Neighbourhood participation in super-diverse contexts: comparing Amsterdam and Vienna

Abstract

Urban policies are increasingly localized, stressing the role of neighbourhood social contacts in generating cohesion and citizen participation. Studies on ‘everyday’ multiculturalism also emphasize the neighbourhood as a meaningful place for encounters. However, there remains a lack of understanding of how specific contexts condition encounters with difference. We compare two European neighbourhoods that provide different contexts for participation: Amsterdam and Vienna. We ask how residents experience local spaces of encounter and how this influences their experience of the neighbourhood. We find a mismatch between the aims of local policies and the experiences of residents, who also value more superficial contacts.

Keywords:

• participation
• super-diversity
• encounter
• neighbourhoods
• urban policy

1. Introduction

European cities are increasingly heterogeneous, housing both established and new migrant groups, who are increasingly recognized as internally diverse themselves. Vertovec coined the term ‘super-diversity’ to underline the complexity of these developments, encompassing all relevant aspects of diversity which influence ‘where, how, and with whom people live’ (Vertovec 2007, 1025). Responses by local authorities, service providers, and residents co-condition integration outcomes of newcomers along with other factors such as immigration status, labour market position et cetera. Migration and ethnic diversity are often politically controversial, as they are considered to pose a threat to the identity of places and social cohesion among residents, particularly when migrants are spatially concentrated in deprived areas (Robinson 2010). These areas are viewed as places in which a host of physical, economic, and social (including ethnic) problems accumulate, resulting in multiple deprivation (Vranken 2005).

Increasingly, national and municipal governments address these concerns through holistic territorial strategies. To solve problems of social exclusion and liveability, ‘hard’ physical measures, such as restructuring the housing stock, are combined with ‘soft’ social measures, for instance stimulating social interactions. Both problem and solution are thus situated at the local level (Andersson and Musterd 2005; Atkinson 2008; Van Gent, Musterd, and Ostendorf 2009). The shift of responsibility from the (national) state to local institutions and citizens fits with processes of welfare state reform and/or retrenchment (Coaffee and Healey 2003) that result in a ‘localization of the social’ (Amin 2005, 615). Neighbourhoods are not only regarded as administrative units but also as functional and meaningful places for residents. The emphasis is therefore on constituting the neighbourhood as a community through the efforts of active citizens who are expected to feel responsible for and deploy initiatives in their local environment (Lowndes and Sullivan 2008; Marinetto 2003; Newman and Tonkens 2011; Williams 2005).

The focus on urban neighbourhoods as meaningful places for residents is also evident in recent academic literature on ‘everyday’ or ‘lived’ multiculturalism (see e.g. Clayton 2009; Wise and Velayutham 2009) which looks at small-scale interactions across cultural differences and the ways in which these are spatially contingent (Neal et al. 2013). However, there is still a lack of integration between the literatures on urban neighbourhood governance and the experience of diverse places (Allen and Cars 2001). As argued by several authors (Amin and Thrift 2002; Phillips et al. 2014), more research is needed on how different (national, municipal, neighbourhood) contexts influence the way diversity plays out in a specific locale, including the role of spaces of encounter that are created as part of government interventions. In this contribution, we examine whether and how local initiatives create spaces of encounter where residents of diverse backgrounds can build social relations. A more in-depth look into the dynamics of participation in contexts of high diversity can contribute to debates on the circumstances under which intergroup contacts are experienced positively, and how local initiatives can be designed to facilitate encounters among residents. Thus, the study responds to calls for research that identifies ‘key forms of space and contact that might yield positive benefits’ (Vertovec 2007, 1046).The study is carried out in two different urban contexts, Amsterdam and Vienna. Both represent internationally significant case studies of cities in which ethnic diversity has long been a reality but remains a dynamic question due to the continued incorporation of new groups and identities into the city and neighbourhood, the effects of which are politically contested.

2. Organizing encounters with difference

Super-diversity challenges policy-makers seeking to organize communities and provide services for a diversifying population (Vertovec 2007). Neighbourhood diversity might undermine residents’ sense of belonging as it makes everyday routines and interactions more uncertain and unpredictable (Neal et al. 2013; Wise 2010). On the other hand, when diversity has become unremarkable and ‘commonplace’ (Wessendorf 2013), the shared use of public spaces may also create a degree of mutual acknowledgement and feelings of comfort based on public familiarity – recognizing others and being recognized in local spaces (Blokland and Nast 2014). While such encounters do not necessarily increase understanding of the other or result in more sustained relations, their presence may nevertheless serve to stave off prejudice (Wessendorf 2013). However, Valentine (2008) warns that interactions in diverse neighbourhoods are always embedded within existing power relations and shaped by people’s accumulated social experiences (see also Chimienti and Van Liempt 2015). Rather than having a positive influence, sustained encounters can also reproduce negative stereotypes and breed conflict.

With the potential benefits of encounters in mind, local governments have invested in purposefully created micro-spaces of local organizations and initiatives (Matejskova and Leitner 2011) that facilitate the creation of social links between residents. These could potentially function as ‘local micro-publics of social contact and encounter’ (Amin 2002, 959) that allow participants to step out of their ‘ordinary’ environment and social roles into spaces of displacement and destabilization. According to the contact hypothesis (Allport 1979), under the right circumstances, interpersonal contact between majority and minority groups has the potential to reduce prejudice. The criteria for positive contact are personal interaction, equal status between the groups, cooperation towards a common goal, and support of authorities, law, or customs. If these are fulfilled, contact would enhance knowledge about out-groups, reduce anxiety, and increase empathy, resulting in less prejudice (Pettigrew and Tropp 2008). Neighbourhood projects which offer sustained engagement and cooperation between individuals of different groups in a neutral space approximate Allport’s conditions for beneficial contact (Matejskova and Leitner 2011), as well as Amin’s (2002) description of micro-publics.

