Housing Deprivation Unravelled: Application of the Capability Approach

The capability approach as a normative approach to wellbeing focuses on the real freedoms of people to choose the life they want to live (Sen, 1999). This approach is regarded as an alternative to the needs-based approach of paternalistic welfare states in Europe and seems to match well with the ambitions of the European Commission ‘to show a...

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...

Performance assessment of housing associations

This article analyzes the function, design, and effects of a method to assess the performance of housing associations in the Netherlands. First, the roles of performance assessment are discussed from three perspectives: the association as an agent for the central government; the association as a facilitator of local stakeholders’ needs; and the...