The cabinet must make ‘tighter choices’ for the layout of urban and rural areas between now and 2050. Climate change, sea level rise, energy transition and population growth call for major and sometimes painful spatial interventions in the Netherlands. New policy is needed, with popular support that can last for decades, despite political shifts and social polarization.
This is the advice of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) in its research Spatial Exploration 2023, which was published on Thursday. In it, the PBL outlines four future scenarios for the Netherlands. “We live in a time of real systemic change. Things are going to be radically overhauled,” said researcher David Hamers. “If you postpone those big choices for too long, citizens will soon be faced with a hodgepodge of interventions in their daily living environment, which will not make them happy.”
After years of spatial planning being left to the provinces and municipalities, the Rutte IV cabinet wants to regain central control. To combat the housing shortage, the cabinet wants to have 917,000 homes built by 2030. Farmers have to switch to sustainable circular agriculture, and water and soil types are now leading in area planning. The Netherlands must also be climate neutral by 2050 and production must be fully recyclable. But for now it remains with ambitious and abstract parliamentary letters and reports. There is a lack of a clear ‘main structure’ or vision of how the Netherlands should be organized in 2050, say PBL researchers David Hamers and Rienk Kuiper. “When distributing money for infrastructure, we look, so to speak: where are the houses, where are the traffic jams, and then a lane is added. But that is not future-oriented,” says Kuiper.
Read the article What will the Netherlands look like in 2050? No one who knows
Hamers: “The choice is up to politicians: what kind of urbanization do we want, for example, until 2050 and beyond? More homes in the Randstad or spread across the Netherlands? If you let the provinces decide separately, you will not get a clear main structure.”
One big Middle City
PBL has designed and calculated four scenarios for the Netherlands in 2050 as options. Not just like that: Minister Hugo de Jonge (Public Housing and Spatial Planning, CDA) is working on a new ‘space memorandum’ for long-term spatial planning. The provinces must come up with area plans for this this autumn. At the end of March, De Jonge will also respond to the four PBL scenarios during a major meeting.
Urban development until 2050 in the Randstad
Urbanization
These maps from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency show differences in the scenarios for the Netherlands in 2050. In the Global Enterprise future scenario, urbanization is concentrated in and around the major cities of the Randstad conurbation. In the Regionally Rooted scenario, urbanization is more spread over smaller towns and larger villages across the country.
Energy network 2050 in North Holland and Flevoland
Urban development until 2050 in the Randstad
Energy transition
In the Global Enterprise future scenario, there are a limited number of heavy high-voltage lines in the Netherlands. Many wind turbines and solar fields have been added, especially in Flevoland. In the Regionally Rooted scenario, high-voltage lines are more widely distributed throughout the Netherlands, the area with solar fields is smaller in comparison.
In the Global Entrepreneurial scenario, large companies dominate and the Randstad has grown into one large Central City. In the Fast World scenario, people live largely digitally and the country is more flexible and cluttered. In Green Land, the third scenario, nature and climate are central to society and the central government pursues a strict policy. Finally, with Regionally Rooted, the spatial design is fragmented across local and regional communities.
Climate-adaptive measures 2050 in the river area
Water
In the Green Land future scenario, no urbanization is possible in the river area in the Central Netherlands, as long as the national government has not yet determined whether and where additional space for rivers is needed. In the Fast World scenario, further urbanization remains possible here, with the risk that it will be difficult to find undeveloped areas for extra space for the river in the future.
Nature and agricultural areas 2050 in Overijssel
Nature and agriculture
The Global Enterprising scenario focuses on the relocation and extensification of agriculture in transitional areas around the protected nature areas. In the Green Land scenario, the national government focuses on nature-friendly agriculture. Human consumption has shifted from animal to vegetable proteins (the protein transition), which means that less agriculture is needed.
A political color can be recognized in every scenario – with Regionaal Gerootd, for example, ‘noaberschap’ is central, just like with the BoerBurgerBeweging. According to the Planning Bureau, it is not the intention that the government chooses one scenario, but looks at combinations. Kuiper: “Because if you make a vision that rubs very strongly against one taste, the next cabinet will start again. You will not get an energy transition if you start all over again every four years.”
A classic example of clear planning is the reconstruction after the Second World War, says Kuiper. The government wanted enough agricultural land to prevent hunger and enough social housing. This resulted in a clear spatial structure, with larger cities and greenery beyond. Similarly, growing cities now fit both a scenario with a global business climate and one in which the rest of the country should remain green, he says.
Green Country
Of the four scenarios, Groen Land is most in line with the sustainability of the Netherlands as envisaged by the government, Hamers acknowledges. All the calculations showed that strong government control is necessary for all major transitions. Green Land is also the only scenario in which the international nature targets for 2050 are met, and the landscape is designed to withstand more flooding.
What does Greenland look like? In this scenario, the Netherlands is protected with ‘sturdy multifunctional delta dykes’. An additional one and a half million homes will then have been built, three-quarters of which will be within the current urban area. Large and medium-sized cities are like a ‘string of beads’ through the Netherlands, well connected by tram, bus and train. 1,500 square kilometers of nature have been added, which provides space for animal species such as cranes, wild horses, wolves and wisents.
Read the article It takes 30 years, costs billions and starts after the summer: the reorganization of the Netherlands
“Green Land brings unprecedented changes,” says Hamers. Schiphol has been halved and all other airports in the Netherlands closed, the port of Rotterdam has shrunk by 20 percent. Freedom of consumption is restricted; all residents receive an annual ‘environmental budget’ for polluting expenditure. There is a Rural Development Service with its own land bank to help farmers relocate their farms, for example. The government pursues a strict nature policy and enforces it.
In order to develop a good vision, says the PBL, the cabinet should actually look back from the future: what steps are now needed to realize a scenario in 2050? That is difficult, because there can always be unforeseen developments. The PBL scenarios therefore also look at the effects of a new pandemic (bird flu), large-scale disinformation or a raw materials war with Asia. And to, for example, a breakthrough in algae cultivation as a basis for food and raw materials, so that less agriculture is needed.
Which scenario is best? As PBL researchers, Hamers and Kuiper do not answer that question. “Politicians make the choice, we supply the flavors,” says Hamers. “In principle, no scenario is better than another. It’s about: what do you prioritize?”
A version of this article also appeared in the March 9, 2023 newspaper