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In search of conceptual modernization: The new Dutch ‘national spatial

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DOI: 10.1007/s10901-005-9024-3

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Journal of Housing and the Built Environment (2005) 20:425–443 Ó Springer 2005
DOI 10.1007/s10901-005-9024-3

Policy and Practice

In search of conceptual modernization: The new Dutch

‘national spatial strategy’

WIL ZONNEVELD
OTB Research Institute for Housing Urban and Mobility Studies, Jaffalaam 9, 2628 BX,
Delft, The Netherlands (E-mail: W.Zonneveld@otb.tudelft.nl)

Received January 2005; Accepted April 2005

Abstract. In the Netherlands the publication of a new policy document on spatial

planning is always a milestone, as the national government is such an important player
in this field. The National Spatial Strategy is no exception and, at first sight, marks a
complete change of tack. Instead of emphasizing spatial quality – as usual – it con-
centrates on easing the restrictions on spatial development. Central government wants
to take a step backwards in favour of allowing the local authorities, and in particular the
provinces, to play a key role. Although the liberal approach to development control is
revolutionary, most of the spatial concepts in the National Spatial Strategy are based
upon traditional ideas about spatial organization.

Key words: National Spatial Strategy, spatial concepts, Spatial Planning Act, The
Netherlands, urban networks

1. Introduction

In the spring of 2004 the centre-right coalition, which came to power

in the Netherlands in 2002, published a brand new policy document
on spatial planning. This document – accepted by the House of Rep-
resentatives of Parliament in May 2005 – marks a radical departure
from traditional spatial policy. The government wants to change the
division of responsibilities between the three tiers of government in
the country. It also wants to put far less emphasis on urban contain-
ment compared with previous governments.
Central government in the Netherlands issued planning reports as
early as 1960 and the National Spatial Strategy is the fifth in a row.
These reports fulfil two functions. They present an indicative image of
the spatial structure of the country. They also identify the issues for
which central government thinks it is responsible. In line with this
426 WIL ZONNEVELD

latter function a national planning report contains policy instruments

and decisions on the spatial allocation of these instruments. A na-
tional report therefore announces strategic as well as operational deci-
sions (for this distinction see Mastop and Faludi, 1997). This paper
discusses in principle the strategic frames outlined by the National
Spatial Strategy, focusing on the spatial planning concepts. Such con-
cepts bring forward ‘‘ideas about spatial organization’’ (Healey, 1997,
p. 78). Spatial concepts express, in a condensed and synthesized form,
through words and images how people – in this paper: government –
would look at the intended spatial organization of an area (Zonne-
veld, 1991). Each new national spatial policy report consists (at least
partly) of new spatial concepts and therefore comprises a new concep-
tualization, a new framing (Schön and Rein, 1994) of the national
territory. In this respect national planning reports are very influential
in relation to the lower levels of government when it comes to the
perception of spatial structures and spatial development. They induce
what is called frame reflection (ibid. 39 ff.): thinking over underlying
structures of belief, perception, and appreciation, in this case in rela-
tion to place and territory. For this reason national spatial concepts
are not just forming the frame for operational decisions taken by
national government itself. They are very influential for the entire pol-
icy domain of spatial planning in the country at all levels of govern-
ment. The high degree of consistency between the spatial policies of
various governments throughout the years can be explained by the
working of spatial concepts. A tradition of half a century of national
government reports on spatial planning is in many ways decisive in
this respect. This paper is mainly about the urban spatial concepts of
the National Spatial Strategy. The main questions considered here are
whether these concepts express a new vision on the changing spatial
structure of society and whether the new strategy is doing justice to
the complex spatial patterns of housing, working and leisure, patterns
currently becoming highly fragmented over space.
The paper begins with a short introduction to the Dutch planning
system and the changes foreseen by a revision of the Spatial Planning
Act. We then briefly look at a national spatial policy report that was
published ahead of the National Spatial Strategy but dropped by the
present government. We then turn to the philosophy of governance of
the current National Spatial Strategy. This is followed by the main
body of the paper, discussing the urban concepts of the Strategy. We
round off the discussion with some conclusions.
 IN SEARCH OF CONCEPTUAL MODERNIZATION 427

