UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN

Faculty of Spatial Sciences

International School of Spatial Policy Studies

Spatial Problems and Spatial policies: Dutch experience

The city of Groningen has been described as a ‘mini-metropolis’.

Is this justifiable?

Author: Ilgvars Jansons

3 March 2011
 Groningen

Contents

Contents................................................................................................................. 2

Introduction............................................................................................................ 3

‘Metropolis’............................................................................................................. 3

Groningen as a regional centre..............................................................................4

Characteristics of ‘Metropolis’................................................................................4

Characteristics of the city of Groningen.................................................................7

Image of the city of Groningen...............................................................................8

Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 8

References............................................................................................................. 9

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 Introduction

I have spent already 1 month in the Netherlands. During this month I have participated in the
excursion to Randstad , but most of the time I have spent in the city of Groningen, exploring the city
by bicycle or walking. This is the reason why as a topic, for the first paper in the course „ Spatial
Problems and Spatial policies: Dutch experience”, I have chosen topic A – The city of
Groningen has been described as a ‘mini-metropolis’. Is this justifiable?
The goal of this paper is to determine : Could city of Groningen be considered as a ‘mini-
metropolis.’
To answer this question we have to understand - what is ‘metropolis’? To do that, I am going
to focus on the meaning of ‘metropolis’ and characteristics that this word personifies. After the
literature review I am going to analyse, does the city of Groningen embodies those characteristics and
hopefully answer the question – Is it justifiable to describe city of Groningen as a ‘mini-metropolis?’

‘Metropolis’

Nowdays word ‘metropolis’ is used to describe large, busy million cities, but the word
‘metropolis’ is much older and it has several meanings. According to American Heritage Dictionary
(2006), ‘metropolis’ in ancient Greece was the mother city or parent state of a colony (Greek μήτηρ,
mētēr meaning "mother" and πόλις, pólis meaning "city"/"town"), as Corinth of Corcyra and Syracuse,
or Phocæa of Massalia (Marseilles).
Probably this is not what professor Tamsma meant by calling the city of Groningen a
‘metropolis of North’ 40 years ago. This might be true only if he considered Haren, Assen, Drachten
or Leuwarden as colonies of Groningen, but there must be a deeper meaning, otherwise people weren’t
discussing it untill nowdays. Other definitions of American Heritage Dictionary suggests that
‘metropolis’ is a chief city; a seat of government or in the early church, the see or chief city of an
ecclesiastical province or the capital city or seat of government of a country, as London, Paris, or
Washington. Something tells me that this is also not what professor meant by calling Groningen a
‘metropolis’, so let’s keep looking. Let’s take a look at The Century Dictionary (2011). The Century
Dictionary suggests that ‘metropolis’ is a major city, especially the chief city of a country or region or
a city or an urban area regarded as the center of a specific activity.
Finally this is leading somewhere. It means that if we look at the city of Groningen as a cultural,
educational and historical center of the northern Netherlands, we might call it a ‘mini-metropolis’.

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 Groningen as a regional centre

Looking at the map of the Netherlands, Groningen seems a long way from anywhere.
Groningen is a center of a province named after its primary city. There are no big cities within a
distance of almost 200 km and it is a historical center because of its geographical location around a
strategic historic trading location (Municipality of Groningen, 2011).
Strategic location near natural resources – peat and clay allowed trade with other cities and
made city famous and rich. The „golden age” of the city was the end of the 15th century. During these
years the Martini Tower was built, as a simbol of power and later in 1614 the University of Groningen
was founded (Van Steen, 2011).
If we take a look at the Bosatlas van Netherlands (2007) ,we see that Groningen, with almost 50
000 students, is an important educational centre. Other important university cities like Twente,
Amsterdam and Utrecht are more than 150 km away.
Besides being a university city, Groningen is also at the leading edge in the development of
research, innovation and entrepreneurship. Annually it hosts several festivals like the Eurosonic
Noorderslag pop music festival, the Noorderlicht photography festival and the Noorderzon
performing arts festival. Also its offers wide range of museums (Municipality of Groningen, 2011).
Also if take a look at the employment structure of the city of Groningen in 2008 we see that 20,
6 % work in health care industry (Van Steen, 2011). That explains why electronic database SCOPUS
finds so many medicine related articles using searching word: Groningen.
Now I have proved the obvious that Groningen is a regional center of the Northern Netherlands
and according to The Century Dictionary it could be considered as a ‘metropolis’.
Are those the only characterictics of ‘metropolis’? What are other characterictics? What does
‘metropolis’embodies and personifies?
To answer this question we have to take a look at the meaning of ‘metropolis’ during decades.

