Urban and Regional Planning, 2013-2014

Master thesis projects:

-

Urban Development Projects under crisis

New practices of strategic spatial planning

The dilemma of urban mobility, and beyond

Private arrangements for public goods

Housing: People, Place and Policy

Urban Renewal of Shenzhen

Office hours:
In October a supervisor per project group has one office hour in which students can come to ask
questions about the theme of the group and how this fits the topic the student has in mind for his/her
thesis.
Urban Development Projects under crisis
- Federico Savini (N1.31A): Tuesday 22 October 10-11hr
New practices of strategic spatial planning
- Rick Vermeulen (N1.20): Wednesday 23 October 13-14hr
The dilemma of urban mobility, and beyond
- Luca Bertolini (N1.18): Friday 25 October 11-12hr
Private arrangements for public goods
- Menno van der Veen (N1.28): Tuesday 22 October 11-12hr
Housing: People, Place and Policy
- Christian Lennartz (N1.11): Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 October 13hr30-14hr30
Urban Renewal of Shenzhen
- Due to his stay in New York, Arnold Reijndorp can only answer questions of students per
mail (A.Reijndorp@uva.nl). Planning students interested in this project group can also come
to the collective meeting for Human Geography students (Tuesday 1 October 13-15hr)

Supervisors: Federico Savini, Bas Hissink Muller

The on-going economic crisis strongly affects practices of urban development. Large scale
interventions and urban projects that started before the crisis, often during the booming real-estate
economy, are today facing a reality of debt, slowness, civic protest or, often, complete stalemate. The
instruments, regulations and overall strategies of area development (gebiedsontwikkeling) used back
then do not seem to work anymore. Hence, the need to fundamentally rethink the general logics,
principles, and objectives of area development and the need for planning innovations in times of
socio-economic and urban change (e.g. the base of large urban projects, new ways of thinking,
experimental spatial concepts).
This thesis project thereby has three starting-points for researching urban projects. Firstly, it is
possible to explore the new dilemmas, challenges, and struggles that planners have to face in area
development. In practice these for instance emerge from the continuing need to distinguish areas of
intervention (e.g. government-led) from areas of spontaneous change (e.g. do-it-yourself urbanism).
Secondly, the use of enabling flexibility at the local level can be recognised in changing practices.
Experimental regulation could for example address temporary reuse of land and buildings. Thirdly,
challenges arising from the need to rearrange the financial and economic infrastructure of urban
projects are discernible. Rearrangements for example are innovative investment strategies that target
the reduction of long term risks and are tailored on the concrete, small scale, demands of inhabitants.
The nucleus of this thesis project is attached to the recently started APRILab research project. The
project is a cooperation of different universities in Europe, and it is financed within the frame of the
Joint Program Initiative, Urban Europe. It aims at discovering different ways to deal with complexity
and dilemmas in planning. In particular it focusses on concrete practices of intervention, on
innovative usages of regulation and on changing financial arrangements of urban projects. However,
students that wish to research urban development project under crisis from another perspective are
welcome too.
Empirical work can include, among others:
- Temporary usages, spaces of protest and distinction
- Large scale urban projects, their changing financial and organizational backgrounds
- Practices of creating new borders, new planning tools, innovative land use planning
- Experimental regulations on urban usage and impacts of environmental zoning on projects
- Practices of smart-urbanism in projects, do-it-yourself urban management and small scale
self-managed projects
Maximum of 10 participants

Supervisors: Rick Vermeulen, Stan Majoor

Urban planning has a very technocratic tradition in which the planner was to set the future course of
development through blueprints and strategic visions. This tradition was founded on a firm believe in
the capacity to predict the future and make decisions about what is good and desirable. Today, this
way of planning is questioned on the value of both its process and its output. In terms of the process,
planners are asked to rethink their central role. Numerous projects and plans have shown the
incapability of planners to predict the future. Increasingly pluralistic playing fields make it ever more
complex to balance different objectives. Should the planner not step down and leave more space for
the input of other actors such as citizens, local organizations and businesses? In terms of the output,
the traditional hard-lined blueprint or vision is questioned for its merits. In a world that develops at a
rapid pace and is increasingly complex, what is the value of a blueprint? Should the traditional static
end-products of planning processes not be replaced by something more dynamic?
Recent development of the economy has made these questions even more urgent. Times of crisis
always come with uncertainty about future development. Moreover, governments have fewer
resources available to steer development in the preferred direction. This has led many planners to
realize that the old ways of planning no longer suffice and that new processes, practices and
products have to be developed. At the same time, however, contemporary issues such as
sustainability, (water)safety, accessibility, infrastructure provision, economic development and
regional landscapes require strategic planning on a larger (metropolitan) scale of some sort.
This thesis project then looks at how new ways of planning are taking shape on the level of strategic
spatial planning. Also students that want to do comparative or internationally oriented research on this
are most welcome.
Possible topics include, amongst others:
- The value and role of (integral and sectorial) strategic spatial documents
- The effects of the crisis on planning processes
- Regional collaboration
- Participatory processes and the role of the public in strategic spatial planning
- How planners deal with uncertainty
- In times of austerity, how do municipalities choose between projects?
- Do urban crises and stressed budgets lead to more open planning processes?

