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.

This article presents an empirically grounded typology of labour migration patterns among migrants from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and analyses the ways in which large cities and small towns cope with the diverse inflows of new EU citizens in their municipalities. Our analysis is based on a survey (N=654) among labour migrants from Poland, Bulgaria and Romania in 11 municipalities in the Netherlands, including Rotterdam and The Hague. Next, we make use of the results of six discussion meetings with local stakeholders and housing and labour recruitment agencies. The inflow of new EU citizens shows the local limits of urban governance. In order to cope with the negative aspects of the new labour migration Dutch cities try to influence national and European policy agenda's and develop local programs that counteract the shadow sides of the new labour migration.