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project state secretary for the major cities, coming under the Ministry of the Interior, and
can be considered the first integral explicit national urban policy in the Netherlands.
Visions and objectives underlying the explicit national urban policy
In the United Kingdom, in the 1980s the focus of national urban policy was on the
economic performance of the cities, economic and physical regeneration being key
concepts of policy. The adjustment to the City-Challenge policy has not shaken the
foundations of that vision, but served to give investment in, and preservation of, social
and human capital its proper place. The Dutch government has issued an explicit
statement about the role of the cities in national development. The Major-City Policy is
concerned not only with the problems of the major cities but also with their economic
potential. The Dutch government regards cities as the motors of the national economic,
cultural and social development, and has woken up to the fact this motor function is
impeded by certain social problems. The Major-City Policy is supposed to change that
situation. In France, most efforts and resources are directed to the fight against social
discrepancies among and within towns. The Contrats de Villes focuses on fighting the
concentration of arrears and spatial and social segregation, whereas the policy pursued to
reinforce the position of towns of medium-size (Large City Charter), is of an economic
nature; its main objective is to restore balance to the national urban system.
National Urban policy: top-down and bottom-up?
The relation between the national government and the local authorities determines to a
high degree the principles and implementation of policy. The choice of a policy directly
addressing the cities is inspired (among other considerations) by the persuasion that an
area-oriented policy can better than others deal with the specific problems of towns, and
thus increase its effectiveness. On the whole, the position of the national government in
the United Kingdom towards the towns was reinforced in the 1980s, giving it more
control over local policy. Nevertheless the government’s explicit intention is to have its
explicit national urban policy given substance on the local or regional level, the initiative
being not by definition with the local government but with local partners, often a coalition
of public, semi-public, public-private and private parties. These urban development
authorities are required to define a wider vision for their area and to link programmes,
projects, resources and mechanisms to that vision in a strategic way. On that basis, the
cities have to vie with others for payments from the available funds. In France, the local
authorities were in the 1980s given more elbow room. However, the influence of the
national government is still very large which can be explained among other things from
the traditional centralist structure of French public administration. Representatives of the
national government exert substantial influence on local development, among others
through the allocation of resources, specifically in the Chartres d’objectifs but also in the
Contrats de Villes. The Dutch national government hopes that the Major-City Policy will
create the conditions enabling local authorities to get themselves a grip on the problems.
The national government has reserved to itself a coordinating, and in some areas a
controlling part, but the cities have to give substance to the Major-City Policy.