Maximum of 7 participants

Supervisors: Luca Bertolini, and to be announced

Planning challenge
Contemporary urban lifestyles and business practices are increasingly dependent on mobility. At the
same time, the negative impacts of mobility on natural and social environments are growing
dramatically, as is the public outcry for their reversal. Urban planners are faced with a difficult
dilemma: how to deal with the tension between the essential role of mobility in enhancing cities
welfare and well-being and the lack of sustainability of present urban mobility practices? Coping with
this dilemma requires an understanding and management of the deep intertwinement of urban
mobility, spatial developments, and broader socio-economic and cultural processes, but also the need
to come to terms with the many, irreducible uncertainties of the challenge. Only a more intensive and
critical interaction between different disciplines at the very least integrating transport and spatial
planning and between planning science and planning practice can achieve this.
Research themes
This Master thesis project welcomes students that wish to undertake research related to these issues.
Potential themes include:
- identifying barriers (e.g. spatial, institutional) and/or strategies towards a shift to more
sustainable urban transport means (e.g. bike, public transport)
- identifying innovative strategies (e.g. Transit Oriented Development, Shared Space) for
achieving sustainable urban mobility
- developing approaches (e.g. accessibility planning) and instruments (e.g. accessibility
measures) to foster the integration of transport and land use planning
- exploring the relationships between quality of life in cities and/or competitiveness of cities
and mobility
- exploring the implications of emerging telecommunication technologies (e.g. internet,
smartphones) for urban mobility
- exploring the implications of emerging lifestyles (e.g. families wishing to live in cites) and/or
business practices (e.g. teleworking) for urban mobility
- other themes proposed by students and having relevance for the dilemma sketched above

Maximum of 10-15 participants

Supervisors: Menno van der Veen, Anita Blessing

Planning challenge:
The ongoing financial crisis and the context of stalled national real-estate markets require new
arrangements to ensure that public goods and services such as social and affordable housing, public
space and urban infrastructure, will remain available in future decades. Increasingly, the realization of
these public goals lies beyond the powers of local governments. Public funding, while still important,
is becoming scarce. Streams of investment that supported national public projects during the post war
decades, such as those managed by pension funds, are now embedded in global markets. Lacking
sufficient financial means for direct provision, public actors now aim to facilitate and monitor new
developments lead by commercial actors, not-for-profits and civil society. Interest is growing in
arrangements that incentivize, mandate or require commercial actors to develop or invest in public
goods and to deliver publicly-defined outcomes within a private real-estate development context. The
potential for tapping into large streams of institutional investment from pension funds and banks is a
particular focus. Yet existing international examples of arrangements to bring together social and
commercial interests show that they can be both costly and complex, raising new and difficult
challenges for urban planners and policymakers.
This thesis-project invites students to critically analyse arrangements for the creation of public goods
and publicly-defined outcomes that rely on private investment or real-estate development. Students
choosing to undertake comparative research are encouraged to pay close attention to the different
institutional contexts within which these arrangements function and to consider alternatives for the
Netherlands.
Potential themes include:
- Local or national incentive schemes for the realization of public goods or publicly-defined
outcomes such as provision of public space and facilities
- The changing role of state policy in incentivizing and/or regulating real-estate market activity
(cross temporal comparisons)
- The influence of globalization of property markets on local development
- The changing role of housing associations (relationship with governments and communities;
role in property market)
- Contractual arrangements for provision of public goods, such as the English S106 and
American community benefit agreements
- Schemes and incentives for intermediate and affordable housing provision to promote
mobility across housing tenures
- Community contracts of local organizations or governments with groups of citizens

