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e-urban is an initiative of Huib Riethof, a Dutch national and an urban expert having practiced all over Europe, living and working in Brussels, Belgium. No person or institution mentioned here, may be considered as sharing the views of the administrators of this website.
E-Urban intends to present examples of good practices, and good judgments of bad ones, to a public of European experts and practicians in the field of urban redevelopment.
It cares about the people, who, on a daily basis, are struggling to help inhabitants of urban neighbourhoods to emancipate themselves from poverty, exclusion and discrimination.
Its mission is to assist in developing a methodology of the European urban agent, starting from scattered practice and taking into account scientific researches being made on subjects related to their work. At the same time, this effort may be useful for local authorities, who choose to not leave alone their poorer constituents. And, of course, to local (opinion-)leaders who are looking out for competent experts to manage the transformation of their community.
This website and its dynamic journals are about:
- Who are the people who manage those difficult processes,
- How do they work, and
- What can they deliver.
An introduction to the who-how-what question can be found at: Who|How|What in the left column. I present here my closest associates from Germany, France and the UK, I introduce our ways of working and give some examples of what they have been (and still are) delivering.
The methodology part is supported by explanations in "Urbipedia" of the tools we use, and what skills and methods we deploy (a first example is "diagnosis" of a neighbourhood, a community: to be useful and supportive to the ensuing practice, a diagnosis in urban redevelopment should correspond to an important number of conditions, as explained there).
In "Babel", we deal with the subtle, but often very important differences of meaning, in some words we work with (like "monitoring", which is NOT the same as the French "suivi", NOR the German "Begleitung", NEITHER the Dutch "begeleiding").
But we share one great passion:
- transformation
- of deprived urban communities
- into strong, sustainable entities
See: How we work and why we do so.
We deliver a variety of products and results. ....
- a -based, holistic and participative approach,
- ...
