Structural Vision 2040 of Amsterdam

 An unanimous approval on 17 februari by the city council of Amsterdam makes the Structural Vision 2040 defenitive, after a preparation of years. The vision aims at an attractive, sustainable, green city with enough houses on suitable locations. Briefly said this means adding about 70.000 dwellings to the existing city according to the municipality. Most must be accomplished by intensifying within the city and not by the traditional green field developments. This is a positive step because dutch cities, also Amsterdam, are usually not so dense compared with other European cities.

Slow Urbanism gains more publicity

The Netherlands used to be a quite consolidated development market. Developers and municipalities could afford to make big projects for whole areas and finance them in one go, off course in phases. The projects depended on just a small amount of big developers. Nowadays because of the crisis things changed. Municipalities and urbanists are looking for different way of developing because off the absence of big developers, big financing and absence of housebuyers demand. A new way of development is needed.

Recently at the digital forum for urbanists Ruimtevolk an article was written by Jurgen Hoogendoorn (municipality Amsterdam) en Herman Swen (municipality Zaanstad) about the topic. Summary and translation of the article 'Slow Urbanism as answer to the crisis' (' Langzame Stedenbouw als antwoord op de crisis'):