This thesis investigates the relationship between displacement and Rotterdam’s housing policies, focusing on their social mixing strategy, which has been integral to the city’s redevelopment of vulnerable neighborhoods. Through the lens of spatial justice, it addresses past displacement issues and evaluates the effectiveness of the new Housing Vision (2023) in counteracting these issues, amidst increasing national housing challenges. The primary aim is to provide practical and actionable design tools that can limit displacement in future redevelopment.

The research seeks to answer: How can Rotterdam’s new housing policy integrate spatial guidelines to address displacement more effectively in the future redevelopment of vulnerable neighborhoods?

Key findings indicate that government-enforced changes in the housing stock and social composition, central to the social mixing strategy, are primary drivers of displacement. Comparing these (direct, financial, social, and cultural) displacement issues to the new policy direction reveals that displacement is a persistent risk, as the new policy pressures the universal right to housing, includes a social mixing strategy that is unjust and insufficiently grounded in research, and lacks opportunities for a localized approach. In response, this thesis proposes objectives to ensure the provision of sufficient housing, develop a fair and inclusive social mixing strategy, and encourage policy adaptability based on local characteristics. Each objective has corresponding spatial guidelines, implemented in the Tweebosbuurt, illustrating how this strategy can help achieve Rotterdam’s broader development goals while mitigating displacement.

Policymakers can utilize these insights to revisit and adapt the new housing policy objectives. Moreover, the design guidelines developed through this study can assist urban planners and architects in structuring developments in a way that minimizes displacement, and ultimately, contribute to a more equitable and socially just resolution to Rotterdam’s housing challenges.

This report will try to find answers to the complex question of how neighbourhood reputations can be improved. A negative neighbourhood reputation can harm residents’ health, well-being and opportunities. It can also be a catalyst for decay. Changing a reputation is complex, and governmental approaches often reinforce a negative image. This research will result in an analytical framework and pattern language that urban planners, designers, and policymakers can use to give them tools to tackle stigma. The basis for the research lies in the literature, often from social studies. An empirical case-study research on the Bijlmer and Woensel-West will test and enrich the theoretical research. Neighbourhood reputations take place in a symbolic, social and physical space, and changes should be made in all three spaces to tackle a negative image. This report explores and analyses different aspects which influence the symbolic, social and physical spaces and their interrelations. This will result in an analytical framework that gives a clear overview of what aspects should change to change the reputation. The pattern language will give easily digestible concrete solutions on how the reputation can be changed. The pattern language consists of discursive, physical and policy interventions to change the analytical framework’s different components. The aspects that influence the symbolic space are history, discourse, experiences and how the government represents itself towards the neighbourhood. The aspects which influence the social space are the socio-demographic characteristics, social problems, behaviour and culture. The aspects which influence the physical space are the location, accessibility and services, maintenance and quality and the diversity of types and types of the urban fabric. The governmental program influences what part which influence the neighbourhood’s reputation is worked on, contributing to the effectiveness of changing the image. Whilst the governmental organisation contributes to the efficiency of tackling the image. The most important factor influencing the neighbourhood’s reputation is the discourse about the neighbourhood. The discourse is often based on social problems the neighbourhood is dealing with. The basis of these social problems is often the socio-demographic characteristics of the neighbourhood, especially when there is an accumulation of low-income households. The diversity and types of dwellings can influence the socio-demographic characteristics. The other influences named do influence the neighbourhood’s reputation. Nevertheless, they are not the main influences which seem to be the basis of a negative reputation.

What happens if we look at (public) space through the lens of gender? How would it be experienced differently? These are questions this thesis will look into. It aims to not only explore different types of gendered spaces but also to increase the understanding of designers and planners on how to make public space more gender inclusive. With the purpose of exploration, a case study is done with a neighborhood in Rotterdam, namely Beverwaard. The conclusions are translated into a strategic framework and an accompanying patternbook. The strategic framework proposes the improvement of the safety, accessibility and inclusivity of public space.

