The region of Dutch Flanders is facing several challenges related to regional imbalances and perception of decline. It is located in between the Scheldt river estuary and the region of Flanders in Belgium which is providing unique opportunities, but also causing frictions and risk. Its peri-urban and urban areas under pressure are located in between the large-scale activities in industry, agriculture and port logistics. These large-scale activities have multiscalar relations, connections and forms of cooperation to which the urban and peri-urban do not seem to be as well connected to. At the same time, the larger functional region of the Scheldt Delta is in need of transition because of economic, environmental and technological changes. The in-between areas could benefit by repositioning their economic, social and environmental role into the larger functional transition of the Scheldt Delta. This study aims to develop a strategy for this regional development as well as developing a policy framework for improving the cross-border relations and opportunities to guide the transition of the Scheldt Delta region.

Throughout history, Paris has always been a city of walls. The differences between the wealthy core and the poor periphery are increasing rapidly. The Boulevard Périphérique, Paris’s concrete ring road, is the spatial and symbolic manifestation of the imbalance between the city and periphery. The ring road works as a mobility bottleneck at the regional scale, while locally it strengthens the perception of urban inequality by complicating access to the resources of the city centre. Transforming this infrastructure element does not involve only spatial and functional restructuring, but also interventions at the social and governance level. This research and design project shows how the redevelopment of the Boulevard Périphérique can contribute to transform its spatial, functional, social and symbolic roles, in order to address the socio-spatial inequality challenges in the metropolitan area of Paris. A strategy for the redevelopment of the ring road is proposed, accompanied by spatial interventions and planning guidelines. The main outcomes are a strategic- and spatial framework that function as a toolbox for the redevelopment project. This toolbox consists of three important components: structural conditions, contextual needs and intervention possibilities.

As the creative industries started gaining their recognition as beneficial forces for socio-economic transformation in the 1990s, there have been plenty of discussions regarding such phenomenon in urban planning policy and academia. While certain sectors of creative industries are enjoying the economic growth brought by globalisation, some others, especially the Nomadic Creative Community (NCC) as this thesis identifies as young, mobile, highly educated, artistically employed, and low income groups, are suffering from cities’ high land values caused by gentrifications. This thesis aims to explore the potentiality and obstacles of facilitating the NCC as the bottom-up forces for locally based urban regenerations in the case of global city London. On top of that, the thesis adapts the Creative City concept and evaluates the effect of globalisation in the context of creative industries and how they respond to the conditions. Through multi-scale spatial and governance analysis, example reviews as well as empirical findings collected via on-site interviews and observation, the project reveals the importance and values of community-oriented creative and cultural amenities supported by involved stakeholders. In the end, the thesis proposes several design and planning recommendations with aims of improving liveability for all and steering the current London’s metropolitan structures towards better spatial, socio-economic inclusivity.

Many western European countries have undergone the process of deindustrialisation. The has resulted in a changed economy focused on knowledge. This went hand in hand with urbanisation, resulting in explosive population growth in many cities. In combination with the rise of neoliberal planning made cities an attractive investment object. All three of these trends have caused many industrial areas to be transformed in often glamorous projects to revamp cities images. While aesthetically improving cities, it has also often started or intensified processes of gentrification. The canal zone of Brussels however seems to be very stable in this regard, and has not undergone any big transformation. My hypothesis is that this could be attributed to strong path dependencies within the area, which expresses itself in three ways: the segregated social profile, the industrial land use and its governance fragmentation. Often neoliberal planning treats these types of path dependent location as a sort of ‘tabula rasa’ that can be used to maximise profits and thus deals with these path dependencies by path breaking: demolishing urban fabric and displacing people and/or economic functions. Due to the fact that these path dependencies seem quite strong in Brussels and have not yet undergone such a transformation, makes it a unique opportunity to look at a different approach of urban development. Approaching these path dependencies from the perspective of path renewal, these could be starting points for a just, productive and place-based development. How can a just, productive and place-based development be achieved in the Canal zone of Brussels, utilizing the area’s path dependencies through path renewal? First the past, present and future for the canal zone will be analysed to see how these dependencies have and possibly will develop. After that a synthesis will be made from which values are derived. Based on these values a vision and strategic framework will be constructed, which will be tested on case study sites. This strategy is underpinned by a pattern language which is used to explore pathways to path renewal. Ultimately this strategy aims to intensify the local economy, empower local communities and preserve spatial identity.