2. The Dutch planning system: the importance of discourse

The legal and institutional basis of the Dutch system is laid down in
the Spatial Planning Act (Wet ruimtelijke ordening) of 1962 (which
became effective in 1965). Since that time the idea has always been
that planning should be conceived of, above all, as a co-ordination
activity. The instruments for this activity were deliberately and pre-
dominantly of a non-financial nature. Financing came mainly from
policy sectors such as transport, housing or agriculture. The instru-
ments of the planner were primarily communicative: concepts, plans
and vision documents were to be used to capture the imagination of
the various relevant actors, both within the sector departments at the
national level (the ‘horizontal axis’ of coordination) as well as at the
other levels of government (the ‘vertical axis’).
The original planning act has been amended several times and is
now more or less unworkable (see also Wolsink, 2003). The act gives
each tier of government the authority to lay down a strategic plan.
This results in a complex system of interrelated plans – from the na-
tional level to the regional, from the regional to the local level. These
are (a) the national spatial planning key decisions, such as the
National Spatial Strategy, which undergo public consultation and
need to be approved by parliament (b) the provincial regional plans
(although this is not a requirement, statutory plans are in operation
in every province) and (c) the municipal structure plans. These plans
are indicative. Although the municipal structure plan does have some
judicial consequences, this is strictly limited to the municipality itself.
The only legally binding plan in the Dutch system is the municipal
land-use plan (bestemmingsplan), but this is purely passive: citizens are
not obliged to implement this plan. Its main function is to create a
maximum degree of legal security, although over the years some
elements of flexibility have been introduced.
The Dutch planning system is thus characterized by the absence of
an obligation to bring spatial plans in line with the strategic plans (or
key decisions) of a ‘higher’ government. To a large extent the trick of
planning lies in extensive intra-governmental negotiation and consulta-
tion. The density of discourse is probably the most fundamental char-
acteristic of spatial planning in the Netherlands (Hajer and Zonneveld,
2000).
Provincial plans serve as the lynchpin between national plan-
ning key decisions and local zoning plans. The prime function of the
provincial structural plans is to steer local zoning plans in line with
428 WIL ZONNEVELD

provincial policy. So, the provincial authority exerts a dual influence

at a local level: on the issue of strategic plans and on the issue of
formal rights to grant or withhold approval for local zoning plans.
Both these areas of influence will disappear as the government intends
to fundamentally overhaul the Spatial Planning Act (the government
aims for the act to become effective in 2007). The provincial struc-
tural plans, like national planning key decisions, are to be replaced by
structural visions which will be politically binding only upon the
authority itself. Provincial and central government will be able to
issue regulations which bind authorities at lower levels.
These changes could indeed lead to a more effective planning
system in the sense of higher flexibility to societal demands and a les-
ser need for elaborate, time-consuming intra-governmental delibera-
tions. As the new spatial visions will only have political repercussions
at the level where they are produced, the burden on the coordination
role of plan-making could also be lowered. At the same time there
could be more scope for a societal process of plan-making in which
governments seek to involve stakeholders right from the outset of
vision-making processes.
Besides all these potential improvements of the Dutch planning
system, the Dutch Council of State, which advises the government
and parliament on legislation and governance and is also the highest
court in the country, has issued a stark warning about the proposed
amendments to the Spatial Planning Act (RvS, 2003, p. 3). It empha-
sizes that the provincial structure plan has become an important point
of reference for local plan-making. As the new provincial visions will
only have repercussions for the provincial authority itself, this func-
tion is likely to vanish. The Council anticipates ‘‘serious conse-
quences’’ for the position of the provinces in spatial planning and a
‘‘strong decline in the importance of the provincial spatial planning
policy’’ (ibid; translation author). The Council concludes that the
government ‘‘...apparently attaches less importance to planological
coordination at regional level than it did in the past. With spatial
planning now forming one of the main tasks of the provincial author-
ities, the question that now needs to be addressed is how their posi-
tion will be affected when the bill becomes law. This question is all
the more relevant, given that the bill aims to bolster spatial coherence
in the decision-making and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of
spatial policy.’’ Strangely this is not a big issue in the professional
domain. Only a few papers have been published in Dutch professional
journals. The provinces themselves are much less anxious to take up
 IN SEARCH OF CONCEPTUAL MODERNIZATION 429

their new role. They seem more eager to accept possibilities for a
more pro-active, less regulatory role. The changes which the Spatial
Planning Act will undergo are reflected in the National Spatial Strat-
egy. Before we thus turn our attention to the ‘philosophy of gover-
nance’ of this Strategy, we briefly look at some of the events that
took place before this Strategy was published.

