Cities and regions have long captured the imagination of sociologists, economists, and urbanists. From Alfred Marshall to Robert Park and Jane Jacobs, cities have been seen as cauldrons of diversity and difference and as fonts for creativity and innovation. Yet until recently, social scientists concerned with regional growth and development have focused mainly on the role of firms in cities, and particularly on how these firms make location decisions and to what extent they concentrate together in agglomerations or clusters. This short article summarizes recent advances in our thinking about cities and communities, and does so particularly in light of themes advanced in my recently published book, The Rise of the Creative Class, which focuses on diversity and creativity as basic drivers of innovation and regional and national growth. This line of work further suggests the need for some conceptual refocusing and broadening to account for the location decisions of people as opposed to those of firms as sources of regional and national economic growth. In doing so, this article hopes to spur wider commentary and debate on the critical functions of cities and regions in 21st century creative capitalism.

In managing new cleavages between conflicting values (such as materialism and post-materialism), we cannot simply fall back on a classical approach to cleavage management. The segments surrounding the new cleavage are clearly more fluid than those surrounding the religious or socio-economic cleavages from consociationalism and neo-corporatism, such as is rightly emphasised in the network approach. In the conflict between the materialist and post-materialist value pattern, representation logic is not a given certainty. Not only the facts, but also the negotiating players and the decision-making arenas are the subject of negotiation and strategic action. This is reflected in the new forms of consultation politics. Similarly, consensus formation cannot make do with the (party) political integration of the segments because, given the conditions of post-materialism, this integration can only be partial. It seems important in the new cleavage management to devote attention to the existence of several arenas in which political interests are weighed up. For the players involved in a particular policy issue, this means the lure of strategic forum shopping and thus complication of the conflict-resolving ability of each of the forums.

The creation of quasi-autonomous organizations has spread throughout the western world. Flanders and the Netherlands both have a longstanding tradition of putting policy execution at arms' length, thereby creating so-called voi's and zbo's respectively. This raises the question whether there are comparable trajectories, forms, developments and political considerations. By comparing the developments in both countries the authors seek an answer to this question.

The establishment of quangos was very popular until the mid 1990s. However, in both countries a countermovement can be seen. The creation of quangos is believed to lead to problems for political control. Both governments have taken several measures to solve these issues.

The comparison shows that there are indeed many similarities, but also reveals interesting differences. There is no comprehensive convergence between the two neighbours. These differences are the result of differences in the politico-administrative system and the institutional culture.

There is probably no other sector of the welfare state where the gap between citizen's expectations and government's opportunities is deepening so intensely and has such a complex and politicized reform agenda as the health care sector. Health care is a critical case par excellence to study the relation between efficiency and legitimization of welfare state reform. The leading question of this special issue of Beleid & Maatschappij is: how does the Dutch health care system and the connected public policymaking accommodate the different and often conflicting goals (input), organizing concepts (throughput) and outcomes (output)? With these questions in mind the dominant governance principles of Dutch health care, especially the system of regulated competition, are scrutinized. One of the findings is, that 'second best' solutions are the highest achievable in this field, a notion that reform policies should take into account.

This article provides an overview of the various initiatives in the past decades to measure the outcomes of health care systems from a public health perspective. It is described how on the one hand the performance measurement techniques and its associated indicators have become more sophisticated over the years but on the other hand how the indicators meet difficulties in being incorporated in policy and management by policymakers and politicians. The present health care reform in The Netherlands will enforce the debate on competing health care outcomes (effectiveness, efficiency, equity). Steps are described how to take the steering on health outcomes as a more central notion in health system redesign.