In-depth studies of projects aiming to increase participation and cohesion in diverse neighbourhoods show that while these provide opportunities for interethnic encounters, their nature can both foster and foreclose understanding across group lines (see e.g. Askins and Pain 2011; Bloch and Dreher 2009; Matejskova and Leitner 2011; Phillips et al. 2014). This suggests that more conditions need to be fulfilled in order for contacts to be experienced as positive, such as local ownership of the initiative, shared activities or goals (Askins and Pain 2011; Matejskova and Leitner 2011) and mechanisms to overcome power inequalities between individuals and groups (Phillips et al. 2014). The open-ended nature of encounters with difference in local spaces (potentially destabilizing or reinforcing pre-existing attitudes and boundaries) necessitates paying close attention to interactions as they unfold in specific contexts.

3. Participation and institutional embeddedness

Resident engagement in super-diverse neighbourhoods can take different forms, ranging from participation in top-down organized initiatives to bottom-up grassroots movements. The institutional context influences how local initiatives are organized and which kinds of participation are stimulated. As Cornwall (2004) notes, ‘invited spaces’, which are provided by institutions at their terms, result in different dynamics and outcomes than ‘popular spaces’, which are initiated by members of the public (see also Jupp 2008). Yet ‘popular spaces’ can become co-opted and/or institutionalized, and ‘invited spaces’ may be used for counter-hegemonic purposes. Recent studies on social cohesion policies (Eizaguirre et al. 2012; Miciukiewicz et al. 2012) also show an increasing prevalence of hybrid forms of ‘bottom-linked’ participation, whereby initiatives developed by residents are supported and realized through top-down policies. While this provides new opportunities for residents to engage with and potentially influence policies, there is a danger that such participation mainly serves to legitimize top-down interventions (Jones 2003; Teernstra and Pinkster 2015) or to shift responsibilities for neighbourhood development from the state unto local communities (Taylor 2007). It is, therefore, necessary to further examine the ‘meanings and practices associated with participation’ (Cornwall 2008, 269) in order to understand who participates, under which circumstances, and what this means.

A first question that should be asked is who can take part and who cannot or does not want to participate (Kesby 2007). Problems faced by local communities are often framed as resulting from a lack of participation (Jones 2003; Williams 2005) and non-participation of individuals or groups is problematized as a sign of inability or unwillingness (Mathers, Parry, and Jones 2008; Taylor 2007). In fact, differences in participation result not only from individuals’ motivations, but also depend on the compositional characteristics of the neighbourhood. For example, ethnic diversity at the neighbourhood level may negatively affect the number of local organizations and their success rate (Vermeulen, Laméris, and Minkoff 2016), in particular when these organizations themselves have an ethnically diverse membership (Vermeulen, Tillie, and van de Walle 2012).

Barriers to participation can arise due to inequalities in terms of skills, resources, and bargaining position between various actors involved in neighbourhood programs (Taylor 2007; Teernstra and Pinkster 2015). Projects aiming to increase local involvement depend heavily on residents who are willing to take the lead and invest time and effort (Coaffee and Healey 2003; Robinson, Shaw, and Davidson 2005). Urban professionals may want to stimulate participation but at the same time describe residents, especially those with a migrant background, as lacking organizational capacities and the cross-cutting social networks which would allow them to be seen as community representatives (Dekker and Van Kempen 2009; Kokx and Van Kempen 2010). Even when government funding schemes do succeed in the activation of ‘hard-to-reach’ groups, competition between active residents may develop (Verhoeven and Tonkens 2011), demonstrating that power relations within initiatives as well as in the larger neighbourhood are crucial to understanding how participatory policies affect neighbourhood social relations. As neighbourhood diversity increases it becomes more likely that groups disagree on what is ‘desirable’ or even ‘acceptable’ behaviour (Dinham 2007), begging the question of who has the power to define ‘the’ public interest (Barnes et al. 2003). Thus, a critical approach to interventions which are presented as being based on ostensibly ‘shared interests’, and where institutional representatives position themselves as neutral actors, is called for (Lavoie 2012).

4. Case study contexts

This paper discusses the organization of participatory policies in relation to residents’ experiences of neighbourhood initiatives as spaces of encounter in one Viennese and one Amsterdam neighbourhood. These two cities were chosen because they represent very different approaches to local participation: while in Vienna these are largely organized in a top-down manner, funded by the municipality, Amsterdam prioritizes ‘bottom-linked’ initiatives in which resident groups cooperate with and are funded by institutions such as housing associations. However, there are also similarities between the cities: Vienna and Amsterdam are both highly ethnically diverse and have a long history of governing diverse neighbourhoods through area-based programs. At the city level, their respective diversity policies represent a progressive departure from national policies which are more assimilation-oriented (Hoekstra, Kohlbacher and Rauhut 2017).

