A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220404-the-dutch-city-experimenting-with-the-future-of-urban-life

by lelf • 4 years ago

175 153 4 years ago

lbriner• 4 years ago

I think it looks really nice but alluded to in the article is the spectre of people who thought they were doing something equally innovative in the 1950s and we now have large brutalist city centres that are much lamented.

There are plenty of buildings that look amazing when they are first built (or even worse when they are simply drawn) but give it 5 years, some water staining, a few unruly residents etc....

I don't want to be negative because I often wonder about much better living environments/thinking but I think that the social side of things is often overlooked (at least in the UK) so that affordable housing in my friends new estate meant drug dealers and large white vans parked up and down her small road next to her nice house. You don't want to be a snob but when you work hard to afford a nice place to live, you also don't want to be imposed upon by those who aren't so bothered about their community.

jeffbee2• 4 years ago

What are some examples of these regretted 1950s brutalist city centers?

gernb• 4 years ago

I think maybe the most famous is Brasilia

https://archive.curbed.com/2019/6/7/18657121/brasilia-brazil...

lordnacho• 4 years ago

Birmingham comes to mind. Lots of concrete, big ring roads cutting through everything.

It's unfortunate because there's still a few historic buildings from before that era suggesting what might have been.

jacquesm17• 4 years ago

Lots of those in former SovBloc countries.

eecc2• 4 years ago

Well, Bijlmer itself has become a mess at some point

mpol2• 4 years ago

Not 1950s, but 1970s; Lelystad. They did not mention this at all in the article, which is quite a miss. Lelystad was the earlier experiment, a bit more up north in Flevoland. It is not growing anymore because some parts have failed and not many people move there anymore. Housing is still quite cheap, even now. Some neighbourhoods are quite good neighbourhoods, some are just awful with many residents living on wellfare, many people into drugs, etcetera. They didn't plan for mixing different cultures and classes in society, they planned for somewhat segregated neighbourhoods, which was a wrong choice. If there is a city in the Netherlands where you can guess income and status from the postal code, Lelystad is the place.

We still have to see what will happen to Almere, Almere Haven is just 30 years old. Not all parts there are good :) It is often 30 or 40 years, that a neighbourhood can go from good to bad, at least that is usual in the Netherlands.

outside1234• 4 years ago

In particular, the floating houses they show. Not sure how that scales (or if we want it to scale) and for sure that is going to be an expensive maintenance option.

twelvechairs• 4 years ago

Its not made clear in the article but Almere is exactly one of these Brutalist cities. Its only since the late 90s or early 2000s they built the new 'city centre' which is an architects wonderland to start overcoming its monotony. There's still huge expanses of fairly simple, cheap, robust and boring 70s housing. This is close to the train station [0] and a typical suburban street [1]. Regardless of the buildings the Netherlands is the world leader in street design which makes this slightly less bleak than others of a similar era.

[0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/eKF4jGYzEjSPVb3g7

[1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/mFdK333GFYKdQwD97

giantg22• 4 years ago

Ugh, those red buildings. There are wonderfully colored houses/buildings in many of the picturesque neighborhoods you see in certain towns. It seems like they tried to do the same with those. In my opinion, it doesn't work. There's no color variation, no trim/contrast to make the colors pop and look good. It just looks like an ugly red building that would hurt my eyes to see that much red every day (imagine being in the center building with red on both sides). It would have likely been better and cheaper to go with a neutral color for the majority of the structure and used color on various subpieces or trim.

Even just doing something like the blue floating houses is so much better. They have variation. I think it probably also works better due to the smaller size (red sports car vs solid red semi truck - one can look nice and the other looks obnoxious)

Luc• 4 years ago

If it makes you feel better: the colors in that image are oversaturated.

warp• 4 years ago

Oh wow, indeed. In case you want to see them on streetview, the address is Pastelstraat 1, Almere. Here is a link: https://goo.gl/maps/mpXgFFd4kGLBinge9

giantg22• 4 years ago

That is a huge difference. Much better that way.

