Inclusive cities need sustainable urban fringes
drs. Bauke J de Vries, Dr.ir. Theo de Bruijn, drs Huibert A.Haccoû,
Saxion University of Applied Sciences,
School of Environmental Planning and Building
Brinkgreverweg 69 | P.O. Box 501, 7400 AM Deventer, the Netherlands
T: +31 - (0)570-603093 / +31 - (0)651102749 | b.j.devries@saxion.nl
www.saxion.nl/leefomgeving ; www.sustainablefringes.eu
Abstract
Within the discipline of city planning, urban fringes are getting more and more into the
centre of attention. This paper discusses the experiences of local and regional authorities
in four countries (UK, Flanders, the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden) that worked
together in the project Sustainable Urban Fringes (SURF; part of the Interreg IVB North
Sea Region Programme). This project resulted in a valuable set of learning experiences
that can contribute to sustainability and inclusiveness in urban fringes and therefore in
cities as a whole. The paper addresses what inclusive urban fringes look like and how
local authorities can contribute to them. The conceptual framework to stimulate
inclusiveness in urban fringes focuses at creating synergy between different interests and
qualities. This happens within a participative process, with all stakeholders involved. Not
only the present and local situation is taken into account, but also the expected impact
that choices in the Urban Fringe areas have on other areas, nearby or far away, and the
expected impact in the future. This approach helps in realising synergy between the urban
fringe area and the city itself, and is therefore a necessary condition for inclusive cities.
Special attention needs to be given to lesser privileged groups in society, both in the
process of stakeholder involvement and in issues like accessibility and values and
functions. Based on this view on sustainable development and inclusiveness, two
categories of policy interventions will be discussed in the paper: building stakeholder
networks and creating synergy between different interests and qualities.
 
1 Introduction
Within the discipline of city planning, urban fringes are getting more and more into the
centre of attention given the transformational changes in both urban and rural areas, plus
the fact that both are increasingly getting interwoven. We define the urban fringe area as
the zone connecting urban and rural areas, where urban and rural functions and qualities
meet and interact. This area has both substantial risks and opportunities. The risks lie in
issues like deprivation and loss of spatial quality, as a result of a concentration of
unattractive monofunctional space consuming developments like waste dumping and
processing sites, unorganised small businesses and unused farmland. The opportunities
lie, among others, in creating attractive and accessible open space for citizens, local
production of food and sustainable energy, multifunctional facilities for flood prevention
and water storage etcetera. Developments in the urban fringe area are increasingly seen
as vital for the environmental, economic and social quality of the city as a whole, thereby
affecting the quality of life and opportunities for economic and social development for all
groups in society, especially underprivileged groups.
The question we address in the paper is what role sustainable urban fringes can play in
making cities more inclusive, and what kind of tools can be used to stimulate
sustainability and inclusiveness in urban fringe zones. The experiences discussed in this
paper were derived from the Interreg IVB project SURF (Sustainable Urban Fringes),
where local and regional authorities in five countries (UK, Belgium, the Netherlands,
Germany and Sweden) worked together, to stimulate sustainability and spatial quality in
urban fringes. This project resulted in a valuable set of learning experiences that can
contribute to sustainability and inclusiveness in urban fringes and therefore in cities as a
whole.
The paper starts with describing a conceptual framework, where the concepts of
sustainability and inclusiveness and their connectedness are described. Then it describes
the interventions used within the Interreg project Sustainable Urban Fringes, the context
where they were applied and the results obtained. It ends with a reflection, discussing to
which extent the interventions used contributed to sustainable development and
inclusiveness, and what could be added to policy interventions for further improvement
of the outcomes.
2 Conceptual Framework
Sustainability and inclusiveness are two quality concepts that are used frequently in
discourses in the field of housing, planning and area development. The concept of
sustainable development has firstly been defined by the Commission Brundtland (1987).
They defined Sustainable Development as a development that meets the needs of present
generations without jeopardizing the ability of futures generations to meet their own
needs. In other words, a better quality of life for everyone, now and for generations to
come. It offers a vision of progress that integrates immediate and longer-term objectives,
local and global action, and regards social, economic and environmental issues as
inseparable and interdependent components of human progress. Within the work of the
Brundtland Commission, the position of poor and underprivileged people was of special
interest. In the decades since 1987, this concept of sustainable development has been
incorporated more and more into housing, planning and area development. See for
example the work of Timothy Beatly (2000) and many others.