In Vienna, this took the form of soft urban renewal, which focuses on gradual and sustainable renovations by including current residents in the process (Fassman and Hatz 2012). As Novy (2011) argues, the goal of soft urban renewal was to improve the neighbourhood while preserving the existing social structure. In addition, third-sector housing, which has a long tradition in Vienna’s social democratic city government, is not only thought to offset socioeconomic inequalities, but would also foster social contacts within relatively homogeneous housing blocks, as well as connect residents to institutions (Lang and Novy 2011). At the (larger) neighbourhood level, Urban Renewal Offices (UROs) – a service facility of the City of Vienna – are responsible for issues such as neighbourhood infrastructure and public space, but also aim to promote (interethnic) coexistence and reinforce resident participation, and as such function as local implementers of the city’s diversity policy (Hoekstra, Kohlbacher and Rauhut Forthcoming).

In The Netherlands, the Big Cities Policies and successor policies have approached economic, social, and physical issues in an integrated way (Van Gent, Musterd, and Ostendorf 2009). These policies focus in particular on ethnically diverse and socioeconomically deprived neighbourhoods, as the neighbourhood is seen as the main location where integration should take place. In Amsterdam as well, successive area-based policies have combined urban regeneration with measures to strengthen social cohesion and resident participation. While the city’s diversity policy does not have a housing or neighbourhoods component, existing area-based policies aim to turn ethnically diverse neighbourhoods into communities of identification. Neighbourhood projects are designed to allow residents of different ethnic backgrounds to work together with local institutions to improve their area (Hoekstra 2017).

Within each city, one neighbourhood was selected for in-depth study. Both neighbourhoods were chosen due to their high levels of ethnic diversity and their inclusion within the respective cities’ policies. The Viennese neighbourhood Gumpendorf is part of the larger borough of Gumpendorf in Mariahilf (6th district), located in Vienna’s inner city. Roughly half of the buildings in this neighbourhood were constructed during the nineteenth century (Gründerzeit). Twenty public housing buildings are located in the area. As Mariahilf is Vienna’s most densely built district, access to green spaces is limited. Although residents distinguish the ‘hip’ area close to the city centre from the more run-down and peripheral area, it is generally perceived as a good neighbourhood. The proportion of residents with a migrant background reflects the city average (see Table 1 for a statistical overview of the neighbourhoods). Gumpendorf has a comprehensive social infrastructure, including eleven educational institutions as well as a relatively high density of social services (drug counselling, Sisters of Charity et cetera), and is well connected through a dense public transport network. In 2006, the neighbourhood was a target area for municipal renewal subsidies, including revitalization of apartment buildings and improvement of recreation areas. Interethnic coexistence and local integration are among the targets of current municipal policy measures.

Table 1. Statistical overview of the case study neighbourhoods in relation to the city context.

	Vienna (2016)	Gumpendorf (2017)	Amsterdam (2017)	Slotermeer-Noordoost (2017)
Population	1,840,226	24,525	844,962	9410
Population with migrant background^a	38.3%	40.3%	52.5%	76.4%
Largest migrant groups	Serbia (4.1%)	Germany (5.9%)	Morocco (9%)	Turkey (26.6%)
	Turkey (2.5%)	Serbia (3.7%)	Suriname (7.4%)	Morocco (18.3%)
	Germany (2.3%)	Poland (2.6%)	Turkey (5.1%)	Suriname (5.5%)
	Poland (2.2%)	Turkey (2.4%)	Netherlands Antilles (1.5%)	Bulgaria (1.4%)
Unemployment rate	13.5% (2015)	5.8%	11.7% (2016)	17% (2016)

Note: Sources: Statistik Austria (2016); City of Vienna (2017); OIS Amsterdam (2017). Own calculations. ^aIncludes first- and second- generation migrants.

The Amsterdam neighbourhood Slotermeer-Noordoost forms part of the larger neighbourhood Slotermeer in the New-West district. Built in the 1950s as a response to urbanization and post-war housing shortages, its design is based on the ‘garden cities’ ideal, emphasizing light and spacious housing, green spaces and parks, and community-building institutions such as schools and neighbourhood centres. While the New-West district was viewed as an attractive place to live until the beginning of the 1990s (Mepschen 2012), today its image is rather different. Policy papers and research commissioned by the Amsterdam municipality stress the neighbourhood’s perceived lack of cohesion and the tense relations between population groups as major problems (Broekhuizen and Van Wonderen 2012; Amsterdam New-West 2012). Slotermeer-Noordoost has participated in area-based regeneration programs at least since 2008. These policies consist of a mix of physical and social initiatives along thematic lines, including ‘liveable Slotermeer’ (safety, public space) and ‘together Slotermeer’ (creating ownership, improving social cohesion and involvement) that include a budget for small-scale resident initiatives (Amsterdam New-West 2012).

5. Research design

We employed a mixed methodology developed in the context of the larger comparative research project ‘Interethnic Coexistence in European Cities’,¹ which included semi-structured interviews with participants and non-participants of neighbourhood initiatives² as well as expert interviews with local stakeholders (representatives of municipal organizations, housing associations, and other neighbourhood organizations). In addition, we analysed interactions in ‘Urban Livings Labs’ (Franz 2015), spaces of sustained participant observation where we participated in activities where residents meet, learn and collaborate as part of their daily life and environment.

