Housing and New Urban Renewal: Current Policies in the Netherlands

Recently, the Netherlands has been pursuing a new policy of urban renewal. Old urban renewal concentrated on pre-war urban districts and had a technical orientation. The predominant shift in tenure was from commercial to social rented housing. New urban renewal focuses on post-war urban districts and tries to solve the mismatch between a differentiated demand for housing and a one-sided supply. The shift in tenure is now mainly from social rented housing to owner-occupied housing. The physical agenda is combined with social, economic and safety issues.This paper presents an overview of the transition from old to new urban renewal. We shall begin with a few observations and then present some current dilemmas. We shall comment on the recent report by the Dutch VROM Council'Acceleration and Deceleration in Urban Renewal'and offer some recommendations for successful urban renewal. These recommendations are geared to the current situation in the Netherlands, but they may also be relevant for other countries in and outside Europe.