The discourse on ‘Smart Cities’ is everywhere. It promises an era of innovative urban planning, driven by smart urban technologies that will make cities safer, cleaner and, above all, more efficient. Efficiency seems uncontroversial but does it make for great cities? In this book, Maarten Hajer, Director-general of PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and Ton …
“Strong Stories. How the Dutch are reinventing spatial planning“ (010 Publishers, 2010) Spatial planning in the Netherlands involves a diverse range of partnerships between government bodies, centres of knowledge, the public, and organizations in the private sector. Experiments with interactive, development-oriented planning have been going on for some years, especially at the regional level. …
Now in paperback: Authoritative Governance: Policy Making in the Age of Mediatization (Oxford University Press, hb 2009, pb 2011) The role of the media has become a central part of politics and policy in the twenty-first century. That dominance has led many to suggest a trend of ‘dumbing down’: the privileging of style over content. …