In each neighbourhood, we selected specific initiatives for in-depth analysis. Desk research and preliminary interviews with local stakeholders indicated that these initiatives provided spaces of encounter to residents of diverse backgrounds because of their aims and/or design. In the Viennese Gumpendorf, these initiatives formed a mix of initiatives funded by the municipality for specific groups and initiatives open to all neighbourhood residents. Free Pre-school is a city-wide initiative which provides public education for children aged 0–6, with social integration as one of its aims. Participation is voluntary and usually related to living nearby. In the last year before primary school, however, it is obligatory for children to attend (public or private) pre-school. The Neighbourhood Service for Social Housing aims to improve relations and mediate conflicts among social housing residents, for example regarding interfering uses of the courtyard, vandalism, or perceived noise pollution. Its ‘Welcome Neighbour’ initiative promotes (not only, but also interethnic) living-together within the building by welcoming new neighbours and familiarizing them with the conventions in Austrian social housing. Three other initiatives are open to all residents: Gardening around the Corner, introduced in 2008, is a hybrid initiative led by the area’s Urban Renewal Office for residents who are interested in urban gardening and embellishing the neighbourhood. Ask Next Door, a bottom-up initiative introduced in 2014, is an online platform that aims to improve contacts among neighbours. Participants use the platform to get recommendations for physicians or other services in the neighbourhood, among other things. Finally, the Neighbourhood Centre, established in 1997, is a top-down initiative that considers itself a low-threshold meeting point in the neighbourhood. Activities are either free or based on a voluntary donation.

In the Amsterdam neighbourhood Slotermeer-Noordoost, the analysis focused on three so-called ‘neighbourhood living rooms’. These are low-threshold neighbourhood centres which organize their own activities and host those of other neighbourhood groups, and in addition provide a space for consultation with housing associations, welfare organizations et cetera. The centres function as central points where residents can get information in an informal manner – to ask whether the housing association representative is in, or for help with translating an official letter. They can be characterized as ‘bottom-linked’ (Eizaguirre et al. 2012; Miciukiewicz et al. 2012): housing associations and/or the district government provide premises and subsidize activities, but their informal and personal approach is feasible because of the great efforts of a few central volunteers. These are often either students or long-time ethnic Dutch residents who are unemployed or receive disability benefits, allowing volunteers to spend a lot of time in the living rooms (in one case equivalent to a full-time job). The exception is one neighbourhood living room in which most of the organizational work is done by the (Surinamese) housing association representative who also invests much of her spare time in the initiative. As such, these centres embody the policy aim of stimulating resident participation. Rather than viewing participation in resident initiatives as a means to an end, policy-makers consider the act of participating itself to be a social good as it would generate feelings of connection and belonging (De Wilde 2015).

Next to participant observation in the ‘Urban Living Labs’ (the Neighbourhood Centre in Gumpendorf and the three neighbourhood living rooms in Slotermeer-Noordoost), we conducted in-depth interviews with a total of 76 residents and 13 local stakeholders (including representatives of the initiatives studied, municipal employees, employees of housing associations, and civil society representatives) between March and June 2015. Table 2 provides detailed information on the two resident samples. Participants were contacted at initiatives and through leaflets distributed in the neighbourhood; non-participants were reached through snowball sampling and quota-based sampling in public space. The semi-structured interviews discussed residents’ perceptions of the neighbourhood and selected initiatives, their experiences of diversity and their (interethnic) encounters in the neighbourhood and (where applicable) in the selected spaces of encounter. Stakeholders were likewise asked about their perception of the neighbourhood and its residents, their work in the neighbourhood and neighbourhood initiatives.

Table 2. Respondent samples of selected neighbourhood case studies.

	Gumpendorf (Vienna)	Slotermeer-Noordoost (Amsterdam)
Residents	44	32
Participants	18	15
Non-participants	26	17
Gender	25	17
Female	19	15
Male
Age	5	9
≤30	31	16
31–59	8	6
≥60	0	1
Unknown
Ethnic background^a	28	13
Austrian/Dutch	16	19
Non-Austrian/Non-Dutch
Duration of residency	14	16
≤10 years	20	15
years	10	1
Unknown
Educational background^b	3	7
Low	19	8
Middle	16^c	13^d
High	6	4
Unknown
Occupational background	28	7
(Self-)employed	4	13
Unemployed	4	5
Pensioner	1	6
Student	7	1
Unknown
Household composition	9	9
Single	3	2
/with children	1	6
/with others	8	4
Couple	15	10
/with children	8	1
Unknown

^aSelf-identified.

^bLow includes primary or secondary education; Middle includes low tertiary education (e.g. trade school); High includes higher tertiary education.

^cThese numbers mirror the high rate of persons with tertiary education in Gumpendorf (28.2%) relative to the Viennese average of 17.9%. The share of residents having only compulsory education is relatively low (21.8%), and 50.1% completed secondary education (Statistik Austria 2016; City of Vienna 2017. Own calculations).

^dThe relatively high share of highly educated respondents in the sample (41%, compared to 17% in Slotermeer-Noordoost) is due to the inclusion of a number of student volunteers.

6. Organizational contexts and encounters in local spaces

6.1. Participation by whom? Inclusionary and exclusionary mechanisms

The selected initiatives differ in the type and degree of participation that they require, and therefore attract different kinds of participants. While participation in the Viennese Free Pre-school and the mediation offered by Neighbourhood Service for Social Housing often represent a necessity, the other initiatives are based more on residents’ voluntary involvement. Several residents explain that they do not participate in the latter kind of initiatives because they are not interested, unwilling, or unable to make the required time commitment. In Gumpendorf, several interviewees with an Austrian background have second homes outside of the city where they spend most of their spare time, which is also an indication of the relatively higher socio-economic position of Gumpendorf compared to other super-diverse neighbourhoods:

I’m not interested in these activities and prefer to spend my time otherwise. Maybe because I only spend much time in my house on the countryside. My wife and I just had to be here because of work. As soon as we could, we drove to Lower Austria (…) I like the tranquillity out there; it’s so relaxing. Here it’s quite loud after all. (GD, from Austria, male, 60s)

