Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Spatial planning in the Netherlands is not a discrete professional activity, in
the sense that the related activities are almost exclusively carried out by people
trained as spatial planners (Needham, 1999). Professional backgrounds of those
working in the field range from planologie (spatial planning), human geography, law
and political sciences to policy sciences. Spatial policy is thus made and imple-
mented by many people without a special training in spatial planning (Needham,
1999). However, much emphasis is given to methods and techniques for analyses
and for making plans in the education of planologen and related spatial disciplines,
and the close links between higher education and planning practice ensure a
continuation of the importance given to visual communication in Dutch planning
practice.
There are numerous spatial concepts in use in the Dutch planning system,
and at least some of these have changed significantly over time and been replaced
by others. Two of the main planning concepts, the Randstad and Green Heart,
were already introduced during the 1950s and received much international atten-
tion (Faludi and van der Valk, 1994). The 'Randstad' refers to the 'City Ring' of
Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam and The Hague, which surrounds a large (semi-
natural) area called the 'Green Heart'. It has been argued that the vagueness of
both concepts is their strength, and that they survived changes in society for so
long because they were robust and vague enough to be 'subtly emphasised, de-
emphasised or reinterpreted' (Hall, 1993: 44), thus meant different things at differ-
ent times. Van Eeten and Roe (2000: 64), in analysing the policy controversy
surrounding the Green Heart in the Netherlands, have pointed out that the
iconographic approach of reading maps into texts and maps from texts is the
larger context in which planning generally takes place in the Netherlands, and it
is within this context that controversies about planning, such as that over the
Green Heart/City Ring scenario, occur. This profoundly increases the sense of
plausibility (and thus the verisimilitude) of the Green Heart and City Ring
concepts.... Maps are always fictional in some sense, and recognizably so to
their users, if simply because they leave out all the details of what is really
happening on the ground. Yet maps become useful precisely by leaving out all
this detail. This is exactly the case for the Green Heart and City Ring concepts.
Besides the prominent concepts of the Green Heart and the Randstad, there are
many other spatial concepts in use in Dutch planning, and there is ample use of
spatial metaphor to express these. This ensures that the concepts are more memo-
rable and accessible to the general public. The publication of the draft Vijfde Nota
Ruimtelijke Ordening , however, broke with many long-standing spatial concepts,
and some of these new concepts are taken forward by the current Nota Ruimte .
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