EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - Manifesto of the four largest cities in the Netherlands

Manifesto of the four largest cities in the Netherlands

Introduction

In the coming years, the G4 (the four largest cities in the Netherlands) will cooperate closely to bring about an international-orientated and economically strong Randstad. At the same time, the G4 has come up with a plan of attack for combatting the social and cultural problems in the cities.

Description

The basis for the shared direction the four large cities of the Randstad are taking is two documents, which were published in 2002 with an eye on the elections and the cabinet’s formation in that year. At the beginning of February 2002, the G4 presented the manifesto called “The city in the world, the world in the city”.

This manifesto’s point of departure was the globalisation of the economy and society. Individually, the cities are too small to successfully compete in the world economy. For this reason, the G4 campaigned for the development of the Randstad into a powerful economic region (a city in the world). For this to occur, the connections between the cities had to be improved; the G4 will try to half travelling times in the Randstad.

Globalisation will also create new opportunities and problems within each of the four cities, e.g. in the field of integration, naturalisation, education, work and safety. For this reason, the G4 also wants to improve the world in the city by, for example, improving safety in the cities, improving education and naturalisation, and improving the services for coping with the growing number of homeless.

Conclusions

Cut travel times in half in the Delta metropolis by actualising Deltanet.
Increase the international competitive power of the Delta metropolis by investing in the main ports and key projects: Amsterdam Zuidas, Rotterdam Centraal, Den Haag Hoog Hage and Utrecht Stationsgebied.
Create sufficient space for quality housing, work and recreation within the Delta metropolis.
Give the redevelopment of the old urban areas a serious boost.
The 'Deltametropool op glas' (Delta metropolis on glass): connect all citizens and companies to broadband.

Contact info

G4
C. Hermans

Publication date

03/12/2002

Researcher

H.S. Frencken et al.

Links

G4 (in Dutch)

G4 Manifesto. The city in the world, the world in the city (PDF, Dutch, 2.3MB)

Implementation of the G4 Manifesto (PDF, Dutch, 458KB)

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy > Economy knowledge & employment > Urban economy

Keywords

Competitiveness