Management of Urban Development Processes in the Netherlands

Abstract

Urban interventions are vital to the city. These may involve renewal of inner city areas, transformation of port and industrial areas, industrial renewal, development of new residential areas, the rehabilitation of the historic centre of a town or the development of leisure areas in a city, just to list a few. These various interventions are also given different names, such as urban re-development, urban renewal, urban revitalisation and urban regeneration. In this book we summarise these different interventions under the term ‘urban area development’.
Whether it's a minor surgery or major intervention with either modest ambitions or big ones, these interventions have something in common and it is that they should be managed from conception to realisation. As the title of this book suggests Management of Urban Development Processes in the Netherlands is about the entire process of managing urban development and covers the full life-cycle of urban areas. Secondarily, the book elaborates on the Dutch approach. The focus is not on comparing Dutch urban area development with the practice in other countries. Nor is it our aim to position Dutch urban area development in an international framework. What the book does aim to do is provide an understanding of current practice and an overview of acquired knowledge and instruments developed in the Netherlands. This is illustrated by (mainly) Dutch examples.