PhD E. Duivenvoorden - Managing public space

Abstract

Urban areas face major transitions concerning mobility, climate adaptation, energy, and a circular economy. These transitions require changes in public space – above and belowground – in terms of infrastructure, buildings, and urban design. This not only applies to newly developed or redeveloping areas, but in particular changes are needed in the existing urban realm. The existing urban realm, however, is a blind spot of in most spatial planning and urban design approaches, and management of public space is mostly left to fragmented sectors within urban administrations, instead of an integrated approach. While in spatial planning and urban design, an integrated approach to urban transitions is much discussed, the integrated management of public space in existing urban areas remains underexplored. As result of this, the complex and interdependent urban transitions are hampered by the existing policy arrangement of managing public space. An integral approach of managing public space, however, implies fundamental shifts in the existing policy arrangement. This study explores this challenge by first gaining knowledge of the existing policy arrangement of managing public space in the Netherlands before identifying constraints and challenges to tackle urban transition. Therefore, a qualitative multiple case study is conducted on different scales: local (G40 municipalities and G4 municipalities), regional (provinces and waterboards) and on national level (ministries).