The community machinery – repair or reframe

Almost every Dutch city works community oriented in one way or another. In the last fifteen years a ‘community machinery’ has been developed. This machinery tends to show some deficits: (1) a not so clear view on citizens, (2) an overestimation of the municipality’s role, (3) a fetishing of the community scale and (4) an inability to tackle the real problems in a community. These deficits can be repaired (1) by acknowledging the variable roles of citizens, (2) by restraining the self estimation, (3) by relativise the community scale and (4) by a better analysis of what the real problems are. These repairs are surely possible, but it may be advisable to reframe the community machinery, using the model of the urban renewal.