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Urban planning and housing policies in the Netherlands
HABITATINTL. Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 387-393,1982. Printed in Great Britain.
0197-3975/82/030387-07$03.00/O Pergamon Press Ltd.
Urban Planning and Housing Policies in theNetherlands University
P.T. SUZUKI of Nebraska at Omaha, USA
INTRODUCTION Urban housing in the Netherlands has been a persistent problem ever since the end of World War II. However, a new dimension has been added within the past ten is traced to the years: that is, the squatter (kraaker) issue. This phenomenon terrible housing shortage which ensued as a result of World War II. The urban planning and housing policies which developed during the immediate post-war years took many shapes and forms. The vicissitudes of the various plans and policies are outlined in this paper. The Netherlands’ overpopulation, the nation’s redistributive justice policy as implemented in rents and rent control, regional imbalances, gentrification in the larger cities, high-rise apartment blocks for social housing (low- and moderate-income housing), changing consumer preferences, and rising expectations have all had a definite hand in the contemporary squatter problem - which is intensifying. Certain well-meaning but ill-conceived urban plans and housing policies exacerbated the situation at various chronological stages, thereby leading to the squatter problem. For a long time after World War II, the Netherlands was known as having a liberal, tolerant, humane, and non-violent society. Yet, increasingly, one reads about massive urban riots and demonstrations by squatters against the police and the established order; and it is not only in Amsterdam and the larger cities where these events have taken place and are taking place. They have taken place in almost every large and small urban place - this was especially true in 1980 - and have shaken the foundations of this welfare state. These disturbances can best be understood in the framework of the Netherlands’ urban and regional planning policies and in its housing policies. ’ The roots of these policies, in turn, must be sought in the war-time conditions and the various factors associated with them. Even at the end of World War 11, the Netherlands - a nation with only 41,000 sq. miles - had a high population density, with some 8 million Dutch. At that time, quite understandably, its housing shortage was acute, to say the least: some 300,000 dwellings were needed but lacking. As a result of this dire situation a policy of total rent control and control of renting and of tenancy was enunciated by the government in its 1947 Woonruimtrwet (Housing Law). All landlords had to register; tenants had to get permits to move: landlords could not underoccupy; and rents were controlled to be low. Therefore the immediate post-war period saw the housing ‘industry’ (a government r The materials listed in the references are the basis for this paper. The author lived in Holland from 1953-1959 while a graduate student at Leiden University, Leiden, a city in the Randstad. During that period, he also lived in Amsterdam for six months and experienced housing of various types while at Leiden, including residence with a Dutch family for about a year and residence in a low-income housing project, as well as residence in a suburb. In 1980, he returned to Holland to attend a NATO and Free University of Amsterdam Advanced Studies Institute on Urban Policy and Planning.
387
388
P. T. Suzuki
controlled undertaking) slowly reviving from the effects of the war - chronic shortages of materials and labour, increasing consumer demands with the increasing number of new families and new births, etc. - so that it was not until the late 1960s that the housing stock finally corresponded to demand. Even after the war, the western part of the Netherlands - an area covering an arc formed by Haarlem, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Dordrecht, Rotterdam, and The Hague, and known as the conurbation Randstad - was much more densely populated than the rest of the Netherlands (see Fig. 1). Given the extreme postwar housing shortage and the fairly rapid economic development of the Randstad vs. the northern, eastern, and southern parts of the Netherlands, a regional plan was conceived in the mid-1950s and implemented towards the end of that decade and in the decade that followed. This was the urban and regional policy of attempting to redistribute the Dutch population from the Randstad to the underdeveloped areas outside of it by making those areas more attractive and by strengthening them through economic development (i.e. encouraging industries to move to the underdeveloped areas; making the areas more attractive to those already there, etc.) to stimulate spatial distribution of economic and social activities for the welfare of those living in the underdeveloped regions. Until recently, the Randstad functioned very much like a Third World country’s primate city: this was where the jobs, amenities, and attractions were to be found. Moreover, given the extremely high birthrate for a developed nation, rather like a country of the Third World, the Netherlands’ population increase was a major consideration in the spatial redistribution concepts inherent in the regional planning of the early 1960s. As stated earlier, immediately after World War II the Netherlands had a population of 8 million; in the 1950s it grew to 10 million; today