3. Preceding the national spatial strategy

In the 1990s spatial planning in the Netherlands was dominated by

the concept of the compact city. This concept lies at the heart of the
Fourth National Policy Document on Spatial Planning which was is-
sued by the Ministry of Spatial Planning (MVROM) in 1990 (Vierde
nota over de ruimtelijke ordening Extra or VINEX) and was last
updated in 1999. This VINEX stated that new urbanization processes
would have to take place in a highly concentrated form, preferably on
brownfield sites within city perimeters and then, if necessary, on
adjacent greenfield sites just outside the city perimeters.
The concept of the compact city is not just about urban configura-
tions. Considered nowadays as best practice in many countries (see
for instance CEC, 1999), the compact city also presents a vision of
the way cities function. In fact, the Minister of Spatial Planning who
was responsible for the 1999 VINEX update actually changed the
name to the ‘complete’ city, because it would denote more accurately
a full spectrum of urban amenities within the precincts of urban
agglomerations (MVROM, 1997). The complete city was seen as a
self-sufficient system that could meet all the daily needs of the urban
dweller. This perception of the way cities and urban regions internally
function has been heavily criticized. In reality socio-spatial patterns
have emerged in which work, recreation and dwelling are spread
across space and with little stability over time. The general commit-
ment of the planning system to concentrate these activities in and
around the existing confined urban regions has not been able to pre-
vent this general dispersal of households and activities (Hajer and
Zonneveld, 2000, p. 349).
After long and protracted deliberations, a new, Fifth National
Policy Document appeared in 2001. The product of a ‘purple’ three-
party coalition consisting of social-democrats and left- and right-of-
centre liberals, the Fifth National Policy Document marked a remark-
able shift in government policy, for it was teeming with the concept
430 WIL ZONNEVELD

of the complete city. According to the new creed, network cities

would emerge at a regional level in a constellation of ‘‘urban centres
and nodes’’ (MVROM, 2001, p. 179 ff). These urban networks would
form integrated and self-contained housing and labour markets with
excellent internal connections thanks to a well-designed system of re-
gional public transport. The Fifth Policy Document also pinpointed
the areas where such developments would take place – or it may be
more accurate to say ‘might’ take place, because a policy-driven inter-
pretation of spatial structure was clearly at stake here. The new ele-
ment, which marked the Fifth Policy Document as a watershed in
nearly three decades of national urban policy, was that, from now on,
the entire territory of the network city would form the search area for
new urban developments. The watchword was no longer ‘concentric’
urbanization (the ‘centre’ located in individual cities). Moreover, the
urban network as a whole – rather than individual cities – would be
self-sufficient in terms of urban functions.
So much for the novelties. The Dutch government took the view
that urban networks should only develop in explicitly designated
areas. So, decisions had to be taken on which cities would be
included and which not. The urban network, though an innovative
concept, in this respect was still an echo of the past, since, like the
former urban region, it was defined in terms of the urban centres that
belonged to it. In an – almost desperate – attempt to prevent urbani-
zation from encroaching on the countryside, the Fifth Policy Docu-
ment stated that so-called ‘red contours’ had to be drawn around
cities to demarcate the outer edges of urban expansion. This meant
that all twelve provincial authorities in the Netherlands would have to
add contours to their spatial plans (of which six had already done
so).
The contour principle has been one of the most fiercely debated is-
sues in spatial planning in recent years. It has some avid supporters,
especially among environmentalists and nature and landscape conser-
vationists. The opponents are a much larger mixed bag of, amongst
others, property developers and employers’ organizations, but also
many professional spatial planners who are weary of rigid generic
policy principles which are applied in every corner of the country
regardless of the actual situation.
The future spatial policy according to the Fifth Policy Report
seemed to be doing the splits: yes, we have to accept that cities have
become polynuclear urban regions; no, expansion is not allowed and
urban configurations must be contained by stringent regulations.
 IN SEARCH OF CONCEPTUAL MODERNIZATION 431

Central government would continue to play a strong role in steering

urban development in the Netherlands.

