Category: politiek
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Immigrant city
Seen at the IDFA, Amsterdam, on 29 November 2015: ‘In Jackson Heighs’, the new documentary of Frederic Wiseman, opens with muslims praying in mosques, garages, sheds. Welcome to Queens, New York. On the last day of the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) 2015 I went to see the three-hour movie in a cinema at the…
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Crisis, what crisis?
Read in The Economist of 7 November 2015: Yesterday evening I had to give a short presentation in Pakhuis de Zwijger, Amsterdam, on ‘Growing cities, shrinking regions’ (Groeiende steden, krimpende regio’s). The meeting was organized by the journalist Floor Milikowski of De Groene Amsterdammer on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the…
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Bombing does not help
Seen in the Opera house, Amsterdam, on Friday 13 November 2015: Strange. Very strange indeed. On Friday night, while we were enjoying ‘Dialogues des Carmélites’ of Francis Poulenc at the Amsterdam Opera and were captured by the killing of all those nuns in revolutionary Paris by the mob’s guillotine – the end scene of…
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Wat ons te doen staat
Gehoord in de Eerste Kamer der Staten Generaal op 1 oktober 2015: Vooruit dan. Nog eenmaal in het Nederlands. Omdat dit de toekomst van het Koninkrijk betreft. Over die toekomst organiseerden het Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en de Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid (WRR) afgelopen week een uiterst boeiende dag in de Eerste Kamer…
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Keep it light
Discussed in the House of Lords (Eerste Kamer) in The Hague on 1 October 2015: The conference was about ‘Contours of the Third Century of the Dutch Kingdom’ in the House of Lords (Eerste Kamer) at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The seminar was organized by the Scientific Advisory Board of the Dutch Government (WRR)…
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Insanely cool
Read in de Volkskrant of 30 May 2015: On 20 May 2015 Louise Fresco published her weekly column in the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. That day it was on the future of Europe. Fresco is an expert in food production and president of the board of Wageningen University. Her column was a letter to…
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No growth
Read in FD of 1 March 2015: Why does nobody wants to know about shrinking cities in The Netherlands? Because Dutch municipalities still own 75% percent of all the land available for building homes, office space and business parks. They paid far too much for it: 13 billion euros. They all should reduce their land…
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Winner takes all
Read in The Economist of 12 June 2016: In the UK, just like in many other countries, regional inequality is growing fast. London is the big winner, cities in the North are the big losers. As Richard Florida already forecasted years ago, the world is getting pretty spiky. The principle is simple: ‘success breeds…
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Democratie
Gelezen in ‘A pattern language’ (1977) van Christopher Alexander: Ik geef toe, ik schiet weer vanuit mijn boekenkast. Overigens, tot mijn schuld moet ik bekennen dat ik het boek pas onlangs in New York kocht, terwijl het al dateert van 1977: Christopher Alexander’s ‘A pattern language’. Direct na aanschaf las ik het. Dat dan weer…
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Onbespreekbaar
Gelezen in ‘REOS Internationale vergelijking’ (2014) van Deltametropool: Najaar 2014 publiceerde de Vereniging Deltametropool op verzoek van de rijksoverheid een cahier over economische concurrentiekracht van stedelijke gebieden in Nederland. Het gaat hier om de regio’s Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag en Eindhoven: het zogenaamde REOS-gebied. Die concurrentiekracht valt danig tegen. De Organisatie voor Ontwikkeling en Economische…