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The concluding chapter epitomizes the empirical findings of contested urban governance in the empirical case studies and compares the institutional regime conditions of self-build housing in contrasting contexts. By focusing on the social and economic struggle on public regime conditions, we aim to analyse and compare the performances and challenges of very different self-build experiences in city-regions on three continents. Guided by this framework, the most important empirical findings of the case studies are inferred in this concluding chapter.

The chapter sets up the analytical framework for the comparison of cases of self-building by low income groups in city-regions of the Global North and South. Considering the enormous local differences, a choice of paradigm is needed to enable comparison. By designing a framework of contested urban governance, the analysis focuses on the struggle of social and economic forces that are underlying the local experiences: it consists of the economic powers that capitalize on material growth of cities on the one hand and the social and cultural powers of the urban population, claiming their right to the city, on the other. Crucial is the commissioning role of the residents in the attempts to control their housing situation in relation to other relevant players on urban housing markets. These attempts are not only made in the micro-level performance of self-building but also in the political and social struggle on the conditions that rest on these practices.

This chapter explores how the different arrangements of low- and middle-income housing at the micro-level relate to processes of city building at the level of the city-region. We study how the social and economic contestation on the uses of urban land translate into new spatial patterns of urban and regional development. This is concretely done through a comparative case study of a Brazilian and an European city-region. This comparative perspective will sensitize the empirical investigation to the effect of the (changes of) institutional context and regimes on housing arrangements and spatial patterns of city building. A specific focus will be on self-building arrangements as practices that challenge existing formal systems of city building in both cases.

In het Jaar van de Ruimte (2015) stonden de grote ruimtelijke opgaven voor Nederland centraal. Die waren aanleiding voor een aantal publicaties. Tussen maart 2013 en juli 2015 hebben de ruimtelijk wetenschappelijke instituten hun grootste onderzoeksprogramma’s en belangrijkste bevindingen gepresenteerd in een debatreeks. Ook het PBL heeft daaraan deelgenomen, met een presentatie over het boek De ruimtelijke metamorfose van Nederland 1988-2015.