Beltalowda• 4 years ago

People would probably get in trouble if they painted buildings in the colour as in the BBC article (people actually have gotten in problems with the city council, and at the very least it would be a Rijdende Rechter episode). Dutch people are allergic to bright colours or something.

wila• 4 years ago

and there I was thinking this would be about floriade [0], which happens to be in Almere as well.

[0] https://floriade.com/en/

jacquesm17• 4 years ago

It wasn't always so though, there still is the Floriade park (these days called Amstelpark) next to the RAI:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstelpark

It's a gorgeous park and one of the lesser trafficked ones in Amsterdam, well worth a visit.

jacquesm17• 4 years ago

To give a Dutch perspective: Lots of Dutch people would not be found dead in Almere (founded in '76), for a long time it was basically a satellite city of Amsterdam where people went to sleep. Then in the mid 90's it started to change: companies realized that the daily traffic jam to Amsterdam in the morning and to Almere in the evening was a major obstacle, so why not relocate the company to Almere? And this caused the first wave of businesses to settle there in what was for the time ridiculously cheap real estate. This then led to some commuting the other way because some of the employees lived in Amsterdam and then ended up working in Almere. But that has always been a small fraction of the traffic in the other direction. Even today Almere houses and commercial space are a very small fraction of what those go for just the other side of the bridges of A27 and A6, which is prime real estate (Laren, Blaricum, Hilversum, Amsterdam and some cheaper areas as well but not much cheaper).

Almere obviously doesn't have a whole lot of history compared to other Dutch towns, it is quite literally built on 'new land', areas that were turned from water into land in living memory (1950's and 1960's). Almere 'haven' is the oldest part, subsequently Almere has grown in jumps to become the fastest growing and now the 7th largest municipality of the Netherlands.

So this why Almere is the place in NL where there is room for such experimentation. In other Dutch cities it is usually super crowded already and the only places where you can still expand is at the edges, and municipalities tend to be very conservative to help the new areas blend in with the older ones.

I have some family living in Almere, they work on the other side of the bridge so over the years (they have lived there now for 35 years) that took up a lot of commute time, but where they live is child friendly and it is a much nicer house than they would have ever had anywhere else in NL on a much larger lot. But there isn't - even today - a whole lot of life in Almere compared to other Dutch cities and likely this will remain until it is so old that it no longer stands out as the 'newest city'. Second generation citizens of Almere already are much more at home there than those that moved out from Amsterdam (and especially from Bijlmermeer), and with every passing generation that will improve.

But it will be a long time before people will go to Almere to see the city center.

What would really help Almere is a second bridge into Amsterdam but there are many reasons why that likely will not happen in the next 20 years or so. (see: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJmeerverbinding (Dutch)).

Scarblac• 4 years ago

For what it looked like when the first people arrived in 1976: https://youtu.be/8U0PJ4Ib378

From that to a few hundred thousand inhabitants is quite unusual here.

DonHopkins2• 4 years ago

I found an area of Almere that has a cluster of really weird unique architecture from around 1987 along De Realiteit:

Google Street View:

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3921571,5.2180409,3a,90y,176...

(look up and down De Realiteit to see many freaky houses)

Polderblik:

http://polderblik.nl/

Campus (1987) -- Vertical Red Shipping Containers:

https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/campus

Cargo (1987) -- Yellow Porta Potties:

https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/cargo

De Naam van het Huis (1987) -- Half House with Watchtower:

https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/de-naam-van-het...

Circle (1987) -- Circular Hobbit House:

https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/cirkel

Many other weird ones:

https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/meerzicht

https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/macabine

You can see them all and more on the map of this Almere Architecture Guide:

https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/

And there's another road called Aresstraat that contains rows of totally unique houses, reportedly so up-and-coming architects can try out their weird ideas. Here's a funky looking tilted level "House in House" designed by Marc Koehler in 2011, which was just up for sale for around 700,000 EUR.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aresstraat+21,+1363+VJ+Alm...

(Look up and down Aresstraat at all the different architectural styles! Down the street a bit it flashes back in time to street views from 2009, before most of the neighborhood was even built, showing the wide open sand peppered by a few houses and construction sites.)

https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/house-house?fbc...