it is in excess of 14 million, of which a full 6 million reside in the Randstad. On the other hand the poorer regions until quite recently have been physically isolated, and the modes of transportation, the areas’ amenities and their social services lagged behind what was going on in the Randstad. Nevertheless, both in the manner in which the planning was undertaken and in the changing patterns of the population, the regional spatial plans which were implemented raised a number of unforeseen problems. Because the approach was a comprehensive planning approach, a mechanistic outlook and philosophy in planning was activated. Much emphasis was placed upon the physical dimensions of change even in the large urban areas - with a commensurate neglect of the social and psychological factors of the people to be affected. Furthermore, because of the welfare state perspective, an extremely paternalistic attitude towards the people was taken by the policy-makers and planners. In the large urban areas, including those in the Randstad, old housing was bulldozed away (similar to the case of Brussels, in the neighbouring nation) without prior citizen participation in the critical decisions, resulting in predictable outcomes. And, in the late 1960s a slowdown in population growth was discerned, which also made planners realise that the spatial redistribution plans and the stimulation of economic growth of the underdeveloped areas had to be reconsidered. The First and Second Reports on Physical Planning in Holland - the plans to develop the nation’s neglected areas - when fully implemented caused the neglect of urban centres during the 1960s. What change that was undertaken for the large cities favoured total, large-scale development and improvement of the accessibility of the core areas of the cities to aid the central business districts (CBDs). The cases of cities which were radically changed in this period are Tilburg and Utrecht.’ Although the underdeveloped regions received the most attention during this period, this policy did not stem the flow of people to the Randstad, so that even today a substantial proportion of the Netherlands’ population of ’ Thcrc
remains
very little of the old inner city of Utrecht
Urban Planning and Housing Policies in the hl~~~e~~ff~ds
389
3 I I i
Source: Ministerie YU~ Vo~ksh~isvest~~g en Ru~mte~~ke Ordepling, The Hague.
Fig. 1. Growth-centres (15 pheesj: Alkmaar, Almere, Blaricum, Capelle aan den ~&WI, ~aarlemmermeer, He~~e~~oets~~~s, Iloorn, Houten, fluizen, Leidschendam, Lefystad, Nieuwegein, Purmerend, Spijkenisse and Zoetermeer. Growth-towns (2): Emmen and Leeuwarden. Growth-cities (4): Breda, Groningen, Helmond and ZwolEe. Randstad: Haarlem, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam-~ordrecht, The Hague. AIso shown: other major cities (61: Apeldoorn, Arnhem, Eindhoven, Enschede, Maastricht and Tiiburg.
390
P. T. Sum ki
14 million live in the overcrowded Randstad, where there is still a housing shortage. As for urban housing policies, ‘subsidy’ has been the keyword. At present, there are eleven types of subsidies to reduce the cost of a dwelling and its surroundings, and four kinds of subsidies to low- and moderate-income tenants. The housing stock is now double what it was at the end of the war and, of this, fully 80% have benefited from government subsidies. Also, of the present housing stock less than 50% were built before World War II. Yet, as far as the Randstad is concerned there is still a housing shortage. There are several reasons for this seeming paradox: (1) the steady attraction of the Randstad; (2) the kind of social housing (lowincome housing) built in the 1950s; and (3) the rent control structure. For economic reasons the government-subsidised social housing built in the 1950s and 1960s was primarily in the form of high-rise blocks; at least 50% of the apartments built during these years were six stories or higher. The distaste for such accommodations, despite the housing shortage, was evidenced when different kinds of housing became available in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many of the highrise apartments were vacated for more congenial kinds of housing, and the rate of occupancy of these high-rise blocks steadily dropped, leaving many vacant highrise blocks. A more profound impact has been played by the traditional rent control policy. Although the housing shortage eased, low rents were kept that way despite rising costs, inflation, and rising incomes. Thus, 56% of all Dutch pay less than 10% of income toward housing (or rent), and only 18% pay more than 16%. Despite the redistributive justice policy as the operational principle of the Netherlands’ welfare state, low-income people were hurt by the rent control policy because when they moved from dilapidated flats or wherever they may have been into social housing the rents became relatively expensive for them. In contrast, the middle class, which had always occupied sturdy old homes in the city for little rent, had no real incentive to move to the new apartments. The irony was that the poor could not readily afford to move into apartments which were built expressly for them, thus slowing down the apartment construction sector. This problem was compounded by a radical shift in consumer preference and a rise in expectations. Owner-occupied housing became idealised, and - to a large extent - realised. Whereas only 5% of the Dutch were owner-occupiers before World War II, now some 80% of all houses