In some cases formal requirements can also hinder participation, as is the case for the Free Pre-school, where both parents need to be employed for their children to be admitted. The requirement of employment for both parents, however, creates a vicious cycle, as childcare must first be secured in order to be able to access the labour market, which tends already tends to be more difficult for immigrants, especially women. Non-participants, many of immigrant background, often report that they did not get a place in free pre-school for their children due to these restrictive admission criteria:

I really wanted my son to go to public pre-school but they kept telling me that there is no place for him anymore and that I’m too late for the registration. The private pre-school is expensive and I heard from another mother that the care is more or less the same (…) I didn’t get a place in the neighbourhood, so in September he has to go to pre-school in the 10^th district which is really unpractical because it is a long way. (GD, from Romania, female, 20s)

Besides, the limited opening hours of the free pre-school are problematic for persons who have to work late, in particular, single parents. Therefore, these parents often have to find a private pre-school for their children. In addition, several interviewees – of Austrian and non-Austrian ethnic background – prefer private over public pre-school. They explain that they think that children do not learn German well in public pre-schools, since non-Austrian ethnic children tend to speak different languages there³:

We put our daughter into a private kindergarten so that she learns German and it’s better in the private kindergarten. In the public kindergarten all children are foreigners and the children learn Turkish; they don’t learn German well. (GD, from Turkey, male, 20s)

Thus, who participates is also partially determined by migrant status and employment/income, which influence, for example, whether residents can afford a second home and thus choose to disinvest from the neighbourhood, or their eligibility for public pre-school. Furthermore, the reputation of public pre-schools as dominated by migrant children also influences parents’ choices.

In other cases, the limited success of Viennese initiatives in attracting a diverse set of participants, in particular participants of different ethnic backgrounds, can be attributed to various more implicit exclusionary mechanisms. Several initiatives require German-language skills and Ask Next Door also requires IT skills, which might exclude the elderly, among other groups. Other initiatives such as the Neighbourhood Centre have activities primarily during the day, when most people have to work. Although the threshold in the Centre is low due to a shop-like walk-in premise and donation-based course fees, migrant residents seem to be less attracted by the offerings. The same is true for Gardening around the Corner, which however has a higher threshold since people need to know where to go and whom to ask regarding the registration procedure. Also, those residents who know the Neighbourhood Service describe it as only partly successful in its mediating role since conflicts cannot always be solved sustainably (for example regarding the activities of youth groups in the social housing blocks). In addition, its ‘Welcome Neighbour’ initiative, which is specifically designed to promote peaceful (not only, but also interethnic) living-together within the building, is mostly not known even when residents are familiar with the Service itself.

Similarly, in Slotermeer-Noordoost class and ethnicity were found to be highly relevant, both in determining which residents participate and in shaping how they experience their participation. Currently, active residents are from different ethnic backgrounds and include both working-class and middle-class residents. This is in line with the aims of Amsterdam’s area-based policies, which view funding low-threshold resident initiatives as key to stimulating the participation of ‘hard-to-reach’ groups (Verhoeven and Tonkens 2011). However, there are indications that this diversity of participants may be threatened in the longer run. The strong emphasis on ‘active citizenship’ presumes a significant deal of independence and know-how on the part of those residents who would like to start a local project, and might tip the scales towards favouring activities organized by middle-class ‘networkers’ with high cultural capital, who tend to view participation as offering networking and learning opportunities, while migrant and working-class residents are more likely to have trouble navigating the bureaucratic requirements and to experience the funding allocation as unfair. Some interviewees applied for funding to start an initiative, only to be rejected for reasons they experience as arbitrary. Others indicate that, rather than becoming active themselves, ‘the government’, the district, or ‘people in the know’ should organize activities:

[paraphrased from interview notes] the municipality should send people to ask what residents want (…) I can be a part if they need someone [for an activity], so I can see how it works, but the one organizer has to be someone with power or money, someone who knows how it works. (S-NO, from Turkey, male, 30s)

As such, interviewees’ views differ from the district’s vision on participation as something that all residents can (and should want to) do. This is especially the case for the neighbourhood living room volunteers, who are more actively involved in organizing activities and setting up initiatives than ‘ordinary’ participants. While they can apply for subsidies to offset organizational costs, they do not receive any personal monetary compensation as – according to institutional actors – this would detract from the sense of cohesion and shared responsibility that neighbourhood initiatives are intended to cultivate:

[paraphrased from interview notes] the idea is not to pay volunteers because we want to signal that the neighbourhood is yours, you as residents have to keep it a liveable place together. The housing association shouldn’t have to pay for that (…) they [volunteers] derive satisfaction from a sense of ownership, that’s the real reward. (S-NO, area representative of the housing association)

The one exception to this rule of unpaid voluntary work is the ‘DIY team’ of one of the neighbourhood living rooms, whose members receive a small compensation⁴ in return for performing minor maintenance tasks. Interviewees indicate that this compensation is a reason why the team is also highly ethnically diverse, including members with Dutch, Turkish, Moroccan, and Surinamese backgrounds (although not diverse in other aspects, as all participants are low-educated, middle-aged men). Financial compensation is an incentive to join, not just to supplement one’s income – the team members either receive welfare benefits or are retired – but also because participants believe that it increases their chances of finding regular employment. Although they joined for pragmatic reasons, they have come to enjoy the social contacts as well (they work in pairs and also have a weekly teambuilding meeting).

