5 steps strategy model for neighborhood renewal towards a resilient future

5 Steps strategy model neighborhood renewal

And then, one day the moment comes when a neighborhood demands for renewal… There might be a physical cause, an economic cause, or (most times) a combination of causes. A plan is needed. How to define that optimal and resilient future that is addressing the current challenges? What should be the plan’s ingredients?

After years of work on various transitions, I asked myself these questions when for the very first time I got to work on a neighborhood transition in a Dutch town. Intuitively and based on previous experience I developed an approach. I added more neighborhood transition experience and research to it. In this article I articulate my perspective on how to create a strategy or future plan, honoring the complexity of the neighborhood. I share my typical integral approach to initiate more dialogue about transitions in neighborhoods and jointly become better at it.

Let me propose a structure to move through the strategy process, which is also the structure for this article. I have experienced that it makes sense to walk through five distinctive steps to reach a comprehensive strategy. First is obviously to analyze the current situation in the neighborhood by a thorough assessment. Next is to take a step back and also analyze how societal transitions impact the neighborhood, both now and in the emerging future. Third is to establish the fundamental values that guide your vision, because strategizing a neighborhood’s future is also based on personal, professional and societal values.

The fourth step: identify how the neighborhood can enhance its resilience to become futureproof. These four steps or pillars jointly form the foundation. The fifth step is the creative part of the strategizing process: it is a synthesis of information of the previous steps leading to a vision and a set of guiding principles that serve as a framework while executing the renewal. This is crucial because this vision and principles allow others who are less involved, to contribute, to identify potential blind spots, and to engage in discussions about alternative approaches, enriching the overall process.

The content table of a future plan, based on these five steps, would then contain the following chapters:

1. Analysis of the neighborhood
2. Impact of societal transitions on the neighborhood
3. Values for the neighborhood
4. Opportunities to raise the resilience level of the neighborhood

The points 1 to 4 are in fact the four pillars on which the strategy in step 5 is built.

In this article all five chapters will be covered, one by one. I will finalize with a paragraph that firstly covers the main requirements for the process of creating a strategy and then briefly touches upon the execution paragraph of the strategy, because no strategy has any value without being executed.

Meeting a
neighborhood
from a systemic
perspective

To start off, what exactly is a neighborhood? It is a part of a city, edged on a map, and sometimes these edges are palpable in the streets. While reading the work of Lewis Mumford (1961) and Ben Wilson (2021) on the history of cities, it is obvious that from the first settlements to the first city of Uruk, to current cities like Barcelona or Mumbai, neighborhoods are dynamic and complex systems with recurring elements.

I distinguish six key elements, functions or domains that integrate within a neighborhood: co-habitants, basic needs, housing, public space, facilities and the neighborhoods environment. Whether a neighborhood is thriving, or habitants live in terror, these elements are a constant. The forms may differ, their function remains the same. Let’s briefly go over them one by one; their integrated whole defines the character of a neighborhood.

Co-habitants to start with. A Dutch poet (Jules Deelder) wrote: the environment of the human is the other human. There is no city and no neighborhood if there are no other people. There are people of different ages and backgrounds. Strongly connected in a social network or loosely connected only by recognizing each other’s faces in the streets. Active in the neighborhood or just there to sleep and eat. The connotation of neighborhood is most certainly that people live there. If a part of the city holds mostly shops, offices and public space, it is more often referred to as a quarter. So, a neighborhood firstly is a home to people.

The second domain is housing and other real estate. People need a safe place for weather conditions and some privacy, whether it is high rise buildings or only ground-level houses.

Also, people create places to meet. What struck me in the research is that revisited places to perform rituals for the dead preceded the first settlements innumerable centuries ago. So, the first real estate was not a place for a safe bed, nor place for trade, but a ritual place.

Thirdly, basic needs are required: an infrastructure for energy, water, garbage and sewage will arise. Whether it is gas bottles in Mexico or solar energy in Denmark, all households need some sort of energy. The same goes for water: running tap water, bottles or a well. Since it is our key need as people, some water system will be in place. And then, even in ancient Mesopotamia, which is considered to have held the first city of the world, a garbage and sewage system existed. All of these are a critical part of a neighborhood, and in many modern cities the piping underground is one of the first things to consider when there is a wish to build in the so-called brown fields (this is existing city ground as opposed to green fields which is open, non-occupied ground).

The fourth domain is public space. It is the non-private or opened-up space in which people move between the private spaces. It is filled with nature, with roads and other mobilities to connect people, with parked cars, with cultural sites, with squares and playgrounds etc. This space has a large influence on the neighborhood. If the space is too empty and large, it makes us feel uncomfortable. But if it is too crowded with parked cars it has the same effect. In Hong Kong the public space has layers: highways on ground level and pedestrian paths with trees on the first level. How does this affect our way of meeting? Because this is where people meet, in public.

The next domain is another crucial element for a neighborhood: facilities. People get together to pray, to play, to trade, to buy food in shops and markets, and to eat and drink in restaurants and to work etc.