built since 1973 have been single-family dwellings for owner-occupation, resulting in approximately 40% of Dutch households now owning their own home. When the 1960s policy of regional and spatial balance was abandoned, or held in abeyance, the policy which then came to the fore in the early 1970s was that of urban renewal, with rehabilitation and renovation as the guiding forces. A concomitant shift in the policy regarding the city was made: from the policy of trying to rebuild the inner cities to that of trying to rehabilitate the residential districts built in the nineteenth century. (This policy came into being with the 19 76 Urbanisation Report and the Urban Renewal Bill of 1980.) These policies attempt to keep the urban areas as balanced residential, economic, social, and cultural entities, with a powerful emphasis upon the environment and the quality of life. The reports also place stress upon government intervention as an agency of change and expressly minimise free-market forces as being less than desirable. Citizen participation, environmental balance, and a multicultural perspective [owing to a large influx of Dutch citizens from Surinam and the West Indies, along with more than 200,000 gastarbeiders (foreign workers) from the Mediterranean] are also given due consideration. The irony of the previous policies - of spatial regional distribution and planning, economic development of the areas outside the Randstad, the economic development of the CBDs, the construction of high-rise solutions for social
Urban Planning and Housing Policies in the Netherlands
391
housing, and the two-tiered rent control system - has been a noticeable outmigration of people from the Randstad to precisely those areas which were the targets for regional development in an earlier decade. The emigration from the Randstad, however, has merely made the emigrants commuters to the Randstad where they still work. The result of this kind of population shift has been further to strain the existing national and urban transportation systems and to create greater congestion on the national highway (Rijksweg) network. Also, owing to this internal migration, the green spaces in the heretofore underdeveloped regions are rapidly disappearing. As if to come full circle, the latest urban policy is finally to recognise the Randstad as a dynamic entity in its own right, and, accordingly, to develop the Randstad as a singular region. The urban renewal and renovation programmes mentioned earlier will therefore aim at the cities within this densely populated area of West Holland. A much more ambitious urban plan is embodied in the growth-centres and growth-towns policy. A growth-centre is somewhat akin to a new town, except it will be more of a commuter community than a self-contained new town. The objects of the policy have been identified as follows: (1) To promote a balanced urban-regional structure. (2) To form a counterpoise to unrestricted urbanisation. (3) To strive for equity in and among the various regions. (4) To restrict the growth of mobility (especially out-migration to the former underdeveloped areas outside the Randstad). The following growth-centres (‘new towns’) have been designated for completion by 1990 (all are well under way and, in the case of Lelystad, the best-known of the group, very successful for what it was set up to be, a growth-centre on reclaimed land): Alkmaar (8,000 people), Hoorn (9,000), Purmerend (8,500), Huizen/Blaricum (8,400), Almere (24,000), Lelystad (14,000), Zoetermeer (between 9,000 and 12,000), Hellevoetsluis (between 4,000 and 5,000), Spijkenisse (1 l,OOO), Capelle aan den Ijssel (9,000), Nieuwegein (6,.500), and Houten (6,000).3 If one were to plot the growth-centres on a map, they will be shown as falling within the Randstad or just outside the Randstad. The following cities are designated growth-cities: Groningen (between 10,000 10,000 and 1 S,OOO), Breda (between and 15,000 people), 3 Zwolle (between 10,000 and 20,000) and Helmond (between 10,000 and 15,000). In 1978 Leeuwarden and Emmen were designated growth-towns; and two other places, Leidschendam and Haarlemmermeer, were designated growth-centres. The explicit recognition of the Netherlands as a pluralistic society is given clear expression in its latest housing policy, in addition to the concept of growthcentres and growth-towns. Housing for specific population groups is supported. Among such groups are singles and couples. Another important element are the gastarbeiders from the Mediterranean; viz. Portugal, Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey (along with some North Africans). They total more than 210,000, of which the largest group are the Turks, who count some 90,000. Since 1975, more than 100,000 from Surinam have immigrated to the Netherlands. They are accommodated in Woonwetwoning (Housing Law housing), which are low-rent units. Two other groups explicitly delineated are trailer-dwellers (!) and the handicapped. All of the above groups receive some kind of subsidy.4 Be that as it may, owing to rising expectations, preference for single-family units with owner-occupancies, and the heretofore successful programme of rehabilitation and renovation, a gentrification movement has decidedly taken place. ’ The figures in parentheses indicate population growth targets for 1990. For growth-cities increments to the 1980 population figures. 4 See: Ministerie van Volkshuisvesting en Ruimtelijke Ordening, 1979, Volkshuisvesting Section 1.7.