PROJECT ARCHITECT(S): Marc Koehler; CLIENT: Privately; BUILDER: Ubink and Co BV; REALIZATION: 2011
According to the architect, “House in house” is based on a reinterpretation of a traditional Dutch canal house with an attic. An arrangement of three 'boxes', which accommodate the necessary functions of sleeping, office and entrance, structures the interior space.
The slanted attic window ensures a striking presence of the house in the streetscape. Here is the sleeping area with skylights to see stars and moon. The floor is placed horizontally, which is visible from the outside. The office is retracted on the first floor, with its own entrance via a spiral staircase. Living takes place in the residual space between the boxes. That space is a route with stairs that spiral upwards. What are usually the landings is here transformed into a series of spacious places, for hobbies, music, watching TV or eating. This design keeps living flexible and dynamic. The house is also equipped for new interpretations that people want to give to the concept of living.

Tour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WujRwW4_eMw

yvoschaap• 4 years ago

Arestreet in streetview 2009 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aresstraat+21,+1363+VJ+Alm... walk one step forward, and you time machine into 2021!

I think the architecture has more to do that every individual plot allowed owners their own design & development.

mcv2• 4 years ago

I grew up in Hoofddorp, and it's fairly similar. Not a lot to do there. Rapid growing town where people sleep while they work elsewhere, although that has been changing. Also built in a polder, although a slightly older one than Almere.

jacquesm17• 4 years ago

Pretty close to Leiden, Hillegom, Lisse, Haarlem though. But I see what you mean, it is a good analogy for Almere, especially areas like 'Landleeuw'.

PortiaBerries• 4 years ago

Some of those buildings remind me of The Objective Room in "That Hideous Strength."

"They suggested some kind of pattern. Their peculiar ugliness consisted in the very fact that they kept on suggesting it and then frustrating the expectation thus aroused."

dncornholio• 4 years ago

Almere broke my child imagination of what a city was. I was very young when Almere got build and I was so confused on how people could build a city in one go. I always thought it would take hundreds of years to develop a city. I always thought cities were the product of generations and generations.. and there I was standing in NL's newest city.

It's not something worth to visit. It's still too sterile. Nobody visits Almere for the city.

jacquesm17• 4 years ago

For the longest time it was called the bedroom of Amsterdam.

bombcar2• 4 years ago

You weren’t wrong as a child - a city has a story and takes time to grow. Attempting to do it all at once gets a suburb or hotel at best - or maybe a Disneyland.

FooBarWidget2• 4 years ago

Unfortunately it is now uncertain whether any of this matters 100 years from now. It is expected that sea levels will rise by more than 2 meters, and that dykes will no longer work beyond an extra 2 meter extension, not because they can't be extended but because Dutch soil is too soft and seawater will just go under the dyke. Almere will probably be amongst the first to go. It seems nobody has proposed a solution, but in the mean time life goes on as if it won't happen. You don't see this being factored into plans or housing prices.

throwaway67343• 4 years ago

The US has somewhat similar problem: flood insurance is heavily subsidized by the federal government so the market doesn't remotely factor in future flooding risks into housing prices.

There have recently been plans to raise prices but since Florida is such an important state to Federal elections there's a massive political hurdle

MomoXenosaga2• 4 years ago

Imagine every American east coast city flooding at the same time. That's what would happen in the Netherlands if the levies break.

At least Florida can be abandoned in a worst case scenario and the US would continue to function.

jacquesm17• 4 years ago

This isn't as big a problem as some make it out to be. The dikes have always been a porous solution, not perfect, 'kwel' (water that seeps under the dike) has been there as long as there are dikes. But concentric circles of staged dikes are one way in which you could deal with this. It will require massive geo engineering but nothing on a scale that the Dutch have not done before.

There are some voices that NL will have to abandon terrain, I think we'll see the exact opposite: more terrain will be created with the express goal of being used as basins for increased control over water. The important bit when you construct dikes is the delta between the water table on one side of the dike and on the other and we already have areas where there are three such dikes in a row to be able to deal with fairly extreme differences in water levels.

