Samenvatting

In 2010 and 2011 a committee of experts inspected if and how forty of the most deprived areas in Dutch cities have benefitted from the major national neighbourhood policy program launched by the previous government in 2007. The aim of the program was to restore living conditions in those areas within the next ten years, by investments in the physical, social and economic field, thus trying to improve the living conditions and chances (social mobility) of the neighbourhood citizens. According to the Committee, the forty neighbourhoods have proved to be laboratories for institutional change. There is growing confidence among local parties that with less disintegrated bureaucracy and more possibilities for citizen initiatives, interventions can be organised which are more effective and cheaper. Realising the objectives of the neighbourhood approach demands continuous involvement, effective organization, creative solutions and intensive contact between professionals and citizens. Government organizations and institutions need to relinquish control and facilitate and support the problem solving abilities of the professionals and citizens, who live and work in these neighbourhoods day in day out. In the most problematic neighbourhoods of Dutch cities, the seeds of the new welfare state are being planted.