The governance of live-work mix: Actors and instruments in Amsterdam and Brussels development projects

This paper addresses the governance of the ‘live-work mix’. This concept refers to the renewed intertwining of living and working activities in new housing and urban development in the context of welfare state restructuring, development of the knowledge economy and globalisation. Implementing live-work goals can be difficult because a consensus between public and private actors is usually needed to develop such projects. In this paper, we examine the actors and instruments that assist in the implementation of live-work goals in targeted areas. We survey live-work development by analysing three illustrative projects in Brussels and Amsterdam, cities with comparable strategies but distinct planning systems. Our results indicate that state support is essential to enhance live-work mix, especially because the market remains reluctant to mix functions and focuses primarily on housing development. Flexible and tailor-made instruments are used, sometimes co-authored by public and private actors, to reach consensus. These instruments illustrate variants of strategic planning. Despite a shared interest in attracting target groups to redevelopment areas, the consensus-building process is affected by discrepancies in the nature of live-work mix.