Planning "home" by branding developers setting the stage for a middle-class sense of home within social mixing schemes

This article focuses on the growing practice of "branding" new middle-class dwelling complexes within urban renewal projects in the Netherlands. Branding in urban renewal entails the use of a specific set of core values to guide the design and marketing of dwellings to make living in deprived areas more attractive to targeted households. Often, branding also includes "lifestyle profiling": research into a targeted consumer group's lifestyle and its residential preferences. In two Dutch case studies, we examine the extent to which this type of branding helps eventual buyers in social mix urban renewal to anticipate and develop a sense of home in their residential complexes and wider neighborhoods. We found that branding-inspired planning decisions to enhance the future residents' sense of home are mostly recognized and appreciated by eventual buyers. However, they are often limited in their capacity to feel at home in the wider neighborhood, which sometimes negatively affects overall housing satisfaction.