Day 5: Creating Your Future

The wet and rainy war against us visitors has continued, but today we were inside for the beginnings of our educational knowledge trek. We were hosted by Frans Dubblebaum at the Zuiderkerk, the planning centre of Amsterdam. Frans works with the Amsterdam City Council, and has been one of my favorite speakers thus far on the trip. During his presentation, he provided an overview of the planning concepts currently being utilized by the Dutch, many which we have discussed in class already in varying levels of detail. For example, he showed the history of the population growth, and how the areas were growing as the industry and population migration was shifting. I thought it was very helpful to see Paris and Amsterdam compared to each other, especially in terms of defining density. Not only does this mean how many buildings or dwellings per area, but also the number of inhabitants. There was a good connection between their desire to have a population/economic status similar to that of Paris, and they compared not only their residents living in spatially similar areas, but also the amount of annual tourists who visit the area every year.

I really thought the class did a great job of presenting intelligent, well thought out questions that enhanced the information he generally presented. Such a question would be Dr. G’s question on clarification of the integration of planning and public administration in practice. Seeing this example, and understanding the relationship they have used, to much success, I believe, it then becomes clear to see why they have established 15 city districts to allow for greater consensus about the needs and goals of each area. I would have possibly liked to learn more about the qualifications of those who are on City Council, that are not in the planning or administration, but still have power to make planning decisions. I would be curious to know what training background and expertise can be found among them, and whether this constitutes an asset or liability within the planning structure. I would also have to agree it has been insightful to ask the same question at times to different parties, to see how their views change, and whether the information one has is the same as others, to seek out extreme bias. Hearing Frans talking about the importance of regional planning shed light on an area that perhaps can be an explanation for the weakness in American planning projects. There is no real effort or push to incorporate areas together in the Louisville-Lexington area, or even in general areas of Kentucky, at least from what I have gathered. To say that is important for the healthy growth of all regions to have smart planning in place ahead of time speaks to the wisdom of well researched areas of issue, and also goals for the area in terms of regional economic and population growth. In the waterfront book, an example of this is the later developers not seeing the South Bank and the Zuidas as necessarily competitive rivals - instead, each was developed with its strengths and complementary weaknesses, with the two areas coming together to be stronger than either standing alone.

I was also excited to meet Frans because after asking whether he was familiar at all with the nieuwland project, I came to find out he actually lives within minutes of the development. Hopefully, we can get at least one sunny afternoon here so I am able to take the train out, rent a bike, and take some pictures and learn more about the community. I would also love to see if the Amsterdam library has anything written on the area. I have a feeling that it will probably be in dutch, but it is a place to start. If I can squeeze in a visit either on Wednesday or Friday then I hope to also be able to schedule a final visit on Saturday as well.

Perusing the Zuiderkerk, I ended up buying a book about Amsterdam’s water front, which had about 300 pages of detail about the architecture on the South IJ shores, many of which we passed on our boat tour on Saturday. I’ve read about 20 pages of the book so far, and I am really enjoying it. We haven’t really had anything that covered this architecture and history in depth other than brief presentations of pictures by Dr. G, and I also think my pictures will now also be much more memorable because I have more information about them to go along.

One of the other special things I was able to do today was have lunch at the café inside De Waag. (indewaag.nl). It was really a remarkable setting. All of the lighting was provided by candles, and there were huge 40 candle chandeliers hanging from the 2 story ceilings. There was also a red velvet curtain to separate areas of the dining room in case of private meals or functions. The best part in addition to the romantic, historically charming atmosphere was the reasonable cost of the lunch. With the cold rain blowing nearly every umbrella inside out, it was a real treat to sit inside, with a warm cup of cappuccino in my hands at the end of our meal.

While reading through the first sections of Green Urbanism, I admired the thinking of some countries that national defense went beyond missile and weapon protection, and into the sustainability of the country under siege by having their food supply available from within the country. Right now, the U.S. is definitely feeling the oil supply crunch, and while this is considered a “necessary” commodity in our country, people will die a lot faster from starvation than they will from not being able to drive their cars.

However, I disagree with the suggestion Beatley made that strict control may very well be a necessary ingredient for a successful sustainable urban form. While gun control does appear to have an effect, the black market ensures that guns are never really completely gone. This issue was pointed out in that Belgium, right across the border, allows access to firearms. Instead, I think the process we have of strict regulation at least provides more information about the people who are attempting to obtain guns through the legal system. It is currently not to so difficult to get through that it makes the black market more appealing, and I think this allows the folks who would use a gun strictly as a form of self defense to obtain one for those purposes. Those with the intent to use a gun as a means of wielding power will do so whether the guns are legal or not.