What is a prachtwijk?
Prachtwijk — literally “splendid neighbourhood” — was the term the Dutch minister Ella Vogelaar used in 2007 for the forty neighbourhoods that received extra central government investment because of an accumulation of social, physical and economic problems. She herself preferred krachtwijken (power neighbourhoods) and prachtwijken; policy documents generally call them aandachtswijken (priority neighbourhoods), and in everyday speech they became known as Vogelaarwijken.
The list of forty was announced on 22 March 2007 by Vogelaar, then Minister for Housing, Neighbourhoods and Integration in the fourth Balkenende cabinet.
What the approach involved
The starting point was that you do not improve a neighbourhood by demolishing and rebuilding alone. The programme therefore worked on five fronts at once:
- Housing — restructuring, demolition and new build, refurbishment, and greater variety in dwelling types and tenures
- Work — employment, enterprise, tackling unemployment
- Learning and growing up — education, extended schools, youth facilities
- Integration — participation and social cohesion
- Safety — nuisance, crime, management of public space
The aim was measurable improvement within ten years. Funding came partly from central government and partly from the housing associations.
What it meant in building terms
For the built environment this generally meant post-war housing: stairwell-access and slab blocks from the reconstruction period with small floor plans, poor insulation and dated services. Typical interventions:
- Demolition and replacement at lower density
- Combining small flats into larger dwellings
- Adding one or two storeys on top of existing blocks
- Retrofitting lifts to stairwell-access blocks
- Insulation upgrades, new windows and renewed building services
- Redesign of public space: lighting, parking, planting, sightlines
The aftermath
The approach remains contested. Research by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research, among others, found no clear evidence that the forty neighbourhoods improved faster than comparable areas that received no extra money. Opponents read that as confirmation the programme did not work; supporters pointed out that the investment was scaled back quickly after the financial crisis and that ten years is short for processes of this kind. Since 2022 a new area-based programme for vulnerable neighbourhoods has been running under the name Nationaal Programma Leefbaarheid en Veiligheid.
Related terms
- Urban renewal
- Restructuring
- Housing association
- Social housing
- Post-war reconstruction
- Roof extension
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