More and more citizens are entering the public domain and taking over tasks that traditionally belong to the government. For example, citizens increasingly run a community centre themselves, maintain the greenery in their neighbourhood and manage the local playground. To some extent, governments also encourage this behaviour and are disposing of social real estate. Against this background, this study examines the rise of citizens' initiatives in the Netherlands and how this takes shape in the context of urban regeneration. The study pays attention to a specific type of citizens’ initiative, namely community enterprises. It applies qualitative research methods, such as semi-structured interviews with representatives of community enterprises and discourse analysis of policy documents. It examines the expectations governments have of active citizens and how this relates to the motivations and capacities of active citizens themselves. The study broadens our understanding of active citizens who utilizes their entrepreneurial skills and mindset to drive positive change, contribute to the well-being of their community, and address pressing societal challenges.@en

Solutions to contemporary urban challenges are increasingly the outcome of the complex interactions between formal and informal actors that take part in a variety of networks. Resilience-thinking has become a global popular perspective for the governance of urban systems, concerning the ability of communities to deal with urban challenges, that requires the development of the self-organizing capacity of informal actors such as residents.
This study aims to determine how the extent to which formal and informal actors are resilient in interaction with one another can be determined. Therefore, a literature study was conducted that led to the development of the Institutional Resilience Analysis and Development (IRAD) framework, that is a modification of the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework that is complemented with variables influencing decision-making processes that are extracted from the literature on social resilience and adaptive governance.
The IRAD framework is applied to an exploratory case study with the Resilient Bospolder Tussendijken 2028 programme in the neighbourhood Bospolder-Tussendijken in Rotterdam as the research context. Hereby, desk research and semi-structured interviews were held with formal and informal actors to study interactions resulting from a conflict concerning the management of societal real estate in the neighborhood.
The application of the developed IRAD framework thereby identified both enablers and barriers for resilient interactions between formal and informal actors. Access to social networks has been identified as an enabler for resilient actions, whereas the lack of trust of residents in the municipality, lack of communication between formal and informal actors and a lack of a political base for new insights have been identified as barriers to resilient actions.

The inclusive city is explained through Henri Lefebvre's theories of the social space in "The production of space" and "The right to the city". Through his theories, it is thoroughly explained that the people are the essential component of the space and that they are the ones that create the space. This Master thesis, aims to look at the public space in a challenged social context in the deprived area of Carnisse in the South of Rotterdam, and examined how some of the problems faced by the people can be addressed through creating inclusive, public spaces.

The inclusive living environment in Delft Tanthof brings together Elderly with other generations, offers places to interact with each other on different scales, provides flexible structures to create a future-proof neighbourhood and offers a large amount of variety and options to accomodate different residents.

The aim of this master thesis is to interrelate integration policies with self-organisation and to find ways for spatial planners to enlarge the role of self-organisation. The role of self-organisation for refugee integration is promising because it has a deep understanding of the spatial context and responds to the local needs. Research about integration policies on the one hand and self-organisation and spatial planning on the other hand puts forward the relevance of spatial planning to complement integration policies with self-organisation, because spatial planning is a way of planning that strives for policy integration and incorporation of the spatial context. Spatial planning has a competence to provide supportive organisational and spatial conditions, although literature research about those conditions for the role of self-organisation in integration policies in particular is hardly present yet. This research investigates organisational and spatial conditions in the context of Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

First, this thesis gives a theoretical understanding of refugee integration, integration policies and spatial planning and self-organisation. Then, it explores the complementarities between integration policies and self-organisation by a case-study analysis for Rotterdam. The case-study analysis consists of an analysis of integration policies, of a thematic analysis that analyses common patterns and characteristics of eleven existing self-organised initiatives in Randstad municipalities and of an in-depth case analysis that goes more deeply into the development processes of three initiatives in Rotterdam. Finally, the thesis proposes general principles to enhance the interrelations between integration policies and self-organisation, which are illustrated by a spatial planning strategy for Rotterdam.

The results show that integration of refugees takes place in multiple domains simultaneously that require tailor-made support and distinct approaches per domain. The design principles propose that planners define either a policy or a self-organisation approach per domain of integration, in which planners play a collaborating role in the first and a facilitating role in the latter. Accordingly, the principles propose that municipalities coordinate the provision of tailor-made organisational support to self-organisation actors on multiple levels and in multiple domains. Furthermore, the principles propose to provide a network of buildings for self-organisation, consisting of three keystone buildings where initiatives cluster and typical buildings for self-organisation in all neighbourhoods. By deciding on strategic locations where integration is challenging or where relevant actors are located, planners can encourage the emergence and development of self-organisation at desired locations.