ABSTRACT
There has recently been much debate in the Netherlands, about the future “spatial design” of the country. These discussions have in part been stimulated by the national government, which for the fifth time since the end of the 1950s is preparing a policy document outlining the future shape of land use in the country. But they have also been fostered by the increasing media coverage in recent years of the new North American metropolitan landscape. This landscape is characterized by (1) an increasing deconcentration of urban residents and businesses into the hinterland of the old core cities; (2) an increasing differentiation between amenity clusters, leisure districts and employment zones, both within and outside the old core cities; (3) an increasing economic and geographical polarization within these expanding “urban fields,” between flourishing office centers and luxury residential areas at one end of the scale and decayed industrial areas and slums at the other; (4) an increasing tendency toward the formation of “enclaves” in the form of protected, socially-profiled local residential communities and amenity clusters and; (5) the increasing importance of design in the configuration of new residential areas and centers (Zukin 1991, 1995; Knox 1992; Soja 2000). In this respect, Zukin talks about a trend towards a polarized configuration of “landscapes of power,” characterized by increasing disparities in economic capacity and a matching cultural “packaging” between winning and losing clusters of land use (Zukin 1991). For the majority of Dutch observers, this trend presents such a frightening picture that government intervention is being demanded to prevent something of a similar nature occurring here. A minority, however, does believe that there are attractive aspects to this development – for example, a greater geographical diversity which has been sadly lacking in Dutch planning in the past.