If you drive or cycle in the North of the country every now and then you'll find yourself crossing through a dike with a concrete lintel built into the dike body, this is where in the case of high water the dike can very rapidly be closed again and turned into a functioning part of the water defenses.

Those dikes are called 'sleeping' dikes they are still there and ready to be activated but normally they are transparent to traffic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeper_dike

https://www.climatechangepost.com/netherlands/coastal-floods...

Other evidence that this can be done is that there are some massive artificial lakes constructed all over the world with dams that have a 'head' that is much higher than anything that NL will ever have to deal with.

A bigger problem than keeping the sea out will be to deal with the rain water coming into the Netherlands by way of the very large rivers. These carry massive flow (from a total area much, much larger than that of the country itself) during some times of the year and to accommodate that flow and ensure that the land behind the river dikes doesn't flood is - in my opinion - a much bigger problem when the sea level rises. During some storms you see a reversal in the flow of the rivers in the delta. Several interesting constructs are located near Rotterdam and Zeeland, transparent to shipping but it can be closed quickly if such reverse flow threatens the land:

https://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/water/waterbeheer/bescherming...

(Dutch)

Those 'pie slices' are as large as the Eiffel tower but mobile, and are some of the most impressive engineering works that I've seen in my life.

whazor• 4 years ago

Countries with mountains are much more vulnerable against climate change and the extreme weather. Last extreme rain took away, via the rivers, many houses in Germany. Whereas The Netherlands is relatively safe as we are more downstream and also more prepared against river floods.

FooBarWidget2• 4 years ago

Not sure what the downvotes are for. I live here and I worry about what happens if I buy a new house (which is ridiculously expensive nowadays — like 3x-4x more expensive than just 5 years ago) — will I be able to sell it in 30 years when people start worrying about 30% of the country flooding in another 30 years? It's not some nutjob idea that only I have, the newspapers have written about how the market currently completely ignores the issue: https://www.trouw.nl/duurzaamheid-natuur/wanneer-zullen-klim... In my pension plans I already planned for the worse by assuming that my house will be devalued by 50% rather than having risen in value.

jacquesm seems to believe that we have a solution. That's not the sentiment being brought forward by the newspapers. Even reputable newspapers are like "this time we're really screwed, we can't win this one". I'm not a water management expert so I don't know any better than what I hear, but I've yet to hear from someone authoritative that it's going to be okay — the authorities just seem to be quiet on this issue. That really doesn't help me with my long-term plans.

jacquesm17• 4 years ago

If you're nervous about this go visit the Delta works and the various storm barriers, then look at them when there is a really bad storm and check the margins. You'll be fine, unless you will live to be 300 or so, on those timescales anything could happen. But the next 100 years are definitely covered.

I would not buy anything in Venice though, they will likely be done for and we'll remember it like we remember Atlantis. Money + engineering are a pretty good combination, similar to how Japan manages to do quite well in spite of very bad and regular earthquakes.

I think the way the Dutch deal with water is probably best described as symbiotic, we don't force it but we guide it and when we really can't do it any other way we'll bring out the pumps.

Oh, that's another one for your list of stuff to visit: the pump cassettes next to IJmuiden's Northern most locks, those things are straight from a SF movie, 260 cubic meters per second.

imilk11• 4 years ago

It's interesting - but it's hard for me to see this being the future of urban life when most of the city looks entirely suburban (not very walkable), separated from the main commercial area without bars/restaurants/shops in their own sub-neighborhoods.

I would expect a key part of future urban life would include one of the most important parts of current urban life; walkability and a harmonious melding of commercial, residential, and public spaces.

Mo39• 4 years ago

I lived there for a year.

I think you forget that everyone owns a bicycle, everyone rides their bicycle everywhere, and almost every single street has a separated bicycle lane. There are more bicycle lanes than in any other country on earth (22,000 miles in a country ten times smaller than California) [1], there's even bicycle highways and intersections.

