Contracting for better places: A relational analysis of development agreements in urban development projects

Large-scale urban development projects aim to create better places in underused or deteriorated areas. For their realisation, cooperation between planning authorities and market parties is indispensable. This book focuses on the development agreements that these parties close. It follows from the relational contract theory that, as the projects...

Strategy as Force: Towards Effective Strategies for Urban Development Projects: The Case of Rotterdam CityPorts

In European urban development practices, there is a recurring need for new perspectives that provide insight into the complexity involved in the realization of projects. This need exists particularly around prestigious projects, where the tension between planning ambitions on the one hand, and the reality of conflicting interests and tight...

Private market PPP versus innovative public market procurement practices

Public contracts between contracting authorities and economic operators take place in a context in which initiative rests with a contracting authority publishing a contract notice defining content and scope of the contract. Many innovative contracting practices, described as public-private partnerships (PPP) take place using public contract...

Governing capabilities, not places – how to understand social sustainability implementation in urban development

Social sustainability’s implementation in urban development is a complex endeavour that demands alternative forms of governance. This article draws on the capabilities approach as an evaluative framework to better understand this implementation process. Through an in-depth case comparison of two Dutch urban development projects, the study...

Developing places for human capabilities: Understanding how social sustainability goals are governed into urban development projects

Although social objectives are frequently part of the pursuit of sustainable urban development, how such social sustainability goals can be achieved in urban development practices remains a largely unsolved puzzle. While scholars increasingly acknowledge that urban social sustainability is a plural concept that needs to be specified in...