they indicate in Nederland,
392
P. T. Sum ki
Coupled with the existence of still very bad housing for the inner city poor (where the new programmes have not yet helped), the failure of the spatial redistribution policy and of the high-rise social housing, a ‘squeeze’ has been exerted on the existing housing stock in the urban centres, especially in the Randstad. It is in these places, too, where speculators have renovated sound buildings and have effected some gentrification. The sense of frustration especially among students, ‘young intellectuals’, and the proves (provocateurs) has led to a mobilisation of the public’s sympathy for squatting in renovated houses which await ‘rich tenants’, such as executives being transferred from the USA to Amsterdam. It is this kind of housing which squatters have taken over and, when ousted by the police only under violence and force, have destroyed with a vengeance upon their exits.s Thus, the squatter situation came into being in a circuitous way, but its linear descent can be readily traced. The end of the war saw a seemingly insurmountable housing shortage. In response, the Government froze rents and restricted renting and tenancy. The population increase especially in the already overcrowded Randstad, called for a policy of spatial redistribution and regional development, while at the same time it encouraged economic development of the CBDs of the larger cities (once again, in the Randstad), accompanied by ‘bulldozing renewal’ and high-rise social housing. The focus then shifted to intraregional development and urban rehabilitation and renovation. In 1969, for example, the medieval city of Middelburg got a total renovation and rehabilitation ‘cure’, resulting in a successful endeavour not unlike its Flemish counterpart Brugge (Bruges). The next and most recent step has been in the direction of recognising the Randstad as an entity and trying to keep the people already there to stay there rather than having them flee to the surrounding ‘rural’ areas. The instrument to achieve this has been the development of growth-centres within the Randstad and just ringing its borders. In the meantime, with gentrification, rising expectations, and a trend towards home-ownership - set against a background of a thorough, steady, but inconsistent policy of subsidies - those who have suffered the most have once again been the poor in this welfare state. Thus, that the squatter movement arose among those who considered themselves poor or identified with the poor although all have come from middle-class backgrounds - students and the like, becomes quite understandable. Finally, that the squatters are also an end product of inconsistent, ill-conceived but well-intentioned welfare policies, predicated on a philosophy of distributive justice, is also quite clear. Whether it will be obvious to the entrenched bureaucracy - the planners and policy-makers - remains to be seen. What is obvious is that, within a matter of another five years, a new urban and housing policy will emerge to try to correct the errors of the present one.6
’ August, 1980 was one of the peak months for squatter-police confrontations. In one instance, where squatters had occupied a newly renovated house very close to the main railway station (Centraal Station) in Amsterdam, the entire nation’s attention was riveted upon the occasion when the riot police broke into the house to oust the squatters (the latter had barricaded themselves in). Everything in Holland came to a standstill as the tension mounted and then the police started their attack. (All of this was shown on national television, and prior to the event, the takeover by the police had been given headline attention in the newspapers.) The squatters apparently systematically vandalised the entire building before the police attack. ’ See McCuire (1981) for a comparative study on housing policies (the Netherlands is not included). See Hale (1979) on the subsidy policies; Powers (1976) on rent control policies; Nijkamp (1979a, b) on urban renewal and policy decisions; Hilhorst (1980) on renovation and renewal; the Ministerie van Volkshuis&sting studies for the plans and policies and for the history of the plans and policies; Stad Brugge (1980) on what was done in Bmgge in terms of historical renovation; Suzuki (1976) on social services to the Turks in Holland; Suzuki (1980) on urban renewal in Brussels; Suzuki (forthcoming) on urban design for a multicultural population (the case of the Netherlands is included) .- this is a revised version of a paper which was originally presented at the European Studies Conference, Omaha, Nebraska, October 1981.
393
Urban Planning and Housing Policies in the Netherlands
REFERENCES Hilhorst, I. T. H., Hunfeld, J. R. and Schreiner, Interrnediar, Vol. 18, No. 18, pp. 57-61. Hale, Robert McCuire, Holland.)
L. (1979)
Chester
International
“Opheffen,
verplaatsen
of verzetten?“,
Ekistics, Vol. 275, pp, 100-105.
“In the Netherlands”,
C. (1981)
F. A. M. (1980)
Housing Policies, Lexington
Books,
Lexington.
(Does not include
Ministerie van Volkshuisvesting en Ruimtelijke Ordening. ‘S-Gravenhage (1976) Verkenningen Inzake Leefbare Stedelijkheid: (1976) Urbanisatie in Nederland; (1977) Process Monitoring on Behalf of Physical Planning; (1978) Volkshuisvesting politiek; (1979) De Verhouding tussen Ruimtelijke Ordening en Economische Politiek; (1979) The Rules of Physical Planning in the Netherlands; (1979) Volkshuisvesting in Nederland. Nederlands
Centraal
Bureau
voor Statistiek
(1980)
Statistiek
Nijkamp, P. (1979a) “Mobiliteit als ruimtelijk analytisch and Rietveld, P. (eds.), Het Stuur Uit Handen, pp. 9-27, Nijkamp, Powers.
