Changing public space

4.3.1 Role and objectives of local government
In most European countries, responsibility for the planning and controlling of urban
development has long been vested in the municipality (Eisinger, 2000). Local authorities may
also regulate the market parties who are active in this field. In the Netherlands, they play an
additional role because much development takes place on publicly owned land. Public ownership
may have pre-dated redevelopment; alternatively, the municipality may have acquired the
property on the market or by compulsory purchase as a first step toward redevelopment. In the
past, some medium-sized and large cities in the Netherlands opted to instate a leasehold system
rather than sell the land. They took this course in order to prevent speculation, to make sure the
community would benefit from the increase in land value, and to retain the necessary flexibility
to facilitate change in the future. A leasehold system gives local authorities a dual role: that
of market regulators and market parties. Needham (2005) elaborates on the two-sided role of
government. He argues that local governments in the Netherlands – unlike many foreign ones
– hardly use any indirect strategies. Dutch authorities rarely structure the voluntary interaction
between private parties. Instead they prefer to regulate or stimulate the market, even taking the
initiative themselves if the private sector does not initiate the desired action. Apparently, Dutch
governments hesitate to give the market a large extent of freedom, and prefer to interfere and
correct for possible market failures by means of taxes, subsidies or restraints (Needham, 2006).
The involvement of local authorities in Dutch redevelopment projects goes beyond the
existence of the leasehold system. Like elsewhere in market-driven societies, it follows from the
public role in the provision of basic services such as housing and health care, and facilities for
maintaining the public order (Eisinger, 2000; Fainstein, 2001). As described above, public space
is regarded as a basic service because urban society cannot function without suitable meeting
places for its citizens. Stimulating the meeting function is thus an important motive for local
governments to get involved in the redevelopment of public space. However, municipalities
also have marketing motives for their interest in public space, because it can support and
stimulate the adjacent commercial functions or the local economy in general. City centres have
been facing stiffer competition – generated externally (from other cities) and internally (from
district shopping centres) – in their attempts to attract the increasingly mobile and footloose
higher-income residents, tourists, investments, and businesses to the city (Short & Kim,
1999; Groth & Corijn, 2005; Gospodini, 2006). To distinguish themselves, they increasingly
focus on making their public spaces spectacular, symbolic, and user-friendlier. Generally
speaking, local governments have always been mindful of the power of the image conveyed by
a fine public setting: “The creation of new public spaces can be a highly visible and relatively
inexpensive symbol of government concern with the people’s welfare …” (Carr et al., 1992: 294).
Redevelopment can also lead to higher tax revenues because property values can increase as a
result of improved public space.
According to Oc and Tiesdell (1999), local authorities have traditionally been responsible
for managing and maintaining the public spaces of city centres. However, the local state is
increasingly unable to bare the sole responsibility of the provision of public goods as a result of
declining powers and financial abilities (Section 4.2.2). In the Netherlands and elsewhere, this
has led to the privatisation of formerly state-owned services, such as waste disposal, the railways,
and postal deliveries. The perception is that it is economically better to put the production
of goods and services in the hands of the market, as this would lead to maximum efficiency
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