Governments throughout the whole world feel the need to cut spending due to the current financial crisis. The Netherlands are no exception in this matter. Top civil servants are up to the task to implement these cutbacks within their own organizations. However, not much is known about what influences their choice for certain implementation strategies. One factor of interest are the values of top civil servants, which are supposed to be influenced by their work experience. This is a relevant factor, since the introduction of New Public Management made it more common for managers from the private sector to reach the higher echelons of government. Top civil servants with different backgrounds and from different Dutch ministries were interviewed for this study. It seems that using across-the-board cuts are present within Dutch ministries, sometimes combined with targeted cuts. Surprisingly, no differences in values and implementation strategies were found between managers with and without experience in the private sector, contrary to expectation. The implementation strategies used seem mainly influenced by values such as soberness and thrift, values which are not present in current public values literature.

The city is hot: solutions to the world’s everyday problems are increasingly sought at the local level. Local administrations are handed more responsibilities through decentralizations and much is expected of the pragmatic skills of mayors. A great deal of hope is directed at the self-organizing abilities of cities, which can be seen as laboratories for social change and improvement. In this themed issue we will critically review these high expectations of cities and the local level. Can cities live up to these expectations, and at what point does ‘hope’ become ‘hype’? This introductory article mainly focuses on the concept of living labs, which are presented as an accessible, innovative and pragmatic way to address social issues in neighbourhoods.