Between Health and Affordability: Governance, Public Values and Urban Development in the Netherlands
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2025-09-29
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nl
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This thesis examines how ambitions for a ‘healthy city’ relate to housing affordability in Dutch urban development, and what role governance plays in shaping that relationship. Health and affordability are both increasingly framed as public values, yet in practice they often collide. Measures to improve health, such as greening, climate adaptation and investments in liveability, can raise area attractiveness and property values, which in turn may increase housing costs and exclusion risks for lower- and middle-income groups.
Using a qualitative, comparative case study of Arnhem and Rotterdam, supported by policy analysis and semi-structured interviews, this research analyses how health and affordability are framed, anchored, and implemented. The thesis shows that the extent to which these public values are safeguarded depends on governance capacity: legal and financial instruments, role allocation, and the ability to steer across policy domains.
The study concludes that without early, binding integration of both health and affordability in development agreements, health risks becoming a selective spatial quality for those who can afford it, rather than a collective right.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen