Intro to Urban Regeneration

Case of study:

Kop van Zuid, Rotterdam (The Netherlands)

Leonardo Augusto de Oliveira Moura

Dez/2013

Introduction

Kop van Zuid is new neighbourhood of Rotterdam, Netherlands, located in the south shore of the river Maas, that area used to important docks, but was abandoned when the activities were moved down the river in the 1960’s and 1970’s. That area was largely occupied by warehouses, train lines and was very badly connected to the city centre. The surrounding neighbourhood consisted mainly of poor people who used to work in the pier and in the companies associated to it, the level of education was low and the unemployment was high. It was marked by a low-quality living environment and week social-economic structure, making difficult to attract commercial activities and people to live there.

The Kop van Zuid project appears as a new hope to transform Rotterdam completely, making the whole city attractive to investments and to people to live there, this project appears to connect the city centre to an area where none attention was given after its decadence, if done right the project not only would connect the city but also open the south side of the city to the market.

The regeneration of the area is considered a success; it is a mix-used area, with residential, educational, commercial and leisure uses. New buildings have been built, changing the landscape, the internal circulation with the new Erasmus Bridge and its first Metro was upgraded connecting the south area to the centre, giving to the city a new face and attracting new people who are needed to modernise the city’s economy.

Regeneration of Kop van Zuid (KVZ)

Historical background

Rotterdam is a city located near to the North Sea, the development of the city has always been connected to the ability to control the waterways, and take advantage of its privileged location within Europe. All the main activities of the city were directly connected to the port, the transport, workers, infra-structure and etc., as the years passed by, and the relocation of the port downriver, the south of the city was completely abandoned, and forgot by the city council, many problems affected the area, such as high level of unemployment, a huge number of workers who depended of the port lost their jobs with the relocation of the docks, the education was low, high level of low skill immigrants and violent environment. With all these problems, the government decided to step in and try to regenerate the area. But this project was not only important to Rotterdam, but to Holland itself, the regenerated area would attract resident of the most populated areas with the possibility of the high quality of life and jobs opportunities, with this decreasing the density of the population in the big cities, and at the same time would increase the local market with new skilled and enthusiastic workers.

The project

The plan to regenerate the Kop van Zuid was audacious; the aims of the project weren’t only to change an abandoned port area, but change Rotterdam as a whole. The goals of the project were strong and clear, change the Rotterdam’s face, not only to the outsiders (investors and enterprising) but change also the image to the existing population. The river was seen as a repelling part of the city, by its historical background of unemployment and social problems. To deal with this problems the Kop van Zuid project intended to solve this issues linking this areas straight to the city centre, trough the Erasmus Bridge and by the Metro, creating cultural activities and create multi-uses spaces, invest in high-tech and quality buildings to change the landscape, giving to the city a modern face and attracting to attract new investors and qualified workers, re-use existing buildings where possible to maintain the identity of the local and develop a programme of “mutual-benefit” to make sure that the poor people along the regenerated area would have benefit from it.

Achievements

The new masterplan for Kop van Zuid aimed to create a series of new buildings and quarters, in order to comport the population and at the same time create new jobs for those who used to live there. Two university colleges with 10,000 students were built to increase the use of the land. The masterplan provides 5,300 houses and 400,000m² of offices, business, educational and leisure facilities. In addition, the transportation and the access to the south side of the city were increased and lead to a new era for that area. New

investments appeared and people got more confident about the return that they would have if investing in that area, what would not have gone ahead without the regeneration project. The project has also created the feeling of belonging in the residents of the area, and trough the time will form “balanced” communities.

Connecting the city

As the area was inaccessible in the past, people were not confident about the potential of its potential. Some key projects were essential to the success of the project in its connectivity to the city centre, some of them are: The iconic Erasmus Bridge, the new Metro station and the redevelopment of the road connections to the ring road. As the train railway lines are underground, the use of the surface was greatly increased, connecting the pedestrians path with the new residential areas, and suburban stations helped to improve the local accessibility. The Erasmus Bridge is one of the fundamental projects to connect the city, Kop van Zuid is now well connected to the city centre and to the southern districts. Those improvements made the population of the north of the river visit south bank, and brought a lot of investments and increased the need for stores, supermarkets and entertainment, what generated a lot of new jobs and opportunities. Allied to this, the emergence of good public transportation, high quality urban constructions and pedestrians routes has helped to attract new people to live in that area, the rising prices of the property are encouraging existing people to stay and becomes a desirable place to live.