The final domain is the surroundings. A neighborhood never stands on its own: it is part of a city, of a region, of a country. When working in a neighborhood, this should be considered. In present-day Marrakech government and private enterprises have made significant investments in the tourist industry, which is affecting life in the neighborhood. As a result, locals are relocating to newer parts of the city, streets in the medina become cleaner, but rental prices for small shops are forcing out local businesses, which are increasingly being replaced by international brands.

From this systemic perspective I set out to meet a neighborhood. This perspective helps to structure the approach, but in no way does it do right to the complexity of the dynamics, the interdependencies and the many layers of what is happening.

The point I want to make with introducing this systemic perspective, is that for habitants all aspects integrate within the neighborhood and this demands for transdisciplinary work within a strategy team.

BOUTRE
Analysis,
Step 1

No neighborhood is the same, and the first step is to get to know the place in-depth. When renewing a neighborhood, there certainly is no blank canvas. And in my perspective that is exactly what makes it compelling. What is the unique essence that sets this place apart from anywhere else? Presumably there was a time when the neighborhood worked just fine as originally designed. Did it? Or were there inherent flaws in the initial design? Did things simply change? Did external factors push the neighborhood into transition?

I suggest a multi-faceted research method to gain a comprehensive understanding of the neighborhood. The multi-faceted character of the method offers a view at the neighborhood from different perspectives, to experience the different layers of its reality and to avoid paradigms or tunnel views. The method entails that the analysis is never done by one person only. Rather the collective intelligence of many people involved, and most certainly the inhabitants, should be tapped into. And it is crucial to use available research data to complete the picture.

The method I use can be summarized as BOUTRE: Be, Observe, Use, Talk, Read and Explore data.

Be in the neighborhood: immerse yourself in the area. Walk, drive or bike on a Sunday, on a Monday during rush hour, in the evening…Observe the neighborhood: notice where it feels inviting and where it doesn’t. Observe how people behave, how the traffic flows and what the overall atmosphere is. Use the neighborhood: do your groceries there, visit the church, participate in a workshop and dine at a restaurant.

Talk to people, both professionals and inhabitants and ask them both how they feel and what they know about the neighborhood and get informed about its history.

Read plans: old urban plans, recent policy plans and regional plans to better understand the character, the history of the neighborhood and the views upon it.

And finally, explore a lot of research data: dive into data analysis (perform extra research if needed) and compare data with the data of similar neighborhoods and of other periods in time to notice the typical characteristics and understand the underlying movements that led to the actual facts.

In using this method, there are no strict guidelines to pursue. There is no ultimate list of questions to ensure that all relevant information is captured. There is no right order, rather the process is iterative, moving from being in the neighborhood to data and back. In fact, in my view the approach of the neighborhood requires a genuine attitude of wonder and attentiveness, with a dot of critical eye towards potential paradigms. Additionally, it necessitates an appreciative attitude. This may seem obvious. But to activate stakeholders to invest in a renewal you need urgency. So, the risk is to focus on everything that looks dramatically bad in the neighborhood.

Firstly, that would be a straight-on insult to the inhabitants. Also, this perspectrive easily evolves into a fixing mentality. I don’t think of a neighborhood as something that can be fixed, but rather as a system that is out of balance. Every neighborhood already has its own characteristic values and potential. By revealing those, appreciating them and moving towards enlarging them, a strategy walks a more constructive and respectful road.

With the important disclaimer in mind that there is not one all-covering list, let’s delve into relevant questions to ask oneself in the analysis phase of the neighborhood renewal. This analysis is the first of four pillars. The goal of revealing the answers to these questions is to create a strong foundation of the strategy.

In this question phase the previously introduced domains create the structure.

Once gathered the challenge is to interpret all this information carefully, applying the art of distilling the common thread, yet not be too coarse meshed. Obviously, the analysis leads to a vast amount of facts, opinions and data, which can often be contradictory and ambiguous. The ambiguity can be within the data itself or lie in the different perspectives: an owner might say that real estate is ‘technically sufficient’ and there is no need for renovation, but if habitants and visitors judge otherwise and it contributes to a feeling of unsafety, the conclusion might be to rate the real estate as ‘up for renewal’.

Also note, this analysis is just one pillar for the strategy. Once interfering with findings from the other three pillars, some information may prove more relevant than it initially appeared when viewed solely from the analysis perspective. For instance: a lack of meeting places in a neighborhood isn’t always an issue on its own. However, when combined with a growing trend of individualization in society (to be discussed in the next pillar), this absence can quickly become a significant problem.

My advice is to start out with an extensive version of a document with all the information and interpretations. Later in the process, in the creative fifth step when you build a storyline, this part can be condensed.