The globalization that we are facing completely transformed the world as we knew it fifty years ago. The historical era we live in today is cha- racterized by the use of technology, which is one of the factors that made globalization possible. While some time ago it was possible to define and identify the “center” of powers, of cities, it became more challenging today. Nowadays different types of centralities exist, ranging from the new transnational networks of cities to electronic space (Sassen, 2001). The urban question addresses the cities as the main places where the activities that arose from globalization are focused and they are characterized by different degrees of virtuality. Finance is one of them, probably the most virtual, thanks to the liberalization that happened in the eighties of the last century (Harvey, 2007). (Sassen, 2001) proposes a challenge to the archi- tects and urbanists in this sense: are we able to study and imagine projects for the places of intersection between the global, mostly virtual dynamics, and the local realities? The research that is explained here wants to take up this challenge. It focuses on the topic of the global commercial networks that have been developing in the last years. Such corridors aim at creating new con- nections between cities around the globe, by building new infrastructure in strategic points, among them harbors too. The practice of allowing den- ser flows between these areas is less virtual than the activities of finance, for instance. Every commercial corridor needs to take into consideration the question of logistics, mobility and consequently infrastructure whose physical implications are tangible. Similarly, some of the flows that pass through the hubs are flows of very tangible objects such as containers or liquids. Along with the concrete passengers of the commercial there will be the unofficial ones, whose presence is intrinsic every time there is an exchange of goods: the knowledge and culture from the places connected by the new economic corridor. Just like in the case of finance, explained by Sassen (2001), there is a variety of other activities and spaces that emer- ge along with it. This research wants to address the ones that emerge and could emerge from the development of harbor cities in the current logic of globalization and growth of global flows. This research wants to underline that the answer is not in the obedient ac- ceptance of the conditions that the global powers dictate. That is why, the outcome of this thesis wants to be a new method, and a new lens through which we can all choose to look at the urban paradigm of harbor cities.

Metropolitan regions are the most urbanized and globalized areas as the concentration of population and economy in the world, which makes them exposed to various global emergency risks like pandemics. And the COVID-19 outbroke from Wuhan (China) at the end of 2019, offered an up-to-date perspective as an opportunity to investigate and improve the vulnerability of metropolitan regions in highly contagious global diseases. Metropolitan Region Amsterdam, is one of the most developed regions in the Netherlands and the world, who is playing a significant role in globalization. However, in this emerging public health crisis, MRA has been the most vulnerable region as the current epidemic hotspot. The concentration of corona cases in the region has resulted in various negative impacts, both directly and indirectly. Considering these problems, this project is a research-oriented design in MRA for the post-pandemic vision. Firstly, through a series of theoretical, political, and spatial analysis, the main problem of MRA is that it is vulnerable to the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic due to a vicious cycle of urban vulnerability which has been exposed and intensified by the hazard of COVID-19. And the basic reason is related to its attachment to continuous economic growth. The government of MRA has also paid attention to this problem and attempted to transfer its development from a pro-financial model to a pro-well-being model with a theoretical underpinning called “Doughnut Economics”. However, like many other experimental tests, this transformation follows the traditional planning method which is not suitable for dynamic risks like the pandemic. Therefore, this research is aiming at spatial and political strategies based on the methodology of dynamic planning to improve urban resilience facing the pandemic in the post-COVID MRA. And the final concrete outcomes will be on different scales. There will be a vision of post-COVID MRA through a set of strategies of municipalities and institutions to improve urban resilience. And on a local scale, there will be a resilient design for different pandemic vulnerabilities for an equal and sustainable community.