Landscape changing

Not only the public architecture was focused, a lot of new buildings emerged in the area, made by famous architects as Sir Normam Foster, Renzo Piano and Rem Koolhas. Not only new buildings has been built, old ones have been restored and now have many different purposes, combining the past and the future, connecting two different times, and connecting the city itself. Although some of the activities, as restaurants, failed as insufficient demand had yet to be built.

The government invested in high urban design, the art is used to connect the area to its historical background, there is good lightning, good street furniture, it is a clean area, served by lots of cleaners and there is ample parking spaces combine with wide tree-lined pavements, which usually incorporate a cycle lane.

It is densely developed, with high density of activities surrounding the transport nodes. The residential style follows the Brith standards (three room flats built by a housing corporation). There is a great variety of residential buildings, each block is made by a different architect, but there is a overall design framework, which includes for example, requirement that each house should have its own outdoor space. Even the public transportation being good, car park is provided, at least one spot per house. This means that we can use the underground of some buildings to car parking, keeping the street frontage for the public use. The constant view of the river and old docks, along with extensive street trees, and some small gardens, help people to keep in touch with nature.

Rotterdam’s new face

As the project it is now stated as a success in terms of mixed-use areas and connection to city centre, it played a important role in the regeneration of the city itself, making the city attractive to the investors and to the people who work in them. In the past, Rotterdam feared that could never compete with Amsterdam as a office centre, but it is now happening. The city was recognized as capital of the culture in 2001, unemployment hs fallen drastically from 17% in 1991 to 6% 2005 and the population of the city is rising again. What has helped this success is the new housing, it has attracted new people to live in the city, about 40% of the residents came from outside the region. This people are attracted by the prestige, location and facilities offered by the emergent neighbourhood, furthermore, Amsterdam is becoming more and more expansive, and it is no supporting the amount of dwellers, so Rotterdam is becoming the place to creative people to be. This is what the city needed to be replaced in the global market.

Benefits for all

The immigration of people with low dexterity, associated with the new market, put a lot of pressure in Rotterdam. While the Kop van Zuid was being built to repositioning Rotterdam for the future, there was a danger that the surrounding poor communities stayed the same, unaffected; one example is the specific area of Feyenoord. Feyenoord is a poor distric with many problems, such as: high unemployment, low educational attainment, high crime rate, pollution and a high level of immigrants. Before the regeneration of the docks started, the city council was concerned about the danger of built a new modern and luxury enterprise next to the deprived areas and how it would affect them. It was agreed that efforts would be made to guarantee that the project also create benefits for the surrounding. The

municipally approved in 1991 the project Mutual Benefit, the main goal of this project is to use the Redevelopment of the Kop van Zuid to help improve the socio-economic condition of the residents of the poor neighbourhoods. The project aimed to employ the people form the area to the work in the regeneration process and revitalise and promote small and medium enterprises in the neighbourhood.

Many different organizations were made to recruit people and help them to find jobs, however, the number of employees were far less than the expected.

“The Mutual Benefit (Social Return) team sought to create economic benefits through incentives for private companies to hire local people for the development and maintenance of Kop van Zuid. They also funded projects to restructure and upgrade shopping streets, and to establish educational facilities with capacity for the surrounding neighbourhoods. Clear guidelines in national urban policy together with financial incentives for collaboration between the different sectors, should ensure that policies for social cohesion are turned into results. However the attempt to secure major spin-offs from the development of Kop van Zuid for local employment did not work out as intended, particularly as far as construction jobs were concerned, as companies used their existing work forces. Nevertheless the efforts were appreciated.”(Hoek,pag.26,2008)

Another progreme that aimed to help in the spread of the benefits of the Kop van Zuid is the Opzoomeren. “Since 2000, the Opzoomeren programme, which started in Hoogliet, has operated successfully in over 700 of some 2,400 streets with 4 staff and 50 others, with a target for agreeing social contracts in 150 streets by 2006” (Hoek,pag.27,2008). The program is divided in phases, each phase aims specific results and the following phase depends of the previous one.