The UN Habitat programme defines an inclusive city as a city that promotes growth with
equity. “It is a place where everyone, regardless of their economic means, gender, race,
ethnicity or religion, is enabled and empowered to fully participate in the social,
economic and political opportunities that cities have to offer”. The authors see social
equity as one of the three pillars of sustainability, and one that is vital to creating a shared,
sustainable urban future. The UN programme sees participatory planning and
decision-making are at the heart of the Inclusive City. According to UN Habitat, inclusive
urban governance reduces inequality and social tension; incorporates the knowledge,
productivity, social and physical capital of the poor and disadvantaged in city
development; and increases local ownership of development processes and programmes.
(UN-Habitat, 2001)
Goltsman and Iacofano (2007) published a substantial handbook on ‘The inclusive city’,
where they present inclusive city planning as a solution “based on economic, social,
environmental and culturally sensitive policies that allow everyone to improve
economically as the area improves”. They stress that cities need planning that recognizes
the right of every person to full involvement in the development process: “through
participation, people can shape their own environment to meet their own needs”. The
most vulnerable groups in society usually have limited access to participation processes,
as a result of lack of skills, knowledge and information. This creates the risk that their
needs are less taken into account in urban planning, which possibly leads to a further
deprivation of the quality of their living environment, and of their life as a whole. To
address this problem, the authors propose a participatory design process based on three
criteria: functionality (design that incorporates the needs of all types of individuals),
context sensitivity (harmony with the surrounding environment), and equitable impact to
“mitigate the social and human impacts especially on the most vulnerable members of
society”.
The conceptual framework used within the SURF project combines elements of the two
approaches described here above. We define five quality dimensions in the concept of
sustainable area development: social quality, environmental quality, economic quality,
spatial quality and process quality. Where many models for sustainable development aim
at balancing different interests and qualities, our starting point is creating synergy
between different interests and qualities, for instance combining the strengthening of
environmental and nature values with enhancing the accessibility of rural areas and
offering high quality job opportunities. Given the different aspects and interests this can
only happen through a participative process, with all the stakeholders involved.
Empowering these stakeholders, therefore, is an important aspect in developing
sustainable urban fringes. Not only the present and local situation have to be taken into
account, but also the expected impact that choices in the urban fringe areas have on other
areas, nearby or far away, and the expected impact in the future. Within the context of the
urban fringe it is about integrating different qualities, both urban and rural, taking into
account both the dimensions of time and space. The figure below (De Bruijn 2004)
illustrates our approach towards sustainable development:
To make the concept of quality tangible for stakeholders, it is important to use the
knowledge and experience of stakeholders, in order to formulate the quality aspects in
terms that are relevant for the stakeholders. In many cases, this articulation can differ
from the formulation that professionals use. Professionals engaged in area development
should be curious to know the perceptions of their stake-holders, and be able to talk their
language. On the other hand they should also keep an eye on effects of activities on
qualities far away and years ahead, as this affects other stakeholders and interests without
a direct voice in the decision making process. The issues mentioned below try to cover
both elements.
Environmental quality
Environmental quality is the ‘planet’ dimension of sustainability. Important elements are
energy saving and climate change reduction, safeguarding natural resources and pollution
prevention, and biodiversity conservation. The economic and social benefits ‘there and
elsewhere’ of these elements of environmental quality for the quality of life on our planet
are obvious, but it is important to pay enough attention to the direct benefits for
stakeholders, like cost reduction (especially relevant for energy saving), health
improvement, improvement of quality of life and convenience in situations like housing
and traveling. In many projects and initiatives on sustainable development, both by local
authorities and businesses, sustainable development is limited to environmental issues.
This creates risks in terms of acceptance of these projects, and leaves opportunities to
combine interests un-used.
Social quality
Social quality of an area covers the ‘people’ dimension of sustainable development. Van
der Maesen and Walker (2006) define four different domains of social quality:
socio-economic security; social cohesion; social inclusion; and finally social
empowerment. All these domains have links with the characteristics of an area.
