This thesis explores the identity of Spijkenisse and how it can be enhanced in its revitalisation. In previous revitalisation efforts of New Towns, both tangible and intangible heritage have been demolished. Therefore, a historical overview of these cities is necessary, covering not only the ‘planned city’ but also the ‘lived city’. To achieve this, the topics of ‘Heritage as a vector’ and ‘Place Identity’ will be examined. This study utilises Spijkenisse as a test case for a methodology that can be applied in other New Towns in the Netherlands or internationally. The methodology includes historical analysis, storytelling, and co- creation workshops. The research emphasises participatory planning to empower the local community, fostering a sense of ownership and pride.

In the wake of more inclusive and sustainable cities, as targeted in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 11, public administrators and urban planners aspire to incorporate the pluralism of public values into decision making. Although theoretical work exists since the 1990, public values and their conflicts are yet to be empirically identified and applied in a context of relational urban space. This study makes use of a case study-mixed methods approach combining a quantitative strand to identify public values and their conflicts from geo-located citizen contributions using natural language processing with a qualitative strand that leverages expert workshops. Integrating the findings from both strands embedded in the case study of Hamburg, Germany, there is evidence for a broader conceptualization of public values. In a new conceptual tool named "public value spheres", the main identified public values of social equity, livability, economic opportunity, ecologic quality, safety, health and conservatism are displayed. A total of nine archetypical spatial public value conflicts were found within Hamburg, among them the newly identified "externality conflict", "dangers of nature conflict" and the "drawback of beauty conflict". The findings provide urban planners and practitioners with a new tool to account for the value-laden nature of relational urban space in future participatory processes. The citizenry itself could profit from a better discourse due to aggregation of voices in participatory tools and a transparent mapping of public values that creates a sense of the pluralism of public values within a city. Future research is needed to expand the conceptual tool of public value spheres with case studies of different cities and to investigate possible constituting socioeconomic factors of public values within urban planning.

The city of Delft in the Netherlands has an international population of students attending TU Delft. This heterogeneous population is composed of several nationalities. In heterogeneity, participation is difficult to achieve. This case is no different with limited interaction among international students of these groups and the rest of students. This research study an online platform to stimulate information sharing and improves the sense connectedness among students. The platform is based on four main principles: 1) information, 2) activities & space, 3) multicultural approach, and 4) key actors. Moreover, the platform includes and aim for students to use narratives to promote information sharing. Furthermore, the platform includes features that allow the generation of activities and the connection with physical spaces in the city. The process starts with a survey to collect the perspective of different student groups and elaborate on the requirements of the platform. After the elucidation of the requirements, the next step is designing and developing the platform. The platform has international master students as users and collects information about its use. Furthermore, to complement the data, interviews helps to understand the motivation behind the information posted and the use of different services of the ICT artifact. The results show that narrative is not as relevant as useful information to stimulate interaction. Furthermore, the information shared using the platform must be useful, relevant and interesting with the intention of providing help to other members to increase the perception of connectedness and community. Finally, information including physical references of the city generates more interesting interactions.