Capital cities struggle with population growth that challenges existing infrastructure and affects the quality of urban life. The failure of local governments to manage urban deterioration motivates active resident groups to improve their neighborhoods, but they struggle to play a role in neighborhood governance in contexts where citizens’ engagement in public affairs is restricted. In this article we aim to understand active residents’ roles in the neighborhood governance process and how these roles unfold in a context that challenges citizen engagement in public life. We adopted a case study methodology and interviewed active residents and local officials from selected districts in Cairo, which revealed that active residents’ influence is limited mostly to neighborhood management and implementation activities. In this limited space, the role of active residents is confined to either that of the ‘fixer’ who restores existing services, or that of the struggling and intermittent ‘self-provider’, neither of whom can influence policy formulation. This study provides a structured and zoomed-out view of local activism in Cairo, offering a starting point for scholars and decision makers seeking to enhance active residents’ roles in Cairo.

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As a growing number of Dutch higher education institutions become increasingly interested and active in university–community engagement, questions have arisen about their motivations, goals, and activities in this area. This paper aims to provide insight into the factors driving universities’ community engagement and how this is manifested in the Netherlands, considering, in particular, the role of marketization and corporate social responsibility. It thus offers an empirical foundation for understanding university–community engagement. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with major stakeholders in university–community engagement at four Dutch universities, including members of the executive boards. It was found that university–community engagement shows several similarities to corporate social responsibility and is based on a complex mix of value-driven, performance-driven, and reaction-driven motivations. Three relationships between marketization and university–community engagement are identified, characterizing university–community engagement as a counteraction against marketization, an expression of marketization, and a result of marketization.@en

Although gentrification and its associated changes in residential mobility have been widely studied, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the changing origin locations of gentrification-related residential moves. In this study, we use fine-grained register data from the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics to uncover changing residential mobility patterns to and within the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. We identify that the state-led gentrification process goes hand in hand with the changing socioeconomic characteristics of in-movers and the changing origin locations of residential moves. The city of Rotterdam increasingly attracts middle- to high-income households from other core cities in the Netherlands, a process that we understand as inter-urban gentrification spillover. In parallel, intra-urban moves by economically vulnerable residents are declining, especially toward and within gentrifying neighborhoods. This represents evidence of exclusionary displacement. We conclude that the spillover effects of contemporary gentrification should be understood beyond an intra-urban metropolitan perspective since gentrification in one city can enhance gentrification in another.@en

Identifying the diverse and often competing values of citizens, and resolving the consequent public value conflicts, are of significant importance for inclusive and integrated urban development. Scholars have highlighted that relational, value-laden urban space gives rise to many diverse conflicts that vary both spatially and temporally. Although notions of public value conflicts have been conceived in theory, there are few empirical studies that identify such values and their conflicts in urban space. Building on public value theory and using a case-study mixed-methods approach, this paper proposes a new approach to empirically investigate public value conflicts in urban space. Using unstructured participatory data of 4528 citizen contributions from a Public Participation Geographic Information Systems in Hamburg, Germany, natural language processing and spatial clustering techniques are used to identify areas of potential value conflicts. Four expert interviews assess and interpret these quantitative findings. By integrating quantitative assessments with the qualitative findings of the interviews, we identify 19 general public values and nine archetypical conflicts. On the basis of these results, this paper proposes a new conceptual model of ‘Public Value Spheres’ that extends the understanding of public value conflicts and helps to further account for the value-laden nature of urban space.@en

Gentrification is a process whereby neighbourhoods and their socio-economic composition upgrade through residential moves and social mobility. Relatively little attention has been paid to the spatial aspect of gentrification-induced residential moves. This systematic literature review focuses on the origin and destination of moves to and from gentrifying neighbourhoods, by gentrifiers (movers in) and displacees (movers out). It identifies where, when, and how such research has been conducted and highlights gaps in the literature. Our results suggest that the destination of displaced households has been studied extensively, while an understanding of the spatial origins of gentrifiers is lacking. The few studies dedicated to gentrifiers' origins mostly focus on intra-urban environments, overlooking potential mobility dynamics from outside the city-region. We highlight that capturing both origins and destinations of movers at different spatial scales is necessary to demonstrate how residential mobility creates interactions and demographic interdependencies between neighbourhoods and cities.