The volunteers who perform unpaid voluntary work in the neighbourhood living rooms express ambivalence towards the aims of participatory policies. From the outside, these volunteers embody the policy ideals as they feel a great sense of ownership and responsibility for their initiative and the broader neighbourhood. Their importance is also stressed by participants of living room activities: ‘before we had nothing. Since [volunteer] came here, there are a bit more contacts with the neighbours and so on. Before I didn’t know that many people’ (S-NO, from Suriname, female, 50s). However, although they find their involvement rewarding (both in terms of learning specific skills and in terms of social relations), volunteers can feel overburdened or have trouble letting go and delegating to others. As they become familiar faces in the neighbourhood, they are often approached by other residents for information or advice, which can be time-consuming and thus they may feel as if they are always ‘on duty’. In addition, volunteers indicate that the support they receive from local institutions is too limited, and are sceptical whether these organizations are truly committed to fostering participation. One volunteer talks about being ‘undermined [by the housing association] (…) like they want me gone [from the neighbourhood living room]’ (S-NO, from the Netherlands, male, 50s), while another notes bitterly that ‘employees of [housing association] sometimes treat volunteers as regular employees, with the things they expect’ (S-NO, from the Netherlands, male, 50s).

6.2. Fleeting and sustained encounters

Among those who do participate, some interviewees indeed point out that they have developed new contacts through the initiatives. The initiatives studied created spaces that engendered different types of contact, often but not always with fellow participants. For example, some parents whose children participate in Free Pre-school mention that they have come to know other parents based on their children’s friendships, although deeper or longer-lasting contacts between parents are rare. The Neighbourhood Centre also contributes both to inter- and intra-ethnic contacts through the open character of its classes and the availability of rooms for rent for diverse group meetings, for example religious or self-help groups, with people from the neighbourhood but also from further away:

The Neighbourhood Centre is great, there is an open atmosphere, everyone is warm-hearted and friendly. You can also get to know people here with whom you meet privately afterwards. You also get information and tips on different issues… I think the Centre contributes to togetherness; it’s an important institution and it’s important that participation is for free. (GD, from Germany, female, 40s)

The recently established online platform Ask Next Door also seems to be successful in creating contacts at least for those interviewees who seem open and interested in meeting new people, implying a certain (self-)selection process. One of the participants, an Austrian ethnic woman in her sixties, explains that she has come to know many new people through the platform and has already been invited to a birthday party. ‘The platform once organized a barbecue for our building block; that was nice for making new acquaintances’, another interviewee (GD, from Austria, male, 60s) points out.

Although the investigated initiatives enable various forms of small-scale encounters and interactions, these are not necessarily interethnic. Interviewees often failed to mention this, and when questioned sometimes did not know the ethnic background of their contacts. This can be interpreted as a sign of functioning integration since the interviewed residents apparently do not make this distinction. However, as (with the exception of Free Pre-school) most participants in the studied initiatives in Gumpendorf were ethnic Austrian or German, it seems likely that same-ethnic interaction accounted for a large part of overall encounters engendered by these initiatives. The relative absence of migrant participants – which is notable given that they make up 40 per cent of neighbourhood residents – can indicate that they are less interested in existing initiatives, or rather that they face more barriers for participation, as has been detailed in the previous section. A tendency towards ‘sameness’ among participants was also observed in the Neighbourhood Centre. Activities, which are mostly scheduled during the day, tend to attract specific groups such as pensioners, persons unfit for work, or those who are self-employed or part-time employed. Participants have often experienced some ‘emergency situation’ in their lives or have psychological problems, and the Centre also provides counselling for those who find themselves in socially precarious situations.

In contrast to the Viennese initiatives, which include facilities with more formal aims, the ‘neighbourhood living rooms’ in Amsterdam are explicitly designed to facilitate homeliness and informal social interactions. Although there are also more structured activities (such as Dutch language classes), residents are encouraged to drop in ‘just because’ and interact with the volunteers and other participants. As the centres derive their legitimacy from serving the neighbourhood residents, attracting a diverse group of participants and creating an open and inclusive atmosphere are considered important. One way in which this is done – which was mentioned during interviews and also emerged from participant observation – is through the ‘moderation’ of activities and group discussions by volunteers, who take care to emphasize any shared interests or experiences as well as insist on using Dutch as a shared language whenever possible. For example, during a meeting of the DIY team, a discussion on the Dutch political system results in a Surinamese Christian and a Turkish Muslim together defending the legitimacy of confessional political parties, a statement which the organizer enthusiastically repeats to the rest of the group. During a later discussion on living in Slotermeer started by the researcher, the same Surinamese man remarks that ‘I speak a bit of Turkish and a bit of Arabic, that’s only logical if you live here’. Notwithstanding the matter-of-factness of his remark, many other (non-participant) interviewees do in fact regard the numerical and symbolic dominance of Turks and Moroccans in the neighbourhood as highly problematic, and especially criticize their (perceived) inability or unwillingness to speak Dutch.

However, there is also a trade-off between achieving ‘homeliness’ and inclusivity. In two of the three living rooms, many activities are dominated by particular ethnic (sub)groups, who use the space to gather with like-minded friends and create conviviality by invoking ‘sameness’, to the exclusion of ethnic or religious ‘others’. For example, an Antillean woman explains that she is sometimes made to feel unwelcome by other participants in her knitting/cooking group, which she attributes to her different ethnic background:

They gossip, [in] their own language. I am from Curacao, and they are [Surinamese] Indian. I just think, if you know, speak Dutch (…) And well, some of them dislike me because I speak up (…) We are equal just the same I think. Because we, you know I’m not allowed to cook here? Because they think our food is gross (…) I find it very annoying you know, and sometimes it makes me so tired. So tired that I … sometimes [organizer] calls me and I look at my phone and put it [away] … or turn down the volume … just for a day you know. (S-NO, from the Netherlands Antilles, female, 50s)

Although she continues to attend out of loyalty to the organizer, a friend of hers, the hostility that she experiences detracts from her enjoyment of the initiative and turns it into an obligation, so much so that she deliberately schedules her doctor’s visits during the group’s activities. As many participants experience their involvement as an important part of their social life, tensions are emotionally draining and a reason for some to become less involved in the neighbourhood in general.