Public transport is exceptionally good as well. Everything is highly walkable and accessible, everything you want to do is doable and everywhere you want to go is reachable. You should check it out sometime, these pictures don't really show it.

(jacquesm in this thread is spot on too though. There's not that much life going on in Almere itself.)

[1] https://www.opencyclemap.org/?zoom=7&lat=51.48412&lon=8.0871...

sandworm1015• 4 years ago

But every parking spot in the picture seems to have a car parked in it.

imilk11• 4 years ago

I've never been there and was just making a quick assessment by Google Maps. It is nice that you can bike anywhere, but I'm mostly seeing residential neighborhoods (~10 blocks wide of identical row homes) pretty spaced out around a town center without amenities in their area.

So in terms of meeting someone for a coffee/meal/beer/event it looks like you'll have to hop on a bicycle unless you want to go on a 20-30 minute walk past monotonous homes. Which is not that different than suburbs anywhere else.

brailsafe• 4 years ago

As someone who's lived in cities inspired by Garden City, this looks very British (by their own admission) and extremely suburban. So I gotta agree with the parent's observation. The only difference being small streets which inherently slow traffic, and probably better bike and public transit infrastructure, but everywhere has good public transit if it's tiny now. The garden city movement was a giant compromise between city and rural life, almost by definition. This is one of the most suburban places I've ever seen, it just might be marginally more Dutch of one. There's literally a Dunkin' donuts, Starbucks, and Chanel store all within what looks like a place you drive or bike to to then walk around for a bit and leave, which to me is reminiscent of some places on the outskirts of L.A.

Seems like it would probably be better to just ride your bike to Amsterdam if what you want. On the other hand, that's just my observation. What did you get out of living there? Was it the quiet, or the parks? Did you meet people easily?

jltsiren6• 4 years ago

Urban areas are not just walkable but walk-centric. They are built under the assumption that most people don't move faster than 4-5 km/h. Places that want to attract people must be close to each other in local centers, or people don't go to them.

Bicycles are more suburban than urban. Because they allow people to move flexibly at a relatively high speed, they encourage suburban structure, where things are spread out over a larger area. They are functionally similar to cars, but on a smaller scale.

Melkman• 4 years ago

Indeed, Almere is a sleeping city. Many inhabitants moved from Amsterdam to Almere since gentrification has made housing in Amsterdam almost unobtainable for people with a median income. Almere is comfortable enough and you can get by without a car. But the fun still is in Amsterdam only a half an hour train ride away. In the US it would be called a suburb of Amsterdam.

mpol2• 4 years ago

Almere is very walkable, just a bit boring. Cycling is okay too, although it needs a bit of work I think. In regards to cycling, it is not that popular in Almere.

Not sure why, it could be that rudimentary, half of the people is upper middle class that is doing everything by car, the other half was born in another country and could more easily find a house in Almere compared to Amsterdam but they don't share the cycling culture much.

Edit: And every neighbourhood has supermarkets and small fastfood and bar locations. It is not that different from other dutch cities.

imilk11• 4 years ago

Sure, but it falls a bit short to be in the vision of "future of urban life". There are a sprinkling of commercial businesses in the gray areas of the map outside the city center. But not nearly enough to be considered urban by any means. And most of the areas where people live seem quite far away to be considered "walkable" from the commercial district.

I'm sure it's a nice place to live, but this is not the future of urban life.

https://imgur.com/a/xgbRE15

(I put a 1km marker on the map for reference)

sandworm1015• 4 years ago

> Around 60% of Oosterwold is set aside to support "urban agriculture", cutting the climate-change impact of food miles

I don't see how this helps. An urban farm is not nearly as efficient as a true industrial farm. They don't have the economies of scale. They are limited as to chemical use (both pesticides and fertilizer) and have to deal with noise complaints. Urban farms are also, nearly universally, fed by potable water sources which can never scale to appreciable food production (acre-feet rather than liters). If we actually want to produce food near consumers, urban farms are not the way. It only works using enclosed buildings, ugly industrial greenhouses, not pretty little fields between condos.

martincmartin• 4 years ago

It's not cutting the climate-change impact of food. It's cutting the climate-change impact of food miles. As you say, overall it's making things worse, e.g. increasing the climate-change impact of every other delivery but food.

nostrebored• 4 years ago

But this is fundamentally flaws analysis. Lack of economies of scale mean you have to analyze the production of food bottoms-up. What's the cost of getting the resources needed to each of these individual farms and to support the life of people there?