4. A new ‘philosophy of governance’

April 2002 saw the collapse of the second ‘purple’ coalition. By then,
the Fifth Policy Document was about three-quarters of its way
through the procedure which national spatial planning key decisions
have to follow. It only awaited a parliamentary reading and a formal
decision on wording and maps. In the Netherlands a fallen govern-
ment usually rounds off any current business, but it leaves the contro-
versial issues to its successor. The new national spatial policy was a
controversial issue. The Dutch Parliament deferred the reading of the
Fifth Policy Document and, in effect, sounded its death knell. The
new, centre-right government, which took over in 2002, decided to
unite two planning key decision procedures, the other one being
for the Second National Structure Plan for Green Areas (Tweede
Structuurschema Groene Ruimte).
So, there was only one policy document. In a country like the
Netherlands where urban and rural issues are so closely intertwined,
there is in fact no justification for artificially separating two domains
that so obviously belong together. The amalgamation of the two doc-
uments also sent out an early signal that the new government would
be less strict in separating town and country. This was in contrast to
its predecessor, which had developed the contour system as the
centrepiece of its spatial policy.
The new government also appeared to be pursuing a new ‘philoso-
phy of governance’; it had a different vision of its role in relation to
the provinces and municipalities and envisaged ‘‘fewer rules and regu-
lations dictated by central government, more scope for local and
regional considerations, more development planning and less develop-
ment control’’(MHSPE, 2004, p. 3). It was particularly protective of
the so-called ‘National Spatial Structure’, a system of networks and
regions which it regarded as nationally important and which would
form the main focus of government investment (ibid: 6).
One of the most essential elements in the new strategy is the con-
centration policy, which the government is passing on to the local
authorities. The municipalities will do the work, but it is the prov-
inces, above all, which will orchestrate things. All that central govern-
ment will do is provide support and perform ‘marginal’ checks – or
432 WIL ZONNEVELD

so the document says. It is this part of the strategy – making the

provinces and municipalities responsible for what can be very awk-
ward issues – which has met with strong criticism from many ‘policy-
watchers’. Basically, what most of the criticism boils down to is that
the municipalities are all too eager to build and the provinces are
politically far too weak to resist the pressure from below.
The distrust which many people feel towards the new philosophy
of governance behind the National Spatial Strategy is exacerbated by
statements in the document itself. The subtitle ‘Creating space for
development’ is highly ambiguous in this respect. On the one hand it
is a good thing the Strategy drops contour-like restrictions on spatial
development which are based upon outdated conceptions of spatial
organization. On the other hand the Strategy suggests a ‘free for all’
approach. For instance, the very first boldly printed text in the Strat-
egy – i.e. a policy statement which cannot be changed without parlia-
mentary approval – on the principal goal of national spatial planning
policy opens with the one-liner: ‘‘The main goal of national spatial
policy is to create space for the different functions that demand it
[...]’’ (MVROM, 2004a, p. 22; translation: MHSPE, 2004, p. 3). It is
interesting to notice that discussions in the House of Representatives
of Parliament have led to an important change in the wording. Al-
though there is still mention of the need to efficiently create space for
the functions that demand it, in the same breath it is emphasized that
this should be done according to the principle of sustainability and
that the spatial quality of cities and the countryside should be
improved (MVROM, 2005, p. 8).
This overall goal is split into subsidiary goals. It is always worth
noting the order in texts like these because it invariably reflects the
order of importance. Strengthening the international competitive posi-
tion of the Netherlands is mentioned first. Moreover, of the total text
dedicated to the goals of national policy, less then one-tenth is dedi-
cated to what is called ‘‘securing and developing important national
and international spatial values’’, which is seen by many to be what
spatial planning now is all about. By then it is crystal clear to the
reader where the priorities lie.
But the document is anything but clear about the ‘values’ behind
the actual policy decisions. It embraces a principle called ‘basic qual-
ity’. This is apparently some sort of minimum that the national gov-
ernment wants to stick to, but what it actually amounts to is
anybody’s guess – not least because it is split into content and pro-
cesses. In the long run it is up to the lower tiers of government to
 IN SEARCH OF CONCEPTUAL MODERNIZATION 433