In other cases, encounters are more superficial and take place between participants or between participants and others in public space. This was particularly the case for participants in the Viennese Gardening around the Corner. As a legalized version of previous guerrilla gardening, it takes place in public space where participants work to improve the urban landscape by taking care of a small plot of greenery. Even though social contacts are not the main aim of this initiative, participants (most of whom are of Austrian background) explain that they often receive positive feedback from pedestrians walking by when they are working in their garden. Sometimes, neighbours also bring plants for the garden, or help care for them. One of the participants, a middle-aged Austrian woman, notes that since she started taking care of the greenery in front of her house, many of her neighbours (of different ethnic backgrounds) have also shown interest in gardening and started contributing. Another participant explains that his care for the plants in the courtyard of his apartment building has improved his relationship with his neighbours, as it ‘solved [my] debt with the older neighbours from earlier times when it [my parties] was a little louder’ (GD, from Germany, male, 40s). Urban gardening thus functions as a home-making practice as it extends the domestic sphere to include (parts of) public space (cf. Hondagneu-Sotelo 2017). Moreover, its public nature promotes interaction among residents and with passers-by, which is otherwise rare, and thereby enhances public familiarity (Blokland and Nast 2014) as well as generating a more general sense of responsibility for the neighbourhood’s upkeep. A similar effect was reached when the Neighbourhood Service for Social Housing opened a playground to the public that was previously only intended for the social housing block. ‘They once came to look at the situation in our playground [since it was locked and not used very much]; now it’s open all day for everyone, also for those outside our building’ a social housing resident (GD, from Austria, female, 50s) explains, adding that she thinks it is a good development for the neighbourhood to share this place. These findings show that public space, as opposed to institutional settings, should not be underestimated as an urban space of encounter.

In Slotermeer-Noordoost as well, shared use of public spaces is used to invoke common ground: participants would greet each other as neighbours and refer to earlier occasions when they ran into each other in the neighbourhood. In turn, encounters within the living rooms increase public familiarity as participants see more familiar faces on the street or are greeted by people met at activities. Being ‘visibly active’ also serves to establish and reinforce norms of friendliness and neighbourliness:

Activities increase the [social] bonds (…) A neighbour sees you clean up the [common] garden. Yes, of course, that does something to you. You think hey, somebody is cleaning up my garden’. (S-NO, from Morocco, male, 40s)

While all interviewees profess to adhere to an ‘ethos of mixing’ (Wessendorf 2013) whereby ‘good neighbours’ greet one another, keep shared spaces clean and generally behave respectfully towards others, participants mention more small-scale interactions in the neighbourhood than non-participants, especially across ethnic boundaries:

[at the activity] there is also a gentleman, he lives here in the neighbourhood, I’ve seen him a couple of times. And he has a big beard like, it’s a Moroccan guy I believe. And then I saw him a couple of times, and he now also raises his hand [in greeting], that’s kind of nice. You do get to know each other. (S-NO, from the Netherlands, male, 40s)

Such ‘fleeting’ social contacts are treated as valuable in their own right, and participants are not necessarily looking for close ties (although some have also made friends at activities). Moreover, establishing a low-level form of familiarity might be a key first step for creating more sustained interactions where participants feel free to express themselves and to give and receive (emotional) support. This became evident during participant observation in the neighbourhood living rooms, as participants discussed mundane topics but also highly personal issues such as having to take care of an ill and elderly partner, or not being accepted by one’s family-in-law.

7. Comparison and concluding thoughts

The purpose of this study was to explore whether and how local initiatives create spaces of encounter for residents of diverse backgrounds. Policy interventions in super-diverse neighbourhoods often aim to create ‘micro-publics’ (Amin 2002) of cross-cultural encounter. Yet much remains unclear regarding the dynamics and outcomes of participation in such contexts.

Our study highlights some of the barriers to participation that result both from formal and informal exclusion mechanisms. On the one hand, personal characteristics and circumstances can play an important role. Education and employment (which also correlate with ethnicity in the two neighbourhoods) seem to be key dimensions: the higher educated feel more able to organize themselves; those not (regularly) employed have more time to participate and might even see this as a step towards finding a job.

On the other hand, the design of initiatives influences whether residents are interested and willing to invest time and energy. The Viennese case study shows that, while the top-down initiatives studied connect participants to educational and housing institutions, they provide less possibilities for encounters with fellow residents. In contrast, bottom-up and bottom-linked initiatives do not only have a social function but also offer low-threshold access to representatives of ‘mainstream’ society. However, the Amsterdam case also shows that such ‘bottom-linked’ relationships can become fraught as volunteers demand more (also financial) recognition from institutional ‘partners’. In theory, linkages between institutional representatives and active residents are characterized by complementarity rather than hierarchy, but in practice this is not experienced as such. In short, residents everyday experiences of neighbourhood diversity and of participation did not always align with policy narratives (cf. Robertson and Colic-Peisker 2015). These findings align with common critiques of policies that stimulate participation under the rubric of active citizenship and community involvement, but which do not involve substantial power transfers from centralized government institutions to deprived neighbourhoods and citizens. While dismissed by some as merely ‘political rhetoric and strategic calculations’ (Marinetto 2003, 118), our comparison demonstrates that such policies do in fact shape the set-up and organization of local initiatives, supporting Cornwall’s (2004, 2008) assertion that the dynamics and outcomes of participation depend on the design of initiatives and their embeddedness within governance structures.

