Marco Bontje

Responding to tough times: policy and planning strategies in shrinking cities

Since the industrialization of Europe and North America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, traditional models of urban growth emphasized the expansion of jobs in the manufacturing ind...

A 'planner's paradise' lost? Past, present and future of Dutch national urbanization policy.

National as well as international observers have praised the Dutch national urbanization policy as being exceptionally successful in the recent past. Looking at the urbanization process of recent decades, however, one could wonder if this praise was well deserved. It is acknowledged that national or regional plans are generally only the start of a long-term planning process in which many other actors are involved. Therefore, there is generally no direct connection between these plans and the eventual outcomes. However, if the eventual local outcomes are in conflict with the initial goals of the national or regional plans, the effectiveness of the process between plan acceptance and application in practice becomes very doubtful. The empirical analysis presented in this article suggests that the actual Dutch urbanization process since the 1960s was far from what the national planners wanted it to be. Some successes were surely reached, most of all with the policy of growth centres, but the general tendency of unplanned suburbanization remained unbroken despite all planning efforts. Explanations for this lack of success are probably partly due to administrative or political problems, but much more to the generally limited possibilities for influencing or counteracting the effects of economic, technological and socio-demographic processes through physical planning policy.

Urban Shrinkage in Parkstad Limburg

Abstract Once a flourishing mining area, Parkstad Limburg in the south of the Netherlands is now facing limited economic vitality and structural changes in its demographic composition. In a process of selective migration, young and highly educated people tend to move out of the region, while elderly and less- educated people stay. Shrinkage in Parkstad Limburg has resulted in a declining basis for economic activity, an unbalanced housing market, and policy responses in order to deal with these phenomena. Unfortunately acceptance of the phenomenon is a difficult step and a time-consuming process. While after years of denial most politicians and policy-makers in Parkstad Limburg have finally accepted the decline, the inhabitants of the region have to be confronted with inconvenient decisions like demolishing houses and the closure of public facilities. Based on the findings in Parkstad Limburg, it is concluded that a suitable policy response consists of the acceptance of shrinkage, developing a long-term vision, engaging the inhabitants in the process, restructuring the housing market, and fostering intensive regional collaboration.

Post-suburbia in Continental Europe

In recent decades, the transformation from parts of ‘suburbia’ into ‘post-suburbia’ has taken place in several city-regions across continental Europe. Partly the trends here look similar to those that took off in North America and the UK earlier: the rise of new office complexes, ‘urban entertainment centres’, malls, ‘airport cities’, and mixed live-work areas at city edges and beyond. Partly also, however, the post-suburban developments in continental Europe are different. Generally post-suburbia in continental Europe is developing closer to and more interrelated with the traditional core cities of city-regions, and most often the developments are also of a more modest scale. That said, also within continental Europe we see striking differences between countries and city-regions. For example, there are significant differences between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ EU member states, and also between countries with more and less national and regional planning influence. In our contribution we would like to add a continental European perspective to the theoretical debate on ‘post-suburbia’; highlight the main trends across the continent in recent decades and illustrate them with examples across the continent. In our contribution to this volume we focus mostly on post-suburbia as new forms of settlement space and/or the functional transformation of places formerly known as suburbia.

WHAT ABOUT CULTURE FOR THE ORDINARY WORKFORCE? A STUDY ON THE LOCATIONAL PREFERENCES OF THE CREATIVE CLASS IN PRENZLAUER BERG, BERLIN

ABSTRACT: Richard Florida’s creative class concept hardly needs introduction, neither in academic nor in urban and regional policy circles. The essence in a nutshell: the economic future of cities depends on their ability to attract creative people; and these creatives are attracted most to places that are tolerant, diverse, lively, and amenity-rich. Florida assigns these locational preferences specifically to the creative class, implying that they are of less importance to the “ordinary” workforce. With the help of a survey we compare the reasons why people moved to or stayed in Berlin’s most bohemian neighborhood, Prenzlauer Berg. We make a distinction between those who are categorized as “creative class” and others. Our results indicate that despite its unique character the creative class is not predominantly driven by the locational preferences Florida specifically assigned to them. Remarkably, these locational preferences appear more important drivers of residential choices for the ordinary workforce.