interpret basic quality. In interpreting the basic values underlying the

National Spatial Strategy, however, municipal and provincial authori-
ties, who receive the burden of new responsibilities, are left in the
dark. The Second Chamber of the Parliament expressed some unease
about this state of affairs – even the right-wing liberals, who should
be rubbing their hands in glee at the sight of a government strategy
with such a strong focus on boosting the economy. In the face of
opposition, the minister was forced to promise that developments will
be monitored and a method will be devised for assessing basic qual-
ity. On the level of spatial concepts or principles of spatial organiza-
tion, which normally are more concrete compared with the level of
policy goals, the Strategy is often again anything but clear. We now
turn our attention to some of the most important of such concepts.

5. The new urban concepts

5.1. The urban network

Concepts are underpinned by more fundamental values: principles of

spatial order (WRR, 1998, NSCGP, p. 23 ff, 1999, 13 ff; see also
Hajer and Zonneveld, 2000). One of the key principles in Dutch spa-
tial policy is cohesion, i.e. the concentration of spatial functions and
elements that are seen as belonging together. In elaborating spatial
cohesion, traditionally the emphasis has been put on proximity. This
eventually resulted in the concept of the compact city.
The principle of spatial cohesion has come under heavy pressure:
social arrangements increasingly stretch across space. Proximity as an
organizing principle is substituted for connectivity, although to a dif-
ferent extent for distinct activities. The concept of the urban network
seems to pay tribute to such development but only half-heartedly. The
imagery speaks for itself: the draft Fifth Policy Document (see
Figure 1) presents the urban network as a constellation of spheres –
the city is a ‘molecule’, so to speak. The lines represent actual infra-
structural connections, but at the same time are symbolic of cohesion
and complementarity. In provincial planning documents this is the
dominant way of visualizing urban networks.
The National Spatial Strategy partly adopts the approach of the
preceding Fifth Policy Document and partly rejects it. It neatly
adopts the definition of urban networks from the Fifth Policy
Document (MVROM, 2004b, p. 63). However, the Strategy refuses to
434 WIL ZONNEVELD

Figure 1. A new vision of urban structures: integration through networks Source:

MVROM 2001.

outline the composition of each of the six urban networks it identifies

(i.e. the cities belonging to a network), nor does it use contours. This
would clearly contradict the governance philosophy embraced by the
Strategy. The maps bear this out. The urban network is no longer
portrayed as a molecule. All that we see is a rough indication of the
location and the boundaries (see Figure 2).
 IN SEARCH OF CONCEPTUAL MODERNIZATION 435

Figure 2. Adjusting the new vision of urban structures: urban networks as urban
fields (the blobs) and the economy spatially organized through clearly identifiable
zones (the outlined areas). Source: MVROM 2004a.

At first glance, the imagery comes across as inept. However, the rep-
resentation of the urban network is far more in tune with current real-
ity compared with the images of the Fifth Policy Document that
suggest clear-cut relations between cities and a hierarchy between the
larger cities and their surroundings. In contrast the Spatial Strategy de-
picts the ‘new-style city’ as a great open swathe, as some sort of large
urban field without a clear internal structure. It is not unusual for spa-
436 WIL ZONNEVELD

tial planning to leave large open spaces on maps when decision-makers

cannot or will not make a choice, in this case about the cities forming a
network. That may well be the case here. However, we could also say
that the Strategy is refreshingly honest in this respect: there is no long-
er an easily recognizable spatial structure within urban networks.
Accepting this was clearly one bridge too far for the makers of the
Fifth Policy Document a few years earlier. Nevertheless traditional
elements are still present in the Spatial Strategy. First there is again
the suggestion that urban networks have outer perimeters. Second the
urban network is pinned down to one specific spatial scale which
seems difficult to combine with the complex multi-scalar arrangements
in present society. As such the urban network concept seems to be
based more on the relationships within and between governments:
politicians and administrators use proximity as the basis for their
cooperation while households and activities are dispersed over space
and engage in multiple arrangements across different levels of space.
So the concept of urban networks in the new National Spatial Strat-
egy is only partially a principle of spatial organization. It is also –
and probably mainly – a principle of governmental cooperation.
Discussions in the House of Representatives have led to an emphasis
on the latter. The urban network is not only to be seen as a spatial
concept, a principle of spatial organization, but also as a principle of
the organization of government (MVROM, 2005, p. 54).

