This essay contains a short history of the municipal and other administrative sciences in the Netherlands. This history is divided into seven lives. Each life has its own specific characteristics and approaches. The story starts in 1914 with the dissertation of Gerrit van Poelje and the aldermanship of Floor Wibaut (for the Dutch Labour Party) in Amsterdam. Nevertheless, the authors make a plea to view 1921 as the actual starting point, because it is the year of the introduction to municipal administration written by Van Poelje and the first Dutch academic magazine on municipal administration (‘Gemeentebestuur’). This means that we can prepare for the celebration of 100 years of (municipal) administrative sciences in 2021. A great challenge for all universities, but certainly for the Public Administration programme of the University of Twente, which is now celebrating its 40^th anniversary. The challenge is to work on current topics such as the relationship between public administration and technology in smart, sustainable and resilient cities.

Reflection and debate initiates academically inspired discussions on issues that are on the current policy agenda.

Reflection and debate initiates academically inspired discussions on issues that are on the current policy agenda.

In the safety domain important developments are currently taking place concerning the way in which administrative and tactical operations are dealt with in crises. It is characteristic for the approach that cooperation in chains and networks is increasingly needed to arrive at a suitable approach. In this essay, the authors analyse two subdomains in two concrete cases on how cooperation between several parties takes shape and functions. For that purpose, they differentiate between acute and non-acute crises. In the subdomain ‘acute crises’, they have chosen the case of the Dutch town Moerdijk (the fire at the Chemie-Pack company in 2011). In the subdomain of non-acute crises, they focus on community safety partnerships (‘Veiligheidshuizen’), especially on the community safety partnership in the Dutch province of Friesland (‘Veiligheidshuis Friesland’). In both subdomains the establishment of a good basic cooperation and leadership structure appears to be of prime importance. From there it is necessary to respond in a flexible manner (to be able to execute custom-made work). Within that framework, the capacity may develop to arrange a well-structured and effective cooperation at the operational level (ad hoc in acute crises), to monitor progress properly and to carry out targeted interventions if the developments in the situation ask for these interventions. A good knowledge of each other’s frame of reference is necessary to make this work, so that a maximum level of integration in the approach is achieved.

Politicians and scientists in the Netherlands often claim that only municipalities with over 100,000 inhabitants (so called ‘100,000+ municipalities’) have enough administrative power to be able to carry out their tasks in the future well. This is also the case for the responsibilities that recently have handed over to the Dutch municipalities as part of the three decentralizations. Against the background of this debate, the authors of this essay argue that the experiences of the four European microstates – Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino –may offer an interesting frame of reference where it concerns the delivery of public services. These four countries have all the responsibilities and tasks of a sovereign state, but at the same time three of the four countries have a population of fewer than 40,000 inhabitants. Also, the fourth country is smaller than a 100,000+ municipality. Despite the small size of these states, their public services are of an exceptionally high level. Therefore this essay tries to answer two questions: How is this possible? What can we learn from the experiences of these microstates about the debate on scale and administrative power in the Netherlands?

Since 2001 the Dutch province of Overijssel has its own knowledge centre in the area of urban society next to the national knowledge centres: the ‘KennisInstituut Stedelijke Samenleving’ (KISS). In a previous essay an overview of KISS-meetings dedicated to citizen participation was given. Examples were used from all over the world. This essay zooms in on Deventer, a municipality with almost 100.000 inhabitants in the east of the Netherlands, that can be considered a frontrunner in the area of innovative community and area development. This essay gives an impression of some KISS-meetings on physical community development (to give the inhabitants a say in the physical renewal of their neighbourhoods), social community development (to stimulate inhabitants to improve their own life chances) and economic community development (to give the inhabitants better opportunities on the labour market). This approach was implemented in a deprived neighbourhood (‘Rivierenbuurt’) for the first time and was accompanied by ‘verbal renewal’. The case of area development (‘Havenkwartier’) concerns the subject of temporarily landscapes (‘pauzelandschappen’) that are developed, because the original development plans have incurred a delay. Apart from its willingness to break new ground Deventer shows a lot of attention for issues of sustainability and the positive role of the art sector. In short it is a versatile ‘micropolis’ that uses the available ‘social capital’ and the ‘creative class’ well.