A NEW PROFESSIONAL IN NEIGHBORHOOD APPROACH

misbe2011 Tracking Number 200

In policy and governmental scientific discourses the statement is more and more heard that an effective approach to neighborhood renewal calls for a typical kind of professional, a so called ‘new professional’. This person must be given policy freedom to capitalize on his special capabilities in planning and decision making in neighborhood renewal. These professionals are not main stream; they ‘make a difference’. They are not detained by the systematic and logic of their organization or by bureaucratic rationality. Characteristics of the new professional were found in the relevant literature. Because of that we typed them ‘the exemplary urban practitioner’. What they have in common is their attention to every day life (in neighborhoods) and a pragmatic problem orientation. They take part in relevant governance processes of policy making. In the actual neighborhood renewal this ‘exemplary urban practitioner’ gets a new, integrated task to solve complex problems bottom up, and finds challenges in the everyday life in urban communities. In their problem orientation they no longer regard housing, living, poverty, health, education, safety, etc. as separate issues. The question we work out in the paper/lecture is how these ‘new professionals’ obtain and create their policy freedom, and fill in this constructed policy context. We illustrate this practice with an empirical case study in the so called ‘krachtwijken’ of The Hague. We presents portraits of a ‘new professional’ operating in these districts. Qualities of the ‘new professionals’ have to do with personal qualities as engagement, guts, creativity, innovativeness, flexibility, and the necessary social skills. But they also have organizational skills such as strategically insight, policy networking skills, and entrepreneurship, to be able to be a ‘good’ governance partner.