Many people argue that we are in a polycrisis, suffering the combined effects of climate change, armed conflicts and growing inequalities. Governments and other institutions face huge challenges in maintaining public services, trust and a functioning democracy. Cities are important for our societies. On World Cities Day, against the backdrop of dwindling public financial resources, we need to explore new pathways to a prosperous future for our cities and their populations. 

Urban regeneration is about improving the physical, social, economic and cultural quality of living environments. Notwithstanding successes, four decades of urban regeneration across Europe, the US and elsewhere have revealed perverse effects. These range from overreliance on top-down planning, to gentrification and displacement of residents. Traditional real-estate-driven regeneration tends to see housing as a commodity and tool of speculation rather than a means to a good life or a human right. Growing citizen dissatisfaction with schemes designed to give them a voice in urban regeneration policy-making has also eroded trust in governments. Together, these factors have set the stage to explore fundamentally different approaches to regeneration.

As simple as ABCD

One of those approaches is asset-based community development (ABCD). This so-called place-based strategy strengthens communities by bringing people together and harnessing effective use of local resources. The premise is that communities can lead the regeneration process by identifying and mobilising existing, but often unrecognised, assets. Those assets include knowledge, residents’ skills, experience, time (volunteering) and passion, but also buildings, public spaces, networks and organisations. Unlike traditional urban regeneration, ABCD focuses on what’s strong, not what’s wrong. And it is propelled by slow but steadily increasing trust between community members and professional institutions. Its logic is diametrically opposed to the steering mechanisms of urban regeneration based on governments’ New Public Management principles, top-down planning and strict targets.

ABCD can muster a richer array of resources than just public or private funding. It puts communities at the heart of regeneration, making residents eager to mobilise different kinds of resources, since the benefits are more likely to accrue to them. By increasing the focus on local assets, governments can also deploy public funds in a more targeted way than larger programmes that involve big blasts of funding in the hope of making a difference.

More on urban regeneration:

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• London's high street revival: less candy, more start-ups
• Urban regeneration often means gentrification

Stepping back and listening

Traditional real-estate-driven regeneration often fires up displacement in cities where housing markets are tight and affordable housing has become scarce. But ABCD promotes renovation and upgrades, instead of demolition and new construction. It’s also more the result of choices made by local communities. Gentrification is an unmistakable sign that the market profits from traditional regeneration. The benefits of ABCD, on the other hand, are more likely to accrue to current (poorer) residents and communities than wealthy newcomers. In other words, ABCD may reduce the risk of gentrification.

The combination of growing inequality, gentrification and half-hearted attempts to improve citizen participation in regeneration has damaged people’s trust in governments, developers and social or public housing associations. ABCD recognises that local residents are better than outside experts in engaging the wider community, by inviting them to formulate their own questions and answers. It means these institutions that traditionally lead regeneration efforts should change their role from determining the agenda, to stepping back and following up with help. They should also support community enterprises and community land trusts, which put the ownership of resources in the hands of local communities.

Regeneration policies of both governments and private actors alike are filled with the importance of social capital, resilience and citizen participation, all of which are key ABCD elements. But the reality is still far from it. On World Cities Day, we should consider ABCD as a sustainable, just and ‘slow’ alternative to real-estate driven regeneration. ABCD might just be the way to save urban regeneration in a time of polycrisis. 

Reinout Kleinhans is associate professor of urban regeneration at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Email: r.j.kleinhans@tudelft.nl