Socio-economic security covers issues like finances, housing and the environment, health
and care, availability of work and education. Health can be promoted in the urban fringe
in different ways. There is a growing amount of evidence that green space is beneficial
for health, in many ways: by decreasing stress, by improving air quality and by creating
easily accessible opportunities for physical exercise like walking, cycling, playing and
sporting (Maas, 2009). Social cohesion can be stimulated by the spatial planning of areas
by realising places and facilities where people can meet and communicate. Van Dorst
(2006) shows how the physical arrangements of streets and neighbourhoods can stimulate
social cohesion and thereby contributing to sustainability and liveability. Involvement of
underprivileged groups in decision making processes, communication and maintenance
of open space can contribute significantly to social inclusion and social empowerment,
and lead to open space that is better adapted to the needs and interests of these groups.
See for example the experiences of the City of Aberdeen, described below.
Economic quality
Economic quality covers the ‘prosperity’ dimension of sustainable development in a
broad perspective. It covers, among others, the availability of conditions to make a living.
Both physically like the availability of natural resources and other economic assets, the
availability of infrastructure for entrepreneurship and the level of education of the
population, as well as in terms of facilitating government regulations and regimes.
Furthermore, it can cover indicators like employment and unemployment, the earning
capacity of a region and investments in maintaining quality on a long term. Also the
attention for fair trade should be considered as a part of economic quality. This does not
only refer to trade with developing countries, but it can also refer to fair payments for
local and regional entrepreneurs.
Spatial quality
In the models commonly used to describe sustainable development, the three dimensions
people – planet and prosperity mostly are used. Within SURF, we described spatial
quality separately, be-cause of the focus of the project on area development and land use
planning. This helped us to create a more complete picture of the qualities needed. We
followed the definition of spatial quality, as used by the Dutch Ministry of Housing,
Spatial Planning and Environment in their Spatial Planning documents (See e.g. Ministry
of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment, 2005). They identify three main values
determining spatial quality:
• Functional value or use value: logical, safe and practical arrangement of functions
and activities in the space; accessibility for different modes of transport (walking,
cycling, public transport, cars) and connections between urban and rural areas;
multifunctional land use where possible; separation of functions where necessary.
• Perception value or aesthetic value. Though aesthetics is to a large extent an
individual perception, some common and broadly accepted elements of aesthetic
value can be mentioned. This refers, among others, to issues like regional identity,
the visibility of landscape and cultural history, the readability of the landscape.
• Future value: this refers for example to the adaptability of an area for possible future
changes in functions, needs or life styles.
The direct benefits for stakeholders can be seen in issues like aesthetics (do people like
the place), readability and logical structure (can people find their way and understand
where they are) and convenience (can they do the things they want as easily as possible).
Assink and Groenendijk (2009) argue that spatial quality is gaining importance as a
factor for location choice of companies. If this is the case, efforts of both authorities and
businesses to improve the spatial quality of an area can con-tribute to economic
development and thus job opportunities in a region.
Process quality
This final dimension focuses on the involvement of stake and share holders in the
informal decision making process and the formal planning processes. Given that
sustainable development al-ways means taking into account different qualities and
therefore different stakeholders, the process dimension is of crucial importance. Who are
involved in what way in what stage of the planning process? How open and transparent
are communication and policy development processes? Are all stakeholders involved and
informed? Do decision making processes and procedures lead to synergy between the
different qualities, and do they lead to serious attention for effects of decisions on the
long term and in other places?
The key challenge is not only to deal with the different perspectives and qualities
individually but to do so in an integrated way, focusing on the realization of synergy
between qualities and between needs and interests of different stakeholders. In many
cases, there are possibilities for synergy and improving one quality may also benefit one
or more other qualities. In other circumstances, it may be better to choose just one or two
of the qualities. On the other hand, focusing on one quality only (for instance economic
development) at the expense of other qualities (landscape or social well-being) cannot be
considered as sustainable development.
Summarizing, the core of sustainability and inclusiveness is the integral perspective it
starts with and the balance it brings to various qualities. Sustainable development is not
to be seen as a limiting perspective. On the contrary, a sustainable perspective creates
opportunities that were, up until now, hidden. It is, therefore, about added value.
