1st Edition

Contracting with Citizens How Morals, Politics, and Laws Shape Cities

By E.W. (Michiel) Stapper Copyright 2025
174 Pages
by Routledge

174 Pages
by Routledge

This book demonstrates that contracts, community intermediaries, and participatory processes are closely interlinked, and they can change urban politics. In participatory processes, residents negotiate with policymakers about the future of their neighborhood. In the last few decades, this happened increasingly in co-creation sessions where citizens are deemed to have an equal position vis-a-vis... Read more

List of tables

Acknowledgments

 

Chapter 1: Urban Ordering

1.1 Participation, Community Intermediaries, and Contracts

1.2 Institutional Change in Amsterdam, Hamburg And New York

1.3 Overview of The Book

Chapter 2: Research Strategy

2.1 Qualitative Strategy

2.2 Selection of Cities

2.3 Selection of Development Projects

2.4 Data Collection

2.5 Notes on Studying Contracts

Chapter 3: The Shifting of Orders

3.1 Planning Orders in Amsterdam

3.2 Planning Orders in Hamburg

3.2 Planning Orders in New York

3.4 Comparing Municipal Orders

3.5 Resistance from Below

Chapter 4: Institutional Contradictions and Change in Urban Politics

4.1 Institutional Contradictions

4.2 Moral Categories and Artifacts

4.3 Somewhere in Between the Private and the Public

4.4 From Rules to Enforcements

4.5 The Mechanics of Urban Politics

Chapter 5: Morals in the City: True Spokespersons and Principles

5.1 The City Planners Plan

5.2 Educating the Residents

5.3 The Residents Take Charge

5.4 The Moral Thread in Urban Politics

Chapter 6: Politics in the City: The Forming of Publics

6.1 Co-Option and Displacement

6.2 A Time for Compromise

6.3 The Political Thread in Urban Politics

Chapter 7: Law in the City: The Many Faces of Contracts

7.1 Neue Mitte Altona

7.2 Oostenburg-Noord

7.3 Kingsbridge Armory

7.4 Codifying Residents’ Principles

7.5 The Legal Thread In Urban Politics

Chapter 8: Conclusion

8.1 How Morals, Politics, And Law Shape Urban Politics

8.2 A New Register Gaining Traction

8.3 A Research Agenda

8.4 A Policy Agenda

 

Index

Biography

E.W. (Michiel) Stapper has a position as an assistant professor at the Department of Geography, Planning, and International Development Studies at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His research interests lie in the intersection of cities, society, and the law. In 2020, he was awarded a Horizon Europe project as PI, investigating how the European Green Deal affects and involves marginalized communities. In 2023, he was awarded a Dutch Starter Grant for a project that conducts a socio-legal study of large-scale climate plans in the United States, European Union, Japan, and Korea.