5.2. The economic core area and the concentration area

The urban network concept in the Fifth Policy Document not only
embraces a fairly optimistic notion of spatial cohesion, it also pre-
supposes a large measure of governmental co-operation, especially in
the case of the largest urban network, the Randstad. Here numerous
cities and no fewer than four provinces were expected to work to-
gether; with supra-regional affairs coordinated at a national level
(MVROM, 2001, p. 26; see van Duinen, 2004).
The present government is not all that keen on large-scale co-oper-
ation. It wants to retain the formal three-tier administrative structure
without complicated structures in between which blur the distinction
between the three administrative layers. Consequently the supra-
provincial spatial concept Randstad Holland is being re-drawn along
provincial boundaries, which confirms our conclusion above that a
spatial concept could well be a principle of administrative cooperation
 IN SEARCH OF CONCEPTUAL MODERNIZATION 437

in disguise. The urban network of Randstad Holland is seen as con-

sisting of three economic core areas: the Northern Flank, the South-
ern Flank and the Utrecht Region. But what are the implications for
the medium term? The ‘Regio Randstad’ partnership, which is formed
by the four Randstad provinces, the cooperation areas around the
four main cities and municipalities, will probably just pale into insig-
nificance. This would be a pity: multi-scalar urban relations require
multi-level forms of governance. Currently (mid 2005) a strategic
study is under way on the future role of ‘Regio Randstad’.
The above indicates that spatial concepts do not need to be rooted
in any sort of vision of the existing or desired spatial structure, but
can just as easily be grafted onto the geographical administrative
boundaries. What will then become of the Randstad concept? Will it
be nothing more than a name? It is, in any case, clear that the present
government is completely indifferent to the arguments for a Randstad
rail system, a hot issue when the Fifth Policy Document was pre-
pared. The same goes for Brabantstad, another large-scale urban net-
work in the Fifth Policy Document, which has been sliced up in the
National Spatial Strategy. The government does not want to spend
one euro on developing Brabantrail, which would connect all the cit-
ies in the province of Brabant.
The National Spatial Strategy in fact does not shed any light on
the purpose behind concepts like Randstad and Brabantstad; it even
increases the confusion. Although it accords more or less equal
importance to the concepts of urban network and economic core
area, the relationship between the two is obscure. But this obscurity
could prove lucrative. If the municipalities manage to work together
in networks, they will receive financial rewards because the status of
economic core area qualifies them for government subsidies for the
realization of large, complex business estates, a.k.a. ‘top projects’
(MVROM, 2004b, pp. 33, 45). This points to another function which
spatial concepts often have in Dutch planning: as principles for the
allocation of central government funding. This nearly always leads to
a watering down of the content of spatial concepts. For instance,
while the National Spatial Strategy was waiting to be discussed in the
House of Representatives, intensive lobbying took place to award the
medium-sized cities of Zwolle and Leeuwarden, not pictured on
any of the policy maps of the strategy, some sort of policy label. The
lobby appeared partly successful. The two cities will get the same
financial treatment as some of the recognized urban networks
(MVROM, 2005, p. 62) but they will not be pictured on any map. So
438 WIL ZONNEVELD

officially they are not part of the main spatial structure of the coun-
try, a sensitive issue because not ‘‘being on the map’’ (Jensen and
Richardson, 2004, p. 100 ff.) is often considered as a denial of exis-
tence. This question of being on the map supersedes the prime func-
tion of spatial concepts, namely stimulating spatial consciousness.
Besides urban networks and economic core areas, concentration
areas have been introduced to replace the far more restrictive ‘red
contours’. The maps of the National Spatial Strategy show the con-
centration areas as large empty swathes, which are supposed to serve
as search areas for new building projects. Again it is the local author-
ities who will have to flesh out the policy. The only specific task that
has been assigned to them is to ensure that the quantitative relation-
ship between concentration areas and all other areas remains at least
equal (MVROM, 2005, p. 67). This is a clear departure from the
VINEX approach. Whereas, at present, the provinces have to prove
that they are preventing the municipalities from engaging in too much
building, in future the central government will decide ‘‘...whether each
province is reserving enough space to meet the needs of urban-related
functions’’. This quote (MVROM, 2005, p. 86; translation author) is
taken from a boldly printed text – which indicates that it is one of the
core principles of the Strategy. Another part of the document (ibid:
85) states that the government will check whether the demand for
space is being adequately met.
In itself this approach seems right. Why should central government
interfere with local developments? The concept of the compact city,
with its strict rules on the location of new building sites, had to be
employed in every corner of the country, like the even more rigid
concept of contours. The ultimate step would have been a logical one
given the governance philosophy of the new National Spatial Strat-
egy: no demarcation of areas by central government altogether. In the
domain of politics there is no agreement on this as we have empha-
sized above discussing the instrument of contours. To avoid contro-
versy the present government avoided a choice which in itself would
perfectly fit within the propagated governance philosophy.

