The Dutch ‘Gateway to Europe’ spatial policy narrative, 1980–2020: a systematic review

Like other countries with large ports, the Netherlands developed a policy narrative to acquire a key position in global value chains starting in the 1980s, through the spatial development of its hinterland logistics complex. The negative environmental effects of logistics, such as landscape transformation and congestion, have increasingly come...

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...

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...

COMPASS – Comparative Analysis of Territorial Governance and Spatial Planning Systems in Europe. Applied Research 2016-2018: Final Report

The objective of the COMPASS project was to provide an authoritative comparative report on changes in territorial governance and spatial planning systems in Europe from 2000 to 2016. This Final Report presents the main findings, conclusions and policy recommendations. The COMPASS project compares territorial governance and spatial planning in 32...

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...

Transformations of Planning Rationales: Changing Spaces for Governance in Recent Dutch National Planning

Dutch national planning has acquired an international reputation because it provides strong planning guidance while simultaneously being responsive to the particular spatial and political circumstances of different regions and areas. Spatial concepts, like the Randstad, are important vehicles for sustaining this approach. Such concepts...

CRONWE: first attempts to institutionalize European spatial planning

This paper is about a relatively unknown north-west European organization of spatial planning: the (standing) Conference for Spatial Planning in North-Western Europe. The founders of CRONWE tried to create a European spatial planning approach that could influence spatial development in the early years of European integration as the European...

The resurgence of regional design

Regional design, long a backbone for spatial planning, even if under other names, has become topical again for two reasons – as a key strategy and as a key tool in spatial management. This is due to several reasons. New conditions of urbanization that result from the convergence of several factors highlight the need for spatial strategy...

Evaluating the strategic capacity of collaborative spatial planning initiatives by the performance of its process, output and outcomes: The case of the southern Randstad Holland

Spatial planning practices are constantly evolving to be more effective in a dynamic context. In the face of the latest developments, the practice of collaborative spatial planning through the formation of regional collaborations has emerged as the contemporary solution. The practice of working with a multitude of public actors that cooperate to...

Regional design: Discretionary approaches to regional planning in the Netherlands

Regional design is a practice that has in recent decades frequently been applied in spatial planning processes in The Netherlands. The making and use of spatial representations of plausible futures of regions was employed to refine physical implementation strategies and simultaneously, by reaching out for broad, sometimes public, attention, to...

Bringing central regulation and local governance interaction together: The case of the Markermeer-IJmeer Natura 2000 area

This paper draws attention to a case in which Natura 2000 regulation, problematic ecological conditions, governance congestion and the aim to develop large urban projects are to go hand in hand in the soft space of the Markermeer-IJmeer area, a 30 by 25 km lake in the centre of the Netherlands. The key interest is how central regulation is...

Design in the context of fragmented regional governance: Studio South Wing (abstract + presentation)

In European regions, such as the Randstad Holland, emerging patterns of interaction and movement result in increasing spatial fragmentation. This development creates enormous challenges for the governance of territories. Classic forms of government, based upon clear-cut divisions in terms of administrative levels, policy sectors and the public...