory. It highlights the serious limitations of normative network theory with respect to their explaining power, owing to the lack of attention paid to the actual underlying processes in urban governance practices and the neglect of the complexity of these processes. Our conclusions are in line with the multi-scalar meta-governance approach, in which the neoliberal restructuring of the welfare state in conjunction with a robust regulation of the cities is emphasised. This strongly influences urban governance practices at the local level. The research outcomes thus clearly illustrate the governance failure derived from the neoliberal practices in Dutch urban restructuring

Increasing the adaptive capacity in unembanked neighborhoods? An exploration into stakeholder support for adaptive measures in Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Cities in deltas are vulnerable to climate change, especially their unembanked neighborhoods that are not protected by dikes. Rising sea levels and extreme water levels in the rivers can lead to the flooding of these urban areas. The Nether- lands has a long history in water management. However, building dikes and the elevation of land are traditionally treated as rather stand-alone measures. Attention is rarely paid to the surrounding area, let alone to the complex context of cities and certainly not to disadvantaged neighborhoods. Yet, inner-city area redevelopment may provide opportuni- ties to integrate flood management in these planning processes. In order to investigate the support of stakeholders for risk-reducing adaptive measures and more resilient measures, we did research in an unembanked inner-city area in the city of Rotterdam (The Netherlands), in which we conducted in-depth interviews with the central stakeholders. The main conclusion is that the most important barriers for integrating climate adaptation measures into that neighborhood are the fragmentation of water-safety policy (e.g. elevation of rebuilding locations) and the hierarchical governance ar- rangement in water management. This type of fragmentation led on its turn to fragmentation with other policy goals for the neighborhood. It also led to fragmentation between different areas in the same neighborhood that received political attention and those that are excluded from water-safety policy. This questions the approach in terms of social justice. An important side effect is that this governance arrangement also restricted innovation towards climate adaptation. Therefore, integrating water-safety policies in urban planning (in its capacity as a more integrative and comprehensive spatial approach) should be considered the best option to increase the adaptive capacity in delta cities. Not only can the negative effects in terms of policy fragmentation be dealt with effectively, but also spatial fragmentation can be tackled

A fact is a fact, but perception is reality: stakeholders' perceptions and urban policies in the process of urban restructuring.

Distressed urban areas suffer, by definition, from a number of serious problems. It is often assumed that all relevant stakeholders agree about the character of these problems and the right policy solutions. Reality, however, is more complex. In this paper we investigate how local stake- holders and residents in a Dutch post-WWII neighborhood perceive urban problems and solutions. The findings show the very opposite perceptions about reality and about effective solutions in distressed neighborhoods held by local managers and residents. The main conclusion is that a power-driven narrative of problematic post-WWII neighborhoods within a neoliberal strategic urban agenda has led to a power-driven urban governance arrangement to the exclusion of residents

Dutch urban governance: multi-level of multi-scalar?

Many accounts of urban governance emphasize municipal and neighbourhood scales, featuring local participation, social cohesion and the relationship between local government and residents. By contrast, our focus is the vertical governance processes of integrated urban policies. We concentrate on the effectiveness of the steering of urban policies. Using a Dutch city as a case study, we evaluate local stakeholders’ experiences in the vertical governance processes of integrated urban policy and the extent to which their experiences fit in with the theoretical notions of multi-level governance or multi-scalar meta-governance and the EU principles of good governance. The key result is that Dutch urban policy incorporates dominant neo-liberal multi-scalar meta-governance, owing to the simultaneously strong market orientation and state regulation. The legitimacy of urban policy is brought into question when city authorities have very little influence on its contents but are judged on its results. The major lesson learned is that neo-liberal centralistic steering in the core domains of local government that aim to achieve effective and coherent urban governance practices is counterproductive