5.3. More spatial-economic policy concepts

Readers and users of the National Spatial Strategy are thus confronted
with a heap of urban concepts which touch and overlap (also on the
map), and offer a very unclear picture of their various functions and
 IN SEARCH OF CONCEPTUAL MODERNIZATION 439

purposes. One of the ‘newspeak’ metaphors that appear in the docu-

ment is the ‘port’. Since the Fourth National Policy Document, Dutch
spatial-infrastructural and spatial-economic policy has been dominated
by the ‘mainport’ doctrine (see van Duinen, 2004), which essentially
says that Schiphol airport and the Port of Rotterdam are crucially
important as they are the hubs that support the bulk of the national
economy. Both areas need scope to expand and must be connected to
state-of-the-art infrastructure. It seems therefore that the word ‘port’
has far-reaching associations.
The protectors of agribusiness in the Netherlands, led by the
Minister of Agriculture, jumped on the ‘port’ bandwagon and coined
the term ‘greenport’. The theory is that if the Rotterdam mainport is
crucial to the Dutch economy, then so are the large agribusiness com-
plexes. The National Spatial Strategy names five greenports, four of
which are in the Randstad. Again the main implication of the concept
– besides the provision of space for development – is government
funding: the cash which is earmarked for improving the international
competitiveness of Dutch agriculture is ‘primarily intended’ for these
areas. The greenport does not pay attention to the complicated
relations within the Dutch agricultural complex which cannot be tied
down to five specific areas. Also the main centres of knowledge, like
the Wageningen University and Research Centre, are not integrated
into the concept. So a strictly zonal approach is followed here while a
network approach would have made more sense.
The Strategy is further embellished by the concept of the ‘brain-
port’. During the sometimes heated debates on the mainport concept
in the 1990s, especially when it crystallized out in the form of a fifth
Schiphol runway (labelled by the minister as the ‘environmental run-
way’ due to the expected reduction of noise in the locality), the
Maasvlakte (a new extension to the Rotterdam harbour stretching
into the North Sea) and the Betuwe line (a new, dedicated freight rail-
way line, now on the brink of its opening), many opponents pointed
out that the national policy should not concentrate so strongly on
environmentally unfriendly sectors, which did no more than transport
people and goods. The national economy should be further developed
as a (far less environmentally unfriendly) knowledge economy. In
other words, promote the Netherlands as a brainport. The mainport
concept itself originated from the idea that a limited number of sea-
ports in the world were expected to become the prime nodes in inter-
national and distribution networks. Therefore, instead of just
concentrating on the qualities of individual ports the emphasis should
440 WIL ZONNEVELD

