Voluntary Community Organisations in Metropolitan Development

While short-term enrolling of citizens in urban regeneration projects often has proven quite successful, permanent embedding of projects in voluntary community-based settings seems to be much more difficult to obtain. This has implications for long term sustainability of urban regeneration projects as well as the resilience of targeted urban neighbourhoods. The aim in the paper is to explore the different ways voluntary community organisations interact with public sector urban regeneration activities. The paper includes data from a survey and case studies of urban regeneration programmes in three Danish municipalities. In the paper is proposed a conceptual framework for understanding the logic and types of voluntary organisations and the nature of the collaboration between voluntary organisations and public sector counterparts within the domain of urban regeneration. The study showed that voluntary community work in relation to public urban regeneration is much more than the public’s engagement in project planning processes. Contrary to temporary urban regeneration projects, VCOs are much more permanently embedded in the neighbourhood, and volunteers are motivated by both self-interest and a desire to improve the local community and help others. What VCOs needed, however, was knowledge and relational skills that could make them more self-reliant and independent of municipal support.