Pieter and Soffer-Heitman, Anne (1976)
Stad Bruggc Suzuki, Turkish
(1980)
“France,
A. (1979b)
Holland
Overblick
Stadsvernieuwing,
and Germany”,
van Nederland,
Den Haag.
en rumitelijk beleidsvraagstuk”, Stcnfert Kroese, Leiden. van Gorcum,
in Nijkamp,
Pieter
Assen.
Habitat, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 81-103.
Vernieuwing van Brugge.
Peter T. (1976) “Sociocultural forces in caring for minority group aged gastarbeiders”, Netherlands Journal for Gerontology, Vol. 7, pp. 74 82.
Suzuki, Peter T. (1980) “A new town Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 34437.
in an old city:
Le Parnasse
in Brussels”,
in Holland:
The case of
Urban Design International,
Suzuki, Peter T. (1982) “Ethnic and gerontological considerations in redesigning inner cities of selected European cities”, in Gibson, J. and Le Conte, P. (eds.), Factors Jnfluencing Urban Design, M. Nijhoff, The Hague.
0197-3975/82/030387-07$03.00/O Pergamon Press Ltd.
Urban Planning and Housing Policies in theNetherlands University
P.T. SUZUKI of Nebraska at Omaha, USA
INTRODUCTION Urban housing in the Netherlands has been a persistent problem ever since the end of World War II. However, a new dimension has been added within the past ten is traced to the years: that is, the squatter (kraaker) issue. This phenomenon terrible housing shortage which ensued as a result of World War II. The urban planning and housing policies which developed during the immediate post-war years took many shapes and forms. The vicissitudes of the various plans and policies are outlined in this paper. The Netherlands’ overpopulation, the nation’s redistributive justice policy as implemented in rents and rent control, regional imbalances, gentrification in the larger cities, high-rise apartment blocks for social housing (low- and moderate-income housing), changing consumer preferences, and rising expectations have all had a definite hand in the contemporary squatter problem - which is intensifying. Certain well-meaning but ill-conceived urban plans and housing policies exacerbated the situation at various chronological stages, thereby leading to the squatter problem. For a long time after World War II, the Netherlands was known as having a liberal, tolerant, humane, and non-violent society. Yet, increasingly, one reads about massive urban riots and demonstrations by squatters against the police and the established order; and it is not only in Amsterdam and the larger cities where these events have taken place and are taking place. They have taken place in almost every large and small urban place - this was especially true in 1980 - and have shaken the foundations of this welfare state. These disturbances can best be understood in the framework of the Netherlands’ urban and regional planning policies and in its housing policies. ’ The roots of these policies, in turn, must be sought in the war-time conditions and the various factors associated with them. Even at the end of World War 11, the Netherlands - a nation with only 41,000 sq. miles - had a high population density, with some 8 million Dutch. At that time, quite understandably, its housing shortage was acute, to say the least: some 300,000 dwellings were needed but lacking. As a result of this dire situation a policy of total rent control and control of renting and of tenancy was enunciated by the government in its 1947 Woonruimtrwet (Housing Law). All landlords had to register; tenants had to get permits to move: landlords could not underoccupy; and rents were controlled to be low. Therefore the immediate post-war period saw the housing ‘industry’ (a government r The materials listed in the references are the basis for this paper. The author lived in Holland from 1953-1959 while a graduate student at Leiden University, Leiden, a city in the Randstad. During that period, he also lived in Amsterdam for six months and experienced housing of various types while at Leiden, including residence with a Dutch family for about a year and residence in a low-income housing project, as well as residence in a suburb. In 1980, he returned to Holland to attend a NATO and Free University of Amsterdam Advanced Studies Institute on Urban Policy and Planning.
