12 Good Ideas

for

The Future of Cities

Daan Roggeveen, Michiel Hulshof

& Frances Arnold

NAi010 Publishers

The

Amsterdam

Agenda

Architect Daan Roggeveen is the founder and creative director of MORE Architecture, a research and architecture firm with offices in Shanghai and Amsterdam. He is the editor of Progress & Prosperity - The Chinese City as Global Urban Model, (nai010, 2017).

Journalist Michiel Hulshof is one of the founders of Tertium, an office for strategic communication and citizen participation. Previously, he worked as a China correspondent for Dutch weekly, Vrij Nederland.

Michiel and Daan collaborate on the Go West Project, a think-tank on urban development. They are the authors of the acclaimed book, How the City Moved to Mr Sun - China’s New Megacities, (SUN Publishers, 2011).

Frances Arnold is a British writer, editor, and journalist. With a focus on art, design, and cultural development, she is a regular contributor to international publications including Artsy and Art Asia Pacific, and has had her work featured in The Economist, Frame, and others.

The press about:

How the City Moved to Mr Sun - China’s New Megacities

Michiel Hulshof & Daan Roggeveen

‘Witty, poignant, startling...’ 

- Duncan Hewitt, former BBC China correspondent

‘A delight to read.’

- Architectural Record

‘Powerful accounts illustrating the unrivalled pace of change.’

- De Volkskrant

 ‘Astonishing trip to urban jungle China.’

- De Morgen 

Facing East: Chinese Cities in Africa

Michiel Hulshof & Daan Roggeveen

‘The show’s format is academic ... but the questions it raises about the alliance of two of the globe’s fastest-growing geographic entities are not.’

- The New York Times

12 Good Ideas

for

The Future of Cities

Daan Roggeveen, Michiel Hulshof

& Frances Arnold

NAi010 Publishers

The

Amsterdam

Agenda

Index

Introduction

Michiel Hulshof, Daan Roggeveen

What Kind of City Do We Want To Be?

Esther Agricola

Bijlmer Blues

Daan Dekker

Participation Matters

Menno van der Veen

Digital Flexibility

Marc Schmit

Future of Work

Florian Idenburg

Flexible Systems

Selva Gürdoğan & Greger Thomsen

Smart Cities

Valerie von der Tann

8

18

26

38

46

58

68

78

The Grey Zone

Neville Mars

Boring Hong Kong

Inge Goudsmit

Irregular Development

Adam S. Frampton

Planning for Migration

Miguel Gentil Fernández

Over-tourism

Stephen Hodes

Bright Lights, Big City

David Mulder van der Vegt

Notes

Biographies

Acknowledgements

102

116

126

138

150

158

162

164

90

Introduction

If you have been away from Amsterdam for a number of years, like us, there is one thing you will immediately notice upon your return: the city is doing well. Very well. At parties, home-owners furtively compare increased house prices. In no time at all, districts such as Bos en Lommer, the Indische Buurt, and Noord are turning into veritable paradises for lovers of coffee, yoga, and craft-brew beer. All of the major museums have been renovated. And after two decades of construction, the new subway connection running north-south through the city has finally opened. Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Amsterdam, Zef Hemel, goes so far to proclaim that the city is currently experiencing its “Third Golden Age” - after those in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.

Just three decades ago, the situation was rather different. Run-down buildings stood abandoned all over the city, crime rates were high, and heroin addicts openly shot up in the metros. Middle-class families preferred to live in safe, manicured dormitory suburbs like Purmerend or Almere. Quite simply, life in Amsterdam was anything but idyllic. By 1984, the population of the capital whole-heartedly sang along with young folk singer Danny de Munck’s Mijn Stad: ‘Amsterdam is dog poo on the pavements / And hatred in the streets / You’ve got to be on your guard / Especially late at night.’

Amsterdam’s transformation has coincided with those of other major western cities, such as New York, London, and Paris. Rather than flee the chaotic, dirty, and oftentimes dangerous metropolis, people are now doing the reverse: ever-increasing numbers of knowledge workers, students, migrants, and tourists are moving into big cities.