Impact of
societal
transitions
on the
neighborhood,
step 2

Writing a paragraph about societal transitions is big. Is it even possible to gain a helicopter view on these transitions, while they are taking place? On the other hand, I want to show that involving the impact of societal movements is simply an indispensable part of the strategy. In this paragraph I will show how to apply information from this perspective in the strategizing process. Whether you agree with me on my choice of transitions or whether you have a different interpretation of the impact on the neighborhood, is secondary. Crucial is to, during the process of strategizing, make the effort to include this information and do so in a transparent manner. It is the second pillar of building a strategy.

Having said this, let me start with an example of how a societal transition has a direct impact on the neighborhood and requires smart future choices. In The Netherlands the affordability of the public (health)care system has been under pressure for years now and successive administrations have cut costs. Consequently, accessibility and availability of (health) care is unobtrusively (by use of deviant wording) diminishing. This is linked to the transition from neo-liberalism to a new order, on which I will elaborate below.

This transition has a direct impact on the neighborhoods. People who need only a little help (not the seriously ill ones who are in facilities) remain in their neighborhood. Yet, the structure to offer just this little help is insufficient or even absent. A demand for care rumbles into the neighborhoods, and the neighborhoods are not prepared for it. Social networks are not strong enough for neighbors to easily lend each other a hand and family members can’t easily move to live together, because the housing market is locked-in and available houses aren’t oriented on any form of group living. Awareness of this leads to specific future choices for real estate development and for investments in social networks.

So, having set this example, I will investigate the impact on the neighborhood of major transitions in society. I distinguish, based on studying various transition studies, four transitions:

1. New Order,
2. Globalization,
3. Digitalization and
4. Sustainability.

And as you will read below, these transitions are interconnected.

Obviously, this distinction is context sensitive. I have tried to diminish a bias, but my personal European-based perspective colors what I will share. Also, a transition will have a different impact from country to country. Within an actual strategizing process, the creators working on a plan, need to use their own sources to formulate the key transitions that impact the neighborhood.

1.New order, coming from capitalism and neoliberalism

I think that worldwide over centuries, and in the past century at increased speed, we have fallen and are still falling under the spell of capitalism and liberalism (and neo-liberalism since the last two decades of the 20th century). This is a spell that is not limited to a singular perspective on the functioning of the market or economics, but capitalism and (neo-) liberalism include a paradigm on other crucial parts, like: the behavior of people (calculating individuals), the role of the government (should be small) and of corporations (free market is ideal, also regarding to commons like energy, internet, healthcare etc.), ownership of land (land is always owned by someone and can therefore be traded), the use of raw materials and food the earth has to offer (these supplies are considered to be infinite and propagate if they are properly worked), and the way products (and this includes food) can be industrially produced in an efficient way. (Also check Kate Raworth, 2017).

However, I argue this paradigm is in its twilight years. I see cracks in the system’s surface. Examples of these cracks include growing polarization in politics combined with more demonstrations, the climate change as an overall bankruptcy of the system, the growth of armed conflicts on the globe, the financial crisis of 2008, a growing gap between poor and rich, the awareness that civilization still allows blatant abuses to exist, a new look at the era of colonization and at how indigenous people are being devalued, the way the internet has evolved from a common playground to being dominated and defined by a handful of companies, and so on. The spell consists of a dream that moving towards a mix of capitalism and democracy with a dot of neoliberalism would go hand in hand with personal freedom and welfare for all mankind. And in a way it did and it still will, but then it didn’t and it won’t….or at least not as good as expected for all.

The system is out of balance and the wait is for it to tip over into something new. When I refer to a new order, this is -at this point in time- no coherent new vision on society and economy. Being raised in an era of isms: communism, liberalism, fascism, socialism, it took me a while to understand that we lack a replacement for one of these grand theories. So, we are really talking about a transition into a future that is emerging, without clear contours.

However, it seems to make more space for our interdependency as humans and the social aspects of our humanity as well as for a more natural position of humans within their environment. Let me share some observations that to me indicate that we are moving towards a new order. In European countries I see a cry for a more inclusive democracy (e.g. citizens assemblies), a growth of cooperative organizations (e.g. for energy, housing and care), an increasing interest in consciousness growth, a degrowth movement, a growing correction of the injustice effects of colonialism, reevaluation of indigenous wisdom, growing awareness on the downside of consumption behavior, interest in regenerative farming, the growth of the market for organic and plant based food, and the radicalization of resistance against the weak climate change policy. I refer to it as a ‘new order’, because I feel that we are reinventing the order between institutions (such as the government), companies, the planet and citizens. And when creating a future plan for a neighborhood we are contributing to the mold of that new order. Looking from this perspective we live in an exciting era and this certainly adds some spice to the strategizing for a neighborhood.

The impact on the neighborhood of the transition towards a new order is that at the moment overall I sense a dormant discomfort in the neighborhood: a cocktail of imperturbability, discontent and distrust, because somehow the neo-liberal promise of freedom and welfare didn’t work out as expected.

This discomfort can be awakened by various events into protest, and/or into constructive energy for the neighborhood.

