UGoveRN International Networking Event 2023

This post was written by Anna Hug.

On May 16^th and 17^th, 2023, the first annual UGoveRN International Networking Event took place in Amsterdam with Prof. Dr. Mike Raco (Bartlett School of Planning, UCL) as an international guest. The event was initiated on Tuesday with the Annual UGoveRN Keynote Lecture at the University of Amsterdam and continued Wednesday with an excursion in Amsterdam Noord and ended later that day with a brainstorming activity.

On Tuesday, 16^th of May, Mike was invited to speak in front of an extended audience at the University of Amsterdam within the Urban Planning Group (GPIO), initiating the 2-day event with the Annual UGoveRN Keynote Lecture. The lecture was centred around the topic of ‘Who Governs the City?’, and granted insights contextualised within Mike’s expertise; ‘the London Model – the Privatised City’, largely based on the book published in 2022 together with Frances Brill.

Poster for the Annual UGoveRN Keynote Lecture @UvA on May 16^th 2023

Topics included:

• The rise of the ‘parastate’, a system beyond public-private partnership (i.e., ‘the suite of agencies that govern alongside, on behalf of, or in place of state institutions’); a “multifaceted assemblage of private actors and experts involved directly and indirectly in the governance of development planning”, engaging in a “more structural set of interactions in which some of the separations between the public and private sectors have effectively dissolved away” (Raco & Brill, 2022, p. 52).
• An increasing lack of affordable housing due to profit-focused, market-oriented, and costly residential development (e.g., build-to-rent) by the ‘elite’, supported through the regulatory framework (e.g., tax benefits, shifts in the spatial policy).
• Governance through contract; infrastructure as a global industry and investment opportunity and the emergence of new contractual spaces produced through growth-led development strategies. 
• Questions such as who has the ‘right to regulate’? And what new challenges arise for planners through these developments?

The next day, seventeen UGoveRN members and allies gathered at Amsterdam Centraal to embark on the ferry to Buiksloterweg in Noord. The event committee had organized a tour with a total of seven stops within a 2.5-hour walk from the A’dam tower to NDSM, where we had a private lunch at the not-yet-officially open Pizzeria Pizzabakkers. 

Walking tour trajectory with stops

The trajectory, approximately 2.7 km which could be walked in around 35 minutes without stops, was chosen and curated by the event committee after visiting other sites of new development in Amsterdam. We marvelled at the incredibly diverse but also perceived fragmented landscapes and projects observable within a densely packed area. The formerly industrial neighbourhood is undergoing a paradigmatic and fast-paced transition into a residential area. Strolling through the area felt as if walking through different movie sets; from tourist attractions (A’dam tower, Eye Museum), educational facilities (Lyceum, AHK), and a ‘high-rise strip’ (Hoogbowstrip) through dense property-led residential areas over to Shell’s ‘Energy Transition Campus’. Continuing on Asterweg, we passed a ‘limbo’ of industrial landscapes speckled with diverse other usages such as VR rooms, a Youth Hostel, hip improvised restaurants, a ‘new media art’ museum (Nxt), and (seemingly temporarily installed) commercial showrooms to end up in Buiksloterham, where the municipality experiments with an ‘organic’ development strategy, combining many self-build projects, ‘circular’ single family homes on water (Schoonship), with residential property investment buildings. On Papaverweg we stopped at Van Dijk and Ko for coffee and to rummage through the large and packed former industrial halls filled with vintage furniture and home accessories to continue our tour along the somewhat dystopian view over empty land to the other Ij waterfront (e.g., Houthavens and the Pontsteiger building). Here, on Kavel 18 and 19, there used to be a waste incineration plant and two power plants, which were demolished in the 1990s. Currently, the soil is being improved by the municipality to meet legal requirements. Soon, there will be about 1’750 homes (some of them self-build), offices, business spaces and a family shelter built here. As a last stop, the area of NDSM was introduced; a protected shipyard that was occupied by squatters before being regenerated in the 2000s, a creative home to (street) art, popular restaurants, hotels, and creative spaces, whereas the West of it is redeveloped into a high-rise residential and mixed-use area.

After enjoying lunch and some catching up, the group continued to ‘Loads Co-working’, where a room was booked for a brainstorming session before ending the successful day with a drink at Noorderlicht.

UGoveRN members during the brainstorming session

Prof. Dr. Mike Raco and Prof. Dr. Tuna Taşan-Kok

Thank you to everyone for making this an unforgettable experience and we’re looking forward to the 2^nd International Networking Event in 2024! To see more snapshots and to follow current UGoveRN events, check out our Twitter account.

References:

Raco, M., & Brill, F. (2022). London. Agenda Publishing.