ABSTRACT
When sustainable development appeared on the global agenda, many spatial planners - both inside and outside the Netherlands - believed that they already had a 'sustainable' concept: the compact city. Beatley is not alone with his remark that "sustainable communities are [...] places that exhibit a compact urban form" (1995, 384). The compact city is the spatial concept that has served as the guiding principle for urban development for some time. Notions such as clustering and concentration have become important in the attempts to achieve compact, multifunctional and 'sustainable' spatial planning. Compact urban development, however, can also mean that functions and activities that are not really compatible for environmental reasons are located close together, possibly resulting in a loss of urban quality.