The thing people don't realize is that industrial farming is actually extremely carbon-emission efficient. Even your food coming from a container ship from halfway around the world, transported via freight, and driven last mile in a semi is less carbon intensive than getting a delivery from a local (XX miles away) farm.

This seems to be trivially true as well for an entire city of inefficient farms with any expectation of modern amenities.

belligeront• 4 years ago

It's people that have the highest impact milage. We can pack food tightly into a truck and they don't mind waiting when the packing takes some time.

We can't easily pack humans more densely into trucks, so reducing their miles traveled has a much bigger effect (and if the distances are shorter they can also walk/bike/bus instead of single occupancy vehicle).

sandworm1015• 4 years ago

Food-miles sound good, but the reality of modern shipping is that it takes far less energy to move food than grow it. The carbon/energy cost of bringing a plant product from a hot country to a cold country is far less than the energy needed to grow that product in a cold country. That's why nobody grows bananas in new york. We could, but the cost/energy to do so is hugely more than the energy to ship bananas from place where they grow easily.

If we want to address global climate change, then we need to look into minimizing total energy put into things like food. Often that will mean growing things where they can grow most easily, with the least amount of energy. A banana brought thousands of miles by very efficient transport is more sustainable than grown in an ill-suited climate through the application of energy-expensive heat/light etc. Distance is not everything.

kkfx3• 4 years ago

I'm curious about your measuring/reasoning: so far the most efficient cultivation I know is the classic elderly vegetable garden. It can produce FAR more than large mono-cultures fields per hectare with far less resources.

For farming, surely we need space, poultry and rabbits are the least needing animals but still demand space to produce their own food, however again there is NOTHING more efficient than a classic country home with some animals around: it do not need third party fertilizers, the balance between animals manure and cultivated ground means manure suffice, the resulting pollution is very low, water usage sparse enough to be a non-issue in most cases. Surely it can nourish a limited number of humans PER FARM, but it's absolutely sustainable and effective.

Urbs are not, we never ever have a sustainable city, we have just some needs who justify them. But the rest you mention is needed only for mass distribution, not for nourishing humans but for nourishing business, in money, not in food, and we have enough proof that that's totally unsustainable. Surely we are too much for such classic approach, but we can handle that with a SLOW de-growth pushing toward de-urbanization as much as we can leaving just enough for certain kind of manufacturing and other specific needs.

The sparse small-scale industry is actually ECONOMICALLY inefficient but far more sustainable, self-sufficient on scale, at the human size. It's like a small countryside restaurant, it's economically far less efficient than a modern fast food, but suffice for their owner and satisfy their customers, only managers and the companies behind them are unhappy.

sandworm1015• 4 years ago

Space-efficient, energy-efficient, and labor-efficient are three different things. A tiny "elderly" farm might create lots of food per square-foot, but only through increased labor. Too much labor and the farm simply cannot produce enough to feed the workers working it.

bryans• 4 years ago

The USDA has a very different definition for "urban agriculture" than your claim of simply "fields between condos."

"Urban agriculture includes the cultivation, processing and distribution of agricultural products in urban and suburban areas. Community gardens, rooftop farms, hydroponic, aeroponic, and aquaponic facilities, and vertical production are all examples of urban agriculture."

https://www.usda.gov/topics/urban

uoaei2• 4 years ago

Where has processing and transportation been included in your informal analysis? You seem to be quite confident but have not addressed these factors.

akamaka• 4 years ago

Maybe urban agriculture doesn’t work in theory, but in practice the Netherlands already has many regions where productive farms mingle with urban areas. For an example, have a look at a satellite view of the Westland region, directly southwest of The Hague.

Swizec• 4 years ago

Where I'm from (Slovenia) it's a 20min walk from downtown of the capital city to farms with cows.

