Samenvatting

The city is hot: solutions to the world’s everyday problems are increasingly sought at the local level. Local administrations are handed more responsibilities through decentralizations and much is expected of the pragmatic skills of mayors. A great deal of hope is directed at the self-organizing abilities of cities, which can be seen as laboratories for social change and improvement. In this themed issue we will critically review these high expectations of cities and the local level. Can cities live up to these expectations, and at what point does ‘hope’ become ‘hype’? This introductory article mainly focuses on the concept of living labs, which are presented as an accessible, innovative and pragmatic way to address social issues in neighbourhoods.