The first part of the program is focused in discover the individuals streets instead of the wider area. It is focused in the unsafe neighbourhoods. The program starts with the diagnostic of the area, understanding its problems and who is living there, and the locals are encouraged to take care of the place and built relationship with their neighbourhoods. The first step of this program is making people know each other.

The second stage is called “Urban etiquette”, basically in this stage people start to accept the rules for a peaceful coexistence, just some simple things that can improve the clean and the organization of the streets. Finally, the community agrees with one social contract that secures the cooperation. Families who may cause problems are visited and threatened with sanctions. The program benefits both sides, the city, as a whole, by keeping the streets clean and safe by its own habitants, with no need of workers properly, and the community, which receives investments.

However, the final process takes months and focus in encourage groups to help keep the contract and improve the community.

“The first phase then takes 3-4 months and the result is an agenda from and for the street. This may, for example, involve activities for children. It also involves appointments with corporate organisations to get them to take care of the street provided local people play their part. The final implementation phase in theory can last for ever. There is a bonus for the street of 4,500 euros (£3,000) to help build civic pride and safety.” (Hoek,pag.27,2008)

Conclusion

Critically analysing the regeneration project and seeing what was exposed in this study, we can see that the Kop van Zuid can be considered a success, both economically and socially. The implementation of the new transportation system and implementation of new way to access the area were fundamental to development of the housing construction and establishment of the new economic model. The train and the Erasmus Bridge now connect the Kop van Zuid and the surrounding to the city centre in less time and more efficiently. The KVZ changed the Rotterdam’s face, turned the city from an obsolete ways of production and no skilled professionals to a city where the creative people go, more and more talented and well qualified people come from around the Holland and world attracted not only for the job offer in the region, but for the quality of life that now is accessible to the most part of the immigrants. The house market suffered a boom and with the huge investment in housing comes the confidence to invest, and the movement of people around the city and even in the country helped to rebalance the population. This mix of genders and cultures helped the city to be recognized as a cosmopolitan city, where people from different backgrounds mix together and share experiences, ideas and information. All this increasing in the number of residents brought a demand for local shops and services, creating jobs and improving the local business and market. In the other hand, the local people who used to live there were not put apart, the social programs that came with the project helped the population who needed more attention, giving to them the opportunity of take care of the area, increasing the use of the public spaces and keeping them safe and clean. In general terms, the project was well developed and executed, the social was much important as the economic, what makes this project a huge example to be followed, nevertheless, the process of regeneration is a constant work, the social programs are good, and now depends of the population make it still working or not.

Bibliography

Hoek, R.M (2000), “Redevelopment of Large Harbour Cities, the case of Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam”, Euricur, Erasmus University

Blok, H; Botman, S; van Kempen,R; Langemeijer,M; Musterd,S and Ostendorf,W (2000) URBEX Series, No 6 “Comparative Statistical Analysis at National, Metropolitan, Local and Neighbourhood Level: The Netherlands/Amsterdam and Rotterdam”, Amsterdam: Amsterdam study centre for the Metropolitan Environment.

Coenen,F; Denters, B; Klol, P,J (2004) “Participation, Leadership and Urban Sustainability (PLUS)”, (EU) Dutch Case Study Report

Botman, S & van Kempen,R (2001) “The spatial dimensions of Urban Exclusion and Integration, The case of Rotterdam” URBEX series, Urbex series no.19, Amsterdam, AME

Marco van Hoek. 2008. REGENERATION IN EUROPEAN CITIES. [ONLINE] Available at:http://media.urbed.coop.ccc.cdn.faelix.net/sites/default/files/Case%20Study%20for%20Kop%20Van%20Zuid,%20Rotterdam.pdf. [Accessed 06 December 13].

Needham, B; Koenders, P; Kruijt, B (1993) “The Netherlands in Urban land and property markets”, UCL Press, London

Images

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