Applying the lessons of strategic urban planning learned in the developing world to the Netherlands: a case study of three industrial area development projects

Worldwide there is an increasing interest in strategic urban planning. Strategic urban planning is a way of urban planning that is based on strategic planning principles common in the business sector. The need for strategic urban planning is recognized and acknowledged in developing countries, but barely in European countries. This article explains the reasons for this lack of recognition by comparing the possibilities for strategic urban planning in developing countries to a European country: the Netherlands. The major similarity found is that current institutional characteristics in both developed and developing countries still limit the possibilities for strategic urban planning. Institutional change is a prerequisite for successful strategic urban planning, but very difficult to attain as indicated in various cases in developing countries too. The major difference is related to the cultural aspect of urban planning. In the Netherlands, and in many other European countries too, it is broadly accepted and considered legitimate that governments have a chief coordinating role. It is common that they develop for the stakeholders instead of with the stakeholders. This differs from developing countries where stakeholder participation and joint development are considered crucial to develop sustainable planning solutions. Based on these findings the conclusion is that strategic urban planning has its limitations. As a method, it has much potential, but planners and academics must carefully tailor the method to the specific context where it will be applied

Implementing joint ambitions for redevelopment involving cultural heritage: a comparative case study of cooperation strategies

Urban redevelopment projects at brownfield sites are challenging, especially when heritage conservation needs to be integrated into urban development plans. In these processes, close cooperation between various actors is essential to develop and implement plans. However, many projects seem to fail or opportunities are missed. This paper sheds light on the barriers and drivers in the planning process of these projects and shows that cooperation and interaction strategies might enable actors to implement joint ambitions. Therefore, we conducted a comparative case study of 10 urban redevelopment projects involving cultural heritage buildings in the Netherlands. Our results show that there is no standard strategy. Various cooperation arrangements and interaction types are effective in dealing with complicating contextual factors and conflicts in the planning process

The barriers to nurturing and empowering long-term care experiments - lessons learnt to advance future healthcare projects

The objective of this study is to explore the barriers to nurturing and empowering subsidized long-term care experiments that try to deal with today's long-term care challenges such as an aging population and increasing healthcare costs. Nurturing is the process of planning, implementing, and learning from experiments. The empowerment process deals with stabilizing experiments into the existing long-term care system. This is a qualitative study of a network that nurtured and tried to empower three long-term care experiments, which were subsidized by a ministerial transition program (2009–2011) in the Netherlands. In total, 14 open-ended, semi-structured interviews were conducted. Further data were collected through participation, collecting documents, and pursuing a focus group. The findings revealed eight barriers to nurturing and empowering the experiments. During the planning of the experiments, top managers and consultants were (1) lacking time, (2) ignored the local context, and (3) did neither engage project managers nor professionals. At the start of the experimentation, project managers and professionals were lacking (4) motivation, (5) time, and (6) support while there was (7) no sense of urgency to experiment. Finally, there was (8) no commitment from the top managers during the empowerment of the experiments. In conclusion, future projects have to try to avoid these barriers. Otherwise, time, money, and energy are lost in overcoming these barriers, which are needed to deal with today's long-term care challenges