The place of urban low-income populations is increasingly coming under threat in the modern and globalized city - as urban centers are becoming more prominent and attractive parts of society and economy, and the addressal of poverty more socially prominent, questions and actions taken in this context increase the pressures on these vulnerable populations. In Rotterdam this manifests in the notion of urban renewal of low income neighborhoods, promoting strategies of socio-spatial integration that would introduce more affluent populations into these spaces in an effort of creating diverse communities that would eliminate the notion of ‘bad’ neighborhoods while elevating the local population already there. However, this comes at a heavy price, as it requires the displacement of the majority of the local population, thus creating a contradiction - the strategy for aiding the poor threatens the displacement of most of them. Rotterdam’s place communities are trying to resist these changes, but are coming short due to lack of socio-economic capital - they lack funds, home ownership, social and political clout and the unity required in order to influence the processes that threaten them. This research proposes a method of supplementing these lacks, which is based on a research conducted by the University of Birmingham, training and promoting community based projects with the aid of external partners- and seeing them to fruition through engagement of local establishments. The project here proposes to replicate the process in the Rotterdam context, adapting it and examining how external means can be implemented in aiding vulnerable populations achieve a loud and coherent voice in the planning processes in the western globalized metropolis.

The rapid upsurge of the platform economy is producing profound changes to the way in which urban areas are functioning. With digital technology putting roots down in the fields of public transport, hospitality and the service industry, it opened up possibilities for new platform economy companies to nest themselves within the activities of these traditional public services. In some occasions serious disruptions of existing systems occur, while in other cases it may unveil opportunities to improve the functionality of public life in cities. Where (local) governmental organizations seem to grapple with policy making to effectively balance the interests of corporate platform organizations and the public good, it is important to critically explore the implications of inadequate regulation vis-a-vis the novel platform economy and the commodification of public space and services. This thesis is an extensive multi-facetted analysis, providing insight in the externalities of flash delivery platforms, as they claim their place in cities and influence urban planning practice. Furthermore, it shall offer design-based interventions to generate synergies between platform services and the traditional functionality of public services to provide creative solutions where policy instruments will fall short. As a result, a more thorough understanding of platform urbanism is acquired and new ways of using platform economies to enhance the lived experience in cities are being presented.

Inequality in the city of Amsterdam is growing. While in the 70s, the city was described as a prime example of a Just City, the contemporary metropolis is growing as a city of the elite. Neoliberal planning in recent decades has focused on attracting knowledge workers to Amsterdam with a strategy of privatization, deregulation and decentralization. Not only has this led to a situation where access to the municipality for lower-income groups is compromised, but also to a complex development environment where democratic decision-making is vulnerable. The problems of inequality and undemocratic decision-making in the Amsterdam region call for a new understanding of how to redesign for a Just City, in which spatial justice and inclusive decision-making is protected. Therefore, this thesis research proposes a refined methodology that enables understanding contemporary demands for spatial justice and translating these demands into spatial design. A framework is developed that provides an overview of planning and design principles that must be protected during the development of a Just City. Furthermore, a 5-Step Methodology is being created that urban planners may use to translate these principles into spatial designs. With these instruments, the research contributes to academic knowledge about planning for justice and steering complex urban development. Although (spatial) justice is a value that may never be fully obtained and the fluid definition of a Just City is always evolving, the products of this research contribute to the political discourse on planning for justice and equity. The results may be further developed by integrating different academic disciplines and the perspectives of multiple stakeholders in its progress. Moreover, the performance of the methodology may be explored further by experimenting with it in a practical setting.