387
388
P. T. Suzuki
controlled undertaking) slowly reviving from the effects of the war - chronic shortages of materials and labour, increasing consumer demands with the increasing number of new families and new births, etc. - so that it was not until the late 1960s that the housing stock finally corresponded to demand. Even after the war, the western part of the Netherlands - an area covering an arc formed by Haarlem, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Dordrecht, Rotterdam, and The Hague, and known as the conurbation Randstad - was much more densely populated than the rest of the Netherlands (see Fig. 1). Given the extreme postwar housing shortage and the fairly rapid economic development of the Randstad vs. the northern, eastern, and southern parts of the Netherlands, a regional plan was conceived in the mid-1950s and implemented towards the end of that decade and in the decade that followed. This was the urban and regional policy of attempting to redistribute the Dutch population from the Randstad to the underdeveloped areas outside of it by making those areas more attractive and by strengthening them through economic development (i.e. encouraging industries to move to the underdeveloped areas; making the areas more attractive to those already there, etc.) to stimulate spatial distribution of economic and social activities for the welfare of those living in the underdeveloped regions. Until recently, the Randstad functioned very much like a Third World country’s primate city: this was where the jobs, amenities, and attractions were to be found. Moreover, given the extremely high birthrate for a developed nation, rather like a country of the Third World, the Netherlands’ population increase was a major consideration in the spatial redistribution concepts inherent in the regional planning of the early 1960s. As stated earlier, immediately after World War II the Netherlands had a population of 8 million; in the 1950s it grew to 10 million; today it is in excess of 14 million, of which a full 6 million reside in the Randstad. On the other hand the poorer regions until quite recently have been physically isolated, and the modes of transportation, the areas’ amenities and their social services lagged behind what was going on in the Randstad. Nevertheless, both in the manner in which the planning was undertaken and in the changing patterns of the population, the regional spatial plans which were implemented raised a number of unforeseen problems. Because the approach was a comprehensive planning approach, a mechanistic outlook and philosophy in planning was activated. Much emphasis was placed upon the physical dimensions of change even in the large urban areas - with a commensurate neglect of the social and psychological factors of the people to be affected. Furthermore, because of the welfare state perspective, an extremely paternalistic attitude towards the people was taken by the policy-makers and planners. In the large urban areas, including those in the Randstad, old housing was bulldozed away (similar to the case of Brussels, in the neighbouring nation) without prior citizen participation in the critical decisions, resulting in predictable outcomes. And, in the late 1960s a slowdown in population growth was discerned, which also made planners realise that the spatial redistribution plans and the stimulation of economic growth of the underdeveloped areas had to be reconsidered. The First and Second Reports on Physical Planning in Holland - the plans to develop the nation’s neglected areas - when fully implemented caused the neglect of urban centres during the 1960s. What change that was undertaken for the large cities favoured total, large-scale development and improvement of the accessibility of the core areas of the cities to aid the central business districts (CBDs). The cases of cities which were radically changed in this period are Tilburg and Utrecht.’ Although the underdeveloped regions received the most attention during this period, this policy did not stem the flow of people to the Randstad, so that even today a substantial proportion of the Netherlands’ population of ’ Thcrc
remains
very little of the old inner city of Utrecht
Urban Planning and Housing Policies in the hl~~~e~~ff~ds
389
3 I I i
Source: Ministerie YU~ Vo~ksh~isvest~~g en Ru~mte~~ke Ordepling, The Hague.
Fig. 1. Growth-centres (15 pheesj: Alkmaar, Almere, Blaricum, Capelle aan den ~&WI, ~aarlemmermeer, He~~e~~oets~~~s, Iloorn, Houten, fluizen, Leidschendam, Lefystad, Nieuwegein, Purmerend, Spijkenisse and Zoetermeer. Growth-towns (2): Emmen and Leeuwarden. Growth-cities (4): Breda, Groningen, Helmond and ZwolEe. Randstad: Haarlem, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam-~ordrecht, The Hague. AIso shown: other major cities (61: Apeldoorn, Arnhem, Eindhoven, Enschede, Maastricht and Tiiburg.
