Dutch urban renewal, transformation of the policy discourse 1960–2000

Abstract

Since the sixties of the twentieth century, thepolicy of the Dutch government on urban renewalhas been subject to three approaches, each onedifferent from the others. Up until thebeginning of the seventies, the accent was onthe expansion of the function of the largercities as economic centers. The expansion ofthe inner city for that purpose proceeded atthe expense of the residential function of thebuilt-up area. Later, the main goal was justthe opposite; attention was turned to thequantitative and qualitative reinforcement ofthe urban residential function of the citycenter and its surrounding urban residentialneighborhoods. Under that approach, the accentwas placed on improving the housing conditionsof the `sitting' residents. Accordingly, theconstruction program consisted for the mostpart of social housing that was extrainexpensive. In the course of the nineties,this so-called classic urban renewal approachwas displaced by urban revitalization. The newapproach placed the accent on strengthening thecompetitive position of cities as locations forpromising economic sectors and households withhigher incomes. This article attempts to characterize these`shifts' in policy on the grounds of a methodderived from discourse theory, which is brieflyexplained in the second section. The thirdsection typifies the policy philosophy of eachof the approaches and attempts to characterizethe changes in the policy discourse in relationto the continually changing combinations ofsocietal events and situations that, from theperspective of the policy sector, were eithernot foreseen or difficult to influence.Looking at the way policy has developed over alonger period, it seems to be less of arational learning process than a`merry-go-round' of fixed themes, visions, andsolutions that jostle for priority and keepcoming back only to disappear again. Furthermore, the logical consistency of apolicy philosophy – for instance, betweennormative and causal assumptions and measures ‐ proves to be more the exception than therule.