Characteristics of ‘Metropolis’

More than 100 years ago Simmels saw ‘metropolis’ as the nexus point for the circulation of
capital , commodities, and people. His ‘metropolis ’ was moneybag. It represented the intellect and
money, but not the heart of the people (Lin & Mele, 2005).
Simmels opinion and view represents the industrial time. Time which represents expanding of
cities, overpopulation , depression and desolation. Times when forms and functions of city were
changing in response to the social and economic changes.
According to William H. Whyte, Jr. (1964) those were times when cities weren’t designed for
people who lived in cities, but for people who had no other choice.

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 Also in following decades vision of ‘metropolis’ focused on economic settings and had little
sense of community. Futurists like Fritz Lang in 1939 wrote that: „the city of tomorrow will tend first
to vastness - gigantic buildings connected by wide suspended roadways on which traffic will speed at
unheard of rates. Helicopter planes, capable of maneuvering about between buildings and roof-top
airports, will take the place of the ground tax. Each building will be virtually a city in itself,
completely self-sustaining.” (Krabbendam et.al., 2001) (Figure 1).

Fig.1. King’s Dream of New York in 1908. (Source: Aurbach, 2006)

In 1950’s Paolo Soleri envisioned ‘’metropolis’ as :”gigantic urban centers that extended
vertically into space rather than horizontally along the ground and that were designed both to conserve
the natural surroundings an to intensify the human activities by considering them spatially.”
(Krabbendam et.al., 2001)
Blumenfield in his book „The Modern Metropolis” (1967) wrote that: metropolis differs from
the historical city in several cruicial respects:

1. it combines the function of central leadership with the functions of

providing the main bulk of material production and services;
2. its population is up to 10 times larger than that of the biggest
preindustrial city;
3. with modern fast transportation, which has increased its commuting
radius about tenfold, it is up to 100 times larger in area than the biggest city of former
times;
4. it is neither city nor country but a complex of urban districts and open
areas;

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 5. its residential and work areas are no longer combined in one place but
are located in separate districts;
6. its workers have high mobility in the choice of jobs.

Later in his book „Metropolis... and beyond” (1979) he noted that transformation of the city
into the ‘metropolis’ reduces density by about 90% or expressed positively, leeds to a tenfold
increase of urban land use per head of population.
An interesting approach to define the concept of human settlements has been made by C.
Doxiadis and F.G.Papaioannou of the Athens Center of Ekistics.The center has developed an „Ekistic
Logarithmic Scale” in 15 steps from „man”and „room” to „ecumenopolis”. Steps 9-11 are called
„large city”, „metropolis” and „conurbation”. Characteristic of ‘metropolis’ is that it is surrounded by
large „metropolitan area” (Dix, 1984).
As we see from the review of literature until 1970s the sympathies of academics and writers
belonged to anything technological and large-scale. This thinking inspired by „baby-boom” ,
economic growth and achievements of science resulted in 1969’s plan of the city of Groningen (Figure
2).

