De facto autonomy, the actual potential of regulatory agencies to go about their daily work, is often conceived to be more important to explain regulatory capacity than its formal autonomy and responsibilities. In this article we investigate whether external context factors, such as the financial and economic crisis have an impact on de facto autonomy. More specifically, we investigate whether the de facto autonomy varies after the crisis and distinctively so for specific subsets of employees within regulatory agencies. According to literature, mid-level managers of agencies are key to de facto autonomy and building a secure reputation for the agency in question. We test these external and internal effects on de facto autonomy with a survey among employees of the Dutch Financial Market Authority (N = 248). The findings show that the perceived influence of stakeholders is relatively constant, but that it is more dynamic for European stakeholders. Both middle managers and employees working at strategic and policy departments of the agency conceive the impact of European stakeholders as increasing in nature. The findings have important implications for our studies of de facto autonomy of regulatory agencies as well as reform potential after major institutional crises.

Urban government is expected to contribute to the solution of major urban problems. At the same time, urban government is riddled with problems itself, often denoted in terms of governing and democratic deficits. In this article, options for governance reform in the urban realm are being explored along five lines, following up on recent research in the Netherlands and abroad. Both more aggregative arrangements (electronic ‘straw polls’, knowledge polls, prediction markets, ‘dot gov’ competitions for ‘best solutions’) and more collaborative arrangements (electronic co-creation, wiki governance, vital coalitions, urban regimes) are being assessed. The conclusions is that there are good arguments for, at least, more experimentation along these lines - not only from a functionalistic, but also from a democratic and social-psychological point of view.

The problems discussed in the articles of this special issue are not merely wicked in the sense of involving normative dissensus and factual uncertainty. They also are systemic: they reflect institutional inertia, discursive inertia and the disruptive impact of sociological trends (individualization, Europeanization etc.) on incumbent practices and institutions. This systemic character tends to makes them persistent: while fundamental change is unavoidable, such change is likely to be bothered by the very institutional and discursive inertia it seeks to address. Reflecting, from a public policy studies point of view, on previous articles we deduce four principles from urban practices to deal with these challenges: 1) reduce dissent and uncertainty where possible; 2) acknowledge normative diversity by promoting context-specific solutions; 3) organize policies around societal/market initiatives that have emerged in a context and 4) define institutional changes that may further promote and simplify such policies and seize opportunities for structural change.

Real estate vacancies, undeveloped land within cities and exhausted financial resources of governments are currently high on the agendas of urban decision makers. The financial-economic crisis is often blamed for this. In the Netherlands, overoptimistic development strategies from market players and city governments also contributed to this problem of oversupply, in their pursuit for profit, people and jobs. Research has shown the existence of two coordination dilemmas; at the local and regional level. What solutions to these dilemmas are possible? This article argues that recognition of the problem by local parties is a first and necessary step to be taken. Evidence shows this is difficult due to conflicting interests. Step two will be to decide for the feasible projects within the local development arena partners. Regional coordination is needed to determine conditions that the assumption underlying these projects should be based on. Only after this third step regional cooperation to prevent future tragedies development will be possible.

In 2010 and 2011 a committee of experts inspected if and how forty of the most deprived areas in Dutch cities have benefitted from the major national neighbourhood policy program launched by the previous government in 2007. The aim of the program was to restore living conditions in those areas within the next ten years, by investments in the physical, social and economic field, thus trying to improve the living conditions and chances (social mobility) of the neighbourhood citizens. According to the Committee, the forty neighbourhoods have proved to be laboratories for institutional change. There is growing confidence among local parties that with less disintegrated bureaucracy and more possibilities for citizen initiatives, interventions can be organised which are more effective and cheaper. Realising the objectives of the neighbourhood approach demands continuous involvement, effective organization, creative solutions and intensive contact between professionals and citizens. Government organizations and institutions need to relinquish control and facilitate and support the problem solving abilities of the professionals and citizens, who live and work in these neighbourhoods day in day out. In the most problematic neighbourhoods of Dutch cities, the seeds of the new welfare state are being planted.

Sustainability, the question of how our system of prosperity could be maintained, is one of the main issues of the coming decades. To combine economic growth and a pleasant environment, society needs to scale back its resource use and the ensuing pressures on the environment, by a factor of five. The challenge is to do more with less; something for which there is no instant solution. The city is the place where this change will begin, not by ‘big’ government with ‘big’ plans, but by the energetic society. Citizens and the business community are motivated by their wish for a clean economy and a pleasant living environment. The rise of the information society has increased their ability to exchange knowledge and ideas, releasing creativity and creating new solutions. If city governments are to tap into the strength of society, they must embrace the initiatives and join citizens and business in the empowered deliberative search for sustainable solutions. The goal of a clean economy is within reach, but it demands comprehensive physical and cultural change, in which local initiatives may lead the cultural change towards a broad vision of a strong, sustainable society. A large role for government remains, but high quality, low carbon cities may be the winners of the future.