Exploit or Protect Airport Regions from Urbanization? Assessment of Land-use Restrictions in Amsterdam-Schiphol

Airports are no longer only places for take-off and landing, but increasingly became economic nodes in the urban development of metropolitan areas. Though it is debatable to what extent aviation growth is a cause or effect of economic growth, the reciprocal relationship cannot be denied. Most past developments near airports have been spontaneous and haphazard, but recently regional planners have increasingly included an airport focus. Airport planning aims to find a balance between exploitation of the economic potential and protecting the airport area from congestion and urbanization. This article examines the effects of land-use restriction policies near Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Within the Schiphol area, only airport-related companies are allowed to establish their business near the airport. These policies have been implemented since 1987, but their success or failure was never evaluated in depth. For the first time empirical results show that land-use restriction policies could ban most of the undesired businesses near the airport. However, despite varieties of implementation and interpretation of the testing, few differences in effects are found. This study shows that airport-relatedness testing is a typically Dutch planning instrument, but can also be useful for other international airports.

Shrinkage and housing inequality: Policy responses to population decline and class change

ABSTRACT Parkstad Limburg, located in the south of the Netherlands, represents a former industrial area facing structural shrinkage and economic decline in a relatively strongly regulated environment. Though regional policies were initially slow to fully recognize the reality of shrinkage, they are currently well under way. This article identifies to what extent housing policies aim to go beyond managing shrinkage and instead address housing needs of current residents to create equitable social outcomes. We subsequently investigate how specific housing interventions have impacted the region’s changing class composition, using individual-level longitudinal register data from Statistics Netherlands. Our findings highlight increasing socioeconomic and sociospatial inequalities in the wake of shrinkage. Policies have a mixed influence on these dynamics, dampening certain inequalities but amplifying others. Our analyses underscore the limited effectiveness of policies in combating housing mismatch even in a strongly regulated market and indicate key trade-offs for regional governments in managing shrinkage.

Skills and cities: An introductory framework

Interest in the residential preferences of those who are qualified for and economically active in creative industries and knowledge-intensive industries has recently been increasing. The human capital of these workers is seen as an important economic asset for cities and urban regions. Knowledge of their households’ locational preferences may enable the development of policy instruments by means of which a labour force with the right skills for today’s urban economies can be attracted to or retained in specific places. Since qualified labour is, next to capital and land, one of the key conditions for establishing economic activity, knowledge about locational preferences seems to open up new possibilities for place-based economic policies. However, what looks like a simple logic in reality turns out to be much more complicated and causing much debate in which polarized ideas are competing for attention. A key issue in that debate is the ‘order of things’. One idea is that it is essential to attract qualified labour in the first place, the logic being that when a city succeeds in doing that, economic activity will follow. Here the key question is: how can qualified labour be attracted? A second idea is that it is essential to attract and develop firms that will subsequently offer job opportunities, leading to the attraction of employees. The question then is: how can these firms be attracted?

At home in Shenzhen? Housing opportunities and housing preferences of creative workers in a wannabe creative city

Shenzhen grew fast as a city of industrial mass-production, but is transforming to an innovative and creative city. Shenzhen’s policies to encourage the creative industries are mostly aimed at companies and entrepreneurs. To really become an attractive creative city, housing policies for creative talent should be added. This article reports on an interview-based analysis of the housing situation and residential preferences of creative workers in Shenzhen. While creatives with good salaries have no problems finding attractive homes and neighbourhoods in Shenzhen, there is a shortage of affordable neighbourhoods meeting the demands of recent graduates and starting creatives. Shenzhen’s creative city strategy should take the socio-economic diversity of creative workers into account.

De creatieve hype

Tien jaar na dato lijkt de hype rond The Rise of the Creative Class een beetje te zijn gaan liggen. Tijd voor een reconstructie. Het is de vraag of de karrenvracht aan kritiek op Richard Florida gelijke tred houdt met zijn invloed op ruimtelijk beleid. Wellicht is ook hier sprake van een hype.