EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - 'People make the city'-programme: stimulating active citizenship

'People make the city'-programme: stimulating active citizenship

Introduction

In 2003 the Rotterdam City Council launched the ‘People Make the City’ programme. In this essay, commissioned by the City of Rotterdam, Justus Uitermark and Jan Willem Duyvendak describe the programme as a form of assertive social policy. The programme focuses on talking to residents and encouraging them to work to achieve social cohesion in their street. In contrast to so many other initiatives, the government is not following a policy of wait and see but is taking the lead itself.

Description

How does the ‘People Make the City’ programme work?
People Make the City functions as a school for active citizenship and gives concrete shape to ideals (citizenship, participation, diversity) which all too often remain abstract. Despite these benefits, it may occur that the participation in the street lags behind that which was anticipated, that the active inhabitants function as an isolated group or that participants are disappointed regarding the alliance with the government. In this essay, the authors make a number of suggestions for the further elaborating on and stepping up the programme.

Conclusions

People Make the City is on one hand a continuation of the Rotterdam tradition of community work, on the other hand the programme marks a transition to an assertive social policy. The government, and in particular community workers, no longer wait for residents to come up with activities, but take the initiative themselves.
The frameworks for citizen participation are supplied by the government: activities at street level, drawing up common rules and concluding agreements with the government. This intensive and all-embracing approach appears to be necessary in areas where little is done to get things going.
The issue is a complex one, but during the brief operational period of the programme impressive results have been achieved at a number of places. People Make the City provides many leads for following an assertive social policy; handles, which are already regularly used in practice.
The potential can be further developed when it is recognised that community work, especially in disadvantaged districts, is no easy task. Street citizenship presupposes hard work, and certainly not only on the part of the citizens themselves. People Make the City, provided the city makes citizens out of people.

Contact info

Project Office social integration Rotterdam
F. Hengeveld, tel. +31 10 4173820

Publication date

24/03/2006

Researcher

J. Uitermark and J.W. Duyvendak, University of Amsterdam

Links

Rotterdam city council's social integration programme (in Dutch)University of Amsterdam

‘People Make the City’. Social integration...the street approach in practice (PDF, Dutch, 364KB)

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Community development

Keywords

Citizens' participation