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In het Nationaal Programma Leefbaarheid en Veiligheid is weer aandacht voor de arme wijken. Dat valt te prijzen, maar volgens TU Delft-onderzoeker Reinout Kleinhans zijn kwetsbare wijken gebaat bij een aanpak met meer inbreng van bewoners en minder verkokering. "Het is bijzonder teleurstellend dat het ministerie het risico niet wil nemen om de aanpak radicaal anders aan te vliegen."@en

In het Nationaal Programma Leefbaarheid en Veiligheid is er weer aandacht voor arme wijken, maar het stelt teleur dat bewoners geen wezenlijke inbreng hebben en de huidige beleidsverkokering in stand blijft. Het goede nieuws: er is een alternatief.@en

In het Nationaal Programma Leefbaarheid en Veiligheid is weer aandacht voor de arme wijken. Hier en daar slaat het programma de plank echter flink mis, meent Reinout Kleinhans van de TU Delft. Hij pleit voor meer inbreng van bewoners en minder verkokering.@en

Migratie en diversiteit staan garant voor verhitte debatten en een permanente crisisstemming in politiek, bestuur en beleid. Daarom pleiten wetenschappers Mark van Ostaijen, Reinout Kleinhans en Kimberly Seibel in hun nieuwe boek voor beleidsmatig, bestuurlijk en politiek grensverkeer.@en

Nederland verkeert in een staat van permanente crises. Naast klimaatverandering, stikstof, toeslagen, jeugdzorg, gezondheidszorg en migratie is het ook in de woningbouw en stedelijke ontwikkeling alle hens aan dek. In de discussie over nieuwbouw van 900.000 woningen tot 2030 komen veel problemen samen. Nederland heeft een internationaal sterke reputatie op het vlak van ruimtelijke ordening en waterbouw. Toch is er intern veel onvrede. Steeds meer bewoners komen in opstand tegen nieuwe plannen en gebiedsontwikkeling, zoals bij de voorgenomen verbreding van de A27 in Utrecht, die ten koste zou gaan van het bos Amelisweerd. Deze trend wordt gemakshalve vaak gekenschetst als NIMBY-gedrag (Not in My Backyard).@en

This paper studies how residents in the neighbourhood Bospolder-Tussendijken (BoTu) have dealt with the COVID-19 restrictions. Prior to the pandemic, significant investments in community-building were made to increase resilience of individuals and communities in BoTu. This paper identifies the key assets BoTu residents had developed and actually during this ultimate challenge. Interviews with formal and informal actors in BoTu revealed that community leadership, engaged governance, problem-solving ability, and information sharing environment were essential to adequately respond to the crisis, and were successfully deployed. The paper concludes with five policy implications to help strengthen capacities and relationships needed for community resilience.@en

Grote steden zijn van oudsher de woon-, werk- en leefplaats van mensen met een enorme variëteit aan achtergronden. Onder invloed van snel veranderende economische structuren, internationale migratie en groeiende sociaaleconomische ongelijkheid worden steden niet alleen steeds diverser qua bevolkingssamenstelling. Ze worden ook steeds meer het toneel van strijd om schaarser wordende hulpbronnen, zoals toegang tot betaalbare woningen, onderwijs en voorzieningen. In deze strijd delven groepen met lage en midden inkomens in toenemende mate het onderspit. Juist de laagste inkomensgroepen kampen met uiteenlopende problemen op het vlak van onderwijs, werk, inkomen, huisvesting en gezondheid.@en

