Decline and Regeneration : Policy responses to processes of change in post-WWII urban neighbourhoods

Abstract

The large carefully planned housing estates built after the Second World War were once attractive places in which to live. Nevertheless, across Europe the reputation of many of these areas has changed for the worse. In addition to general impoverishment, in some areas social tensions, high levels of unemployment, crime, social exclusion, and physical decay prevail. With the emergence of the problems, the political as well as the scientific attention paid to large housing estates has increased. Existing studies on regeneration policies on the local level are often limited to the analysis of just one policy strategy. In the research reported here, the focus is on several key-aspects of regeneration policy, which have all obtained increased attention during the past decade. Some of the strategies or aspects focus on the housing stock (demolition/new-building), while in others the local population is central (residents’ participation; social cohesion), and again others concentrate on the cooperation between different actors (integrated approach; public-private partnerships). By contrasting the situation in the Netherlands with various other European countries, the research also brings out the differences in the way problems are encountered and enables them to be explained. It is demonstrated that the institutional framework determines to a large extent whether and how particular policy strategies are implemented; not every country encounters the problems in the same way. Moreover, local characteristics are of influence on the way a strategy is put into practice and thereby on its effects. In addition, it is put forward that particular regeneration strategies might oppose rather than strengthen each other.