Looking at neighborhood economy, liberalism led to globally operating real estate companies and to mergers in the domain of retail. As a result, the local store is not local, and the building is not owned by a company that knows the neighborhood. Consequently, the shop manager and the owner of the building do not participate in activities for the neighborhood, not even in the neighborhood renewal, while at the same time the municipality does not have the tools to intervene in the situation.

The impact on a more personal level is: the paradigm of neo-liberalism is that people are individuals making choices based on what is good for them individually. This is eroding family- and community connections. The new order is turning that around. People in the neighborhood always surprise me in a positive way: if you push the right button, they participate in activities for the neighborhood and contribute to the community. So, it is about giving responsibility to inhabitants for certain aspects of neighborhood life. There is a transition going on in this area and with the right facilitating approach from institutional organizations this energy has a lot of potential.

Consumerism is another facet of capitalism with local impact. Yes, there is a wide array of products at competitive prices. But it also led to a food industry instead of food, which led to various health issues in the neighborhood.

Additionally, it led to a seemingly endless flow of waste which led to many complaints in the neighborhood, because the waste system seems to be unable to keep up with what is disposed of. Raising more awareness in the neighborhood about what to buy and eat and possibly raising energy to add local options to the pallet of shops, is part of the new order.

Specifically, neo-liberalism led to many public commons becoming part of the free market. While I acknowledge that a state-run education system doesn’t necessarily provide the right quality, the shift to a competitive, market-driven model -in which schools compete, prices soar, and quality remains uncertain- doesn’t feel like an improvement. And this is just one example.

Another one related to healthcare I gave in the introduction of this paragraph. In the neighborhood the consequences are often very palpable, even though they didn’t arise on the neighborhood level and solutions on neighborhood level are not easy.

Yet, deciding to take matters in your own hand in the neighborhood seems an adequate answer. This does require a lot of bottom-up initiating energy. And the institutional organizations could be more aware of this and offer facilitating support.

2.Globalization

Whereas the transition to a new order is still in its infancy stage, the globalization transition is thriving. Of course, one could debate about when globalization started. The Silk Route? The start of the colonization wave from Europa across the world? I’d like to argue that specifically the acceleration of globalization in the last decades left an imprint on the world. I find the container example particularly striking. Because over the centuries goods have been transported from one continent to another, but in the 1950’s Malcom McLean invented the standard container to make transport more efficient. This boxing principle took off enormously to reach the use of some 25 million containers in the early ’20 of the 21st century. This is a good indication for the scale of this transition.

Let’s jump straight on to the impact on the neighborhood, because this transition likely already appeals to the imagination.

Overall, the impact of the speed of things and the fact that production processes are no longer visible while a label tells you a product was manufactured on the other side of the globe, creates a sense of alienation: In the neighborhood you can no longer imagine where food and products come from and how one thing on the other side of the world influences another in your vicinity. And the neighborhood could certainly provide some antidote to this alienation.

Another aspect concerns work and income. Global companies easily relocate their manufacturing operations to regions where labor is cheap and/or taxes are low. This leads to job losses and an erosion of stable employment contracts in the non-favorable countries, creating income uncertainty in many neighborhoods. Ironically, even with little income, the capitalistic promise of choice of products at a competing price still holds: habitants who lost their job still have access to cheap, low-quality goods, manufactured somewhere where the labor is cheapest. Meanwhile, the skills needed to repair broken items have diminished, as the habit of simply replacing rather than fixing things has become the norm.

Also, globalization entails an increasing flow of people, not just goods and labor. The traveling of people across the globe leads to a growing blend of cultures which is also noticeable in the neighborhood. Where once the influence was mainly from the USA and Europe towards other parts of the globe, I feel we have left that phase behind and are looking at a growing blend of Asian, Indian, Russian, American, South American, Arabian and European cultures. This blend is where innovation and growth of resilience takes place. Two flows of travelers could be described. Let’s start with the flow of the fun travelers. In some areas the effect of tourism has completely altered the neighborhood. Once tourism (sometimes combined with a growing number of expats and/or international students) and AirBNB and hotels are successful and overall real estate prices start to go up, the neighborhood is mostly lost from being a living area to becoming a local version of Disney world.

Local shops are replaced by chain shops and most of them sell snacks and cheap products for tourists. The bookstore, the local coffee shop, the bakery and the grocery store will get lost. And the daily care for the neighborhood is diminishing, because the visitors have no attachments to the neighborhood. Another flow of people consists of migrants, who are not travelling for fun, but travel due to lack of perspective in any form (life, basic happiness, making a living) in their own country. The rise of migrants over the past decades is staggering. The World Bank stated in 2023 that 184 million people are living outside their country of origin of which 37 million qualify as refugees due to severe circumstances at home. So, to anticipate a constant flow of newcomers in a neighborhood seems logical.

