Visual Storytelling: Assessing the power of maps in planning

There is an abundant use of visualisation in spatial planning. This chapter is particularly concerned about planning on the regional level and beyond. On these higher levels of scales maps form the dominant visualisation mode. To fully comprehend and evaluate the content of these maps this chapter first discusses a set of theoretical concepts...

Introducing the Randstad: A polycentric metropolis

The Randstad and polycentric regions generally are not only vehicles to create critical economic mass. The geography of the Randstad is unmistakably deltaic, with expanses of flat open land crisscrossed by watercourses and historic windmills that remain from a former network of more than 10,000. The development of extensive physical and soft...

Governance and power in the metropolitan regions of the Randstad

This chapter focuses on the nature and powers of governance arrangements in two Dutch metropolitan areas, both situated in the Randstad: the Metropolitan Region Amsterdam (Metropoolregio Amsterdam) and the Metropolitan Region Rotterdam The Hague (Metropoolregio Rotterdam Den Haag ). It considers the power of process by analysing the actor...

Randstad: From a spatial planning concept to a place name

This chapter seeks to unravel the history of the Randstad planning concept and focuses on the national level as a lot of the thinking about the Randstad has been carried out within national planning organisations and trickled down to provincial and municipal planning. It begins with a short section about the very first visualisation of the...

Conclusion and outlook

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book shows how specific advantages given to cities, for instance trading and taxation rights in medieval times, had a clear influence on the economy of cities and through that, on population growth. It also shows how so-called...

Mapping for regions

The most dominant form of visualization in regional design is mapping. This chapter seeks to unravel why and how maps are used in regional design and what sort of techniques may give maps agency. The chapter seeks to explain how the textual and visual languages of regional design are interconnected, in particular through the use metaphors....

The futures of regional design

The climate crisis has grown worse, with impacts more severe, widespread, unpredictable, and what’s worse, not dealt with globally in a meaningful way. The devastating wildfires in Australia in late 2019 and the western United States of America (USA) in 2020 seemed to underscore that consensus, with tens of millions of acres, thousands of...

Interdisciplinary pedagogies for regional development challenges: The re-coupling of planning, design, and the social sciences

To address regional development effectively, integrative strategies are needed based on interdisciplinary and even transdisciplinary thinking. To prepare professionals for this task it is crucial to look at higher education, in particular regional design education. Three key disciplines which have become separated need to be re-coupled:...

The Institutionalisation of a Creative Practice: Changing Roles of Regional Design in Dutch National Planning

This chapter discusses the organisational setting of regional design in the realms of spatial planning and territorial governance. As a starting point, it argues that rules on how imagined design solutions function in an abstract, simplified ‘planning world’ are an important regional design product. When focusing on these rules, regional design...

Urban Transformation in the Northern Randstad: How Institutions Structure Planning Practice

This chapter discusses the empirical value of looking at planning practice through institution/pragmatism lenses. The notion of institutions that provide actors with a logic of appropriateness and ideas about planning as a communicative practice set the stage for an analysis of the use of environmental norms in Dutch planning practice. On the...

Duurzame ontwikkeling van grote steden