Leo van den Berg

Euricur/ Erasmus university rotterdam, netherlands · RHV

Rotterdam is a post-industrial city confronted with energy transitions and inclusion of a large group of vulnerable citizens that does not participate in the labour market. This chapter discusses how the city of Rotterdam tries to realise a more inclusive energy transition and challenges within this process. We combine literature from inclusive cit...

This chapter explores the role of frugal innovation (FI)-an approach to solve local problems through complexity reduction when resources are limited-during restrictive measures (e.g., social distancing; lockdowns; curfews) of the '1.5-metre-society'. Based on literature and an empirical case study of restaurants in the Dutch city of The Hague, we s...

Urban Agriculture (UA) has gained popularity in cities all over the world. In this paper, we explore the concept of UA and discuss it along various locational and strategic dimensions. The article aims to provide insights into the chances and challenges of UA for sustainable city development. By making use of case examples from cities worldwide we...

Many cities have invested in climate adaptation plans. This chapter analyses the climate adaptation plan of Venice – “the General Plan of Interventions (GPI)” – in order to support our argument that climate adaptation can function as a source for sustainable competitiveness. We show that this plan has not only been set up to protect the historical...

Many cities organize annual local festivals for the positive effects on urban development, although success is far from straightforward. This article reviews a case study of the World Port Days in Rotterdam in order to demonstrate how annual city festivals can contribute to sustainable competitiveness, despite limitations as well. We show how this...

Reflecting on two decades of ‘competitiveness-oriented’ urban policies in Europe, this book investigates the current challenges cities face to sustain their economic position and how this can be balanced with social progress and environmental improvements. Complementing previous surveys on local and urban development and competitiveness-based strat...

Based on a clear and comprehensive literature review, this book contains an analysis of five knowledge locations in Europe and one in South Korea. The case studies in the book cover several European countries (Ireland, Finland, Germany, Spain, The Netherlands). The cases are well grounded in the different contexts that these national settings provi...

Cities all over the world are developing ‘knowledge hotspots’: physical concentrations of knowledge-intensive or creative activity. These hotspots come in many disguises: science parks, technology parks, creative districts, design quarters, and so on. Well-known examples are Barcelona’s @22 district and Helsinki’s Arabianranta area. Increasingly, s...