Almere is a 'new town' built in 1975 on new polder land where before 1932 was the sea. It started out as a compact city where a lot of commuters lived on 30 train minutes of Amsterdam. Later it developed more suburban with nowadays a lot of (semi)detached and row housing estates. The suburbs are car orientated resulting in a grid lock on the highway to Amsterdam every day. Previously whole estates where developed within 5-10 years with uniformity in architecture and urban styles per developement. Now the developers are not able to build en masse because of lack of finance and demand on this scale a turning point in urban development is reached. Previous plans to build around 60.000 houses till 2030 are being abandoned.
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| previous plan shows in light red the expansion plans of Almere and needed public transport |
Recently, 1 februari, the municipality presented a organical urban design development strategy (organische stedenbouw) and the task to apply it for a specific area called Europakwartier or Europe quarter. The Alderman Adri Duivesteijn is the driving force for these new urban developments. He is known when being Alderman in The Hague to have changed the city renewal projects drastical. Five years ago he introduced on a big scale the private-house-building
method in Almere to offer choice besides the big project developments.
