Spatial Dynamics in the Pearl River Delta and Development Strategies

The transformation of Pearl River Delta (PRD) is characterized by a complex layering, spatial and temporal differentiation. Its complexity is not only caused by interactions between multiple layers like blue-green spatial structure and urban spatial structure, but also caused by the interactions of several large sub-regions that are mutually...

Toward a Cultural Heritage of Adaptation: A Plea to Embrace the Heritage of a Culture of Risk, Vulnerability and Adaptation

We need to tell a new story about urbanizing delta regions. Historically, large-scale ‘iconic’ hydraulic works and modern industrial ports have been celebrated as showing the power of humans to control and subject nature. The emphasis on this part of cultural heritage tends to bury the remains of engineering and urban development of the previous...

Rotterdam The Hague, NL

The Cities of Making 'Cities Report', offers an insight into urban manufacturing in three global cities - Brussels, London and Rotterdam. Each city has had a distinctive industrial heritage and is interpreting the future of manufacturing in very different ways. This report exposes unique qualities of each and common trends that may be relevant...

How infrastructure can support and destroy the public domain of the city

Triumph of the City is a famous book by Harvard professor Edward Glaeser, describing the city as the most important engine of prosperity, economic development, culture and innovation. The invention of cities was the best thing mankind ever did (Glaeser, 2011).

Introduction. Urban Deltas: An international issue

The position of the Netherlands as a highly urbanized delta region is by no means unique in the world. Far from it. In fact, all around the world, deltas are sites of strong urban and economic growth. What is unique about the Netherlands, however, is the high level of flood protection, which has ensured that no serious flooding disaster has...

Introduction. The Southwest Delta: Space for 'controlled dynamics'

The Southwest Delta is perhaps the most dynamic region in the low-lying Dutch Delta, both in terms of the dynamics of the relationship between water and land, and in terms of the dynamics of urban and economic growth and their consequences for land-use.

Reflection. The open delta city: Designing with different dynamics

In his lecture ‘The Open City’, Richard Sennett (2006) pleads for an approach in urban design and planning which creates conditions for an evolutionary city. In his view, the current generation of designers and planners is still too focused on the city as a closed system. As a result, many cities become frozen entities, unable to cope with...

The changing state of the Dutch delta

The spatial structure of the Randstad Holland is strongly related to the policy concerning hydraulic engineering in the Netherlands. Both, Randstad Holland and the large hydraulic works, can be considered as part of the ‘modern project’ of the Netherlands, undertaken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This modern project aimed to up-...