Sustainability and inclusiveness should be considered as two sides of the same coin,
starting from a slightly different perspective but finally realizing the same aims and
qualities.
3 Interventions
How can authorities and other stakeholders contribute to sustainable urban fringes and
benefit from sustainable development in urban fringes, and how can these processes and
the physical results contribute to inclusive cities? The traditional government tools, like
rules and regulation, financial incentives and top down communicative instruments seem
to lose their influence and are more and more replaced by tools and interventions in a
network setting. This is especially the case in the urban fringe, an area characterised by
multifunctionality, multi-ownership and a variety of stakeholders and interests. In
addition to that, private stakeholders like businesses, housing corporations and real estate
developers seem to become increasingly aware of the benefits of sustainable area
development both for their own organisation and for the society as a whole. This results
in more attention for sustainability in their projects, both in words and in actions.
Managing multifunctionality, multi-ownership and multistakeholders is considered as the
key to the success of sustainability policies. Within the SURF project, we identified two
main categories of potentially successful policy strategies for the urban fringe:
- Building networks;
Sustainability and inclusiveness need the involvement of all stakeholders. Public
authorities traditionally had the leading role in land use planning, but in many
situations this is changing rapidly. The growing interest of real estate developers, land
owners and other private investors in sustainability and inclusiveness and the shift
towards a more governance – bottom up – oriented approach in public planning make
it necessary to develop tools for network building and stakeholder engagement. In
urban fringe areas, this task can be extra challenging because of differences in culture
and tradition between ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ networks and stakeholders. From the
perspective of inclusiveness, the big challenge is to involve underprivileged groups of
society in these networks and in the bottom up approaches developed by and within
these networks.
- Creating synergy between different qualities;
Sustainable development asks for combining different qualities and realising synergy.
Especially the creation of job opportunities in the urban fringe zone is an important
issue. Important reasons for this are the changes in agricultural practice and the fact
that the rural area around cities is in many cases less suitable for intensive world
market agriculture. Also degradation of the ‘urban’ part of the urban fringe area
(housing areas, industrial sites) can lead to loss of employment in the urban fringe area
and the need for initiatives to stimulate competitiveness. A sustainable approach
implies that the search for competitiveness should always go hand in hand with
stimulating spatial, environmental and social quality. If done properly, this can
contribute to the creation of high quality jobs for lower educated people, and
accessible and attractive open space in the urban fringes.
4 Examples from the Interreg project Sustainable Urban Fringes
This section describes some of the experiences of the SURF partners in building
networks and creating synergy, with a special attention for involving and empowering
underprivileged groups. This is where sustainable development and inclusiveness meet
and merge.
Build Networks: River Don Project, Aberdeen
A very inspiring example of the involvement and empowering of underprivileged groups
in decision making and maintenance of urban fringe areas can be found in Aberdeen. The
City of Aberdeen has two characteristic rivers in its urban fringes: the River Dee in the
south and the River Don in the north. Where the River Dee is well known and
appreciated for its landscape quality and recreational opportunities, the River Don did not
have this position. The River Don cuts through areas of industry and some deprived
communities. Whilst the river is an important area to the city, access to the river for city
residents was poor. However, there are areas of great cultural and historic importance
such as the Brig o Balgownie and Seaton Park.
The City of Aberdeen worked in many ways on network building in the areas around the
River Don and involvement of the inhabitants in all stages of area development:
inventory, planning, decision making, communication and maintenance. Citizens were
invited to contribute to the inventory of green space quality in the Open Space Audit. The
Open Space Audit is a participative, integrated inventory of the quantity, quality and
distribution of different types of open spaces within the City of Aberdeen. The
methodology assesses the quality of the open space from different perspectives and with
the involvement of different categories of stakeholders: experts, users, decision makers,
and city staff. This approach allows experts to acquire a broad understanding of the
quality and appreciation of open space, creates awareness among citizens and allows
them to participate in the process of green space improvement.
