‘Care Circles’ as an entrepreneurial land policy instrument for age-appropriate housing provision in densification projects

This article contributes to an emerging recognition of the role of planning to mitigate the care gap in an ageing society. The allocation of space for care remains a spatial planning challenge at the local level. Our research question concerns the spatial planning instruments and strategies that local public authorities use to provide age-appropriate housing. Based on a single case study of Nieuwegein (Netherlands), our findings demonstrate the prominence of private law contracts, negotiated between public authorities and market actors. With the rollback of the state from essential social services, local governments are pushed to act more entrepreneurially to incentivize housing provision to meet the needs of the elderly on an ad-hoc basis. We argue that socially sustainable urban policy responses require deliberate coordination between social policy and land use planning to mitigate the care crisis, which will otherwise deepen in ageing societies with rapidly increasing demand for care.