Bas Verkerk, the Vice Mayor of The Hague, in his speech introduced
the aims and claims of Eurocities concerning the future EU structural
and cohesion policy.(1)
I can join him in nearly everything he said. Cities on the one
hand are the engines for regional development and so crucial for
the European development, too. On the other hand in cities the
effects of the rapid changes in economic und social conditions
are felt first and most strongly. Urban Development Programmes
(UDPs) therefore must have a central position in the EU Structural
Funds. It doesn't need me to repeat this.
But I want to add some issues he didn't mention, but which in
my opinion are essential for success of UDPs. In so far I refer
to the experience, the German Institute of Urban Affairs, in German
short "Difu", gained since 1999 from its research on
the German programme "Districts with special development
needs - the socially integrative city".
1. This programme is one of Germany's responses
to the profound structural change, I mentioned. It concentrates
on disadvantaged districts where for many reasons primarily deprived
people live (or have to live). Because there is not only a social
polarization in society between the poor and the well-off but
a growing spatial polarization, too, mainly caused by a loss of
2 Mio social rented flats in the last 20 years and at the same
time an increase of unemployed of 2 Million people.
The core elements of the programme can be sketched as follows:
- The programme is to complement traditional urban development
assistance and dovetail it with other policy areas relevant
to urban development in a new, integrated approach.
- The aim is to concentrate investment and non-investment measures
from various programmes of the EU, the federal and Länder
governments.
- The concept calls for ongoing, area-specific, and integrated
urban-development action in the sense of a holistic improvement
strategy.
- Residents, business and industry, clubs and associations,
and other local players are to take on responsibility in developing
and implementing local programmes.
The overriding aim of the programme is to counter the generation
or consolidation of disadvantagement and to promote the improvement
of local living conditions. So it tries to make cities visible
as a hole, not only certain sectors of them.
The following map with the towns and cities involved in the programme
shows clearly that the tackled problems can be found all over
Germany not only in certain parts of the country.
 |
Federal/LänderSocially Integrative
City programme and URBAN II cities
|
2. One of Difu's roles concerning this programme was that of
a concomitant research. Federal, Länder- and local Governments
shared the opinion, that it might be helpful, to support an advice
to the towns and cities implementing the programme, and to mobilize
and challenge them where necessary.
Federal research funds have therefore been invested in an interregional
mediation, information and advice agency to boost implementation
of the programme in the municipalities concerned. Difu has been
commissioned with this task in its role as a predominantly privately
founded research institute which also receives small support from
the federal government and from 130 municipalities, a kind of
solidarity fee.
The concomitant research focused to a large extent on three elements:
promoting communication and sharing of findings among players,
reinforcing and investigating programme implementation in one
"pilot district" in each Land, called "onsite programme
support", and conducting two nationwide surveys at the outset
of the programme in 2000 and about two years later, in 2002. The
following figure gives an overview of the elements of our activities.
 |
Programme support elements
|
In the second survey we found certain types of success and a
lot of problems still to tackle. Successes could primarily be
found on the instrumental-strategic fields of activities, such
as improved participation, activation of new population segments,
better cooperation between different departments of the administration,
esp. more neighbourhood-rapport of municipalities and politicians;
and the mood in the districts could be improved as well as the
image of these neighbourhoods. It's not too much, but 2 or 3 years
is not a long period regarding the complexity of the problems.
But the potentials of the people in these areas begin to be activated.
3. This is in very short the background of what I want to stress
as necessary additional elements to what Bas Verkerk and Eurocities
say.
What in the opinion of nearly all actors involved in the Socially
integrative city-Programme is crucial for successes - and therefore
should be part of the demands of EU Structural funds - are
a) integrated action plans, tailored at the local situation,
b) citizen participation, empowerment and coproduction of district
development and
c) concomitant research in the above mentioned sense.
4. Integration of actions and finances of other policy sectors
is necessary not only for diverse building investments, but esp.
for different economic, social and cultural measures. In Germany
social measures are not addressed to certain areas. Such a sociospatial
approach is called for from youth welfare and social researchers
for a long time. It doesn't replace an individual approach in
any case, but often it is more appropriate to kinds of problems
and it might help prevent some severe problems of individuals.