The City of Aberdeen employed residents from the neighbouring communities for
different positions in the project, for example communication and network building and
maintenance work in the green spaces. Because these people know the project area and
the neighbourhoods very well, they serve as very effective ambassadors for the project
area, reaching and involving other residents who usually are not reached by standard
communication means and methods like websites and leaflets. The work they do helps
them substantially in skills development and empowerment, improving their
opportu-nities on the labour market after the finalisation of the project. Even people
punished for criminal activities were involved in maintenance work, and this appears to
help them in their reintegration strategy into society.
The physical changes in the River Don area are presented in the River Don Spatial Plan.
This plan is broadly supported in the neighbouring areas, as a result of the intensive
communication and stake-holder involvement. More and more of the communication
activities happen bottom up and require hardly any involvement from the local authorities.
An example of this is the River Don Facebook group, with almost 200 members, mainly
local, exchanging information on open space and biodiversity in the River Don area and
organising activities in the area.
Building networks: Friends of the Weusthag, Hengelo
A second example is the Friends of the Weusthag organisation in the city of Hengelo, the
Netherlands. The Weusthag is a green enclave in the northern part of the city of Hengelo.
The enclave is the result of growth of residential areas around the area. It was left green
because it served as an infiltration area for drinking water. The area has a substantial
amount of farmland (dairy farming, horses) and hosts facilities like a park, pet zoo, sports
facilities and a restaurant. The Friends of Weusthag is an organisation that has been
established by the direct stakeholders of the park area. In essence, the tool is a structured
way of organizing bottom-up initiatives of stakeholders that have a direct interest in the
project area. The local government facilitates this development. Inspiration for the
transformation of the area to a citizen park was found after officials of the city visited
other inspiring examples like the Bürgerpark in Bremen (Germany) and the Sonsbeek
park in Arnhem (the Netherlands).
The Friends of Weusthag organisation will get a large part of the responsibility of the
area and can develop new ideas into plans. Due to the bottom-up principle citizens will
feel involved in the development of the Weusthag. The Weusthag organisation started as
a foundation mainly composed of land owners in the area, whose main interest was to
maintain the status quo in the area. This was not in line with the vision of the local
authorities, who wanted to see the Weusthag area as an open and developing area,
improving the quality of life of all people living around the park. Also here, like in
Aberdeen, some of the neighbouring residential areas host deprived communities, with
limited access to jobs, education, recreation facilities and green space.
One of the role the local authority saw for itself is to stimulate balance: create a good and
complete overview of all the needs and interests in the area, and try to facilitate that these
needs are met, as long as they fit into the overall vision and the future perspective of the
city. In order to realise this, the City of Hengelo provided an interim chair for the
organisation and facilitated in setting up the organisation and the working groups. In this
period, the level of mutual trust has increased and the scope of the people involved has
broadened. The limited amount of trust between the stakeholders and the local authorities
was the result of a long period of limited or no activity in the Weusthag area, leading to
decrease of attractiveness and accessibility.
An important strategy that the local authorities used to gain trust, was to make sure that
things really happened on the ground and that people not only talk. Quick wins and easy
to realise physical improvements in the area make clear that the municipality is also
interested in improving the park area and is willing to listen to the stakeholders. The
stakeholders now have a lot of enthusiasm to improve the quality of the area and set up
activities for people living around the area.
Creating synergy: Business and biodiversity, Almelo
Almelo is a city in the region of Twente, Province of Overijssel in the eastern part of the
Nether-lands. The city has around 73.000 inhabitants. As a Municipality, Almelo sees
biodiversity as an important issue that is strongly related to development of business sites.
The NGO Landscape Overijssel works together with the businesses to implement a
biodiversity project at several industrial sites in the city. Business areas are considered as
quiet and peaceful places after office hours and offer opportunities for the development
of nature. All the business sites are situated in the urban fringe zone of Almelo. Activities
to enhance the quality of the green space on these sites contribute to improved ecological
connections between urban and rural areas, but they also make business areas in Almelo
more attractive for entrepreneurs and employees, and thereby influencing location
choices of businesses and their employees.
