Renewing urban renewal in France,the UK and the Netherlands: Introduction

Three central questions are addressed in this ‘policy and practice’ special issue of the Journal of Housing and the Built Environment; the extent and the nature of changing approaches to urban renewal in France, the UK and the Netherlands; the effects this has on the articulation between public, private and civil actors; and the capacity of different actors to deal with their new roles and positions. This introduction compares the contributions to the special issue. A framework for this comparison is developed and then applied to the three countries under scrutiny. It appears that the objectives of urban renewal have not fundamentally changed. However, a common tendency towards greater involvement of local actors leads to more network-oriented types of co-ordination and thus influences the roles of both public and private actors. Notwithstanding this evolution, the central and crucial role of public actors in urban renewal persists.     

Renewing stigmatised estates in the Netherlands: A framework for image renewal strategies

Like in so many other European countries, the large housing estates of the post-World War II generation in the Netherlands did not fulfil the great and often Utopian expectations. Nowadays they are confronted with the effects of a negative image, a stigma. Images differ according to the persons asked for an opinion. Internal images, elicited from insiders, may overlap with external images but may also contradict them. The external image of many large estates accelerates their decay and lowers their reputation. All across Europe stigmatised large housing estates are subject to major renewal processes. The Amsterdam high-rise area of the Bijlmermeer is a good example. Once cheered by planners and politicians, later on criticised by inhabitants, avoided by outsiders and stigmatised by the media, the area is now an example of an impressive renewal programme. The question arises whether urban renewal will change a negative reputation. A stigma tends to stick, even after actual renewal activities are finished. Images of neighbourhoods can actively be promoted, just like a commercial product. Image promotion can be a supplementary strategy, which is seldom used in renewal processes. Which strategy would be the best depends on local circumstances, but strategies should be aimed at improving existing internal and external images. Image promotion may be directed to internal participants, to convince them the situation really is improving, or to outsiders, to promote the area and to counterbalance prejudices. Image promotion should not take the place of real improvements, but it is useful to work on a stigma and to give active image promotion explicit attention in any renewal process.     

The lost history of urban renewal

Contrary to common understanding, the US government's policy of “urban renewal” was conceived as an alternative policy to slum clearance. Bitterly opposed to public housing, conservative housing‐industry trade associations sought a way to reform the urban redevelopment formula of clearance and public housing established in the Housing Act of 1949. In the early 1950s, the industry groups seized on citizens' neighborhood fix‐up efforts, particularly the Baltimore Plan, to conduct a national campaign to popularize code enforcement, rehabilitation, and private low‐cost housing development as methods to restore and stabilize city neighborhoods. At conferences organized by House and Home magazine and in the President's Advisory Committee on Government Housing Policies and Programs, the housing industry associations fashioned policies, now named “urban renewal,” which were codified in the Housing Act of 1954. But private industry's venture in urban policymaking failed in implementation. Home builders proved reluctant to participate in the new programs, public housing hung on, and hundreds of thousands of homes fell to the wrecking ball. As urban renewal became synonymous with slum clearance, neighborhoods continued to decline. In the end, ironically, housing rehabilitation reemerged as a populist tool for reviving the inner city.     

Measuring the performance of social housing organisations in England and The Netherlands: A policy review and research agenda

Market principles are now a keyfeature of many social housing systems in Europe,and are a product of international public sectormanagement reforms. These reforms have led to thedevelopment and use of performance indicators. Dutchand English housing associations use what appear tobe very similar performance measures. This paper,however, illustrates that there are fundamentaldifferences in their use and their capacity toexplain the performance of the sector. This isargued to be a product of the extent of publicmanagement reform, the nature of the funding regimeand the way they are held to account.     

Energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies in urban renewal

Buildings belong to the most cost-effective sectors where carbon dioxide (CO₂) reductions can be achieved, and urban regeneration offers a good intervention point for switching to sustainable fuel sources, as changes in energy infrastructure can be coupled with other construction, thus decreasing the cost. However, the potential energy savings that are feasible do not match the more ambitious policy targets. Based on case studies in the Netherlands, obstacles are identified in the context of urban renewal that need to be overcome if energy efficiency measures are to be implemented and space heating replaced with low-carbon technologies. The current free-market public policy instruments have not managed to address the obstacles identified in the case studies due to poor market signals, costs and payback periods, risks, and a lack of leadership on environmental targets and policies on sustainable urban renewal. The potential for stronger government intervention is examined for the effectiveness in reducing both energy consumption and CO₂ generation. Legislation could produce a certain policy outcome in terms of CO₂ reduction in urban renewal in the Netherlands if compliance and legitimacy are ensured, but policy consideration is also required to account for the dilemma of low-income households and the rebound effects associated with occupant behaviours.