Fig.2. Structure plan ofthe city of Groningen, 1969 (Source: Van Steen)

Plan that forecasted that population of Groningen will double and proposed extreme expansion
of the city (Van Steen, 2011). That was time when proffesor Tamsma came up with expression
„Groningen – metropolis of North”. Did he get influenced by the post - war trends, and utopian
thinking? Seems that yes! Did he envisioned ‘metropolis’ as Blumenfield, Soleri or Doxiadis? I don’t
know!
Alghough we might think that the mystery is solved and the expression was just a result of
dominant utopian thinking worldwide and proposed huge plans for the city of Groningen the story
continues. Utopian forecasts didn’t come true. The expression „metropolis of North” has changed
during decades into „Groningen as a mini-metropolis”. Smaller in scale, but still comparing itself with
‘metropolis’. What has changed? Why the city of Groningen still wants to see itself as a ‘metropolis’?

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What are the characteristics that this word embodies? I believe the answer is in front of us.
Discussion, that is still going on, shows that this expression isn’t about city. It is about people!

Characteristics of the city of Groningen

When we think about ‘metropolis’ we think about cities like New York, Paris, London, Tokyo
etc. Cities that represent and personify creativity, innovation and pioneering. Those are cities where
the dreams come true and where the unlikely is possible. Cities which identifies, nurtures, attracts and
sustains talent. Could Groningen be considered a city that personifies these characteristics?
While „surfing the net” to back up my opinion I came up with a document by (EUNIC)
European Union National Institute for Culture (2009), that suggests that „creativity is an innovative
approach to deal with problems”.
This represents the new thinking regarding to cities as people begin to look at the city less as a
place for making a living and more like a place for living.
Richard Florida believes that future belongs to those areas which will be able to attract young,
creative, educated people. Florida's approach starts from the assumption that „creativity”— the ability
to generate new knowledge or to convert existing knowledge into economically successful
applications— is becoming an increasingly important resource for economic development (Florida,
2005).
I believe that the city of Groningen personifies these characteristics. I am not saying this only
because the slogan of the city of Gronigen is – City of talent. They have also made a homepage
(http://www.cityoftalent.nl/en), but you need something more than a homepage to make it true.
The employment structure of the city of Groningen in 2008 supports this opinion, also the
traffic plan of 1977 is a good example. It is not only about traffic, pedestrianised streets and park – and
– ride schemes (Tsubohara, 2007), because when you make a decision like that, it changes the city
entirely. It impacts everyone. I watched a videos of Groningen in 1923 and 1967 on Youtube. Those
are two different cities. One where the streets and public spaces are for people and the second one
where the streets are made to serve cars.
The city of Groningen has gained a lot from the traffic plan of 1977. I believe it took a lot of
courage to realize plan like that at the time when advocates of livable cities and streets like Jane
Jacobs and Lewis Mumford were mocked by functional city advocates in majority like Robert Moses.
But this decision represents the characteristics of metropolis – pioneering, innovation and creativity.
Only city that represents the spirit of metropolis would decide to locate a Museum on a newly
built island, use red carpets to discourage cyclists of parking their bikes in front of the shops or built
weird looking building ( Wallhouse ) as a landmark for the city or skiing mountain for recreation.
But is it enough? What is missing?

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 Image of the city of Groningen

What makes city a ‘metropolis’? I couldn’t get rid of this thought for the whole weekend. Then
I watched Rocky. The part where he fights against Ivan Drago and I remembered a saying : „To
become a champion you have to think, act and see yourself as a champion.” I believe we can adopt
this saying : ”To become a ‘metropolis’, people of the city should think, act and see themselves as
metropolitans.”
I have observed that people of Groningen are very pround of their city and the image of the city
in their mind is much larger than it is in reality. And seems that it has been a case for centuries, dating
back to 15 th century when the Martini Tower was built or 1614 when the University of Groningen
was established to 1969 plan. Huge plans and expectations!
And let’s won’t forget that the city of Groningen was once reffered to as „Stad” (‘City’) and
it’s residents „Stadjers” (‘Citizens’) (Van Steen, 2011). This precisely represents the image of the city
of Groningen in minds of its people.
It isn’t the number of population that makes city a ‘metropolis.’ Those could be the functions
the city serve, but functions are not enough. Those could be the characteristics it personifies and
represents, but still something is missing.
Cities are only a physical reflection of people who are living there. And again I am going to get
back to my source of inspiration Rocky and say : „To become a champion, you have to desire it.”
(read: To become a ‘metropolis’ you have to desire it!)

