Randstad
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The Randstad is an agglomeration in the Netherlands. It consists of the four largest cities, and the surrounding areas. With its 7.1 million inhabitants (almost half of the population of the Netherlands) it's one of the largest agglomerations in Europe. Its main cities are Almere, Amsterdam, Delft, Dordrecht, Gouda, Haarlem, Hilversum, Leiden, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, and Zoetermeer. Other large cities include Alphen aan den Rijn, Amersfoort, Amstelveen, Capelle aan den IJssel, Hoofddorp, Leidschendam, Nieuwegein, Purmerend, Rijswijk, Schiedam, Spijkenisse, Vlaardingen, Voorburg, and Zaanstad.
The cities of the Randstad form more or less a crescent or chain. This chain gave the Randstad its name (rand meaning rim or edge and stad meaning city). The area that is enclosed by the larger cities is called the Green Heart (Groene Hart).
Over the last few decades, a major topic in the Randstad is the "conflict" between the major cities and the towns inbetween. These towns are usually much greener than the cities, they house many commuters that work in the cities and the former strongly depend on the latter for facilities such as hospitals and large scale entertainment. Cities need more space to expand, yet the towns fear to lose their identity and authority. The towns tend to cooperate to withstand this pressure and sometimes even merge to unite their power.
The Green Heart (Dutch:Groene Hart) is another hotly debated issue closely related to the conflict between cities and towns. On the one hand people feel this large and relatively sparsely populated area should be protected, as it is considered a valuable rural area amongst cities. On the other hand, many (wealthier) people enjoy living in the relatively quiet environment near their places of work and the facilities the Randstad provides.
Recently, Dutch planologists have started to refer to the Randstad as Deltametropool [1]. Deltametropolis actually consists of two large metropolitan areas:
1. The Noordvleugel (North Wing, with a population of around 2.5 million people), consisting of the Haarlem and IJmuiden conurbations in the west, Amsterdam at the centre and Almere and the Gooi-area in the east. The conurbation of Utrecht (pop. around an extra 800,000) could also be considered to be part of the North Wing. The main center is however clearly Amsterdam, which could - as such - be considered a classical centralistic metropole.
2. The Zuidvleugel (South Wing, with a population of around 3.5 million people), stretching some 60 kilometers from Dordrecht in the South East to Leiden in the North. The main conurbations are the more or less equivalent Rotterdam and The Hague areas. The virtual centre of the Zuidvleugel lies in between those two major cities, near Delft, and - in some minds - this area should offer great potential for future development. The first steps toward that development are being made at this moment with the construction of a new fast light-rail connection between Rotterdam and The Hague: Randstad Rail. A long delayed extension of the western A4-highway from the south of Delft to Rotterdam has also been put back on the administrative agenda, creating a second connection between Rotterdam, via The Hague, to Amsterdam.
External links
- Regio Randstad official website (English)
- Official Zuidvleugel website (Dutch)als:Randstad
ca:Randstad de:Randstad fr:Ranstad nl:Randstad (gebied) ja:ランドスタット