ABSTRACT

Urban revanchism is essentially a public strategy in favour of capital and of the middle classes regaining the city from the poor. The perfect example of urban revanchism is the violent clearance of Tompkins Square Park in East Village in Manhattan New York, in 1988. Lack of safety is often perceived, at least in public and political debate, as the most urgent problem in urban areas. The Dutch government announced a new Act that would increase the legal scope available to municipalities to deal with urgent urban problems. The year 2002 was a dramatic year in recent Dutch history. For eight years, a government of social-democrats and liberals had governed the Netherlands. Social reconquest targets those urban districts where a critical limit has been transgressed and where the usual policies appear to be unsuccessful. The Rotterdam urban policy practice is a more complex combination of three strategies: repression, social care, and prevention.