Jennifer van Beek

The dissertation aims to advance a multidimensional and participatory framework for understanding and addressing urban marginality in high-income contexts through the analytical lens of economic wellbeing. It departs from the paradox that persistent economic growth and institutional strength coexist with widening social and spatial inequalities. The research draws on wellbeing economics, conceptualizing wellbeing as the interaction between material, relational, and subjective dimensions of life, and integrates this with participatory governance theory and urban regime theory.

The overarching research question is formulated as: How can citizen-defined, multidimensional indicators of wellbeing be developed and measured at neighbourhood level in high-income urban contexts, and to what extent can such measurement meaningfully contribute to citizen empowerment and more inclusive urban governance?

The dissertation deliberately addresses this question through an article-based design, in which each empirical chapter (Chapters 2–5) examines a specific sub-question. Taken together, these chapters provide a cumulative and integrated answer to the main research question (chapter 6).

The dissertation is structured around a sequential yet flexible methodological architecture. It addresses the main research question through analysing multiple marginalized, yet distinct, neighbourhoods in Amsterdam. It takes an action-oriented and community-based participatory research approach that combines qualitative and quantitative methods, experiential and statistical data, and multiple forms of expertise.

Chapter 2 addresses the first sub-question: how can broader wellbeing indicators and a new measurement instrument be developed through co-creation with residents of a marginalised neighbourhood, and under what conditions can empowerment be achieved? Based on the first neighbourhood case study, Venserpolder, it analyses a process of initiating local collaboration and setting-up co-creation for wellbeing measurement. This leads to a transferable bottom-up method for participatory wellbeing measurement (“Wellbeing Dashboards”). The chapter demonstrates how residents are able to articulate coherent, multidimensional conceptions of wellbeing spanning material, relational, and subjective when guided through interactive and creative tasks. In addition, the chapter illustrates how empowerment can emerge not only from the outcomes of participatory measurement, but also from the process of co-creation itself – particularly when its longitudinal, face-to-face, facilitates social learning and is embedded in self-organised community structures rather than one-off consultations.

Chapter 3 addresses the second sub-question: what additional insights do bottom-up, citizen-defined wellbeing indicators provide compared to conventional top-down data sources? The chapter reveals how participatory, multidimensional wellbeing measurement fill critical blind-spots in policy knowledge based on which it underlines the relevance and legitimacy of citizen knowledge to policy. It presents a comparison which empirically shows that citizen-defined wellbeing indicators illuminate previously unrecognized needs and complement conventional indicators. Wellbeing indicators measured in the subjective and/or relational domain prove to complement municipal indicators most substantially by capturing lived experiences. As such, the chapter empirically validates the inclusion of localized relational-subjective wellbeing indicators for human-centered and more effective policy design. Moreover, the chapter illustrates how integrated wellbeing measurement can signal important points for intervention. The results of a correlation analysis signal important interdependencies across domain and reaffirm the importance of looking beyond material indictors to understanding human wellbeing outcomes.

Chapter 4 addresses the third sub-question: what do bottom-up wellbeing indicators reveal about shared and diverging needs across marginalized neighbourhoods, and what does this imply for area-based policy and governance of marginalized neighbourhoods? It compares local wellbeing indicators of three neighbourhoods and discusses how residents articulate a layered understanding of wellbeing needs; one that is compromises foundational needs followed by divergent higher-order needs. Residents across marginalized neighbourhoods consistently identified and share concerns over, what the chapter conceptualizes as, “basic safety” wellbeing needs (including social connection, financial sufficiency, housing stability, emotional balance, neighbourhood liveability and perceived safety). This shared foundation suggests that governance of marginalized neighbourhoods can happen within a unified area-based framework. Beyond a shared foundation, divergence is found in terms of higher-order wellbeing needs and the priorities set by residents. Subsequently, the chapter argues that area-based interventions must just as well leave space for localized priority-setting and contextualized formulation of policy action. Methodologically, the findings of both shared and divergent wellbeing needs demonstrate that the bottom-up method produces robust results with contextual validity.

Chapter 5 addresses the fourth and final sub-question: Under what institutional and political conditions can participatory wellbeing measurement influence policy agendas, decision-making, and resource allocation at the neighbourhood level? The chapter analyses an emerging collaborative coalition around the Wellbeing Dashboards in Amsterdam Southeast. Here shared concerns over policy legitimacy and effectiveness are bringing various district-level policy actors and residents together. The findings demonstrate how participatory wellbeing measurement can function as boundary-spanning resource, able to facilitate multi-actor collaboration from a shared, and community-validated, starting point. However, in terms of achieving actual policy influence, analysis through an urban regime lens revealed critical coalitional, resource and institutional constraints. The current collaborating coalition lacks policy actors with sufficient decision-making authority, and control over financial and bureaucratic resources, to institutionalize community influence. In addition, wider institutional constraints, such as hierarchical accountability structures, predefined policy assignments, and fragmented governance responsibilities, hamper sustained community-led collaboration and the extent to which resident-defined wellbeing priorities can be structurally embedded in local policy practice.

Chapter 6 provides a coherent answer to the main research question and highlight three key findings. The empirical chapters show that, through meaningful co-creative processes, citizen-defined, multidimensional wellbeing indicators can be robustly developed and measured at neighbourhood level and generate analytically distinct and policy-relevant knowledge. The extent to which such local wellbeing measurement contributes to citizens’ epistemic and procedural empowerment is twofold. First, policy actors start to legitimize citizens’ experiential and situated knowledge when translated measurable indicators, which cause the indicators to shift epistemic power to citizens. Second, when local wellbeing measurement turns into policy action, formerly unrecognized needs become decisive in policy practice hence shifting both epistemic and procedural power to citizens. As such, measurement determines which needs are seen and are recognized; highlighting a first key finding: i) Measurement is a site of power, not a neutral tool.

In addition, based on the empirical findings it suggests that a credible wellbeing framework in affluent urban contexts must be able to hold both stability and plurality: a shared baseline of basic safety and a plural space of valued living. The measurement of multidimensional wellbeing in and across marginalized neighbourhoods highlights a second key finding: ii) Marginality in affluent cities is a matter of varying and interacting relational, personal, and institutional deficits that are contextually shaped and locally specific.

At the same time, the dissertation demonstrates that the governance impact of such measurement, and hence the empowering potential of participation, is conditional. It empirically shows that bottom-up, participatory wellbeing measurement is a necessary condition for revealing lived marginality and empowering citizens, but it is not sufficient for achieving inclusive urban governance in high-income contexts. Realising its full transformative potential requires complementary changes in institutional arrangements, coalition structures, and the valuation of local knowledge within policy systems. This leads to the final key finding: iii) Participatory measurement only becomes transformative when embedded in governance regimes.

Theoretically, the dissertation advances wellbeing economics by embedding citizen knowledge in the production of economic data, linking epistemic with distributive justice. Conceptually, it reframes urban marginality as multidimensional illbeing in affluent societies. Methodologically, it contributes a transferable framework for participatory wellbeing measurement and validation. At the policy level, it demonstrates how localized indicators can inform differentiated investment strategies and support a systemic transition toward inclusive, wellbeing-oriented urban governance. Moreover, the dissertation contributes a reflexive account of conducting action-oriented and participatory research as both scientific inquiry and epistemic justice intervention. Finally, policy recommendations and future research directions are suggested.