EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - OECD Territorial Review

OECD Territorial Review - Randstad Holland, the Netherlands

Introduction

The Randstad is the poly-centric urban area in the west of the Netherlands, comprising Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, and several smaller cities. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has reviewed the economic potential of this polycentric urban area. According to the OECD, the Randstad does not seem to exploit well the proximity among the four large cities, and does not represent an integrated functional urban system.

Description

The Randstad consists of a green area in its centre (known as the Green Heart) surrounded by a semicircle of urban conurbations, including the four largest Dutch cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht). It is a polycentric area: unlike many metropolitan areas in the OECD, it does not have one single dominant core. Instead, its functions are spread over its entire area. Although Amsterdam is the largest city in the Randstad, the national government is located in The Hague and the biggest port in Rotterdam.

The OECD Territorial Review of the Randstad provides an answer to the following questions:

How does the Randstad perform internationally?
Why is a change in economic strategy needed?
How to take better advantage of poly-centricity of the Randstad?
How to make better use of knowledge and labour?
Why can governance help solve these problems?

Background information

The Territorial Review of the Randstad is integrated into a series of thematic reviews on metropolitan regions undertaken by the OECD Territorial Development Policy Committee. The overall aim of these case studies is to draw and disseminate horizontal policy recommendations for national governments.

Conclusions

In the academic literature, the Randstad is frequently considered to be a metropolitan area, as it forms one closely connected urban area. In practice however, the Randstad cannot be considered to be a daily urban system: people commute, move house, pursue leisure activities and shop within more restricted areas of their city-region. Official boundaries for the Randstad do not exist and it does not fit into one of the three government tiers in Netherlands. It remains an almost abstract concept as no government policies are implemented using it as the geographical basis for intervention.

The Randstad economy scores well on many indicators. It has a relatively high regional income per capita, unemployment is one of the lowest in OECD metropolitan regions and labour productivity per hour is high. Economic growth, though sluggish in the early 2000s, was good in the 1990s and has been picking up in 2006. The main challenge is the low productivity growth exhibited over recent years, with the Netherlands having one of the lowest such growth rates in the OECD over the last decade.
Much of the economic strategy for the Randstad has been based on generating high volumes, mainly through Rotterdam harbour and Schiphol airport. At the same time, such activities face constraints regarding land availability in the densely populated Randstad.
There are four main levers of action to take better advantage of the proximity among the four city-regions. Firstly, congestion problems must be solved. Secondly, there is an urgent need for a more coherence in regional and local public transport within the Randstad area. In the third place, the lack of high quality housing is a risk for the international attractiveness of the area. Finally, there should be more co-operation among the four large cities on key issues such as tourism and higher education.
Efforts to reform the government system in the past have not been successful, but many informal co-operative arrangements have been reached betwe en the main governance actors to improve region-wide government. Administrative crowdedness is often mentioned as one of the main governance problems, together with the slowness in decision-making and the lack of political leadership. At the same time, many co-operative arrangements have been instrumental in finding appropriate scales for public service delivery. Nevertheless, several improvements could be made.

Contact info

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
Ms Dorothée Allain-Dupré, tel. +33 1 45 24 82 43

Publication date

11/04/2007

Article info
ISBN: 9789264007932

Links

to obtain a copy of the final version of the OECD Randstad Review, please visit the OECD website Download the draft version of the OECD Randstad Review on the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment website Visit the Randstad Holland website

Download the OECD policy brief on the Randstad (PDF, Eng, 190 KB)

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy

Keywords

Economy knowledge & employment