390
P. T. Sum ki
14 million live in the overcrowded Randstad, where there is still a housing shortage. As for urban housing policies, ‘subsidy’ has been the keyword. At present, there are eleven types of subsidies to reduce the cost of a dwelling and its surroundings, and four kinds of subsidies to low- and moderate-income tenants. The housing stock is now double what it was at the end of the war and, of this, fully 80% have benefited from government subsidies. Also, of the present housing stock less than 50% were built before World War II. Yet, as far as the Randstad is concerned there is still a housing shortage. There are several reasons for this seeming paradox: (1) the steady attraction of the Randstad; (2) the kind of social housing (lowincome housing) built in the 1950s; and (3) the rent control structure. For economic reasons the government-subsidised social housing built in the 1950s and 1960s was primarily in the form of high-rise blocks; at least 50% of the apartments built during these years were six stories or higher. The distaste for such accommodations, despite the housing shortage, was evidenced when different kinds of housing became available in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many of the highrise apartments were vacated for more congenial kinds of housing, and the rate of occupancy of these high-rise blocks steadily dropped, leaving many vacant highrise blocks. A more profound impact has been played by the traditional rent control policy. Although the housing shortage eased, low rents were kept that way despite rising costs, inflation, and rising incomes. Thus, 56% of all Dutch pay less than 10% of income toward housing (or rent), and only 18% pay more than 16%. Despite the redistributive justice policy as the operational principle of the Netherlands’ welfare state, low-income people were hurt by the rent control policy because when they moved from dilapidated flats or wherever they may have been into social housing the rents became relatively expensive for them. In contrast, the middle class, which had always occupied sturdy old homes in the city for little rent, had no real incentive to move to the new apartments. The irony was that the poor could not readily afford to move into apartments which were built expressly for them, thus slowing down the apartment construction sector. This problem was compounded by a radical shift in consumer preference and a rise in expectations. Owner-occupied housing became idealised, and - to a large extent - realised. Whereas only 5% of the Dutch were owner-occupiers before World War II, now some 80% of all houses built since 1973 have been single-family dwellings for owner-occupation, resulting in approximately 40% of Dutch households now owning their own home. When the 1960s policy of regional and spatial balance was abandoned, or held in abeyance, the policy which then came to the fore in the early 1970s was that of urban renewal, with rehabilitation and renovation as the guiding forces. A concomitant shift in the policy regarding the city was made: from the policy of trying to rebuild the inner cities to that of trying to rehabilitate the residential districts built in the nineteenth century. (This policy came into being with the 19 76 Urbanisation Report and the Urban Renewal Bill of 1980.) These policies attempt to keep the urban areas as balanced residential, economic, social, and cultural entities, with a powerful emphasis upon the environment and the quality of life. The reports also place stress upon government intervention as an agency of change and expressly minimise free-market forces as being less than desirable. Citizen participation, environmental balance, and a multicultural perspective [owing to a large influx of Dutch citizens from Surinam and the West Indies, along with more than 200,000 gastarbeiders (foreign workers) from the Mediterranean] are also given due consideration. The irony of the previous policies - of spatial regional distribution and planning, economic development of the areas outside the Randstad, the economic development of the CBDs, the construction of high-rise solutions for social
Urban Planning and Housing Policies in the Netherlands
391
housing, and the two-tiered rent control system - has been a noticeable outmigration of people from the Randstad to precisely those areas which were the targets for regional development in an earlier decade. The emigration from the Randstad, however, has merely made the emigrants commuters to the Randstad where they still work. The result of this kind of population shift has been further to strain the existing national and urban transportation systems and to create greater congestion on the national highway (Rijksweg) network. Also, owing to this internal migration, the green spaces in the heretofore underdeveloped regions are rapidly disappearing. As if to come full circle, the latest urban policy is finally to recognise the Randstad as a dynamic entity in its own right, and, accordingly, to develop the Randstad as a singular region. The urban renewal and renovation programmes mentioned earlier will therefore aim at the cities within this densely populated area of West Holland. A much more ambitious urban plan is embodied in the growth-centres and growth-towns policy. A growth-centre is somewhat akin to a new town, except it will be more of a commuter community than a self-contained new town. The objects of the policy have been identified as follows: (1) To promote a balanced urban-regional structure. (2) To form a counterpoise to unrestricted urbanisation. (3) To strive for equity in and among the various regions. (4) To restrict the growth of mobility (especially out-migration to the former underdeveloped areas outside the Randstad). The following growth-centres (‘new towns’) have been designated for completion by 1990 (all are well under way and, in the case of Lelystad, the best-known of the group, very successful for what it was set up to be, a growth-centre on reclaimed land): Alkmaar (8,000 people), Hoorn (9,000), Purmerend (8,500), Huizen/Blaricum (8,400), Almere (24,000), Lelystad (14,000), Zoetermeer (between 9,000 and 12,000), Hellevoetsluis (between 4,000 and 5,000), Spijkenisse (1 l,OOO), Capelle aan den Ijssel (9,000), Nieuwegein (6,.500), and Houten (6,000).3 If one were to plot the growth-centres on a map, they will be shown as falling within the Randstad or just outside the Randstad. The following cities are designated growth-cities: Groningen (between 10,000 10,000 and 1 S,OOO), Breda (between and 15,000 people), 3 Zwolle (between 10,000 and 20,000) and Helmond (between 10,000 and 15,000). In 1978 Leeuwarden and Emmen were designated growth-towns; and two other places, Leidschendam and Haarlemmermeer, were designated growth-centres. The explicit recognition of the Netherlands as a pluralistic society is given clear expression in its latest housing policy, in addition to the concept of growthcentres and growth-towns. Housing for specific population groups is supported. Among such groups are singles and couples. Another important element are the gastarbeiders from the Mediterranean; viz. Portugal, Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey (along with some North Africans). They total more than 210,000, of which the largest group are the Turks, who count some 90,000. Since 1975, more than 100,000 from Surinam have immigrated to the Netherlands. They are accommodated in Woonwetwoning (Housing Law housing), which are low-rent units. Two other groups explicitly delineated are trailer-dwellers (!) and the handicapped. All of the above groups receive some kind of subsidy.4 Be that as it may, owing to rising expectations, preference for single-family units with owner-occupancies, and the heretofore successful programme of rehabilitation and renovation, a gentrification movement has decidedly taken place. ’ The figures in parentheses indicate population growth targets for 1990. For growth-cities increments to the 1980 population figures. 4 See: Ministerie van Volkshuisvesting en Ruimtelijke Ordening, 1979, Volkshuisvesting Section 1.7.
