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and living environment. In short, cultural heritage has acquired economic value as well,
as a locational condition and in the shape of urban tourism.
How to cope with metropolitan problems?
Even in countries that already have gained experience with typical metropolitan
problems, such as United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France, the question how to
cope with them remains on the agenda. On the one hand, there is a continuing search for
new policy instruments which enable the various tiers of government to deal better with
the problems. On the other hand, some countries try to come nearer to a solution by
reforming the administrative structure. Some other member states (Italy, Portugal,
Finland, Belgium) have recently shown an increasing interest in ways and means to deal
with metropolitan problems, or are drawing up inventories of the possibilities. What is the
role of the national government? How can a coherent integral policy be conducted on the
local and national levels?
2.5 National policy responses to urban issues and challenges
In the first part we explained the need to make a distinction between explicitly town-
oriented policy and policy measures that, while having a great impact on towns, are not
explicitly tailored to them. These policies are themes of sectorial policy or groups in
society. Which countries do pursue an explicit urban policy? What is the vision
underlying that policy and what instruments are put in for its implementation? Is the
national urban policy of an integral nature or is it not? In what follows we shall try to
answer these questions.
Examples of explicit national urban policy
For the present, the countries whose national governments have advanced furthest in
substantiating the (heightened) interest for cities into explicitly city-oriented policy, are
United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands. In the United Kingdom such a policy has
been conducted since the late 1960s, but the approach, the priorities and the financing
have altered in the course of the years. The policy lately in force - during the Conservative
government - is the ’City Challenge’, initiated in 1992, and since combined with the
Single Regeneration Budget (1994). These explicit urban policy initiatives emphasise the
economic revitalisation of the urban regions. As in United Kingdom, in France the
foundation for explicit national urban policy was laid in the 1960s with the policy of
Métropoles d'équilibre, continued since 1990 in the form of the Chartes d'objectifs (large-
cities charters), which come under the Ministry of Public Works and the national planning
office (DATAR). The latter body is also responsible for the policy of réseaux de villes
(urban networks). Besides, the socially oriented measures of national urban policy have
been combined in the Contrats de Villes (Urban Contracts policy), often jointly with the
Programmes de Aménagement Concerté du Territoire. In the Netherlands, policy makers
have for some time now shown explicit interest in urban development in particular in the
context of spatial planning. In the late 1980s the explicit attention to urban affairs has
been broadened to other policy areas as well, mainly because of the social-economic
problems of the cities. The increased attention resulted in 1994, on the initiative of the
four major cities, in the so-called Major-City Policy. That policy is coordinated by a