|
Abstract： |
a recurrent theme in the Dutch policy discourse and practice is the strive for creating mixed neighbourhoods. In the first years after the Second World War the basic issue was not mixing groups, but mixing functions; by mixing different kinds of functions, such as housing, work, and recreation, the inhabitants would have much of their activity patterns in the district so that they did not have to leave the area. In the 1960s the idea of the district as a social unit, with all its functions and people mixed in a limited space, was replaced by the idea of functional separation. Housing, work, and transport were separated. In the 1970s and 1980s large-scale urban renewal activities were undertaken in the deprived pre-WWII areas of the large Dutch cities. In this period, the residential mix was not an explicit target. By the end of the 1980s a new housing policy became dominant. Urban restructuring became the key word: a large number of social rented dwellings in the areas that were dominated by this housing segment had to be demolished or upgraded, in order to make room for more expensive, often owneroccupied dwellings. In this way, concentrations of low-income households could be countered. Since 2001 the debate on the social mix changed in tone. Until then the debate and the policies had been conducted and expressed in socioeconomic terms. After 2001, the problems associated with spatial concentrations of minority ethnic groups were featured explicitly. |