Gezonde, duurzame stedelijke ontwikkeling is een complex vraagstuk dat vraagt om een serieus debat. Reinout Kleinhans en Cees-Jan Pen betogen dat we het debat niet moeten verengen tot verdichten of binnen- versus buitenstedelijk bouwen, zoals Jos Feijtel dat recent deed in deze kolommen. Het gaat om hoe we de kwaliteit en integraliteit van gezonde stedelijke ontwikkeling verhogen en bewaken – binnen de context van de politieke druk op ‘bouwen, bouwen, bouwen’.@en

Governments are focusing on building new cities to control rapid urbanization and accommodate overpopulation in Africa. Meanwhile, existing agglomerations suffer from urban deterioration, much to the dissatisfaction of their residents. Cairo is an exemplary case of active residents’ response toward urban deterioration in their neighborhoods, resulting from local government deficiencies accompanied by a hostile culture toward citizen engagement. In this context, active residents use social media to share concerns, mobilize each other, and act on the ground. These active groups are likely to differ from local activism practices in contexts where a culture of citizen engagement is often state-supported. This paper aims to better understand how local activism manifests in the context of Cairo and its neighborhoods. We identified active resident groups and observed their main activities and aims. We subsequently analyzed the active resident groups’ level of formality, confrontational attitude, collaboration with local officials, and motives. We found that many active groups practice local activism as a right to a certain urban quality within the neighborhoods. They were either self-provisioning groups that confront and ultimately cooperate with local officials, advocacy groups that demand accountability and action from local officials in a less confrontational manner, or user groups that settle for online criticism.@en

Over time, urban planning scholars have studied ways to improve communication and collaboration between ‘experts’ and the ‘public’ in planning processes. Social media and the web 2.0 have strongly affected governments’ communication with citizens. The growth of public participation, Geographic Information Systems and geo-visualisation interfaces have provided many opportunities for citizens to create and share various kinds of location-based information. Digital participatory platforms (DPPs) are a specific type of web-based technology, often adopted by governments for citizen engagement in urban planning. DPPs are explicitly built for engagement and collaboration purposes allowing for user-generated content and include a range of functionalities which transcend and considerably differ from ‘conventional’ social media such as Facebook and Twitter. However, simply establishing DPPs is not enough. Previous research has outlined various challenges towards DPPs attempting to leverage citizen participation in urban planning. This chapter discusses five fundamental challenges to effective citizen participation: 1) access and awareness, 2) sustaining user motivation, 3) expectation management, 4) re-establishing routines and practices, and 5) offline follow-up and decision-making. The main question is how these challenges affect the actual take-up and effectiveness of DPPs. Contrary to the common debate, the chapter will show that technology is not the main issue. Rather, the way in which DPPs are embedded in a wider participation approach is key to its success.@en

Je kunt tegenwoordig geen krant, magazine of internetbulletin meer openslaan zonder geconfronteerd te worden met de wooncrisis. Op verjaardagsfeestjes is dit onderwerp een ‘geliefd’ thema onder met name jongeren en andere woningzoekenden in een vergelijkbare hopeloze positie. De regering, in het bijzonder minister Hugo de Jonge, doet amechtige pogingen om dit complexe probleem aan te pakken, maar simpele oplossingen zijn er niet. In de voortdurende stroom van berichten en discussies moet ik vaak denken aan die ene regel uit het gedicht Herfstdag van Rainer Maria Rilke: ‘Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr’. Een dichtregel die 120 jaar na dato pijnlijk nauwkeurig de huidige verhoudingen op de woningmarkt beschrijft.@en

