01-11-2020 // ‘THE EINDHOVEN SESSIONS’

• ‘The Eindhoven Session’, Dutch Design Week 2020

During the Dutch Design Week 2020, a dialogue about urban development in the Netherlands, participation, and Eindhoven, in particular, was organized by the municipality of Eindhoven. 

Hamit Karakus, former aldermen of Rotterdam, works for an organization aimed at urban and regional development. He explains that the population in the Netherlands will grow by about 1 million people until the year 2040, meaning that the cities will grow by at least one percent. Therefore, Karakus says we should not let the momentum determine what we will build in the city but make a qualitative good housing supply that is aimed at the future.

 

In order to create a livable city of the future, he provides the following advice:

 

-   Do not just look at housing but think about the diversity of supplies. Think about how people need public space for meeting one another.

-   Diversity in housing and inhabitants. Polarization is supported by a lack of diversity in local neighborhoods. If there is the housing only for people with a certain income neighborhood and the area people live in will become a separating factor. By mixing together different levels of housing in one area we can support diversity in neighborhoods and contribute to a better mutual understanding of cultures and backgrounds.

-   Build countercyclical. This means that project developers do not get swayed by the issues of the day. Moreover, policymakers have the possibility to focus the projects in the future. Crisis or no crisis, project developers should be able to continue building. Thinking long term helps with this as it provides guaranteed work and jobs to market parties that the municipality needs in cooperation. Furthermore, project developers would rather dare to co-invest in projects exceeding ambitions when they have certainty about their work for the years to come.

-   Connect the old with the new. When building a new neighborhood, make sure to think about the people living around it as they too will have to deal with change and newcomers. Perhaps even connect them with the new housing in order to have a transfer of new and local people that form a neighborhood together.

 

Anke van Hal is the business university of Nyenrode’s professor of sustainable building and has gained a lot of experience in the field with social building initiatives in Toronto. She raises the question if it is possible to socially improve neighborhoods with the energy transition. Can we use sustainability as a goal, or should we use it as a means to improve lives? She is looking at what it is that activates your brain and intrinsic motivation and stimulates you to think beyond financial benefits.

 

She states that initiatives will not work out if inhabitants do not intrinsically want them to. Therefore, van Hal pleads for connecting policy goals to what people intrinsically find important such as safety and health example. She calls “this third factor of success thinking” which is based on the goal frames theory (this theory will be explained more in-depth in the blog “03-10-2020 // CHALLENGE THE CHALLENGE”).

Going on Van Hal explains that policymakers should work together with parties that can foresee those wants and needs of the residents. In addition, she provides some steps and tips for how to approach residents with a challenge.

-   Start with an inventory of what is going on in a neighborhood. What are people already doing, what do they work on, what are their worries, what keeps them up at night, and what do they get up for?

-   Reward people that share what their wants and needs are. Inhabitants surely know what they want for themselves. At least they know much better than the professionals do.

-   Start by picking low hanging fruit, the easy catches. In that way, you prevent getting expectations up too high.

- Perhaps organize a competition and ask inhabitants for the jury, maybe even get sponsors. When a neighborhood gets positive attention, you might find project developers willing to invest.

 

The priority is to know what is going on in a community. The slowdown in order to be able to speed up later. This can all be linked to a certain theme like how van Hal used sustainability. Try to get unmotivated residents involved by connecting a technical goal to the wishes of the resident. She calls this the third factor of success, a fusion of interests, thinking approach which brings dynamic.

 

After these two introductive presentations, the dialogue was specified to the development projects in the city of Eindhoven. A dynamic conversation provided interesting insights and raised important questions. How does the identity of the city, the TDK profile, fit with the working-class neighborhoods? The neighborhood itself is often the most important in a person’s identification with a city and not the overall perception of a city. Therefore, it is important to look at what residents are proud of. Nevertheless, people move around a lot more than in the decades before. Moving and staying short term form a challenge for the binding in a neighborhood as this can be quite the investment for inhabitants.

The municipality should not forget to focus on existing residents instead of solely at newcomers as they can help expand and form the local culture. Therefore, it is important to sufficiently mix the new housing supply. When people live in a certain area and their family situation changes, they should not be forced to move to a different neighborhood and lose the binding/connection with the place they want to live in.

 

Furthermore, having a broad and mixed housing supply helps with preventing polarization and helps with enabling people to take an exemplary function. In that way, the social capital of inhabitants increases as a broader network provides more opportunities for youngsters for example. This process can also take place between different neighborhoods and prevent us from their separation. Neighborhoods can connect when inhabitants from the old area will go and live in the new place.

 

People want to meet one another. In the past policymakers would focus on the quality of the housing whereas now we see a shift in focus towards the quality of the public space. Social cohesion!

Policymakers, project developers, entrepreneurs, etc. should stop thinking in old systems, sectoral, and only about their own individual needs. Therefore, the cities are in need of connectors. This shows why Social Innovators and a Community Design approach is so important and valuable within our project and similar situations all over our country and perhaps much further away.

 

To round off the conversation, the experts provided some ending conclusions and tips.

-   Have a keen eye for what is already going on in the area. Which energy is already found there? In this way, the ideas will flow from the neighborhood itself, and participation is stimulated. Not top-down, but with ownership. In combination with an actual budget, this can get things going. Organizational force can come from the connectors.

-   Do not enter the neighborhood with a specific assignment, but with an open attitude. Look at what needs to happen in order to … and improve the situation/make it more livable. People deal with their own problems and do not have time for those of the municipality.

-   The government plays a central role in the connection of those involved however, it often comes up short. Do they dare to think integral, with a neighborhood budget or do they hold onto their strengths?

-   Individual subsidies and rewards are mostly claimed by those who do not need them. The people that actually do need them are often not stimulated with the benefits.

-   Use the physical challenges as support for social challenges. Look at opportunities in connecting those (Einhoven, 2020). 

References 

Eindhoven. (2020, October 26). Terugkijken: “De Eindhoven Sessies” tijdens DDW. Retrieved 28 October, 2020, from https://www.eindhoven.nl/nieuws/terugkijken-de-eindhoven-sessies-tijdens-ddw