But Amsterdam’s change is nonetheless a double-edged sword. House prices are now so high that teachers, police officers, and nurses find it hard to secure accommodation in the capital. People might sit on waiting lists for social housing apartments for well over ten years. And there are other problems, too: plans to make Amsterdam more energy efficient are not delivering as they should. At the same time, a heated identity debate rages throughout the city, with an increasing number of citizens complaining about the influx of tourists, expats, and new yuppies. Meanwhile Amsterdam residents with migrant backgrounds are increasingly vocal about the fact that their culture must also be considered part of Amsterdam’s urban identity.

These frictions are not unique to Amsterdam. Cities across the world face similar problems, making it a useful exercise to look for solutions from around the globe, be it Istanbul, Shanghai, or Berlin. This was the starting point of the Amsterdam Agenda, a series of lectures to second- and third-year students of the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture that took place in the spring of 2018. Across 15 lectures, international experts with specific insights into particular urban issues shared with students their research and analysis, presenting proposals and solutions from abroad that Amsterdam and the Randstad could learn from.

In this way, students were not only taken on a journey to a number of leading metropolises, but at the same time gained an understanding of the major urban challenges of our time: accessibility, sustainability, inclusiveness, and disruptive technologies. Our goal: to open up the discussion on the future of urban life and add new voices to the often self-referential debates in the Netherlands on this topic. We deliberately picked experts from different fields: architects and planners were joined by an activist, for example, a journalist, philosopher, and strategy consultant. Why? Because we think complex problems need to be looked at from multiples different angles.

We wanted to share the valuable insights of these 15 experts with a wider audience, so invited our editor, Frances Arnold, to examine their lectures, describe their narratives, and open them up to an even wider audience. The result is in your hands.

Context

Esther Agricola, Director of Urban Planning and Sustainability for the City of Amsterdam, outlined the huge task her department faces: building more dwellings without expanding the city. ‘In Amsterdam, this hasn’t actually been done before. In the past, each time the city boomed, we planned extension areas.’ At the same time, society is rapidly changing through successive new technological possibilities. This makes urban planning, traditionally a very slow sector, much more difficult. Streets and buildings that are being planned today will still have to perform in 50 years. At a time when nobody knows what society will look like even a decade from now, this is a colossal challenge.

Currently, Amsterdam has roughly two extension ‘flavours’ to choose from. The first is large-scale housing developments that are planned top-down and in high density. The second takes a more fragmented approach, allows citizen participation in the planning process, and embraces the experiment with the city in its search for new and radical ideas. Model one is currently being applied in the Sluisbuurt, an area under development in the eastern docklands. Looking ahead, model two could be used in Haven-Stad, the largest ever urban expansion of Amsterdam, where the city is planning a partly car-free district with between 40,000 and 70,000 dwellings.

By letting international experts share their views on this challenge, we have arrived at an Amsterdam Agenda for the development of the city of the future. To summarize:

1. Take a step-by-step approach

Amsterdam’s last visionary and radical urban development was the Bijlmermeer. Often described as Europe’s final and fated experiment in Modernism, within a mere quarter-of-a-century its head designer, Siegfried Nassuth, witnessed not only its construction, but also the large-scale demolition of his life’s work. Journalist Daan Dekker, author of De Betonnen Droom (The Concrete Dream), illustrates how the Bijlmermeer’s legacy holds valuable lessons for the Amsterdam of today. The problem wasn’t the design itself, he explains, but the process. Under pressure from the high demand for housing, the radical design was rolled out almost in one go, without the possibility for adapting it to practical experiences.

2. Be radically transparent

Amsterdam’s intention to grow by hundreds of thousands of people inside the existing city limits means there are multiple interests, opinions, and vantage points to be taken into account. Legal scholar and philosopher, Menno van der Veen, specializes in various forms of citizen participation in spatial processes. He believes good and transparent processes help plan development, whereas a lack of participation opportunities can lead to protests and a standstill of progression.

3. Embrace permanent change

Architect Marc Schmit of the Berlin-based firm, playze, focusses on the transformative impact of digitalization on the city. Skype, Uber, Tripadvisor and Google Maps have transformed the way we navigate and understand cities. This enables a constant flux that calls for a type of planning that allows for a fluid form of multipurpose programming, and that can be reprogrammed time and time again.

4. Design atmospheres

Architect Florian Idenburg of the New York office,

SO-IL, looks at the changing role of work in urban societies. Developments in technology, including robotics and AI, will render work less of an economic necessity and increasingly a lifestyle, he suggests. This poses several consequences for architecture. ‘As an architect you have to focus more and more on the design of atmospheres: good spaces that are not linked to a specific use.’