Conclusion

We can assume that professor Tamsma used expression „metropolis of North” to point out the
important role of the city of Groningen in the context of the northern part of the Netherlands and
according to The Century Dictionary the important regional role could be the characteristic that makes
the city of Groningen a ‘metropolis.’ But the expression has survived because of the spirit and other
characteristics of ‘metropolis’ like creativity, innovation and pioneering that the city of Groningen
proudly represents.
And the image of the city is the cornerstone of everything! The image of city as a ‘metropolis’
leeds to creativity, inovation and pioneering. Those characteristics leeds to becoming a cultural,
educational or business center. City of 83 km2 and 187 tk inhabitants ain’t no ‘metropolis’!
‘Metropolis’ isn’t about km2 or number of population. ‘Metropolis’ is a place of creative human
activity! Is it justifiable to call Groningen or Oxford, Vatican, Monaco a ‘mini- metropolis’?
There is a saying: „You are as big as you heart!”

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 References
Published sources

Blumenfeld H. Metropolis... and beyond : selected essays. New York ; Chichester [etc.] :
Wiley, 1979. pp 66.

Blumenfeld H. The modern metropolis : its origins, growth, characteristics, and planning
Cambridge, Mass. [etc.] : The M.I.T. Press, 1967. pp 67.

Dix, G. Ekistics, Ecumenopolis and the wilderness: planning for a global balance. 1984
Wilderness: the way ahead , pp. 125-141

Florida, R. The rise of the creative class. And how it's transforming work, leisure, community
and everyday life. Basic Books, New York, 2004.

Joseph P. Pickett. The American Heritage dictionary of the English language. Boston, MA
[etc.] : Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

Krabbendam , J. L M.L. Roholl, S. E. Clarke. The American metropolis : image and

inspiration. Amsterdam : VU University Press, 2001.pp 135-138

Lin, J., Mele, C. The Urban Sociology Reader. New York, Routledge 2005. pp 23-32

Whyte H. William, Jr. Cluster Development. New York, American Conservation Association,
1964.

De Bosatlas van Nederland . Groningen : Wolters-Noordhoff Atlasproducties 2007.

Unpublished and Internet sources

Aurbach L. 2006. Connectivity Part 2: Historical Background. [Online] Available:

http://pedshed.net/?p=31 [Accessed 03.03.2011]

EUNIC 2009. Lecture series: EUNIC’s Creative Cities [Online] Available:

http://www.sica.nl/sites/default/files/pdf/EUNIC_creative_cities.pdf [Accessed 22.02.2011]

Groningen 1923. [Online] Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-blnVovKpE

[Accessed 01.03.2011]

Groningen 1967 . [Online] Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0nijJCzBFE

[Accessed 01.03.2011]

Municipality of Groningen, 2011. Welcome to Groningen [Online] Available:

http://gemeente.groningen.nl/english/welcome-to-groningen [Accessed 25.02.2011]

Tsubohara, S. 2007. A traffic plan to make residential areas cari limited – traffic planing in
Groningen in the 1980s. [Online] Available: http://ursi.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/root/ResRep/2007/322/?
pLanguage=en&pFullItemRecord=ON [Accessed 01.03.2011]

Van Steen, Paul. „Society and Space: The city of Groningen.” Lecture given 9 February 2011 at
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Wordnik, 2011. Free online English dictionary [Online] Available:

http://www.wordnik.com/words/metropolis [Accessed 25.02.2011]