Ik Geef om de Jan Eef

This case study gives an impression of a group of residents initiating collective regeneration of a shopping street, which began with a tragedy: a local jeweller got shot in his own shop during a robbery in broad daylight. In that period the shopping street was a place “where you wouldn’t want to be on your own at night. But after the dark day in the history of the neighbourhood four residents, having known each other for a couple of years through the school of their children, decided they need to take action. Their idea was as simple as it was difficult: when institutions can’t deliver on their promises of improvement and entrepreneurs do not seem to be able to lift up the neighbourhood, “we need to do it ourselves.” The core group came up with the slogan ‘Ik Geef om de Jan Eef’ that needed to symbolise this distributed responsibility. The municipality was triggered by the initiative and started to cooperate with the group. Overall, the case of Ik Geef om de Jan Eef illustrates the possibility for collective action through making clear amongst a diverse group of stakeholders what the common resource is they share and how coordination can increase its value. Although the initiators and other involved actors presumably did not explicitly use the concept of a common resource and some of their connecting efforts might even have been unintentionally, it was their recognition of a shared sense of urgency that enabled them to bridge differences and mobilize others for joint action.