5. Use informal systems

As well as proposing means of reinserting informal features back into planned environments, Selva Gürdoğan and Gregers Tang Thomsen of Istanbul office, Superpool, investigate informal forms of public transport in their city. Flexible, responsive, and comparatively low cost, in a city like Amsterdam where the construction of a new metro connection may take decades, this could present an interesting alternative model for future forms of public transport.

6. Be smart

Valerie von der Tann specializes in the role of technology in the development of smart cities. She examines how cities and their governments use technology and data to reach better decisions concerning the planning of the future - and how these can actually improve the lives of residents. Building on existing physical infrastructure as part of a holistic approach to urban planning, she asserts that, ‘If we get this right, I think smart cities will not be a dystopia, but deeply human spaces with a quality of life enhanced by technology.’

7. Densify

In order for cities to become more sustainable, densification is a must, argues Neville Mars of MARS Architects, based in Shanghai. He urges the authorities of Asian cities to densify within existing boundaries, rather than extend building frontiers to create endless “Grey Zones.” Nebulous and hard to define, these poorly planned and poorly regulated areas are the result of insidious urban expansion. To halt their spread, he proposes a two-pronged approach focussing both on existing city centres, as well as the countryside beyond. With the Chinese urban model now being exported abroad, resolution of this pressing issue has never been more urgent.

8. Maintain diversity

Few cities present a better example of extreme densification than Hong Kong, where OMA architect, Inge Goudsmit, has carried out extensive research. She warns that a high population density will not automatically lead to lively neighbourhoods. In contrast to Hong Kong’s public-facing image, she reveals large swathes of the territory to have an unexpectedly monotonous side. The large-scale development of gated communities, for example, creates an urban structure that is socially and economically fragmented. This ‘concrete jungle segregation’ leads to ‘black holes’ in the urban fabric. Something to avoid!

9. Map, explore, use

In Cities without Ground: A Hong Kong Guidebook, architect Adam Frampton of Only If mapped traffic flows of different levels throughout the Asian metropolis, including above- and below-ground walkways, both informal and formal. The project revealed that ad-hoc infrastructure is every bit as important for the functioning of a city as planned. The work led to a similarly alternative mapping of New York, uncovering overlooked and irregular-shaped plots that hold exciting potential for new housing prototypes. Using this alternative strategy could reveal overlooked possibilities for urban development.

10. Design for migration

In addition to issues related to housing and new technologies, social changes are also a challenge for the twenty-first century metropolis. The most pressing is perhaps the anticipated increase in migration flows - a development that regularly leads to tension and conflict. Architect Miguel Gentil Fernández of Baum Arquitectura in Seville carries out research into migration between North Africa and Spain. He argues there is a critical role for architects and planners in inventing ways in which cities should respond to this complex social situation.

11. Prepare for tourism

Beyond permanent migration, there is yet another international flow of people on the rise. Just like Barcelona, New York, and Berlin, Amsterdam’s tourism industry shows no sign of slowing - but at what cost, asks tourism expert Stephen Hodes of LAgroup. A trained urban planner, he makes a plea for radical measures to get a grip on the growing phenomenon of over-tourism, concluding that if Amsterdam gets this right, it could become a model city in more ways than one.

12. Plan for nightlife

And what is a good city without lively nightlife? Architect David Mulder van der Vegt of Amsterdam office, XML, wrapped up the series with a lecture about the influence of the club scene on the DNA of cities. Citing the symbiotic relationship between the Radical Architecture of 1960s and 1970s Italy and cities’ creative cachet, as well as examples from New York and London, he argues that vibrant nightlife is fundamental to an inclusive as well as creative city.

The Amsterdam Agenda brings together a variety of inspiring visions and sharp opinions held by a new group of international specialists. It hopes to generate a lively debate across disciplines and backgrounds, and challenges planners of tomorrow to expand their understanding of their profession.

Rich in their diversity, a common denominator of these experts is that they apply a research-driven approach with studies either inside or outside the academic world. They also share a global perspective of the issues on which they work, and combine insights and approaches from different parts of the world. They demonstrate a hands-on, do-it-yourself approach, and all of them undertake self-initiated projects in a collaborative way. We feel this is indeed a new international generation of urban thinkers.