The design of neighbourhood initiatives does not only influence residents’ experience of the (local) state, but also of their neighbourhood. Creating places where residents can encounter each other on neutral ground and engage in sustained interactions towards a common goal is often considered vital for living together in diverse cities (Amin 2002; Fincher and Iveson 2008; Matejskova and Leitner 2011). In both case studies, especially the neighbourhood centres aimed to create ‘micro-geographies of inclusion’ (Fincher and Iveson 2008) through emphasizing homeliness and informality and offering opportunities to build trust. Notably in Amsterdam, residents are invited to treat the centres as their ‘living room’ and to recreate communities that are believed ‘lost’ by professionals (De Wilde 2015). However, although re-occurring and more sustained interactions within initiatives sometimes resulted in friendly and supportive contacts, the findings also show a trade-off between inclusivity and openness on the one hand, and homeliness and informality on the other hand. Somewhat ironically, the same characteristics that foster attachment and a sense of belonging among particular resident groups, generate feelings of exclusion among others as conviviality is invoked by practicing ‘sameness’. Therefore, encounters in such ‘colonized’ spaces can also deepen prejudice and result in conflicts or disengagement (Valentine 2008).

Apart from the sustained encounters that are the focus of much research on living with diversity, one theme that emerged in both cities was the role of fleeting encounters and public familiarity. As Blokland and Nast (2014, 1155) argue, ‘Public familiarity (…) creates a comfort zone that allows people to feel they belong, even though they may have no local friends and family, never talk to their direct neighbours, and not even like the place where they live’. Especially highly visible activities in public space (such as being seen working in the garden) result in more positive perceptions of neighbours since their inherently material (plants, dirt) and spatial (shared green spaces) characteristics may facilitate emergent and transitory encounters (Askins and Pain 2011). While neighbourhood initiatives often focus on more profound encounters and aim to create ‘thick’ forms of community and cohesion, participants do not necessarily desire close ties and may value more superficial contacts, with recognizing each other on the street and greeting being enough. However, conceiving of urban gardening as a home-making practice (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2017) also highlights the limits of this approach to creating social cohesion or a shared sense of belonging: while some may welcome the opportunity to socialize with neighbours, others may prefer to make their (primary, or second) home in the country-side. Whether this outcome should be seen as problematic for the integration of ethnic minorities, or for social mixing more generally, is to a large extent a political question. However, it can be argued that these initiatives do contribute to the experience of diversity as ‘commonplace’ (Wessendorf 2013) and might lay the groundwork for more intensive interactions in the future.

Our findings contribute to research on the circumstances under which encounters with difference are experienced positively, and how local spaces can be designed to facilitate such encounters. Bringing together literature on urban and neighbourhood governance with in-depth studies of diverse neighbourhoods, we argue that including the role of institutional contexts and participation infrastructures is vital to understanding who participates and how interactions in local spaces unfold. Quantitative research has generally concluded that neighbourhood ethnic diversity impedes the success of local organizations (Vermeulen, Laméris, and Minkoff 2016; Vermeulen, Tillie, and van de Walle. 2012), even when neighbourhood policies are expressly designed to activate ‘hard-to-reach’ groups (Verhoeven and Tonkens 2011). Our study provides some indications for the mechanisms underlying this negative relationship, in particular the potential for sustained encounters to reinforce rather than break down hostile relationships among residents and between residents and the state, and the potentially exclusionary effects of participatory policies that demand a high degree of ‘active citizenship’. These findings therefore also raise questions about the limits of participatory area-based policies, as these attribute both problem causes and solutions to the local level (Van Gent, Musterd, and Ostendorf 2009) while ignoring larger-scale (relational) inequalities. Through this depoliticization of participation, such policies run the risk of ossifying existing power relations between residents of different ethnic and class backgrounds, and between poorer and wealthier neighbourhoods. Consequently, in order to truly enable neighbourhood initiatives to function as spaces of encounter, a broader (theoretical) perspective on super-diverse urban neighbourhoods is called for. Such a perspective should critically examine neighbourhoods’ positioning within urban and national (housing-market) hierarchies as well as the broader power structures that shape residents’ everyday experiences in the neighbourhood.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Gerald Brugman and Marijn Ferier for their assistance with conducting the interviews in Amsterdam, and Yvonne Franz, Sako Musterd, Fenne Pinkster, and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. Finally, we are grateful to all the residents and practitioners who were willing to share their perspectives with us.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) under Grant [438-12-416]; and by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) under Grant [839723].

Notes

1. ICEC (2013–2016), funded by JPI Urban Europe, see www.icecproject.com.

2. Non-participants were included to find out how they perceive the selected initiatives as well as their reasons for non-participation. The larger study also included secondary data and policy document analysis.

3. It should be noted that the financial difference between public and private institutions is rather small since in the public preschool parents have to pay for the food while this is included in the fee for the private preschool, which is also subsidized by the city.

4. 4 Euros/hour, for a maximum of 6 h a week. In 2015, minimum wages in the Netherlands were at 8.66 Euros/ hour