The End of Social Innovation in Urban Development Strategies?

Abstract

This article examines the changes since the 1970s in the urban political regime in Antwerp. It focuses on the period 1990—2005; there was a shift from the traditional physical renewal policy (including social housing construction) of the 1980s, to a neighbourhood-based socially innovative urban development policy (1990s), and finally to a more mainstream real-estate led and market-driven urban policy starting in 2002. The article addresses both the material and discursive practices of main actors within the spheres of political and civil society. The analysis is built around the history of the neighbourhood development association BOM, once a leading urban policy innovator, but closed down in 2005 because it no longer fitted within the `new' city-hall-controlled top-down urban policy concept.