Circular Area Design or Circular Area Functioning? A Discourse-Institutional Analysis of Circular Area Developments in Amsterdam and Utrecht, The Netherlands

Abstract

The hypothesis of this paper is that the circular economy (CE) has the potential to (re)balance the conflict within urban spatial planning between ‘place as a location’ and the ‘organization of space’. The former dominates the latter following a shift from a Fordist towards a finance and real-estate driven regime. A consequence is that existing manufacturing areas are increasingly transformed into residential and commercial areas. However, this conflicts with the rationale of CE, namely that to end the linear economy, externalized activities, such as the (re)manufacturing of waste, should be internalized again, especially within urban regions. Emphasized by the EU, The Netherlands have the ambition to become fully circular in 2050. To test our hypothesis, we focus on two ongoing circular area developments in Amsterdam and Utrecht. By performing a discourse-institutional analysis, we detect in both case studies a change in discourse towards CE. Our results show that in contrast to our hypothesis, the concept of circularity is not emphasizing the ‘organization of space’, but even accelerating ‘space as a location’, increasingly transforming urban industrial areas into circular built residential and commercial areas. We conclude with spatial policy recommendations regarding the ambitions of a future CE.

When a Fire Starts to Burn. The Relation Between an (Inter)nationally Oriented Incinerator Capacity and the Port Cities’ Local Circular Ambitions

“…Within port cities, these two categories are present in significant amounts. Fourth, in regard to a full CE, port cities can potentially become places were thus (re)consumption and (re)production is better aligned, an argument that is today already used within the discourse of the port of Amsterdam to safeguard its license to operate [22]. Summarized, port cities can offer a lens on the challenges between the alignment of CE policy ambitions and the CE operational capacity to facilitate this.…”

“…Since then, CE has only become more important for the port authority within its strategy, albeit this is part of its strategy to defend its license to operate following the particular situation with the city of Amsterdam regarding a land use conflict between maritime and urban land use [75,76]. Remarkably, this land use conflict is using on both sides the CE discourse, albeit different 'parts' of the CE are chosen [22]. The city authority, aiming to redevelop an existing maritime area close to the city into a new residential area, uses circularity within its plans linked to the built environment.…”

“…This makes it also difficult to objectively compare administrative areas regarding their efforts to strive towards a CE. Moreover, as agenda-setting theories have pointed out [20], as such, the uncritical discourse of circular success stories can even be used by policy actors as a strategy to push particular agendas to the front at the expense of others [21,22].…”

“…In a reciprocal way, this is also the opportunistic reason why many port cities' authorities, the local and the port authorities, put the CE as their central competitive ambition and are trying to let the CE emerge as a public value that defines all activities within, towards, and from their urban/maritime economies. However, in spatial terms, as described by Van den Berghe and Vos [22], the CE ambitions of the local authorities and the port authorities can conflict within the same port city. In Amsterdam, currently a land use conflict exists between port and city to transform an existing maritime area into a residential area, although both use the discourse of circularity to claim their 'right' on that particular area.…”

“…The urban government links circularity to the built environment, stating that all new built buildings will be circular, consequently helping to achieve its CE ambitions. The port authorities link circularity to (re)production processes and the need of such functions to be located as close as possible to the city [22]. In other words, the higher potential of port cities to adapt to a CE, understood in geographical economic terms, is not (always) the same perspective on CE from some policy-makers within port cities.…”