Table of contents

Mainstreaming: how to stabilize innovations and change current practices

Urban regeneration is a very special case of public policy. It differs from other public sector tasks. Neighbourhood-based approaches are limited in terms of time, space and scope. One major finding is that they are still mostly experimental in character and have only been running for some years or are being under review. They are only employed for deprived neighbourhoods and do not represent a city-wide approach to urban governance, and they do not replace ongoing servicing of the neighbourhoods, which is still sectorally organised.

However, after years of such special intervention – some of the neighbourhoods have a forty years’ history of regeneration schemes – it becomes evident that problems are surfacing again and again. Consequently, a core challenge of urban regeneration schemes is to create more sustainable solutions and through finding ways to integrate regeneration policies into the mainstream sectoral policies of the cities.

'Mainstreaming', or the infusion and alteration of mainstream policies, can take different forms. Public mainstream policies can be 'bent' towards poor communities by reallocating resources to reflect their greater need. Core programmes may be 'sensitised' to local circumstances, or it can be tried to 'cut across the silos' of traditional, sectoral service delivery. The cases looked at give examples for each, but a common finding is that successful mainstreaming is so far the exception.

To 'cut across silos' of public departments and their sectoral responsibilities is one of the core aims of the integrated approaches we looked at. In steering boards, various departments of local administration and sometimes representatives of businesses and civil society come together and jointly decide on the direction of the programmes. These boards are crucial to facilitate a common understanding of the local problems. More often than not, they simply facilitate getting to know each other. However, so far different administrative cultures, in particular between departments that are used to budgeting and spending on 'hardware' (such as construction and building tasks) and others that come from a 'software' approach (such as social services, culture), could often not be overcome. It turned out to be even more problematic when such integrated boards applied only at local level and only for neighbour-hoods 'in need' exclusively. 'Real integration', it appeared, would be much easier, if at higher levels such efforts would be backed by reforming the public sector more fundamentally. Mainstreaming is about informing and grounding such reforms.