be put on coherence between the individual parts of international

transport chains: not the beads but the complete chain (van Duinen,
2004, p. 65). In the Netherlands the opposite has happened, so again
we see a localized, zonal concept dominating instead of a network ap-
proach. The same happened with the concept of the brainport. In the
National Spatial Strategy this objective is whittled down to a local-
ized spatial concept referring to the region of Eindhoven/Southeast
Brabant where Philips research facilities are located as well as one of
the three Dutch technical universities (MVROM, 2004a, p. 26;
MVROM, 2005,pp 79–80). Research has shown, however, that the
knowledge economy is not strongly localized, as the strategy suggests
(Raspe et alia, 2004; van Oort and Raspe, 2005; see also VROM-
Raad, 2004) and certainly not limited to one particular economic sec-
tor (industry) as the National Spatial Strategy assumes. So, it appears
that the brainport – at least as the government understands it – does
not exist at all. What is more, scarcely any concrete implications have
yet been attached to the concept. The National Spatial Strategy
(MVROM, 2005, p. 41) speaks only of ‘stimulation’. The potential
‘damage’ resulting from the application of such a biased concept is
therefore rather limited.
All in all, the spatial-economic principles of the National Spatial
Strategy have met with a very mixed response. Interestingly, nowhere
else in the document is the language as rhetorical as in the sections on
spatial-economic policy. This is a clear indication that a dominant
role was played by the Ministry of Economic Affairs when the docu-
ment was being prepared which is in sharp contrast with the making
of the Fourth and Fifth Policy Report. Shortly after the publication
of the Strategy, Economic Affairs issued its own policy document
(MEA, 2004) presenting an image of the Netherlands in which the re-
gional labelling verges on the ridiculous (for instance: ‘‘Southeastern
Netherlands: towards a top technology region’’). It magnifies distinc-
tions in the economic structure of areas which are barely recognizable
in reality.
Most striking of all though is the decision in both documents to
focus the policy so strongly on traditional sectors, even though it is
actually no novelty: the preceding Fourth Report (Extra) did the
same. Moreover, as these sectors are being seen as situated in specific
geographical areas, the network character of the current economy
does not to seem to have been taken into consideration seriously.
Essentially, the decision is bound up with the intention to use spatial
concepts as a basis for allocating government funding. The fact that
 IN SEARCH OF CONCEPTUAL MODERNIZATION 441

these sectors also place a huge burden on the environment and are
more or less exclusively located in the Randstad might also account
to some extent for the rhetoric and, to some extent, the highly ten-
dentious language.

6. Conclusion

If the new National Spatial Strategy is all that it seems, then it will
mark a turning point in spatial policy in the Netherlands. An unprec-
edented array of policy issues will be deliberately placed in the hands
of the local authorities, including the urban concentration policy,
which has been a core business of central government since the 1980s.
However, is the Strategy all that it seems? Some critics have main-
tained that what was leaving through the front door of the Ministry
of Spatial Planning (MVROM) was creeping back in through the
back door via monitoring and regional inspectorates. Up to now, the
Strategy has seen monitoring mainly as a means of determining whe-
ther provinces (and municipalities) are adopting a healthy approach
to development planning – will enough houses and business parks be
built in the near future?
The main criticism levelled against the National Spatial Strategy is
that it places a disproportionate emphasis on development – espe-
cially economic development. At this point government policy does
indeed go into overdrive. In addition, the spatial-economic concepts
in the Strategy are the weakest in the entire document when it comes
to the analytical assumptions underlying them. The Brabant Brain-
port, the greenports and the (13) economic core areas are no more
than poorly underpinned principles for the allocation of government
funding.
In terms of its conceptual orientation, the National Spatial Strat-
egy contains a considerable number of new spatial concepts, in partic-
ular when compared with the Fourth Report (Extra). Just about
every spatial concept, however, turns out to be rather one-dimen-
sional and, taken together, portray the spatial organization of society
as being made up of clearly recognizable spatial units. When the Spa-
tial Planning Bill takes effect the spatial planning key decision will go
and will be replaced by a political vision. Hopefully spatial concepts
will then no longer be used primarily as principles for the allocation
of central government funding and the deployment of policy instru-
ments. We might then see the introduction of a new class of spatial
442 WIL ZONNEVELD

concepts more in line with the actual spatial organization of present

society in which proximity is far less important than suggested by
some of the ‘new’ spatial concepts of today. Visioning should be in
the first place aimed at creating new strategic spatial concepts. Such
concepts set the frames for policy-making and concrete decision-
making, but are in themselves not the same as taking concrete territo-
rial decisions. Territorial structure is not to be equated with the
spaces and places where certain concrete actions take place. Maps are
crucial to spatial visioning, but there is need for a more fuzzy visual
language instead of the clearly outlined spaces appearing on the maps
of the National Spatial Strategy.

Acknowledgements

This article is based upon a research project financed by the Nether-

land Institute of Spatial Research (RPB) and Delft University of
Technology through the Delft Center for Sustainable Areas.

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