A sociospatial approach allows and requires cooperation between
the planning or renewal department and social departments, which
up to now is quite unusual in Germany. The federal youth ministry
therefore set up an own programme only for the districts in the
socially integrative City-Programme and so enhanced cooperation
in this field. In the meantime there are many examples of good
results of such cooperation, because very often it is a win-win-situation.
This often is the case in the cooperation with other sectors,
esp. economic promotion, too. But there are not so many examples
yet.
In any case: If the social problems as lack of labour, health
care and many others, esp. a good school in the neighbourhood,
are not solved, any UDP will fail. By the way: Resource pooling
from different departments and employment of funds was more efficient
when there was an integrated action plan.
5. Participation does not mean the classical way that government
asks people for their opinion to more or less pre-decided measures
or plans.
The programme aims not to do something for inhabitants in these
districts, but to promote development there hand in hand with
residents. This poses a challenge to many professional urban planners,
social workers and youth welfare officers, who have learned and
studied what is in people's best interests. They must relinquish
some of their decision-making powers and be willing to engage
in open dialogue with citizens.
However, residents are also challenged and expected to articulate
their interests and realize them in cooperation with local government.
To regard the authorities as a necessary partner in achieving
their goals, often doesn't have a long tradition in such districts.
Trust must be built up; this takes time, but it is necessary and
possible.
Of course, local government cannot simply wait and see whether
people wish to be involved in decision making. It must actively
seek to mobilize and empower them. The state is therefore no longer
a bureaucratic, service-performing institution, but one which
mobilizes citizens, requires and facilitates their participation
and encourages them to assume responsibility.
The programme strives to foster and reinforce this process by
calling for the establishment of a three level neighbourhood management,
incorporating the neighbourhood, local government and an intermediary.
 |
Neighborhood management - Areas of responsibility
and organisation
|
Neighbourhood management has the task of contacting people and
establishing structures which comply with the requirements I just
have listed. And of course it is not limited to citizens, but
must involve local industry, shop keepers, restaurants etc. and
Not-for-profit-organisations, too. The following figurs shows
the structure of such an neighbourhood management. It is based
on the experioence of Difu and the University of Essen and with
more or less modifications can be found in most of the districts
involved into the programme.
This requires within the administration the establishment of
interdepartmental project groups and the introduction of decision-making
processes which make citizens' involvement relevant. In the case
of larger measures, it goes without saying that the final decision
must lie with the elected local council. This ensures the commitment
of the whole municipality. Nevertheless, citizens themselves can
take many smaller decisions and implement them by drawing on a
free money-fund not earmarked for any specific purpose, for example.
This is very important for activating people, building up self-confidence
and trust.
It is understandable that local politicians are not always happy
with such decision-making structures. But if they give innovations
a change and get involved, as they do in many towns and cities,
they do not lose their standing but improve contact with residents,
gain influence and win trust. This effectively combats the political
reluctance which can be observed in many areas, without causing
"problems of democratic theory". On the contrary: Claude
Jacquier, a researcher from Grenoble, points out that the reference
to this topic of participative democracy "is all the more
strong since representative democracy is then in crisis, having
lost its capacity to represent diversity of social groups and
involved interests (abstention, corporatism and electoral clientelism)".
6. The usefulness of a concomitant research for exchange of experience,
stabilizing the actors inside und outside of local administration
I already have pointed out. It of course doesn't replace an independent
evaluation of the programme, but it can provide a lot of information
and links for effective evaluation. In Germany an in between evaluation
of the Socially integrative city programme just has started.
7. Let me come to the end. The Socially integrative city programme
as all UDP's all over Europe cannot solve the severe problems
coming out from economic and social change alone. But without
such integrative programmes orientated at the special and complex
problems and diverse potentials of people in disadvantaged areas,
building up social capital, self confidence and a better image
of these districts, people in these deprived neighbourhoods would
remain disadvantaged, even if economic development would offer
new chances. They wouldn't or they couldn't take advantage of
it. So the EU should strongly support integrative and participatory
UDP's and with this support researchers doing a good work for
the disadvantaged in a concomitant research.
|