Interviewen is een veelvoorkomende wetenschappelijke methode on informatie te verzamelen. Belangrijk is dat het interview inhoudelijk goed aansluit bij jouw ontwerpopgave of onderzoek. Daarnaast helpt het enorm om te werken met een systematische aanpak bij het vastleggen, ordenen, analyseren en rapporteren van de informatie uit je interviews. En natuurlijk is een goede gespreksvoorbereiding belangrijk. De interviewmethode omvat drie fasen: 1. Voorbereiding en randvoorwaarden 2. Uitvoering, gespreksvoering en vastleggen data, en 3. Uitwerking, analyse en rapportage. Interviews zijn zeer geschikt voor het in kaart brengen van percepties, ervaringen, opvattingen, verwachtingen, en het ophalen van kennis uit de praktijk. Om de complexiteit van datgene wat je onderzoekt te begrijpen, is het van belang dat je in het interview zelf flexibel kunt opereren. Gesprekken verlopen nog al eens anders dan tijdens de voorbereiding wordt verondersteld. Dit hoofdstuk biedt concrete handvaten voor alle onderdelen van het proces.@en

Nederland is in de afgelopen decennia een migratiesamenleving geworden. Er komen migranten vanuit alle delen van de wereld. Sommigen blijven voor langere tijd, anderen verlaten na verloop van tijd ons land weer. De Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid (WRR) constateert dat de ‘vlottendheid’ en verscheidenheid in onze migratiesamenleving sterk zijn toegenomen. Dat maakt het samenleven ingewikkelder (WRR, 2020). Daarom behandelt dit boek een select aantal thema’s die blijk geven van een onlosmakelijk verband tussen migratie en migratiegerelateerde diversiteit, en de sturingsdilemma’s die daaruit voortkomen. Want migratie en diversiteit leiden tot een breed scala van vragen over grondrechten, participatie, burgerschap, noodopvang, huisvesting, onderwijs en arbeidsmarkt. Dit zijn complexe, sterk verweven vraagstukken, die zich niet beperken tot een enkele bestuurslaag, ruimtelijke schaal of maatschappelijk domein en daarmee ook governance-uitdagingen opleveren.@en

Web-based participatory mapping technologies are being increasingly harnessed by local governments to crowdsource local knowledge and engage the public in urban planning policies as a means of increasing the transparency and legitimacy of planning processes and decisions. We refer to these technologies as “geoparticipation”. Current innovations are outpacing research into the use of geoparticipation in participatory planning practices. To address this knowledge gap, this paper investigates the objectives of web-based geoparticipation and uses empirical evidence from online survey responses related to 25 urban planning projects in nine countries across three continents (Europe, North America, and Australia). The survey adopts the objectives of the Spectrum for Public Participation that range from information empowerment, with each category specifying promises about how public input is expected to influence decision-making (IAP2, 2018). Our findings show that geoparticipation can leverage a ‘middle-ground’ of citizen participation by facilitating involvement alongside consultation and/or collaboration. This paper constitutes a pilot study as a step toward more robust and replicable empirical studies for cross-country comparisons. Empowerment (or citizen control) is not yet a normative goal or outcome for web-based geoparticipation. Our evidence also suggests that information is pursued alongside other objectives for citizen participation, and therefore functions not as a “low-hanging fruit” as portrayed in the literature, but rather as a core component of higher intensities of participation.

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Contemporary urban development is increasingly characterized by collaboration and co-production between ‘experts’ and the ‘public’ in urban planning processes. Recently, local planning actors have adopted digital participatory platforms (DPPs) which are specifically built for networked engagement and collaboration purposes. However, the knowledge on embedding DPPs in wider planning dialogues is still limited and scattered. The aim of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the organizational conditions for the successful adoption and implementation of such networked co-production. Through a set of semi-structured interviews with representatives from public agencies and platform companies, we have analysed how organizational conditions for networked co-production manifest themselves in seven cases of DPP implementation. The analysis shows that these conditions are co-constitutive and co-evolutive rather than concurrent or sequential, with strong links between the compatibility of public agencies, attitudes to co-production, organizational cultures and incentives for co-production. The results critically emphasize the need to adopt holistic approaches to networked co-production, allowing for extensive experimentation and ‘learning by doing’.

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