Integrated Urban Development & Area Based Approaches

Cities are becoming increasingly complex and face major sustainability challenges. The city is being shaped through a complex interplay of use, actions and interventions by users such as: residents, visitors, entrepreneurs, developers and also by professionals from different government agencies, market parties and non-profit organizations.

A future-proof city therefore bases its plans and policy on a coherent analysis and vision that does justice to the experiences, knowledge and ideas of all these parties. A collaborative holistic and integrated, area based approach offers a meaningful framework for developing the analysis and vision and for guiding the development of a city in a desirable direction. This approach is also challenging in practice since it requires collaboration among people that bring in their diverse backgrounds, methods, experiences, different uses of terminology, language, and working culture.

Cities Hub Initiatives

The Cities Hub partners with the Veldacademie in delivering a course on integrated urban development for urban professionals. In its current form the course is developed for professionals working at Rotterdam Municipality from various professional backgrounds and departments who need to work together on integrated urban development by making use of area based approaches. As part of this approach we have also experimented with a short workshop focused on concept mapping by urban professionals. The Veldacademie and the LDE CfS Cities Hub explore possibilities for offering this course to a larger audience. Are you interested to follow such a course, as individual, or to discuss possibilities for tailoring it, based on the needs of your team or organisation? Or do you have experience with Integrated Urban Development and Area Based approaches and with training professionals and are you interested to become a  contracted trainer for this course? Then you can contact Saskia Ruijsink (LDE CfS) or Ruth Höppner (Veldacadmie).