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Emerging cultural tourism practices: New opportunities for small cities?

The Challenges of Urban Ageing

Urban ageing is an emerging domain that deals with the population of older people living in cities. The ageing of society is a positive yet challenging phenomenon, as population ageing and urbanisation are the culmination of successful human development. One could argue whether the city environment is an ideal place for people to grow old and live at an old age compared to rural areas. This viewpoint article explores and describes the challenges that are encountered when making cities age-friendly in Europe. Such challenges include the creation of inclusive neighbourhoods and the implementation of technology for ageing-in-place. Examples from projects in two age-friendly cities in The Netherlands (The Hague) and Poland (Cracow) are shown to illustrate the potential of making cities more tuned to the needs of older people and identify important challenges for the next couple of years. Overall, the global ageing of urban populations calls for more age-friendly approaches to be implemented in our cities. It is a challenge to prepare for these developments in such a way that both current and future generations of older people can benefit from age-friendly strategies. CC-BY Original article: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15112473 https://www.dehaagsehogeschool.nl/onderzoek/lectoraten/details/urban-ageing#over-het-lectoraat

Hub Cities 2.0 for the 21st century

In recent years, cities such as Amsterdam have used the term hub city to define themselves in a global context. Hub cities are cities that play – or aspire to – a crucial role in the international and globalising economy. As such they form a hub, a ‘node’ of relevant traffic. What exactly is meant by this is open to different interpretations.

Cities for talent

Medium-sized cities across Europe are increasingly and actively attracting skilled migrants. How can these cities best manage the challenges of internationalisation? That is to say: How can they attract, facilitate and integrate skilled migrants, enabling them to contribute to the regional culture and economy, while still serving their local populations and maintaining social cohesion?In this volume, we combine academic findings with policy reflections to provide a uniquely interdisciplinary guide for academics, policy makers and professionals in local governments, universities, HRM departments, for successfully co-ordinated international talent management.

People’s climate in shrinking areas

Chapter of a report that presents a case study of the City of Heerlen, Netherlands, a shrinking city that identifies cultural policy as an important factor in vitalising the city. Heerlen has made significant investments into culture and is experiencing a “cultural spring”. This promotes a positive climate in the city, despite the shrinking and ageing population. This chapter identifies examples of good practice for the revitalisation of the city, in particular how culture and the development of social networks are contributing. It explores: Zachte G Network for Creative Economy: a community of creative individuals in the region of Heerlen, connecting cultural and creative entrepreneurship; and Design for Emptiness-Challenge: a project in which entrepreneurs, artists and project developers build concepts for empty buildings in the town centre. The project mobilises citizens to participate actively in the discussion on shrinking cities. Finally, the chapter ends with conclusions, in which the importance of investing in people’s climate in general and cultural policies in particular, in a shrinking city is emphasised.

The eternal struggle for the city: in search of an alternative framework for citizen participation in urban regeneration projects in shrinking cities

The relevance of citizen participation in regeneration projects, particularly in shrinking cities, is widely acknowledged, and this topic has received a great deal of policy and academic attention. Although the many advantages of citizen participation in regeneration projects have been identified, its current forms have also received considerable criticism. In short, this criticism boils down to the conclusion that the ideal of citizen participation is not put into practice. This paper considers why this is the case, asking whether current participatory practices enable citizens to exercise influence as political actors in urban regeneration projects. In this paper, we examine this question based on Mouffe’s conception of the political, coupled with findings from our empirical research conducted in Heerlen North, The Netherlands. We conducted qualitative research on urban regeneration in the shrinking old industrial city of Heerlen. The findings reveal two distinct perspectives on citizen participation. Professionals see the existing context of citizen participation as a reasonable and practical but, in some respects, insufficient practice. Citizens’ views on participation are organized around feelings of anger, shame, and fear and are grounded in experiences of a lack of recognition. These experiences limit citizens’ abilities to exert true influence on regeneration projects. We conclude that efforts to regenerate shrinking cities should strive to recognize these experiences so as to create conditions that generate respect and esteem and, as such, enable urban social justice.