Les bâtiments appartiennent à l'un des secteurs les plus rentables où il est possible de réaliser des réductions de CO₂ et où la rénovation urbaine permet de passer à des sources de combustibles durables, les modifications apportées aux infrastructures énergétiques pouvant être couplées avec d'autres constructions, ce qui en diminue le coût. Toutefois, les économies qu'il est possible de réaliser au niveau de l'énergie ne correspondent pas aux objectifs politiques plus ambitieux. Des études de cas menées aux Pays-Bas ont permis d'identifier, dans le contexte du renouveau urbain, des obstacles qu'il faut surmonter si l'on veut mettre en ?uvre des mesures d'efficacité énergétique et si l'on veut remplacer le mode actuel de chauffage des locaux par des technologies à faible dégagement de CO₂. Jusqu'à présent, les instruments de la politique publique libérale n'ont pas permis de renverser ces obstacles pour les raisons suivantes: faibles signaux du marché, coûts et périodes de récupération, risques et manque de leadership en matière d'objectifs environnementaux et de politique concernant la rénovation urbaine durable. Cet article examine les possibilités d'un interventionnisme plus fort de la part des autorités pour améliorer la réduction à la fois de la consommation d'énergie et de la production de CO₂. La législation pourrait produire quelques résultats en termes de réduction du CO₂ dans la rénovation urbaine aux Pays-Bas si l'on garantit la compatibilité et la légitimité; mais il faut également prendre en considération les questions de politique et tenir compte de l'impasse que constituent les foyers à faibles revenus et les effets de rebond associés au comportement des occupants.

Mots clés: patrimoine immobilier, réduction de CO₂, efficacité énergétique, logements, politique publique, rénovation, rénovation urbaine, Pays-Bas     

Deadlocks and breakthroughs in urban renewal: a network analysis in Amsterdam

Urban renewal in the Netherlands has become a matter of ‘networking’. Housing associations, Dutch social landlords, became financially independent in the 1990s and have a responsibility in urban renewal. It is a joint responsibility in which local authority, social landlord and tenants are dependent on each other. This situation is rather new and needs some getting used to, as the two case studies show. The paper concludes that taking account of the complexity of networks could improve the chances of gaining support for problem definitions and solutions. This would result in agreement about goals and win–win package deals for actors, and ultimately in ‘more’ progress in urban renewal.

The ambiguity of urban renewal in France: Between continuity and rupture

The term urban renewal was introduced in France in the Loi solidarité et renouvellement urbains (Loi SRU) of December 13th, 2000. Until then, terms like renovation, reconstruction, recycling or refurbishment were used to indicate similar phenomena. Is the introduction of a new term only an innovation in vocabulary, or does it imply new orientations, conceptions and practices? It appears that ever since its introduction in 2000, the notion of urban renewal has been subject to variations in its meaning and in its implementation. A double regime of urban renewal exists. On the one hand, there are the operations officially labelled as urban renewal, which benefit from central state subsidies. These operations aim at a social urban development, and almost exclusively concern the so-called quartiers sensibles, large high-rise housing estates in the banlieus. On the other hand, there are more market-driven, locally initiated and realised operations of regeneration of derelict and run-down areas of the city.     

Social implications of housing diversification in urban renewal: A review of recent literature

British and Dutch urban policies have advocated housing diversification and social mix in neighbourhoods subject to urban renewal. Question marks have been placed against the evidence base for the assumed social effects of diversification. This paper provides a review of research into the actual consequences of diversification in Great Britain and the Netherlands. After a brief policy discussion, the paper identifies five issues for which evidence is reviewed: housing quality and area reputation, neighbourhood-based social interactions, residential attitudes towards social mix, the role-model effect, and problem dilution. The review shows ambivalent results that necessitate modest expectations, especially with regard to area reputation, cross-tenure social interaction and residential attitudes. This ambivalence is partly due to unclear policy goals and policy terms as well as vagueness about the relevant spatial level. Moreover, the influence of tenure mix is often superseded by other, more important factors in residential satisfaction, such as lifestyle. The paper also argues that positive role-model effects in neighbourhoods have not yet been adequately studied and therefore remain based on conviction.     

Integrated urban renewal in The Netherlands: a critical appraisal

Urban renewal policies in The Netherlands already have a long history, which is characterised by varying attention for either smaller-scale (neighbourhood) or larger-scale (city) issues, and for either physical, social or economic questions. These variations run parallel with more general discourses on urban dynamics and perceptions of processes in (urban) society at large. In this paper the recent history of urban renewal policies will be briefly sketched, including their main orientations. Recent Big Citie Policies, currently in the third generation, will receive special attention and the actual policy discourse will be critically evaluated and confronted with some essential empirical findings. In this process, the Dutch policy on integrated urban renewal shows clear parallels with the experience in other Western European countries, demonstrating that a Western European paradigm of urban policies is in the making: integrated, area-based, with involvement of both public and market partners and residents. Nevertheless, the Dutch case is more outspoken than the approaches in other Western European countries, by paying more attention to the issue of social cohesion or integration and to the promotion of social mix as a solution for a lack of social cohesion in neighbourhoods. At the same time it is clear that this new paradigm of urban policies shows the characteristics of a discourse that is not based on research and on empirical facts, but that develops its own momentum from shared beliefs regarding the nature of urban problems and the appropriate policy responses. This new paradigm needs reconsideration.