Integration as one of the major paths to social cohesion is a task of urban development and restructuring (Glick Schiller & Çaǧlar, 2009). A growing number of scholars refer to the importance of urban opportunities that facilitate integration processes via the empowerment, interaction and participation of social groups (Glick Schiller & Çaǧlar, 2009; R. Kloosterman, 2010; Kurtenbach, 2013; Räuchle & Schmiz, 2018). Arrival cities, viewed as the key intersection between migration, integration and urban development, are the subject of this study. Borrowing theories, methods and interventions from different disciplines, this project designs opportunity structures for migrant integration within the intersection of space and the legal-political, socio-economic and cultural-religious dimensions of integration. Following an introduction on arrival cities, this project examines how opportunity structures facilitate the integration process in Hamburg and how a strategic design approach can generate new opportunity structures. By viewing migrants as place-makers, this project is driven by a positive view on arrival neighbourhoods and migrants’ self-organization.

The Euregio Maas-Rijn can be considered a Polycentric Urban Region (PUR), a region that consists mostly of medium and small-sized cities. The region is divided by three national borders, but the opening of European borders has enabled the region to cooperate more. PUR’s have access to the same level of agglomeration benefits as a single, large city, when cultural, functional and institutional integration in the region increases. In this thesis the focus is on functional and institutional integration and their relationship. Within functional integration the focus is on the public transport network, in line with the increase in congestion in the car network and the raising awareness of climate change. Within the Euregio Maas-Rijn (EMR), its dispersed polycentric urban pattern, and lack of cross-border public transport connections show a disconnected and underdeveloped regional public transport network that does not relate to the urban pattern. The exclusion of power-actors in public transport in the main governance structure on the euroregional scale, obstructs cross-border projects to be realised. The design shows how functional and institutional integration can be increased, and in this create a stronger region. Design principles form the foundation of the design strategies and create the link between literature and spatial design, in particular the literature on the increase of integration in rural urban regions. The principles focus on the integration of public transport and the urbanisation pattern, the integration of the euroregional, regional and local scale, and the integration of governance structures.

Globalized universities located in small cities are expanding at a rate beyond the spatial capacity of its host city. The resulting presence of student housing in these cities known as ‘studentification’, have cascading social, cultural, economic, and spatial impacts that lead to, in particular, a lack of co-existence and tolerance between the university community and the local community. Existing research have primarily focused on how studentification has materialized in cities through negative consequences. As the influx of students continue to increase in an unprecedented rate in Delft, a need to understand fundamental conditions that contribute to negative consequences arise in order to propose strategic interventions for their mitigation and transformation. This research aimed to thoroughly understand the studentification process in Delft and recommend a long-term strategic plan towards co-existence. The methods used in this research involved delimiting or expanding on practices of other European cities experiencing studentification through the political, spatial, and socio-cultural lens of Delft. Through this research, the urgency and complexity of studentification were clarified and called for a comprehensive approach that transcended conventional practices.

For the last decades, technologies, new agricultural trade policies, environmental restrictions, high pressure through economic competition in combination with a sharp competition of land lead to the development of intensive farming. As a result, patchy landscapes have been replaced by monofunctional, homogeneous agricultural landscapes that fragment natural landscapes and take away natural and cultural diversity. The consequences of the processes of fragmentation and homogenization are both socio-economic and landscape-ecological and cause biodiversity loss and social injustice among farmers. Through changing existing paradigms about nature conservation, this project suggests an alternative approach for understanding possible interrelations between nature and agricultural practices. By reintroducing concepts about commons, a synergy can be found that compliments natural connectivity and agricultural landscapes through the establishment of a regenerative agro-ecological network that connects biotopes in a multi-functional way using current agricultural parcels and natural zones. This newly introduced Common Ground network produces a new farming method in which agricultural practice has a temporal character and is a continuous modifiable process. In this way, the vision makes use of the dual crisis as a solution rather than seeing it as the source of the problems. The Commons also resemble a new way of practising agriculture, in which land, knowledge, resources and financial risks are shared among farmers in a socially just way. In addition, these shared landscapes reflect on the social context in which farmers are considered as environmental stewards who share some of the responsibility for an ecologically balanced system.

