'Which target groups are in place at present and which ones do we want?'

Chapter 1 'What are lifestyles?' discussed the differences between lifestyles and target groups. Both are important components of a demand-oriented development process.

By definition, urban regeneration projects take time, and the social context changes during that time. Furthermore, urban regeneration is often driven by the ambition to make positive changes in the social context. So an important first step is to identify autonomous developments and the ambitions for target groups.

The target groups here are classified according to the following criteria:

• income;
• age;
• type of household;
• distinction between purchased housing; rented or low-income housing; private sector.

What matters are not precise numbers but, above all, the expected or desired development trends. Diagrams can be drawn for each of these criteria, showing the current situation and including arrows indicating the direction of developments. The example below is taken from the Zoning Plan for the town of Almere (an overall spatial-strategic plan for a centre of urban growth in the Netherlands with approximately 175,000 inhabitants).

Structure Plan Almere

	Click for larger image

Development of income in Almere, related to the Amsterdam region, 2001.

Left the income distribution in the Amsterdam region. The arrows show Amsterdam would like a better balance with less lower-income groups. Almere desires to get more higher-income groups, and takes it's regional responsibility by admitting lower-income groups.

The age distribution shows young people moving to Almere from Amsterdam. Almere wishes to service the younger and the older households more than it does now.

The age distribution now and in the future is based less on ambition, and more on autonomous demographic shifts. The income distribution is based more on ambitions: bonding more people with higher incomes to the town while at the same time assuming the regional responsibility to cater for people with lower incomes.

This classification can be made at (at least) two scale levels:

1. the broader vicinity of the area in which the urban regeneration project is located (for example, the borough, the city or the region);

2. the urban regeneration area itself (for example, the neighbourhood or the immediate vicinity of the project area).

Quantitative autonomous developments can be derived from demographic forecasts; their qualitative counterparts can be derived from interviews with key players, 'connoisseurs' of the area and/or important social trends.
The ambitions emerge from the wishes of the leading organisation or its sponsors (politicians, directors) and are limited to a certain degree by: (see question 2).