Speaker
Description
This study investigates how policymakers evaluate the success of inclusive city policies, which aim to reduce urban disparities and foster equal opportunities across social, economic, spatial, environmental, and political dimensions. Despite their widespread adoption, many initiatives fall short of bridging the gap between ambitious goals and tangible outcomes. For instance, the Safer Cities Initiative has been criticized for deepening exclusion rather than fostering inclusion. Current evaluation methods, such as city rankings and crowd mapping, often fail to capture the nuanced interplay of quantitative and qualitative factors, while conflicting stakeholder expectations further complicate assessments. This highlights the need for more comprehensive and context-sensitive evaluation frameworks.
To address these challenges, this research explores inclusive policy evaluation in Antwerp, Rotterdam, and Gothenburg through a multidimensional framework encompassing process, programmatic, and political success. Drawing on 27 interviews with policymakers and supplementary secondary data, the findings suggest that while traditional tools like city indices and rankings provide insights into urban performance, they are often disconnected from real-world practices and struggle to measure the nuanced impacts of inclusive policies. Key dimensions of policy success reveal interrelated challenges: process success, requiring fair decision-making and broad participation, is frequently undervalued in evaluations; programmatic success often prioritizes measurable economic and spatial outcomes, neglecting the complexity of social inclusion; and political success, essential for sustaining and scaling policies, is frequently undermined by power struggles and political resistance. Furthermore, regional or externally funded initiatives tend to emphasize procedural compliance over substantive social outcomes, limiting their potential to meet inclusive policy goals.
Ultimately, the success of inclusive policies depends not only on visible outcomes but also on fostering inclusive processes, sustaining political commitment, and addressing diverse societal needs. By moving beyond binary judgments of success or failure, it offers practical insights for developing more effective and adaptive approaches to inclusive policy evaluation.
| Keywords | Inclusive city; Policy evaluation; Policy success; Inclusive participation |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
