ABSTRACT
A process of radically reassessing the residential environment may be said to have started in the Netherlands in the 1960s, in the 1970s, that it has attracted the attention of the policy makers. The enormous increase in the number of cars and the parking problems they create constitute an immediate and widespread threat to the quality of the residential environment. Another consequence is the threat to the safety of children; the air is polluted with exhaust fumes and filled with ear-splitting noise. Town and country planning and housing in the Netherlands have been governed by the Physical Planning Act and the Housing Act since 1965. The real importance of participation in planning by the people most directly affected is that it causes them to become involved with the object of the planning and consequently means that the facilities which are being planned are likely to have a higher chance of success.
