Flagships, also referred to as megaprojects, and frequently involving waterfront regeneration, are a common form of urban redevelopment. Their goals are often aimed at an outside audience of tourists, investors and potential (high income) residents. While the target may be external, the ways in which these spaces are perceived by the local population is an important, and, as yet, under-researched, area. Many scholars suggest that flagships have a negative impact on cities, but their research stops short of asking local residents what they think themselves. This paper attempts to redress this imbalance in the literature by analysing a survey of residents' perceptions towards the Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam, a large waterfront regeneration project. The survey included residents in different neighbourhoods across the city to determine the roles played by spatial proximity, and socio-economic and demographic variables. Responses were more positive than expected, particularly among poorer residents in the vicinity of the flagship. We argue this has to do with the quality of life enhancements which the Kop van Zuid has brought. This can offer some insightful lessons when regenerating brownfield sites in the future.

No abstract

Introductioǹ`T he problem with Rotterdam is that it's a rich city with poor people.'' This quotation, taken from a civil servant working with the city's department of housing and urban development, illustrates a major challenge facing Rotterdam and other older industrial cities. These once wealthy cities have lost much of their affluent population and have become home to high concentrations of poverty and social deprivation. It also alludes to the idea that gentrification policies encouraging`rich' people to settle in the city can be an appealing solution to this problem.Gentrification is now seen to have moved beyond its original definition of the effects of individual household decisions, as first coined by Glass (1964), to being part of a much larger class remake of the inner city, and part of a wider strategy for urban redevelopment and regeneration (

No abstract

Numerous studies have been devoted to documenting the shifting patterns of ethnic segregation in the cities of the Netherlands during the past few decades. But an analysis of residential mobility that would reveal the mechanisms of change has rarely been included. In this paper such household mobility is studied against the background of the current urban restructuring policy. This policy consists of the selective demolition of inexpensive rented housing and the construction of homeowner dwellings in its stead, leading to changes in the social make-up of neighbourhoods. The change is caused by the displacement of ethnic and other low-income households, the result of their decisions how to use the incentives to move offered by the policy. Thus, this paper deals with the question how urban restructuring affects segregation patterns. Ethnic and socio-economic variables are at the core of the analysis. The outcome is that while the social make-up of neighbourhoods is altered, and low-income households shift in space, the displacement does not contribute to desegregation. Copyright (c) 2009 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.