Society is facing urgent crises, such as climate change and housing shortages, which increase feelings of uncertainty and distrust towards the government. Many citizens feel powerless and feel a loss of control over their living environment. At the same time, we see a growing movement of self-organisation, in which citizen collectives take responsibility for local challenges in areas such as energy, healthcare and housing. Citizen collectives offer unique solutions through their focus on shared values, sustainability and decentralised decision-making. However, cooperation with governments is often difficult, due to differences in goals and working methods, because the specific institutional logic is not recognised. They are considered ‘hybrid’ organisations, somewhere between market and government, but are neither one nor the other. This article investigates how citizen collectives and governments can collaborate more effectively when this institutional logic and the roles that citizen collectives can play are better known. It also discusses the conditions that are needed to make these initiatives more inclusive and representative. The aim is to harness the power of citizen collectives for necessary societal transitions and the restoration of trust in democratic processes.

This study examines a crucial yet underexplored topic: the dialectical relationship between governance and its outcomes in urban (re)development. As contemporary urban governance networks become increasingly dynamic, understanding this relationship is essential for advancing theoretical models beyond static, linear frameworks and informing adaptive, context-sensitive governance strategies. We integrate Assemblage Thinking with dialectical perspectives to develop a conceptual model that reconciles the long-standing debate over whether networks should be understood as “structure” (stable power/resource relations) or “process” (contingent interactions). By operationalizing key Assemblage principles, we embed governance–outcome dialectics within the “structure–process” continuum, extending the application of Assemblage Thinking in urban studies beyond descriptive uses. The Assemblage–dialectical model posits that methodological choices, including variable selection, temporal dimensions, and reasoning modes, significantly influence governance–outcome interpretations. A systematic review of empirical studies on urban (re)development practices, which echo the dialectical diagnosis of the governance–outcome relationship, largely validates this model. It demonstrates that studies using isolated variables, cross-sectional analysis, and causal reasoning tend to reinforce structure- or process-oriented interpretations. While these studies do not explicitly reject the structure–process entanglement, they often prioritize structure or process as the primary determinant of governance outcomes. However, contrary to initial expectations, studies combining causal and relational reasoning, rather than relying solely on relational reasoning, along with holistic and longitudinal perspectives, are more consistently aligned with an Assemblage-based interpretation. These insights provide scholars and practitioners with a more comprehensive understanding of governance configurations and their evolving interactions with outcomes, ultimately enhancing the capacity to design effective and adaptive urban governance strategies.

Digital technologies offer new opportunities for citizen participation. Although scholarly interest in citizen participation in the digital era has been growing, citizens’ preferences for online versus onsite planning participation remain unclear. Drawing on survey data, this study examines public participation preferences and the factors influencing them across three phases of the planning process in China. Findings show a general preference for onsite participation, linked to more active, outcome-oriented engagement, whereas online participation is driven by convenience and expressive freedom. We propose a hybrid participation system that combines the strengths of both modes to promote more inclusive and effective collaborative planning.

“Kennis is macht”. Deze uitspraak wordt toegeschreven aan de Engelse filosoof en staatsman Francis Bacon. Hij staat ook wel bekend als de grondlegger van het empirisme. Het empirisme kennen we als een filosofische denkrichting die stelt dat kennis alleen op basis van waarneming wordt verkregen. Daarmee is Bacon een van de grondleggers van de wetenschappelijke methode. Eerst gegevens verzamelen en analyseren, daarna pas conclusies trekken. [...]

This study examines how senior residents navigate the overlapping logics of dispossession and re-possession within urban redevelopment, situating this dialectic within the broader framework of spatial commodification and lived spatiotemporal experiences. While urban redevelopment offers compensation and improved housing, it also generates deep emotional, functional, and temporal disruptions – particularly for older adults. Spatially, redevelopment projects prioritise abstract commodified space, often disregarding seniors’ affective and symbolic attachments to their neighbourhoods. Importantly, seniors’ attachments to place are not uniformly positive. Many express frustrations with deteriorating environments and social fragmentation, viewing redevelopment as an opportunity to improve living conditions or family wealth accumulation. The tension between loss and gain – between being dispossessed and being re-possessed – shapes their complex responses to displacement. These dynamics are further complicated by the temporal mismatch between institutional redevelopment timelines and seniors’ embodied rhythms, such as ageing-related limitations, care responsibilities, and uncertainty about future arrangements. Meanwhile, shifting intergenerational dynamics within the family domain reveal that even with financial compensation and increased family wealth, conflicts often emerge around caregiving and benefits distribution. By centring these tensions, this study moves beyond binary accounts of victimhood or compliance and highlights the ambivalence and contingency in seniors’ engagement with redevelopment. It calls for more nuanced policy responses that align material compensation with emotional and temporal needs, particularly in contexts where family-based ageing care remains central.

