Can grassroots movements in water conflicts drive socio-technical transitions in water management systems?

Water conflicts open windows of opportunity for grassroots movements to transform water systems. However, academic fields studying social movements in socio-environmental conflicts are not well equipped to deal with complexity, non-linear dynamics, and emergent properties. Therefore, these fields rarely engage with long-term complex social...

Measuring social resilience in cities: An exploratory spatio-temporal analysis of activity routines in urban spaces during Covid-19

Covid-19 has dramatically changed life in cities across the globe. What remains uncertain is how national policies and appeals to comply with suggested rules translate to changes in the behaviour of citizens in urban areas. This lack of local knowledge leaves urban policy makers and planners with few clues as to the determinants of social...

Modeling residents’ multidimensional social capital in China’s neighborhood renewal projects: SEM and MIMIC approaches

Neighborhood renewal is now an important approach to sustainable urban development in China. However, neighborhood renewal projects are often beset with social problems such as noncooperation from residents, which can be attributed to diverse interests and complex relationships among residents. However, there is little research on resident...

Welcome, home: Urban biography about the past and future of a deprived residential neighbourhood typology, featuring the cases of Rotterdam and Minsk

With the progressing housing shortage, there is a need for affordable and accessible housing to accommodate the vulnerable population whose number steadily increases every year. Post-socialist urban residential neighbourhoods, an outdated and neglected but culturally and sentimentally significant typology, has the potential to become a solution...

Imbalance: On inequality and deprivation in England's wealtiest borough and re-imagining the role of Architecture as a vehicle for social change

Graduation work Msc3/4 in the studio Architectural Design Crossovers, 2020-2021

Activity and Social Integration: Bridging and Bonding Social Capital

Research about the ideal characters and role of activities in terms of social interaction and people gathering in a culture diverse neighborhood. How to create opportunities for residents to interact and find common activities to improve their relationship is the main intention.

What's mine is ours: Empowering cohousing communities towards self-organization through sharing economy

Our housing market is challenged. Housing prices are rising, and the number of single-person households is increasing, which impacts the affordability of housing. Cohousing offers a possible solution to this problem. However, the level of empowerment of cohousing communities to self-organize is troubled by financial or legal barriers, among...

Testing the social, organizational, and governance factors for success in local low carbon energy initiatives

Evidence from academic studies that analyze social and institutional factors that influence success with community energy projects is scarce. To address this, we pose the question: What are the social, organizational, and governance factors that explain success with ‘local low-carbon energy initiatives’ (LLCEIs)? To answer this question, claims...

Unravelling social capital value in science parks: Growth versus R&D orientation

Science and Technology Parks (STPs) have fueled many debates on their effectiveness in policies to enhance innovation and regional economic growth. Some authors put emphasis on advantages of physical proximity between on-site firms and the university, while others pay increasingly attention to benefits from social capital between the...

The Water Efficiency Paradox: The significance of spatial scale and knowledge exchange in irrigation water management

Water scarcity is a growing issue across the globe (Rijsberman, 2006) and because agriculture is the main consumer of water, investing in irrigation efficiency seems like a good solution to this problem. However, local gains in efficiency can reduce runoff and hence, have an adverse effect on downstream water availability (o.a. Perry (2018, 1999...

Individual Payoffs and the Effect of Homeownership on Social Capital Investment

Are all social capital investments equal in the eyes of homeowners and renters? Presumably, social capital investments that lead to increases in home values provide stronger incentives for homeowners than renters. In contrast, for so- cial capital investments that do not directly impact home values, one would not expect homeowners and renters to...

Beyond the Edge: Complexity Approach to Urban Fringes

After Mumbai, Pune is the second largest city in the state of Maharashtra. With the city’s growing popularity its urban population is expected to double in coming 20 years; while the area governed by Pune planning authorities will double in next five years. The current planning approach is based on differentiated land use which focuses on...

Bloeiend: Encouraging neighbourhood participation

Austerity policies in the Netherlands cause citizens to become more responsible for social support, and to people in need of social support to keep living independently up to an older age. This led to the assignment by Zuidzorg to find new ways to encourage neighbourhood participation. Preliminary research and interviews with people in Budel,...

Identity in Post-Disaster Re-Development

This thesis presents a critical alternative approach in strategy within (post-disaster re-)development. It describes the relevance of urbanism and urban planning in this practice. The approach links educational development projects to overall improvement of infrastructure by structuring resilient and sustainable interventions as principal...

Bonding and bridging in capacity development networks to address wicked water challenges

Capacity development has become an increasingly hot topic in the water sector. The development of individual, organisational, institutional and even societal capacities is argued to be required to be able to addressing the present-day water challenges. From a natural resources management context, much literature is available on WHAT is required...

Unequal networks: Spatial segregation, relationships and inequality in the city

Does the neighbourhood in which people live matter for the resourcefulness of their personal network and thus for their opportunities in life? Do residents of a multi-ethnic ‘problem’ area maintain fewer relationships with fellow-residents compared to residents of a homogeneous problem-free neighbourhood? And do ‘diversity-seekers’ who choose to...

Unpacking neighbourhood effects on social capital: The different ways in which neighbourhood matters for maintaining and expanding networks

This paper examines whether and how neighbourhood composition is connected to, and has impact on relationships and social capital. Three debates in urban sociology engage with this question: studies on poverty neighbourhoods, on gentrification and on gated communities. These debates reveal that in order to understand how spatial segregation...