they indicate in Nederland,
392
P. T. Sum ki
Coupled with the existence of still very bad housing for the inner city poor (where the new programmes have not yet helped), the failure of the spatial redistribution policy and of the high-rise social housing, a ‘squeeze’ has been exerted on the existing housing stock in the urban centres, especially in the Randstad. It is in these places, too, where speculators have renovated sound buildings and have effected some gentrification. The sense of frustration especially among students, ‘young intellectuals’, and the proves (provocateurs) has led to a mobilisation of the public’s sympathy for squatting in renovated houses which await ‘rich tenants’, such as executives being transferred from the USA to Amsterdam. It is this kind of housing which squatters have taken over and, when ousted by the police only under violence and force, have destroyed with a vengeance upon their exits.s Thus, the squatter situation came into being in a circuitous way, but its linear descent can be readily traced. The end of the war saw a seemingly insurmountable housing shortage. In response, the Government froze rents and restricted renting and tenancy. The population increase especially in the already overcrowded Randstad, called for a policy of spatial redistribution and regional development, while at the same time it encouraged economic development of the CBDs of the larger cities (once again, in the Randstad), accompanied by ‘bulldozing renewal’ and high-rise social housing. The focus then shifted to intraregional development and urban rehabilitation and renovation. In 1969, for example, the medieval city of Middelburg got a total renovation and rehabilitation ‘cure’, resulting in a successful endeavour not unlike its Flemish counterpart Brugge (Bruges). The next and most recent step has been in the direction of recognising the Randstad as an entity and trying to keep the people already there to stay there rather than having them flee to the surrounding ‘rural’ areas. The instrument to achieve this has been the development of growth-centres within the Randstad and just ringing its borders. In the meantime, with gentrification, rising expectations, and a trend towards home-ownership - set against a background of a thorough, steady, but inconsistent policy of subsidies - those who have suffered the most have once again been the poor in this welfare state. Thus, that the squatter movement arose among those who considered themselves poor or identified with the poor although all have come from middle-class backgrounds - students and the like, becomes quite understandable. Finally, that the squatters are also an end product of inconsistent, ill-conceived but well-intentioned welfare policies, predicated on a philosophy of distributive justice, is also quite clear. Whether it will be obvious to the entrenched bureaucracy - the planners and policy-makers - remains to be seen. What is obvious is that, within a matter of another five years, a new urban and housing policy will emerge to try to correct the errors of the present one.6
’ August, 1980 was one of the peak months for squatter-police confrontations. In one instance, where squatters had occupied a newly renovated house very close to the main railway station (Centraal Station) in Amsterdam, the entire nation’s attention was riveted upon the occasion when the riot police broke into the house to oust the squatters (the latter had barricaded themselves in). Everything in Holland came to a standstill as the tension mounted and then the police started their attack. (All of this was shown on national television, and prior to the event, the takeover by the police had been given headline attention in the newspapers.) The squatters apparently systematically vandalised the entire building before the police attack. ’ See McCuire (1981) for a comparative study on housing policies (the Netherlands is not included). See Hale (1979) on the subsidy policies; Powers (1976) on rent control policies; Nijkamp (1979a, b) on urban renewal and policy decisions; Hilhorst (1980) on renovation and renewal; the Ministerie van Volkshuis&sting studies for the plans and policies and for the history of the plans and policies; Stad Brugge (1980) on what was done in Bmgge in terms of historical renovation; Suzuki (1976) on social services to the Turks in Holland; Suzuki (1980) on urban renewal in Brussels; Suzuki (forthcoming) on urban design for a multicultural population (the case of the Netherlands is included) .- this is a revised version of a paper which was originally presented at the European Studies Conference, Omaha, Nebraska, October 1981.
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