“Hybrid Working, Quality Living” seizes the opportunity of the surging hybrid remote working trend to promote work style and lifestyle changes in office districts and beyond. Remote working has been developing but has never been applied on such a global scale before. Since the end of 2019, it has brought our attention back to several long-discussed urban problems, for instance, the housing crisis, commuting behaviors, urban life quality, and so on, by shedding light on neglected connections among them. The project takes the Randstad as the research area to analyze and explain how the problems interrelate with each other. Looking fifty years into the future, “Hybrid Working, Quality Living” applies the urban foresight method to respond to the urban challenges, exploring a radical future with flexible schedules, all-day-round inhabited neighborhoods, closely collaborative communities, increased housing affordability, and greater gender equality, all through the transformation of office districts. Starting from understanding the future residents’ lives, a set of aspirations and design options are listed out and then applied to the design of Beukenhorst, a concentrated office district in Hoofddorp, Haarlemmermeer. Based on foresight methods, “Hybrid Working, Quality Living” tests the design with a set of scenarios to explore its responses to the changing conditions and summarize the influential factors under different circumstances. Driven by each of the major drivers of change, the scenarios and the tests identify the possible futures as well as emphasize the importance of dynamically monitoring and adjusting the design strategies.

Due to global social and economic developments and the intensifying urbanization process, China's urban development is displaying a novel phenomenon of expansion and shrinkage oscillations. Cities dependent on natural resources are among those worst affected by China's urban shrinkage. Resource-based cities, which are essential to China's economic development, are facing the prominent challenge of urban shrinkage as a result of China's slowing economic growth, its homogenous industrial structure, and the industrial cycle of "boom and bust" brought on by resource depletion. In these cities, the gradual lack of urban dynamism results in the disadvantage in urban competition and attractiveness. The main challenge in these cities is figuring out how to achieve better sustainability and transformation. The concept of "smart shrinkage" is a viable alternative to the conventional growth-oriented planning paradigm, which seeks to reverse the anticipated decline in the future. Smart shrinkage entails accepting the reality of shrinkage, developing policies in anticipation of urban population reduction, and investigating new models of urban intensive development under non-growth conditions. The potentials and transition based on the smart shrinkage idea are investigated in this thesis using Hegang as the study location. Hegang, a city on the border of northeast China, is on the list of resource-exhausted cities. Its population is declining, the city's mineral resources are nearly completely depleted, there is an excess of land and structures, and the quality of space is deteriorating. Does the idea of "smart shrinkage" make sense in the context of a municipality that is losing population with Chinese characteristics? Is local operationalization of shrinkage possible? In response to the long-term shrinking trend in the context of Hegang, this research develops a theoretical framework for smart shrinkage, suggests a strategic framework for urban recovery and resilience building, reconstructs Hegang's socio-economic and spatial dimensions, and recovers it to a resilient urban system. The results of a thorough investigation may serve as a point of reference for this particular group of cities' transformation and excellent development.

