Lecture notes | Revitalizing Neighbourhoods | University of Groningen

Revitalising Neighbourhoods- summary lectures

College 1- introduction
Neighbourhood effects; life-course  different needs/wants

Why do they matter?

- Stages for life
- Home; sense of
- Social cohesion
- Fertile ground for collective action

Normative views on the neighbourhood:

- New urbanism
o Counter sprawl
 Walkability
 Public space
 Common facilities
 Diversify functions
 Architecture with identity
- UK: living with beauty
o Reinventing the art of neighbourhood dev. (integral approach)
 Background: market-based; one-off interventions
- Socio-ecological urbanism
o Stage for:
 Consumption patterns
 Affordable living
 Promote community
building
 Adaptability
o Neighbourhood is sufficient mass to
scale + connectedness (fertile
ground for action)
- Neighbourhoods for improving health and
well-being (see picture)



How and for who do neighbourhoods matter?

- Residents: well-being; opportunities
- Property owners: financial returns
- Local gov.: housing supply; economic competitiveness; public services; liveability
- Housing associations: affordability; liveability
o Concentrations of social housing in deprived neighbourhoods + finance-side assets

How do neighbourhoods affect us?

- Neighbourhood effects: impact of the composition of the neighbourhood or its structural
characteristics on people’s life (Musterd, 2019)
- Global trends + individual characteristics + neighbourhood  behaviour, opportunities and
constraints
- 4 types (Galster, 2012)
o Socio-cultural
 Social norms/control/role models
o Environment
 Exposure to violence & pollution

, o Geographic
 Spatial mismatch
 E.g. affordability/transportation/housing
o Institutional
 Stigmatization, quality of resources

What are neighbourhoods?

- Where people live together/ administrative unit/ housing facilities/ a community of some sorts
- Different per individual, based on our daily routines  degree of neighbourhoodness

Policy responses

- Which neighbourhoods?
o Verhage: neighbourhoods that are already not doing well (reverse the downwards
spiral)

How to understand neighbourhood revitalization?

- Neighbourhood was once a vital place
o Emphasis on: this system has capacity in itself; how can we stimulate networks that
are already there?
- Regeneration/renewal (other terms)

, College 2- kick-off assignment
Specific cities have intimate relationships with their higher education institutions ( studentification)

Angles

- Preventing braindrain?  wanting to keep the students
- Housing stock crisis
- Effects of students in the neighbourhood communities: noise pollution, different rhythms,
unfamiliarity, etc.

The designed vs. the lived city  understanding the opportunities and tensions, as well as their
consequences (family-designed neighbourhood  large influx of students)

How to define studentification?

- Anderson: big influx of students: clustering: changes the nature of the place
- Forms
o HMO: family housing
o Small flats
o Temporal housing
o PSBA: purpose build student accommodation
- Waves of studentification:
o 1st
 Inner-city; around campus
 Rise of sub-culture
o 2 nd

 HOMO supply dries up
 Supply of cheap convertible single family residences in attractive
parts ( as a policy consequence)
 Replacing many of the parent gentrifiers 1st wave
 Purpose built student accommodation
- Impact city-level & street level
o City-level
 Flexible work-force + start-ups
 Specific facilities (bus, medical, etc.)
 Housing-market: buy to let
o Street level
 Change of facilities
 Pressures on parking
 Littering
 Noise-pollution
 Anti-social behaviour
 Maintenance
 Petty crime
 Culturally diverse
 Depopulation (seasonal)
 Stigmatization
 Of students: a certain image; partiers, lazy
 Diversification of declining areas
 State-led studentification
 Tension: rhythms
 Reduces sense of community
 Internationalization
 Communication barriers
 Unfamiliarity with social norms/cultural codes