Changing Governance Processes to Make Way for Civic Involvement: The Case of Gebrookerbos in Heerlen, Netherlands

Agnes Matoga ()
Additional contact information
Agnes Matoga: Department of International Planning Systems, Technical University of Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 16, 1-16

Abstract: The effects of shrinkage can be manifold. Vacant green areas are a typical manifestation of shrinkage in deindustrialized cities, such as Heerlen, Netherlands. Such challenges are usually managed by the municipality which, due to financial reasons, often has to turn to citizens to aid in accommodating those effects. The example of Gebrookerbos in Heerlen shows how an adaptation of governance processes can take place in order to facilitate the involvement of citizens in reusing vacant spaces. The introduction of the position of account manager as well as brooker are being regarded as essential for shortening the distance between municipality and citizens as well as contributing to replacing the mistrust towards the municipality, which is in line with existing research on depopulating areas. Further, making a plethora of funding options and projects available for civic initiatives ensures the longevity of civic involvement. Finally, the findings show how working on the “hardware”, the visible vacancy and deterioration of the land—by adapting the “software”, the institutional set up and focusing on civic empowerment—of a shrinking city can go hand in hand.

Keywords: governance; experimental governance; shrinking cities; civic involvement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/16/10126/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/16/10126/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:16:p:10126-:d:888896

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().