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ReUrbA²: The Project
Urban regeneration in Northwestern Europe needs regeneration itself.

Updated 24 May 2006
ReUrbA will round off with a congress at the end of the year
This year will be the last for the ReUrbA project. After four years of intensive collaboration, a congress will take place on Thursday 16 November as the final chapter in the story of the ReUrbA project. The congress will show what the exchanges and experience have brought us. During the congress, a manifesto will be presented demonstrating the urgent need for urban transformation. And the congress will provide very concrete demonstrations of how the ReUrbA method can help in that respect.
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'ReUrbA has not produced enough.
Projects like this simply frustrate urban regeneration.'
In the last year of ReUrbA, Luuk Boelens, a Dutch professor, arrives at a sombre conclusion: 'ReUrbA has not produced enough.' And Professor Boelens was himself a ReUrbA consultant. What's going on? Boelens thinks that everything gets bogged down when the government gets involved. He has added a conclusion to his plea for a switch from 'government' to 'governance': 'keep the government out'.
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Province of South Holland
P.O. Box 90602
2509 LP The Hague
The Netherlands

"Provinciehuis"
Zuid-Hollandplein 1
The Hague

phone +31 70 441 68 45
fax +31 70 441 78 13
reurba@pzh.nl
For whom?
If you want to know more about urban regeneration, either as a civil servant, politician, architect, property developer, housing corporation official, student or scientist, the ReUrba² project might be of interest to you. Although every regeneration project is unique, in our 'laboratory' we elaborate on some general principles that we hope you'll find useful.

Meeting the challenge

Many urban areas in Northwestern Europe face the same challenges:

  • Present supply of housing and working areas doesn't meet the demand, especially in post-war areas
  • Demand is becoming more and more diverse and dynamic. Providing either individual or collective solutions won't do in tomorrow's age of "mass-customisation"
  • Urban development is easier when starting from scratch,
    but space is becoming too scarce.

As a result, many urban areas face a downward spiral: the quality of living and working environments deteriorates, people with opportunities (in terms of income, education, and social skills) leave, the socio-economic base erodes, and further dilapidation sets in.

European solutions for European problems

Although every regeneration project is unique, these European challenges call for European solutions. Firstly, as compared with the United States or the Far East for instance, space is scarce in Europe. Secondly, Europeans care very much about the quality of their living and working environment. Thirdly, Europe is about unity, not about uniformity. European policy is aimed at preservation of local identities, local uniqueness and local strengths.

That is why the Interreg IIIb programme provided € 2,5 million for the ReUrbA² project.

Theory meets practice

ReUrbA²'s successful predecessor (aptly named ReUrbA) was primarily aimed at the exchange of knowledge and experience between the participants.

Of course, ReUrbA² still serves that purpose, but its aims are higher: on the basis of the participants' experience and expert knowledge, it tentatively formulates some general principles for urban regeneration, which might be applied to other projects, either small, large, simple, complex, and aimed at housing or working areas. We examine the application (or non-application) of these principles in the participants' key-projects and, in doing so, we try to further elaborate on them.

This, you might call the ReUrbA Method.