The main question addressed in this paper is whether national
government involvement in local urban redevelopment projects
might be justified by a resulting surplus value in the outcome of
these projects. Our analysis of the Dutch key projects produced
ambiguous results. National government involvement in these projects
was clearly motivated by their presumed contribution to national
wealth. The aims were to provide incentives for urban
economic development and to guarantee the provision of urban
quality, a public good. Nevertheless, our evaluation of the economic
effects and urban quality found no conclusive evidence of
any surplus value as a result of the involvement of the national government. Likewise, an evaluation based on a larger number of
other indicators, which have not been used here, also produced
mixed results (Van der Wouden et al., 2009). Broadly speaking,
the conclusion must be that while national involvement in the
key projects may have been justified beforehand in conceptual
terms, it cannot be justified convincingly on the basis of the empirical
findings discussed in this paper.