3.Digitalization

It is hard to keep track of the speed of the digital transition. Let me elaborate with a list of facts. Personal computers have been around since the Kenbak 1 of 1971. It was not long thereafter that the public internet was born. The number of websites grew to around 1.74 billion websites in 2023. Mobile phones: first commercially available Motorola in 1983. And the first app is the 1997 game Snake on a Nokia phone, yet in 2022 there was an average app download of 250 million per day.

Financial institutions are transforming into tech companies. And the forecast is that block chain will diminish or even eliminate the role of these institutions. The Rotterdam harbor has a digital twin. And I could go on for a while. The digitalization transition is peaking and seems to be only held back by the shortcomings of people, not by the possibilities of tech. I think the emerging future of this transition holds a few opportunities: an extension of the application of robotics, an increasing overall integration of systems, and a blend of an extension of the application of computing power (and AI) and human sensemaking.

Let’s look at the impact in the neighborhood. Digitalization is an accelerator for globalization and capitalism. At the same time, potentially it makes us so much more aware of what is happening in other parts of the world. And by taking the world actively into the neighborhood and sharing different perspectives from around the globe, the neighborhood can be enriched.

Overall, in the neighborhood a contribution could be made to better understand the essence of digitalization and its possibilities. Close to home there is room for accessible learning as well as development of local applications (e.g. a sensor in a trash can could send off a message when it is full). And this could contribute to avoiding alienation from the digital world.

A specific and significant consequence of digitalization in neighborhoods is the rapid growth of online shopping and food delivery services. As a result, many local shops have closed, leaving numerous vacant buildings in shopping centers.

This creates a sense of unease among residents and diminishes the neighborhood’s appeal. Additionally, the rise of the delivery economy has brought an influx of scooters and small delivery vans, which are often met with frustration by locals. Yet, ironically, these changes are a direct result of consumer behavior within the neighborhood itself, and they can be addressed and reversed by the same community.

When it comes to the social network in the neighborhood, I feel there is room for a different perspective on the fact that we have come to live in a world where online and offline co-exist. Being online is not bad and doesn’t need to be countered by offline activities. We must evolve to the fact that we meet both online and offline, and to the fact that we share information in both worlds whereas the offline real world will always count more.

4.Sustainability

Moving to this fourth transition, let me start by stating that it is interconnected to the former transitions: this is in a way the answer to the negative effects of neo-liberalism and capitalism and how these are accelerated by globalization and digitalization. Sustainability is not an easily discussable transition. Firstly, it is highly politicized: it is almost a non-issue in some countries, part of fierce debates in others and a lively societal movement in some regions. A perspective that partially led to the politicization is that humans (and in specific some countries or regions) are to be blamed for what is happening.

This approach often goes hand-in-hand with lists of to-do’s and to-avoid’s. I would like to stay away from this, because I feel this restrictive and blaming perspective is not helpful and is too simple. Yes, the inequality of the global North-and South countries is a fact (in terms of contribution to the current situation and in terms of impact). But I see that we are all under the spell of capitalism, globally. We are -however unequal- all part of this system, whether we want to or not.

And although it is idealistic, I feel that the true way of a sustainability transition lies in a growth of consciousness. Of deeply understanding our position as humans in this universe. And understanding that we must abide by natural laws, even though we are capable of many technological feats. From this understanding a rebalancing will take place. I often find indigenous wisdom offering an adequate direction of thinking because the very foundation of this wisdom is based on natural laws. But even here one doesn’t find answers that can be applied to today’s world in a simple way. If we raise our consciousness, we know that this system in which we currently survive is not respectful towards life itself, whether it is earth, animals, nature or humans. And the fact that our consciousness is in fact rising, however wavering, is closely linked to the new order mentioned above. We are in fact moving into a new era, simply because it is unavoidable. And in the neighborhood, like in the rest of society, we have to answer difficult questions around how to let go of the incongruent parts of our life while living in the world we created. The outcome of answering questions in a neighborhood transition might just as well be to demolish old houses as not to demolish them, whatever can be argued to be the best fit option.

How does this affect the neighborhood? Today’s city is, by example, a non-sustainable habitat. What to do about that in the neighborhood? The impact of unsustainable living in the neighborhood does not differ a lot from a national situation. Consequences of the climate change can be felt in temperature, precipitation, air and wind changes with their impact on the livability in the neighborhood. And yes, providing budget and organizational power are available, measurements can be taken to take off the sharp edges and prolong survival for some years.

However, consciousness rising would be my priority in the neighborhood. And with that I don’t mean the creation of a new orthodox religion with strict rules, like e.g. saving every bat. I refer to having an open attitude towards the situation we are looking at and becoming aware of the fact that we are off-track in many ways, and have a dialogue about this, before wanting a quick fix only. There is still a lot of awareness missing and therefore a world to explore. The approach taken to address this really matters. If the perception of an approach is that it is green-washing or it is too orthodox, it won’t be constructive.

