Dialogue of urban development practices
UrbanCommunity Experiment Recap (Rotterdam, Netherlands)
In 2021, a group of people got together to start a place for the neighbourhood, called The_Space. During this period, we were able to kickstart the peer_protocol Foundation for the development of urban and digital commons and have taken notes from different community-led initiatives. On March 22, 2024, we organised the Dialogue Øf Urban Development Practices to discuss the themes that The Space embodies.
Thanks to the support of ICLEI — Local Governments for Sustainability and the Robert Bosch Foundation, this past March, we were able to gather representatives of several local initiatives in a dialogue about inclusive and ecological approaches of and beyond our city of Rotterdam. Across the 3 panels, they have discussed community living, communal urban development and the opportunities to engage with local authorities in the Right to Challenge panel.
Having worked in the field of urban planning in over 10 countries, director of Urban Green Deals Tom van Geest, argued for a paradigm shift to a neighbourhood and community-driven economy:
“The total value that comes back to the municipality is 9 times of what is invested. This is an illustration of the shift from more market and government-driven approaches to what a community can do by organising and coming together.”
Speakers also touched on the topic of temporality in community experimentation:
“Temporality is out of necessity. There’s no other way to get free space to experiment unless it is temporary.” Piet Vollaard
Even if temporary, living together seems to go hand-in-hand with a cultural offer. The City in the Making Foundation has provided such experimental living grounds on a temporary basis for over 10 years. In doing so, it has afforded to its residents a democratic practice and a common budget from which its results last even longer than those entertaining online street assemblies. Their last City (in the) Making endeavour is the soon-to-close living community “Vlaardingen Commons”. “Whatever happens, we want to leave something behind” said Piet Vollaard, one of the foundation’s creators, currently engaged in conversation with the housing corporation to maintain the collective garden in the renovation plans.
This ambition is parallel to a garden that also became shared in the IJzerblock, where The_Space was located. In our own attempt to leave something behind, we have hosted several participatory dinners at The_Space. Whilst it remains to be seen whether we will be even heard, people did participate. Furthermore, in the same hope that our collective garden can stay, we hosted one last event in which we named its trees. Perhaps Shadyest van Delfshaven can stay?
I would like to also highlight the City of Rotterdam’s kind provision of the Timmerhuis as a venue in which this Dialogue took place. It was made available in partnership with the Cultuur & Campus research project. In its contribution to the Dialogue and thanks to the co-funding by the European Union, Cultuur & Campus is a pilot project for sustainable and inclusive urban development. Ultimately, it carries the same name as the initiative to create a common campus for higher learning institutions in Rotterdam Zuid. It, for both its vision and, as explained by Amanda Brandellero, objective of generating research questions in place of imposing them, is a distinguishable project with great potential for positive impact.
This direction has been set by the New European Bauhaus programme by the European Commission. As participants in the programme, The_Space’s non-commercial approach meant 300 events and 3000 unique visits during its 3-year period in which we facilitate, as Antoine would say, “social temporary use”. Whilst the practice is institutionalised beyond the Maas river, we will keep looking for partners that can provide that unique context that seems to be so much the demand in our city.
Francisco Santos
Francisco at peerprotocol.nl
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Revisit the Dialogue Øf Urban Development Practices with the videos below
Right to Challenge panel — Dialogue of urban development practices 03/24
Community Living panel — Dialogue of urban development practices 03/24
Communal Urban Development panel — Dialogue of urban development practices 03/24
This blog was written by our UrbanCommunity experimenter Francisco Santos, with light editing from us. It is part of a series of narrative reports on how the experimenters have used the UrbanCommunity micro-funds to collaborate with their local government towards sustainable and just cities.