It is a key takeaway that, despite the distance or differences in governance, many of the world’s most dynamic cities face similar challenges - be it the explosion of real estate prices, keeping pace with super-fast technological changes, sustainability, or identity. At the same time, it’s clear that one size does not fit all. Rather, viable solutions to today’s most pressing urban challenges depend greatly on local conditions. Nonetheless, examples from other cities always offer inspiration, as they broaden our range of prospects for action.

Amsterdam is on the verge of one of the biggest construction challenges of its history. The city has a long and proud tradition of embracing and absorbing people and ideas from all over the world; this is rooted deep in the capital’s DNA. In laying out the hurdles, issues, and possibilities felt by other major world cities, it becomes clear that its planners of both today and tomorrow must continue to benefit from ideas, plans, and experiments from the rest of the urbanizing world.

Daan Roggeveen

Michiel Hulshof

October 2019

‘It’s embedded deep in the DNA of the city,’ says Esther Agricola, Director of Urban Planning, City of Amsterdam, of the Dutch capital’s historical approach to designing its spatiality. ‘There’s the possibility to accommodate dynamics, new influences, and cultures. That capacity has been there for more than six hundred years. This city can absorb change. As urban planners we see it as our task to preserve that quality.’

Esther Agricola/ City of Amsterdam

What Kind of City Do We Want To Be?

Amsterdam is not a very large city. Its metropolitan area houses no more than 2.4 million people, its urban core less than one million. The city has a village-like charm, and is small enough to walk or cycle almost anywhere. But at the same time it is also one of the world’s global cities, a primary node in global economic, cultural, technological, social, and other networks. Case in point: according to the 2018 edition of The Global Power Index, an annual ranking of major metropolises based on their, ‘power to attract people, capital, and enterprises from around the world,’ Amsterdam placed sixth after London, New York, Tokyo, Paris, and Singapore.1

But if Amsterdam is to retain its position, it must remain capable of absorbing change. Throughout its almost 750 year history, Amsterdam has excelled in this regard. However, just like other world cities, the financial crisis of 2008 put the Dutch capital on edge. The authorities reacted with an almost complete development stop. ‘It was deemed too risky,’ Agricola recalls. ‘For the first time in 30 or 40 years we were confronted with empty areas without developments.’ And yet, unlike elsewhere, Amsterdam rode out the crisis largely unscathed: the number of inhabitants kept growing at a rate of 10,000 to 12,000 people per year, and the economy grew at a steady rate.

‘On the one hand we stopped building. On the other, we were facing growing numbers of households and companies,’ explains Agricola. ‘This created a lot of tension in space, real estate and housing prices.’ It meant that when the city administration asked the Department of Urban Planning to create a new strategy for Amsterdam four years ago, Agricola and her colleagues had much ground to cover. The main question to be addressed: How to accommodate growth?

To return to The Global Power Index’s top six cities, it is useful to consider what sets these urban centres apart from the rest. Arguably, it is that they excel in accommodating alteration. It is like applying Charles Darwin’s evolution theory of “survival of the fittest” to urbanism: as with living species, the fittest cities are not necessarily the strongest, biggest or even most intelligent. Instead, they are the most adaptable.

Amsterdam has managed to absorb enormous changes: the industrial, democratic, and technological revolutions that have made today’s world very different and much more interconnected than that of 400 years ago. Yet the structure of the city was developed centuries ago; its citizens still live, work, and play in streets, squares, and buildings that are in many cases hundreds of years old. Hence, as a city in transition, Amsterdam represents an important case study, and potential template for others.

Although each unique in terms of culture, context, and just about everything else, today’s leading cities all share common challenges. In order to meet the demands of the twenty-first century, not only must cities share solutions with each other, the planning discipline must also shift: ‘More than ever we should introduce new expertise into our field,’ urges Agricola.

‘The biggest question Amsterdam needs to address is: what kind of city do we want to be? We are often discussing the need for new dwellings, economic development, or infrastructure, but that’s not the debate we should have,’ explains Agricola. ‘We should talk about the character of the city, what do we want to keep and what should change? The answers to those questions have consequences for urban typology, for architecture. Not the other way around.’

Amsterdam: A History of Expansion