The report summarizes trends that drive land use change and recent land use developments, and describes important governmental and private actors and their objectives and strategies with respect to the urban fringe. It focuses on the ways in which actors, and especially The Hague Region itself, influence land use in the urban fringe. Special attention is given to agriculture, which dominates land use in the urban fringe enclaves in The Hague Region. Another subject of study is recreation, as one of the main arguments used by authorities to prevent further urbanization of the urban fringe areas. Culture and identity are discussed as issues that may influence discourses and decisions. The report describes strategies for these three issues, in relation to actors, coalitions, discourses, spatial concepts and resources.

This report is the first on the case study of The Hague Region. It will be followed by a report that contains assessments of the strategies. The case study of The Hague Region is one of the seven case studies in PLUREL. The other case studies concern Montpellier (France), Greater Manchester (United Kingdom), Koper (Slovenia), Leipzig (Germany), Warsaw (Poland) and Hangzhou (China).

The PLUREL project: Peri-urban Land Use Relationships - Strategies and Sustainability Assessment Tools for Urban-Rural Linkages is a European integrated research project within the European Commissions sixth framework programme. The project began on the first of January 2007 and is expected to end the 31st of December 2010.

Six European case studies were chosen to explore in depth the land use relationships between rural and urban areas: Warsaw, Leipzig, Den Hague, Manchester, Montpellier, and Koper.

The case studies reflect the variability of geographical, economic and social conditions prevailing in Europe but they are also characterised by different cultures of governance. Population trends differ remarkably between the case study regions, and range from growing areas (poly-centric Haaglanden, Montpellier, mono-centric Warsaw) to a region with significant and ongoing population decline and shrinkage (Leipzig). These general trends are translated in different ways into rural-urban development patterns within the study regions. To give one illustrative example, population decline in Leipzig is coupled with still ongoing suburbanisation.

The project will engage in a Chinese reference study to explore the relevance of the results to the very rapidly urbanising areas in Asia and to compare the spatio-temporal developments. Hangzhou, a rapidly growing rural – urban region of 6.6 million inhabitants has been chosen.

/09/2009

Ir. C.B.E.M (Carmen) Aalbers, Dr. T. (Terry) van Dijk, Drs. P.D. (Pat) van der Jagt, Ir. J. (Judith) Westerink

research

Urban Policy