The current Dutch housing domain is characterised by injustices on multiple scales, such as a shortage of housing, disparities in well-being across regions, and unaffordable housing. This situation can partially be attributed to spatial planning practices focused on promoting growth-oriented economic thinking. These contemporary planning practices can be argued to be socially and spatially selective and to have a short time horizon. While some injustices remain unresolved, others are exacerbated by contemporary planning practices. The aim of this research has been to develop a justice framework which helps spatial planners address, instead of perpetuate injustices. This is approached through the question: To what extent can a framework based on justice values help spatial planners design for justice in the housing domain in Dutch regions? This has led to the development of a justice framework constructed from three core justice values: Sufficiency, Limitation and Opportunity. These are made more concrete to the housing domain through two applied values each: (I) Availability and (II) Acceptability for the quantitative and qualitative aspects of Sufficiency; (III) Sustainability and (IV) Moderation dealing with intergenerational justice and intragenerational justice for Limitation; and (V) Influence and (VI) Diversity related to opportunities to assert influence on the living environment and to choose a living environment. These applied values are further specified using housing dimensions and strategy directions in two consecutive rings. The first advantage for spatial planners is that the justice framework summarises and combines several abstract justice theories into digestible values relevant to the Dutch context. To test and demonstrate the justice framework it has been applied to the case study area of the Regio Stedendriehoek, which enabled answering the research question. First the justice framework helps to structure regional spatial analysis and policy analysis on a wide range of justice values, which can bring to light different types of injustices. Second, based on the analyses, clusters can be made of areas with similar problems regarding the applied values, which helps determine which type of strategies require priority in different areas. Then, based on these priorities, strategies can be developed using the outer ring of the justice framework. The justice framework helps to structure strategy development per applied value, but the justice framework can also be used as a tool to assess whether strategies can contribute to solving injustices for different applied values. In this way fruitful strategies can be prioritised and interventions that cause conflicts between different justice values can be avoided or mitigated.

Plastic is one of the most visibly polluting elements in our environment. From big plastic accumulation zones at sea to microplastic entering our everyday drinking water, plastic is becoming a more evident pollutant every day, which is damaging ecosystems, marine life and human health. This paper will envision a possible solution for plastic pollution in North West Europe, through the retrieval and recycling of plastic, and by proposing an alternative for plastics in the current textile industry; algae. The strategy of this project aims to create a more circular and local economy by envisioning how substituting bio-plastics in a specific industry can be a solution towards minimising overall plastic pollution. Drawing on climate change as an environmental impactor; algae bloom, which is seen as a negative climate change product, will in this project become a catalyst for a change within the textile industry by making bioplastics. Through introducing a new perspective on how the relationship between consumer hubs and production hubs could be adjusted to become more sustainable, this project aims to showcase a solution that could be implemented in other areas with plastic pollution, by taking North-West Europe as a test case. Simultaneously, the project aims to pinpoint how crisis can become an opportunity in times like these.

The Earth is experiencing an increase in global surface temperature due to a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions, mainly caused by the production of fossil-fuel-based energy using non-renewable resources. The heavy industries, predominantly comprising refineries, are the primary contributors to these emissions. As the primary source of energy for these industries is also fossil-fuel-based, the European Green Deal emphasizes the need for an energy transition. However, renewable energy production requires a large area, and the current energy grids are overloaded due to the lack of energy storage possibilities. A potential solution to the storage issue could be the implementation of green hydrogen. As refineries are expected to be decommissioned soon, hydrogen plants could be established in their locations, repurposing the existing infrastructure of pipelines and storage facilities. These plants would enable circular energy systems, converting hydrogen to energy using the green hydrogen production method of electrolysis, and vice versa, using fuel cells. Moreover, these redevelopments could be implemented on a larger scale, resulting in the creation of a hydrogen backbone in the Eurodelta, connecting the industrial clusters within this area and making the energy system more resilient. For the execution of a hydrogen energy system in the Netherlands, a strategy has been proposed that involves a centralized main hydrogen production and storage zone in the Port of Rotterdam, including new industries with hydrogen input and future high energy-consuming industries. Renewable energy production would be installed using offshore vertical-axis wind turbines and onshore horizontal-axis wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, and biomass. This approach would also allow for the introduction of additional green areas, improving working conditions and air quality for the re-educated industrial workforce. In addition, a second strategy involves the implementation of a decentralized energy system in an agricultural landscape in the Municipality of Zutphen. These exemplary areas can be used as models to implement this idea in similar regions across Northwest Europe. Future research could focus on technological innovations, economic feasibility, and additional limitations of the introduction of hydrogen energy systems, ensuring the return of industries as new green hubs.