Universities worldwide are becoming increasingly interested and active in fighting social inequality and strengthening social cohesion at a local level, often referred to as ‘university–community engagement’, ‘local engagement’, or ‘community outreach’. Many activities are clustered under this heading, such as lifelong learning, volunteerism of staff and students, service-based learning, and participatory research. Despite the rise of internet-based communication, community engagement in education requires face-to-face, reciprocal interactions between stakeholders and community members. While the goals of students, instructors, and community members may partly overlap, community engagement embodies fundamental tensions among the different interests, knowledge, and time frames of these actors. The extent to which these conditions can be met largely affects the level of community engagement. The chapter uses the relevant literature and experiential knowledge to develop a conceptual framework of the basic conditions for and inherent tensions in local university–community engagement in the context of research-based design and spatial planning education.

Van bovenaf opgelegde sociale menging waarbij welvarende bewoners worden voorgetrokken, is niet effectief om problemen van bewoners in kwetsbare wijken op te lossen. Tien wetenschappers reageren op een oproep van directeuren van het Nationaal Programma Leefbaarheid en Veiligheid.

Capital cities struggle with population growth that challenges existing infrastructure and affects the quality of urban life. The failure of local governments to manage urban deterioration motivates active resident groups to improve their neighborhoods, but they struggle to play a role in neighborhood governance in contexts where citizens’ engagement in public affairs is restricted. In this article we aim to understand active residents’ roles in the neighborhood governance process and how these roles unfold in a context that challenges citizen engagement in public life. We adopted a case study methodology and interviewed active residents and local officials from selected districts in Cairo, which revealed that active residents’ influence is limited mostly to neighborhood management and implementation activities. In this limited space, the role of active residents is confined to either that of the ‘fixer’ who restores existing services, or that of the struggling and intermittent ‘self-provider’, neither of whom can influence policy formulation. This study provides a structured and zoomed-out view of local activism in Cairo, offering a starting point for scholars and decision makers seeking to enhance active residents’ roles in Cairo.

As a growing number of Dutch higher education institutions become increasingly interested and active in university–community engagement, questions have arisen about their motivations, goals, and activities in this area. This paper aims to provide insight into the factors driving universities’ community engagement and how this is manifested in the Netherlands, considering, in particular, the role of marketization and corporate social responsibility. It thus offers an empirical foundation for understanding university–community engagement. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with major stakeholders in university–community engagement at four Dutch universities, including members of the executive boards. It was found that university–community engagement shows several similarities to corporate social responsibility and is based on a complex mix of value-driven, performance-driven, and reaction-driven motivations. Three relationships between marketization and university–community engagement are identified, characterizing university–community engagement as a counteraction against marketization, an expression of marketization, and a result of marketization.

‘Een deel van de waterwereld” wil het momentum van wateroverlast en storm van de afgelopen weken benutten voor een absolute voorrangspositie van bodem en water boven andere belangen zoals „wonen, energievoorziening, transportinfrastructuur, natuur”. Dat stellen Ties Rijcken en Friso de Zeeuwin NRC (2/1). Zij willen daarom „een krachtig tegengeluid” geven, „voordat het te laat is en het land verder op slot gaat”.

Although gentrification and its associated changes in residential mobility have been widely studied, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the changing origin locations of gentrification-related residential moves. In this study, we use fine-grained register data from the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics to uncover changing residential mobility patterns to and within the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. We identify that the state-led gentrification process goes hand in hand with the changing socioeconomic characteristics of in-movers and the changing origin locations of residential moves. The city of Rotterdam increasingly attracts middle- to high-income households from other core cities in the Netherlands, a process that we understand as inter-urban gentrification spillover. In parallel, intra-urban moves by economically vulnerable residents are declining, especially toward and within gentrifying neighborhoods. This represents evidence of exclusionary displacement. We conclude that the spillover effects of contemporary gentrification should be understood beyond an intra-urban metropolitan perspective since gentrification in one city can enhance gentrification in another.

Identifying the diverse and often competing values of citizens, and resolving the consequent public value conflicts, are of significant importance for inclusive and integrated urban development. Scholars have highlighted that relational, value-laden urban space gives rise to many diverse conflicts that vary both spatially and temporally. Although notions of public value conflicts have been conceived in theory, there are few empirical studies that identify such values and their conflicts in urban space. Building on public value theory and using a case-study mixed-methods approach, this paper proposes a new approach to empirically investigate public value conflicts in urban space. Using unstructured participatory data of 4528 citizen contributions from a Public Participation Geographic Information Systems in Hamburg, Germany, natural language processing and spatial clustering techniques are used to identify areas of potential value conflicts. Four expert interviews assess and interpret these quantitative findings. By integrating quantitative assessments with the qualitative findings of the interviews, we identify 19 general public values and nine archetypical conflicts. On the basis of these results, this paper proposes a new conceptual model of ‘Public Value Spheres’ that extends the understanding of public value conflicts and helps to further account for the value-laden nature of urban space.