The trick is to not have suburbia. Go straight from urban to rural.

mrsuprawsm4• 4 years ago

I'd add to your comment by emphasising that Westland is a super intensive agricultural area with tons of dense greenhouses, trying to eke out as much production out of a small area as possible (and doing pretty well at it).

patall• 4 years ago

I do not think anybody is thinking of corn fields here. But replacing spruce, plaintaint and ornamental chestnut with cherry trees, walnuts and edible chestnut. Instead of having fireball, rhododendron or snowball hedges planting black berries, currants and maybe elderberries. And finally giving families a small allotment garden where they can grow some vegetable. Besides that, it's easily possible (as in: I have done that) to harvest enough chili & pepper from June to December to supply one person via one 1m wide office window. Cities will never be food independent but can definitely reduce their food import by 15-20 %

tuatoru• 4 years ago

But replacing spruce, plaintaint and ornamental chestnut with cherry trees, walnuts and edible chestnut. Instead of having fireball, rhododendron or snowball hedges planting black berries, currants and maybe elderberries.

Sounds great to the uncritical hearer, but it's a recipe for a rodent and/or bird plague and lots of disease outbreaks. Unless someone is employed to deal with all of the rejected part of the crop. And that's not easy with tree and bush crops.

_Algernon_• 4 years ago

Most importantly, transportation is generally a tiny amount of CO2 emissions of food production, iirc, and that is the only thing cut by urban agriculture.

It may have other benefits, such as greater degree of self-sufficiency but it does approximately nothing for the climate.

yummypaint• 4 years ago

Urban agriculture doesn't have to be monoculture. It's better for the soil to have some diversity anyway. A healthy mix of plants requires more human labor to maintain than an industrial farm of the same area, but for people in cities getting contact time with plants is beneficial in itself.

maxerickson• 4 years ago

The water in the photo at the top of the link is fresh (all of it, even the large lake in the background). They can probably find a way to not use treated water for irrigation.

The lakes are shallow, but they are pretty big.

bmitc• 4 years ago

An urban farm is not nearly as efficient as a true industrial farm.

They're also not as efficient at destroying the environment.

adrianN• 4 years ago

In farming, being less efficient has an almost 1:1 correspondence to being worse for the environment. Less efficient farms need more space and more energy input to produce the same amount of calories. (Some exceptions to this simplification of course apply)

rdevsrex• 4 years ago

It's not all about efficiency. More greenspace is healthier, and more people taking part in community gardens is also a good thing.

lIIIllllIIII• 4 years ago

I'm not super knowledgeable about this however NL is a powerhouse of agricultural technology, they're a tiny country that's the 2nd largest food exporter in the world. There is a lot of really really interesting technology implemented there that will possibly make them a superpower once food crises become more frequent with climate change.

ragebol• 4 years ago

Being Dutch, seeing this perspective is quite interesting. See, we have a nitrogen crisis in NL: there is too much being deposited in the soil, ruining the local environment. Farming a is a big source of that nitrogen. Can't build many new houses, because building those will also emit too much nitrogen. Speed limit has been reduced for the same reason (with a very small effect).

A popular view in NL is that the Dutch farmers mostly work for export and that we shouldn't do that anymore.

There's also a counter-movement of farmers and their supporters stating they're proud of the farmers, for providing our food, and reducing resource usage per unit food significantly over the years. The suggestion by a politician to half the amount of livestock caused riots with tractors.

I'm kinda torn: importing more food is bad for the environment as a (global) whole as our farms are very efficient. But should we sacrifice our local environment for it?

fransje263• 4 years ago

There is a lot of technology yes.

The real question is: should it really be used to for that purpose. Does it make sense that the Netherlands is the second biggest exporter of tomatoes in the world? The easy answer to that is: no. The more complicated one is: also no.

To actually produces these vegetables in -let's be generous- less than ideal climate, they have huge gas-heated greenhouses, with 24/7 lighting. That is anything but sustainable.