In the neighborhood the themes you primarily want to look at when you want to tangibly accelerate the sustainability transition, are overall consumption and waste disposal -of food in particular-, energy, transport and water. And exactly because the neighborhood is close by, some things can be made palpable: clean streets, edible trees around the neighborhood, sewing workshops with old clothing, shared solar panels, re-use of material from demolished houses, shared transport, to name a few.

Transparency
about values,
Step 3

We bring the societal, the organizational and the personal perspective with us when we work on the city. The ideas about what a city should be, have developed over time, influenced by contemporary issues. Health has been a large influence at the beginning of the 20th century and has highly impacted planning of the city. Another example is: for a while urban planners designed with the value that living and working should be separated, creating neighborhoods with houses but without facilities on the one hand and city centers and industrial areas on the other hand.

I’d like to invite to discuss underlying values by questioning each other and finding out which value can hold another century, and which one might be a too contemporary answer to a current problem. Also, I believe it is crucial to articulate the values, recognizing that there isn’t a singular stance on the matter.

My intention with articulating the values is to foster greater awareness and dialogue among both professionals and residents. I see making the lens from which we work explicit as an invitation for others to contribute their unique perspectives, which will enrich plans and avoid tunnel vision. As I did earlier in this article, I’ll try to have enough consciousness about my own values to put them into words. Again, not to impose them on anyone, but to show how to work with them in this process.

My personal mission when renewing a neighborhood is to create an environment which supports inhabitants in creating a good life for themselves and their environment.

This mission puts people at the center of attention and with that it enforces an integral approach, leading to a meaningful strategizing process. It’s crucial to distinguish between supporting the creation of a good life and ensuring it outright. The latter, I believe, isn’t the responsibility of urban professionals. Rather, their primary role is twofold: firstly, to refrain from creating obstacles and to guarantee the functionality of essential elements such as water, electricity, housing, and infrastructure. Secondly, to create an urban fabric that exhibits a level of intelligence that actively facilitates the thriving of its inhabitants. Well-functioning essentials allow people to move out of living in a survival mode and create peace of mind. An intelligent fabric should invite people to move beyond a survival mode.

What makes people thrive? These are my ideas about that: having meaning for each other and feeling connection with others, being able to develop their unique quality, feeling some security, feeling part of something bigger, being inspired and having both action and silence in life.

Derived from this mission, my recognition is that societies, particularly in the global North, are currently out of balance. The paradox of the present imbalance is striking. And this part of the article will show alignment to what I described previously in the societal transition part. While the past decades showed significant improvements in the lives of many—less war, reduced famine, and increased welfare—there also persists a sense of loss. This loss encompasses a fading sense of community, an increasing individualism, estrangement from nature, a disconnection from meaning in life, and a diminishing sense of self-worth, exacerbated by systemic inequalities. Notably, the benefits of welfare often come at a cost elsewhere. And in all this, the prevailing mode of human existence tends towards a default -unconscious- survival mode, instead of living a full life.

A re-balance is inevitable. And so, for me the emphasis is on this rebalance, although the principles are timeless. The specifics of how a re-balance will take place and what the result will be, remain uncertain in the first quarter of the 21st century.

However, while renewing a neighborhood, the interventions should at least pave the way for a recalibration. The guiding principles respond to what has been lost, emphasizing the cultivation of self-worth, community spirit, and meaningful contributions to the neighborhood.

• Make essential elements operate seamlessly, because that brings peace of mind and creates a sense of worth and of plain dignity.
• Use and embrace the technological advances of our century to our collective welfare.
• Facilitate and support initiatives and organizations by habitants that directly contribute to the neighborhood.
• Celebrate the diversity of value and care people bring into their neighborhood, e.g by appreciative storytelling. And again, facilitate initiatives.
• Facilitate connections between people as an antidote to individualism.
• Ensure that people who need help, get it, in an easy way. Yet never underestimate self-organization and actively respect that.
• Facilitate open-mindedness, learning and inspiration in a neighborhood.
• Make natural processes visible, whether through initiatives like planting fruit trees, composting, or reusing materials within the neighborhood. Ensure these initiatives hold a central place in policymaking rather than a peripheral one.
• Bring beauty, tranquility and nature into a city neighborhood, offering an entry point to a mode of living beyond mere survival.

Enhance
resilience to
prepare for
future, step 4

Without an extensive introduction I’d like to dive right into resilience and state why I think it is useful to take this on board as the fourth pillar of strategizing. Resilience has been hijacked in the past decade for various topics that were in fashion, like for instance climate adaptation. So, maybe a good starting point is to define what resilience is: the capacity of a system to adapt to transitions while maintaining its core functions, in any form. And in the case of the neighborhood those core functions have been described in the first paragraph: co-habitants, houses and real estate, basic needs, public space, facilities and economy.

I have studied this concept quite a bit and to me it feels like resilience is almost like a law of nature.

Once the concept of resilience is stripped-down of contemporary meanings, there is a five-features list that once scored will indicate the level of resilience.

This five-features list consists of: robustness, redundancy, diversity, connectivity and innovativity.

