For decades, the new housing estates that were built in the Netherlands after World War II had a solid reputation as neighbourhoods of progress (Reijndorp & Van der Ven 1994). Young households were queuing up for a dwelling in these modernist urban areas, which were known for an abundance of light, air and space, though only higher-skilled and white-collar workers could afford to live there. But with growing prosperity and rising expectations for housing quality, more well-to-do households moved into new residential areas. They were replaced by low-income households who from the end of the twentieth century on were also of migrant descent. The identity and reputation of many of these early post-war areas thus changed. Often labelled problem areas, they have been characterized as concentrations of joblessness, social deprivation, ethnic minorities, conflicting lifestyles, criminality and vandalism (Klijn & Koolma 1987; Ministerie van VROM 1997; Prak & Priemus 1985). Neighbourhoods change. This is an inevitable and iterative process and it has many facets: ageing; economic, social and spatial development; and the perception of and subsequent reactions to these changes by residents as well as institutional actors like municipalities, housing associations, private landlords and other investors (Temkin & Rohe 1996). The accumulation of problems in post-war areas prompted urban renewal policies (Priemus 2004b; 2006) and intensive urban restructuring programmes throughout the Netherlands. A preliminary case study (Ouwehand & Davis 2004) revealed a positive evaluation of the interventions to improve these post-war neighbourhoods by demolition and new housing construction, often for owner-occupancy. But it also revealed a low level of neighbourhood satisfaction, which was attributed to a clash of incompatible lifestyles due to the large influx of new residents from lower-income groups, often households from one of the ethnic minority groups. According to the incumbent residents, these newcomers did ...