DUTCH STRATEGIES FOR THE HISTORIC URBAN CORE, THE HISTORIC INNER CITY, FADED GLORY OR CORE BUSINESS?

misbe2011 Tracking Number 41

Keywords: historic urban core, spatial quality, interventions Abstract After the second world war a long period of steady economic growth started in the fifties, continued in the sixties, peeked in the seventies, had a downswing in the eighties but recovered fully in the nineties. Europe switched over from industry to the service sector as the dominant economic sector. The economic developments went hand in hand with a growth of the urban area that accelerated to a much higher level then the growth initiated by the industrial revolution.The public and economic functions, traditionally located in the urban core, needed more and more space and moved to bigger buildings on better accessible locations, outside the inner cities. The abandoned urban core was taken over by small scale commercial activities and the housing function became stronger. Functions for which the small scale buildings and organic street patterns were fitting like a glove. During the period of economic prosperity the mobility of people improved steadily and the growing service sector became foot lose. Cities more and more became competitive for the favor of the consumer. In relation to that cities were and are looking for characteristics that makes them clearly distinctive from each other. The area of the old inner city is seen as to be essential in that context. Selling the city with the unique quality of the urban core as a corner stone, has placed itself in the limelight of local politics. What is it that gives the urban core its unique quality? What components of the urban core need to be preserved, restored or renewed? What possibilities does the local government have to modify the changing process of the historic urban core in order to aim for preservation and strengthening of its unique qualities? In what way and to what extend do local governments use their possibilities? These questions are subject for debate in local politics and form the framework for this article. These questions are placed in the Dutch context. The answers however can function as a reference for strategies to be developed for non Dutch historic inner cities. To start with a spatial definition is given for the urban core to distinguish the area we are dealing with as the historic inner city. After that the specific characteristics of the urban core is introduced. The main part of this article is about the strategies of Dutch cities for the historic urban core. This part is based on empirical research done on the policy reports of twenty Dutch cities. In addition to the policy reports plans for spatial and functional interventions, initiated by the local government, were analyzed. The analysis were made in the years 2006, 2007 and 2008. The years just before the start of a possibly long lasting economic recession. Apart from some reflections on this subject at the end of this article no attention is paid to this in an analytical way