The main partners in the project are the businesses themselves and the Foundation
Landscape Overijssel, an NGO working on nature protection and biodiversity. The
municipality brought the partners together and facilitates, but does not take the lead. A
landscape architect makes an inventory of the opportunities to enhance biodiversity on
the industrial sites, both at and on the buildings (green roofs, nesting facilities) and in the
open space between the buildings (ecological meadows, frog pools, butterfly bushes
etcetera). It proved positive since most companies see this aspect added to their business
image as beneficial. They see and understand that incorporating biodiversity on business
sites adds to a better working environment which could improve the employees’ health
and also promote their corporate image. Each of which are aims in their own interest.
The initiators of the project receive very positive comments on the initiative by the
businesses on the site, and experience willingness to cooperate. According the City of
Almelo, more and more businesses are willing to integrate biodiversity on their business
sites. A substantial part of the business community is in favour of this nature and
biodiversity project and already joins or is interested to join the project. This is one of the
ways the business work on Corporate Social Responsibility. In a short period of time the
Municipality of Almelo detected a moral change from the businesses. Nature and
biodiversity used to be a threat for the businesses, but nowadays more and more
businesses see the opportunities that it can offer. In a summary, the project has the
potential to create synergy between many different qualities and interests: the ecological
quality of the buildings and the sites, the economic perspective of the businesses, the
attractiveness of the sites for workers and visitors and the positive influence it might have
on job creation. Since the project is in an early stage, systematic evaluation and
monitoring of the results is not yet available.
Creating synergy: Enschede round, Enschede
The Rondje Enschede (Enschede round) is a cycling and walking track in the urban fringe
of Enschede. This city has around 160.000 inhabitants and the rural area around
Enschede is characterized by a high landscape quality. Nevertheless, the landscape
quality is under pressure as a result of changing farming practices. The City of Enschede
has also the desire to provide room to ‘green’ housing development in the urban fringe,
making the city more attractive for higher income residents and thereby contributing to
economic competitiveness of the region. This implies a more multifunctional use of the
rural area around the city. Recreation and tourism are considered as potentially a very
important and promising business sectors in the urban fringe.
In order to stimulate environmentally friendly recreation and support ‘green’ business
development in the urban fringe, the Enschede Round was developed. It presents an
attractive cycling or walking track published on a map and on a website. It has signs all
along the track for walkers and cyclists. The map also provides a list with information
regarding entrepreneurs near the track that cyclists or walkers can visit during their
activities, and regarding public recreational facilities. In this way, Rondje Enschede
promotes the use of the urban fringe and connects entrepreneurs, visitors and other
stakeholders in the urban fringe. A mixture of stakeholders and facilities is presented on
the map of Enschede Round, e.g. local food production, farmer’s shops, bed & breakfasts,
pubs and restaurants, natural playgrounds and facilities from the creative sector. An
online version of the map is available at
http://rondje.enschede.nl/00006/Kaart_Rondje_Enschede/, a hard copy is distributed on
many public places in the municipality. To promote the map and the routes, several
events were organised, linked to sports, leisure and recreation.
Although no systematic evaluation and monitoring has been organised since the
launching of the map and the round, the general impression is that it is effective. The
Map of the Enschede Round led to a lot of positive response by users. The starting event
of the Enschede Round attracted hundreds of interested people. Many people acquired a
copy of the map and walked or cycled part of the Enschede Round. It is thought to lead to
more awareness of the attractiveness of the urban fringe for local residents, leading to
more visits in the urban fringe. It brought entrepreneurs together, who developed a
combined website to present their businesses and the services available to possible
customers (http://www.buiteninenschede.nl). The Enschede Round appears to be a
trigger for entrepreneurs and NGOs to organise activities or to link their existing
activities to this track. It helps to create continuity in communication and a good
relationship between authorities and businesses.
5 Reflection
The cases presented here are presented as interventions to stimulate sustainable
development and inclusiveness in urban fringes. The urban fringes as such were
presented as important areas for the development of sustainable and inclusive cities. To
which extent do the cases presented support the ideas about the importance of the urban
fringe and can we conclude that there is evidence that the interventions presented work?
What else is needed to realise sustainable and inclusive cities?
Importance and opportunities of the urban fringe
The experiences within SURF show that green space facilities in the urban fringe provide
a location where people from different social classes can meet. The residential areas near
the urban fringe of many of the cities in the SURF project habit both underprivileged
groups and relatively wealthy and higher educated people. The rural area near the city is
an attractive place to live for people from higher social classes. Though not
systematically monitored yet, the impression and expectation is that attractive green
space in the urban fringe can help to bring together different social classes from society.