When this list sinks in, it seems rather intuitive that this is the core of resilience. Because, yes, of course:

• a neighborhood is more resilient when its starting position is strong (robustness);
• the functions of a neighborhood maintain working if you have ‘a spare part’ or when you can rely on a different ‘parts’ for the same function (redundancy and diversity);
• a neighborhood can handle more when it can get in touch with other neighborhoods (connectivity);
• and a neighborhood needs learning capacity to adjust (innovativity).

As easy as this list may look, the application is not that easy. You can look at the different functions and score them on the features. Let me take the housing stock as an example. When the available houses are of basic good quality, in other words: robust, that would lead to a good score. Is the quantity and the variety good, that leads to another good score. If the housing markets of various neighborhoods are connected, that will offer larger choices and lead to a good score.

And when houses show some flexibility in their use that also leads to a good score. This would be the very structural way to move forward. However, it turns out the scoring is highly subjective (there is no standard scoring). As in the example: when is the quantity enough, not too much, not too little? Also, each function has many subfunctions, which makes the work incredibly extensive and is not necessarily shedding more light on the neighborhood. The construction of a house can be robust, but the energy system can be weak and this might lead to an overall low score. Even so, in my opinion resilience still has value as one of the pillars for a future strategy, as I will show in the next paragraph.

The creative
part of
strategizing

But let me first describe an example. In a Dutch neighborhood in the south of Rotterdam I will focus on the housing future and only from that perspective highlight a selection of elements to show how this integrates into the strategy.

1.Analysis
Co-habitants

• Less families are living together; there is a growth in households of 1 or 2 people.
• Quite some people feel the neighborhood is deteriorating mainly because people don’t really know each other. Yet, there are also newcomers who deliberately choose to live here and are positive about the neighborhood.

Houses

• The age and quality of the houses demands for a renovation at short notice.
• Social housing is 80%.
• The mutation rate is high.
• There are not enough houses available, and not the right houses are available (surface and rental price).

Basic needs

• Houses have issues in the basic needs (mold, noise nuisance, sad appearance).
• Prices of energy show too much fluctuance.

Public space

• The neighborhood has a lot of public transport, amongst which is a fast train station.
• Overall the neighborhood is a calm and green area.

2. Impact of societal changes

• Market forces led to shortage in affordable houses.
• People feel disadvantaged in the neighborhood and have slight distrust towards others.
• There is a growing amount of people fleeing their home country.
• Use digitalization in the houses.

3. The personal values

• Facilitate connections and initiatives.
• Use technological developments.
• Bring beauty and tranquility into the neighborhood.

4. Resilience

• Ensure diversity in houses, some redundancy in the stock and flexibility for future use.

These highlights integrate into the following strategic framework, consisting of a future image and guiding principles.

The future image is to have a well-valued neighborhood where a variety of households live, where people tend to live for more than 10 years, spending a part of their time connected to neighbors and existing qualities of calm, green and well-connectedness in the public transport red have been preserved and invitations to connectedness are woven into the neighborhood in a very natural manner.

And the guiding principles are the following:

1. Diversify inhabitants in the neighborhood in terms of size, income and background, by diversifying the available housing stock. Do so by simultaneously renovating (and no demolishment followed by new construction given the basic quality of the houses), raising the rent for a part of the stock, and adding new high rises with affordable apartments for small households.
2. 2. While doing so, use the following ground rules. Change the housing stock in an utmost sustainable way: no demolishment but re-using the available housing stock and using sustainable materials and preferably from local suppliers, whenever possible. Also create built-in flexibility for the houses to have multiple future household compositions. Add beauty to the neighborhood when building/renovating houses. Ensure a small redundancy to be able to respond to a likeable influx of new refugees. Combine the housing issue with greenery in the neighborhood, to stress the already green character of the neighborhood and add value to the neighborhood. While planning for the diversification of the houses, also weave in a sports route for people to experience the greenery and create a sense of safety around it.
3. Activate and connect habitants and do so when planning where to build new apartments, who can live there, which shared spaces to create, which apartment requirements and must-haves to include in the renovation process. And offer jobs and internships to locals to work in the renovation and new construction.

In this example you see the resilience-based choice for diversification, the sustainability in the choices how to build and renovate houses, the resilience- and new order-based choice to create shared spaces with needed facilities and to involve habitants in the building process, the analysis pillar providing information on the current character of the neighborhood and the disbalance in the housing stock (and therefore in the population).

This example gives an idea of the result, when moving through the last step of strategizing. In this stage I’d recommend a small group of people on top of the work, while a larger group is involved in giving feedback on draft copy. This is in my opinion a multi-disciplinary group in composed of various specialists. Also, I’d recommend using more than one method.

Creating Excel tables is one method. In my analytic mode I draft an Excel sheet with key elements of all pillars mentioned above. You take the elements of the neighborhood as described in the system approach (co-habitants, real estate, basic needs, public space, etc.) and add to each element all the relevant items that evolve from the analysis pillar.