Maximum of 10 participants

Supervisors: Christian Lennartz

Housing as an individual and social issue has come to the fore in media and political debates in recent
years. Indeed, the global financial crisis, was triggered by, and strongly impacted on developments in
home ownership, with dramatic consequences for both individual households and economic systems.
In this thesis project group for both planning and human geography students we examine diverse
aspects of housing and housing systems and how they interact in space and society. Methodologies
applied in housing studies are diverse and include quantitative studies of markets and cities, etc., as
well as case studies, ethnographies and other qualitative investigations of housing related phenomena:
such as the meaning of home; housing institutions; residential communities and housing submarkets.
One focus is the Dutch context and the relationships between different housing providers and
consumers. Dutch Housing Associations, for example, are quite exceptional and provide an interesting
case from which to consider institutional, planning and sociopolitical issues. Another focus is
international or comparative level analyses and students will be encouraged in developing their thesis
ideas to consider how housing operates in different contexts and the significance of diversity across
systems and societies.
Aims of the Project Group:
- Build up a broad understanding of current housing and policy issues and deepen knowledge
of the different scientific literatures that deal with housing.
- Develop a sensitivity to research issues as well as the abilities required for carrying out
empirical research in housing, both qualitative and quantitative.
- Enhance and consolidate critical abilities applicable to writing for and in academic and policy
debates.
Previously, students who have carried out studies on housing for their Masters theses have addressed
various topics and fieldwork settings: housing affordability in Amsterdam and New York; the
relationship between neighbourhood, built form and social capital; trust and distrust between housing
associations and their tenants; discourses on housing in shrinking cities, young adults and access to
the Amsterdam housing market; housing Roma people under the Bucharest planning regime; the sale
of social housing in the Netherlands.

Maximum of 8 participants (both urban and regional planning students as well as human geography)

Supervisors: Arnold Reijndorp, in collaboration with Marco Bontje

Shenzhen
Lying adjacent to Hong Kong in the Pearl River Delta, Shenzhen used to be an area filled with many
small fishing villages. It was given the status of Special Economic Zone in 1980 by the Chinese
government to become a controlled experiment of capitalism with a socialist character. Shenzhen
soon became a metropolis and a prototype for both economic and urban reform within China. In only
thirty years, the number of inhabitants has grown from 30,000 to an unofficial count of almost fifteen
million of which 82% are immigrants. In its urge for expansion the city has swallowed up hundreds
of villages, the so-called urban villages. Shenzhens economic backbone is largely dependent on
high-tech, logistics, financial services and cultural industries. In 2009, three new industries biotech,
new energy and Internet were introduced to boost economic growth.
Shenzhen is currently rethinking its urban future and needs to consider what branches of industry are
needed to turn the city into a more pleasant and socially diverse city, and how to undertake integrated,
cross-border area developments that give due consideration to the existing population, landscape and
urban fabric. The current upgrading of the primary industry into secondary and tertiary industry (due
to land shortage and the increase of wages) is leading to new urban developments, but also to great
demographic changes within society: thousands of unskilled laborers will be replaced by highly
educated staff with different needs and wishes in regard to their social and urban life. The Shenzhen
government is aware of the major challenges, but is unfortunately primarily focused on the large
urban scale.
Shenzhen is a city that has been raising eyebrows for years, because of its fast development and
exceptional position. However, its urbanization process also causes many problems such as a shortage
of land and water resources, energy constraints, increasing CO2 emissions, deterioration of the
environment, ecological system vulnerability, etc. The citys latest master plan (2009-2020) is
therefore focused on compact urban development in order to control urban sprawl and save energy. In
this regard, urban renewal is now considered an important strategy to deal with informal urban
development and land resource shortage more efficiently.
International New Town Institute Shenzhen
INTI will run the international research and exchange program New Towns of the 21st Century in
Shenzhen from September 2012 onwards. The program will focus on the urban renewal of Shenzhen
in relation to the existing landscape (ecological sustainability), industry (economic sustainability) and
population (social sustainability). New Towns of the 21st Century will research three test sites in
order to propose alternative design strategies in regard to the ecological, economic and social
sustainable future of these specific areas and Shenzhen as a whole: ecological sustainability is related
to Guangming New Town (new Low Carbon City in Baoan District), economic sustainability is
related to Luohu District (first district within the original Special Economic Zone) and social
sustainability is related to Da Lang District.

Each site is connected to a collective of universities or knowledge institutes. INTI collaborates with
the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University, China Development Institute,
Shenzhen Center for Design, architecture offices Urbanus and NODE. The University of Amsterdam,
Delft University of Technology, Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (EUR), CAH
Almere University of Applied Sciences and the Municipality of Almere are the Dutch partners in the
program so far.
Master thesis
This master thesis project gives master students an unique change to participate in this collaborative
research, with a special focus on the Da Lang district, but participation in other sites is possible.
Students will spend time in Shenzeng (between the beginning of March and June), collaborating with
Chinese partners and students of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Maximum of 5 participants (both urban and regional planning students as well as human geography)