Gentrification is a process whereby neighbourhoods and their socio-economic composition upgrade through residential moves and social mobility. Relatively little attention has been paid to the spatial aspect of gentrification-induced residential moves. This systematic literature review focuses on the origin and destination of moves to and from gentrifying neighbourhoods, by gentrifiers (movers in) and displacees (movers out). It identifies where, when, and how such research has been conducted and highlights gaps in the literature. Our results suggest that the destination of displaced households has been studied extensively, while an understanding of the spatial origins of gentrifiers is lacking. The few studies dedicated to gentrifiers' origins mostly focus on intra-urban environments, overlooking potential mobility dynamics from outside the city-region. We highlight that capturing both origins and destinations of movers at different spatial scales is necessary to demonstrate how residential mobility creates interactions and demographic interdependencies between neighbourhoods and cities.

In het Nationaal Programma Leefbaarheid en Veiligheid is weer aandacht voor de arme wijken. Dat valt te prijzen, maar volgens TU Delft-onderzoeker Reinout Kleinhans zijn kwetsbare wijken gebaat bij een aanpak met meer inbreng van bewoners en minder verkokering. "Het is bijzonder teleurstellend dat het ministerie het risico niet wil nemen om de aanpak radicaal anders aan te vliegen."

In het Nationaal Programma Leefbaarheid en Veiligheid is er weer aandacht voor arme wijken, maar het stelt teleur dat bewoners geen wezenlijke inbreng hebben en de huidige beleidsverkokering in stand blijft. Het goede nieuws: er is een alternatief.

In het Nationaal Programma Leefbaarheid en Veiligheid is weer aandacht voor de arme wijken. Hier en daar slaat het programma de plank echter flink mis, meent Reinout Kleinhans van de TU Delft. Hij pleit voor meer inbreng van bewoners en minder verkokering.

Migratie en diversiteit staan garant voor verhitte debatten en een permanente crisisstemming in politiek, bestuur en beleid. Daarom pleiten wetenschappers Mark van Ostaijen, Reinout Kleinhans en Kimberly Seibel in hun nieuwe boek voor beleidsmatig, bestuurlijk en politiek grensverkeer.

This paper studies how residents in the neighbourhood Bospolder-Tussendijken (BoTu) have dealt with the COVID-19 restrictions. Prior to the pandemic, significant investments in community-building were made to increase resilience of individuals and communities in BoTu. This paper identifies the key assets BoTu residents had developed and actually during this ultimate challenge. Interviews with formal and informal actors in BoTu revealed that community leadership, engaged governance, problem-solving ability, and information sharing environment were essential to adequately respond to the crisis, and were successfully deployed. The paper concludes with five policy implications to help strengthen capacities and relationships needed for community resilience.

Interviewen is een veelvoorkomende wetenschappelijke methode on informatie te verzamelen. Belangrijk is dat het interview inhoudelijk goed aansluit bij jouw ontwerpopgave of onderzoek. Daarnaast helpt het enorm om te werken met een systematische aanpak bij het vastleggen, ordenen, analyseren en rapporteren van de informatie uit je interviews. En natuurlijk is een goede gespreksvoorbereiding belangrijk. De interviewmethode omvat drie fasen: 1. Voorbereiding en randvoorwaarden 2. Uitvoering, gespreksvoering en vastleggen data, en 3. Uitwerking, analyse en rapportage. Interviews zijn zeer geschikt voor het in kaart brengen van percepties, ervaringen, opvattingen, verwachtingen, en het ophalen van kennis uit de praktijk. Om de complexiteit van datgene wat je onderzoekt te begrijpen, is het van belang dat je in het interview zelf flexibel kunt opereren. Gesprekken verlopen nog al eens anders dan tijdens de voorbereiding wordt verondersteld. Dit hoofdstuk biedt concrete handvaten voor alle onderdelen van het proces.

Over time, urban planning scholars have studied ways to improve communication and collaboration between ‘experts’ and the ‘public’ in planning processes. Social media and the web 2.0 have strongly affected governments’ communication with citizens. The growth of public participation, Geographic Information Systems and geo-visualisation interfaces have provided many opportunities for citizens to create and share various kinds of location-based information. Digital participatory platforms (DPPs) are a specific type of web-based technology, often adopted by governments for citizen engagement in urban planning. DPPs are explicitly built for engagement and collaboration purposes allowing for user-generated content and include a range of functionalities which transcend and considerably differ from ‘conventional’ social media such as Facebook and Twitter. However, simply establishing DPPs is not enough. Previous research has outlined various challenges towards DPPs attempting to leverage citizen participation in urban planning. This chapter discusses five fundamental challenges to effective citizen participation: 1) access and awareness, 2) sustaining user motivation, 3) expectation management, 4) re-establishing routines and practices, and 5) offline follow-up and decision-making. The main question is how these challenges affect the actual take-up and effectiveness of DPPs. Contrary to the common debate, the chapter will show that technology is not the main issue. Rather, the way in which DPPs are embedded in a wider participation approach is key to its success.