From there you move to the societal changes, and you use the same structure to pinpoint the impact of each societal change on each element. The same for personal values. And the very same for resilience. This leads to an enormous Excel (I did try) and you get lost in detail. The complexity and the required creativity are too intense for an Excel sheet to be useful as your sole method. Have the one person in the team who loves Excel draw it up anyway. As long as you are aware of two things. Firstly, somehow Excel makes the information look factual, while a lot of interpretation goes into the Excel sheets. Secondly, use the Excel sheets as a manner to not lose any information, rather than as the foundation for the strategy.

Another method to use is creative thinking techniques. I mention a few well-known ones: what-if method (e.g. what if we had unlimited budget), the six thinking hats (looking at the neighborhood from different angles), creation of mood boards, brainstorming etc. You could do this for each neighborhood element as well as for the overall impression. It might also be interesting to do this twice in the process, once without too much information and once again with all relevant information. Both might lead to useful insights.

The next method is to use your intuition. The more advanced the team is, the more they can also sit back, relax and let the neighborhood speak to them. The neighborhood is a living system with a flow in its existence. To tune into that and let the qualities and the opportunities and the pain speak to you, you might find other insights that can, as a next step, be underpinned by data and arguments.

Another method is to use collective knowledge smartly and get many eyes on the storyline, the essence and the main choices. My recommendation is to do so in a well-structured manner and keep the steering wheel of this process in the hands of the small team that does the integration and the final writing.

The last method is not really a method, but a process advice. Allow yourself to have an iterative yet structured process in which you move back and forth in circles to ensure you have attended to the different layers of the neighborhood and you filter a clear storyline that truly offers guidance.

A strategy should:

• not contain everything and not be applicable to 20 other neighborhoods,
• have both clear direction and wiggle-room to adapt to future changes that lead to new insights,
• really offer grip while moving forward,
• lay the foundation for quantitative goals, and
• be synchronized with budget expectations without yet delivering a sound business case

All the steps mentioned above lead to a strategy containing:

• an overall goal, usually expressing specific values,
• demarcations in the scope, to ensure that not everything in the neighborhood is part of the renewal and mark those parts needed to make a difference,
• a vision of the future: a compelling storyline to generate the energy of many involved and guide the execution, and
• a set of principles that can be used to define later project briefs.

I consider this the creative part of the strategizing process. Obviously causal thinking is required, from analysis-elements towards future answers. But the creative thinking is in: the crafting of accents, an appealing storyline, in the integration of elements and the search for win-win interventions.

The execution
chapter of the
strategy

• Monitoring results
  Quantifying (project)goals in a way that leads to meaningful monitoring is an art, and monitoring is crucial as a feedback loop for the organization and to maintain financiers happy and all stakeholders motivated. So, this is a reason to quantify goals in a way that really shows results (or lack of results). For instance, one could measure the appreciation of visitors to a neighborhood by performing a yearly survey and quantify the goal in terms of an ascending percentage, but appreciation of a neighborhood could also be derived from a yearly monitoring of the turnover of the stores. The latter will be more appealing to many people.
• Organization (resources and collaboration) and governance

It was mentioned above that a small core organization to steer the neighborhood transition is advisable to maintain the necessary focus on the strategy. Yet a combination with capacity from existing stakeholder organizations is preferred to ensure the continuity as well as the anchoring of the responsibility.

For governance a structure must be defined in which the key stakeholders have a seat. And depending on the expected flow of budgets that could be a formalized partnership. The city is an unavoidable stakeholder that rises above others since this organization’s main responsibility is the overall responsibility for the neighborhood. Any form of organization brought to life for the renewal needs to relate to the city council and the council must approve of this relation.

• Budget and business case
  Some starting budget is needed and the stakeholders who want a place at the table should all chip in, to confirm their commitment and responsibility. Overall, once plans are tangible enough it is good to create a business case. Not in the expectation of profits, but to understand the additional sourcing that is needed. It is nonsense to only start of the renewal whena total budget is available for all interventions in the decades the renewal takes place, but the first 5 years should be covered to give the renewal a decent start. In those 5 years projects get more detailed, and a budget can be made. Subsidies will be needed! And fundraising is a key task of the directing organization.
• Communications
  Communications are key in the process. A story line needs to be created on the why of the transition of the neighborhood. Choose words carefully in this matter. On the one hand you want to create urgency, yet you don’t want to picture the neighborhood as some drain hole and dismiss its qualities. Further on, in the process of creating the strategy, communications should use the planning of milestones as a mantra and should be transparent on input that has been brought forward and how this affects the creation of the strategy, both to enhance confidence. Additionally, communications are crucial to enthuse all stakeholders and to build up energy for the work that will be done in the neighborhood. And part of the strategy, once that is finished, is, again, the creation of a storyline: what is the compelling vision for the neighborhood that is specific enough to apply to this neighborhood only, yet non-specific enough for the neighborhood to grow into the vision over decades to come?

Notes on a
careful
process