It is very interesting to look for more evidence in this respect, both within the SURF
cases and in other places.
Not all the opportunities for sustainability and inclusiveness were used in the project
areas in SURF. Issues like recreation, green space, biodiversity and accessibility were
important in many of the SURF projects, as well as job creation in line with the issues
mentioned above. An item that received little explicit attention within the SURF project
was local food production and urban farming. This can link to sustainability and
inclusiveness in urban fringes in many ways: it can provide local employment in
combination with fair food prices both for producers and for customers. It can combine
leisure activities (gardening) with food production and thereby income generation and
reduction of spending. It can bring down the transport footprint of food and close nutrient
loops on a short distance, which contributes to environmental sustainability.
The same can be said for an item like local sustainable energy production. There are lots
of opportunities for local sustainable energy production in urban fringes. Urban fringe
areas can offer both space and resources for energy production, and their vicinity to the
city enables distribution of the energy to places where it is needed. This can improve the
availability of local energy, improve the involvement of residents in their own energy
production and bring down the costs needed for energy supply. On the other hand,
sustainable energy initiatives in urban fringes sometimes lead to resistance by residents,
because they fear or expect loss in spatial quality in their neighbourhood. Experts from
Atelier Overijssel (2010) described opportunities in this respect and recommended to
integrate provision of sustainable energy more directly into area development processes.
If well integrated, it can contribute to the quality and identity of the landscape.
Interventions
The interventions presented here are in line with the ideas developed in the last years, on
changes in government and governance, and a shift from top down to bottom up policy
development. See for example De Bruijn (2008). The knowledge on network
management and bottom up policy development is broadly available, but not always
applied successfully. Much of the real quality of the policy development processes
appears to rely on the personal skills, attitudes and enthusiasm of the executing staff
(civil servants and consultants or representatives from NGOs). Curiosity and the skills
and willingness to listen are important factors.
These soft skills get a growing attention within Education for Sustainable Development
in universities. Roorda (2012) developed a set of sustainability competences, focusing on
interdisciplinarity, stakeholder participation and the creation of synergy. Key words in
these competences are Responsibility, Emotional Intelligence, System Orientation, Future
Orientation, Personal Involvement and Action Skills. Management approaches like the
‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Covey, 1989) can be helpful tools to develop
these skills in practice.
Need for leadership and new financial instruments
Apart from bottom up processes there is still a strong need for leadership in policy
towards sustainability and inclusiveness. When bottom up process focus too much on the
direct perceived needs of the most actively participating stakeholders, there is a
substantial risk that the weaker and less powerful stakeholders and interests do not get a
voice in the decision making processes. This implies, among others, the skills and power
of decision makers to focus on needs and interests on the long term (later), on other
places (elsewhere) and of stakeholders without a strong voice. It also implies a focus on
linking the global and local interests, and looking for synergy between those two types of
interest. One of the positive developments in this respect is the growing knowledge on
the value of green space and ecosystems, see for example the work done within the
project TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). There is a growing
amount of experience in quantifying benefits of ecosystems and green space, and of the
benefits of investments in sustainability and inclusiveness, and using this knowledge in
decision making processes. Methods like Social Cost Benefit Analysis can help in
expressing the values. In addition to this, there is a need to develop new financial
constructions to deal with situations with split incentives, where some stakeholders invest
(like real estate developers, housing corporations or municipalities) and others benefit
(like citizens or businesses).
Conclusion
The initiatives within SURF helped in realising on the ground experience with
sustainability and inclusiveness in area development, focussing on urban fringe areas.
Network building and creating synergy were the main common features of the tools
developed and applied. The preparation and realisation of physical changes and other
initiatives in urban fringes is time consuming, which implies that hard quantitative
evidence of the results and the effectiveness of the initiatives is not yet widely available.
Nevertheless, many of the project initiators and stakeholders involved report
enthusiastically about the progress they made in stimulating sustainability and
inclusiveness in urban fringes, and thereby contributing to the quality of cities as whole.
6 References and further reading
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