Of course they are highly-efficient greenhouses, combining heating with electricity production, allowing to minimize the use of chemical inputs etc, etc, etc. But in the end, the gas prices they got were so cheap, that they would simply burn gas to produce and resell electricity, and vent the heat in the atmosphere.. Oh well..

What about them pigs? Does it make sense to have about as many pigs as inhabitants in such a densely populated country?

etc.

fold32• 4 years ago

Permaculture is an example of farming on a small scale that is extremely complex but efficient and sustainable.

The Netherlands soil is of very low quality in terms of nutrients (soil depletion). There is an ecological debt because of intensive farming: if we would take that into account in the final price, it would lose it's appeal.

caymanjim• 4 years ago

It helps by being exactly the kind of nonsense that attracts votes and money from well-meaning but ignorant people. Virtue signaling is always more powerful than actual virtue.

rolandog• 4 years ago

Well-meaning ignorant person here, but always willing to learn. I'll take your comment in good faith.

Some of my ignorance may be because the knowledge has been abstracted away, deprived of its nuance, and physically kept at a distance from where I have lived and worked.

My view is that most people are not fully opposed to industrialized farming. But rather I don't want there to be farms (or companies for that matter) that exploit workers, pollute the environment, bribe politicians (in essence, rigging the once free market) [1]. That's my main gripe. We live in a society, and profits should not justify treating others like they were less than equal to ourselves.

In my opinion, some of those companies are too large to properly behave like well-run businesses (not too large to fail), and they have accrued a critical size and mass that they bully away competition, and no longer have the interests of the customer in mind.

To paraphrase Douglas Adams:

If it maintains high prices like a cartel, and restricts competition like a cartel, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a large association of nefarious manufacturers or suppliers on our hands.

97s• 4 years ago

It drastically helps. Each little unit producing food is less food required to be made by a commercial farm. 1000 little farms might not be as efficient as one commercial farm, but it is still less impact and less run off environmentally.

SergeAx• 4 years ago

Why use potable water on a farm that literally sits on a canal?

kkfx3• 4 years ago

Sorry but no. Images shown are not a future of anything, just yet another erotic dream of some archistar. The future means an age of cheapness and scarcity, at least in the short term, witch can only means a Sarajevo-style semi-abandoned cities. An a bit more far future will be like modern China: poor concentrated in open-sky prisons named smart-cities, capsule-hotel style, far more dense that the fictional dutch scenario, and some more wealthy living in small areas of individual homes, villas-alike.

Sparse tall buildings and hallway spaces are not likely at all and have no purpose at all. Floating constructions is a tempted and failed way, too much humidity, cracks and fissures, problems of sewage and networks in general (water intakes, TLCs etc) so again might sound nice on paper but a failure otherwise so very unlikely as well.

To architects: when you design something imaging it's usage BEFORE start drawing. We built for some reasons, beauty is one of them, but secondary, an added thing to something with more practical reasons; anything designed first than adapted to some purpose end up in expensive failures.

To my fellow Citizens: please when you dream your future dream it really: where and how do you really want to live? In a Goshiwong/capsule-hotel room in a dense area with some hallway and common areas in general to loitering aimlessly, maybe with a stupid smile drawn on face for the "happy-o-meter" part of the new social score? Or you dream a low density area where you can work and live in homes, with a bit of nature ALL AROUND, leaving tall buildings to specific purposes like hospitals, schools etc? Perhaps considering that single family homes can evolve, being recycled and rebuilt perhaps at generational change, while no tall building can evolve so even if it's well designed now will be a disaster in 40+ years and no one know what to do then?

fleddr• 4 years ago

Almere is painful.

The lack of history makes everything so sterile. Everything is hypermodern, clean and new. You won't have that cute old bar, infrastructural imperfection, clash of cultures, hybrid of old and new, it's entirely without soul.

It feels like a VR game. Maybe I just hate modern architecture.

BlargMcLarg4• 4 years ago

Can't invoke history where there is none. Can't create history when most of the city is running off to other places for those "rustic, authentic" experiences. Can't build with a bit of chaos when prices have to be kept low, density high and requirements must be met which naturally prefers prefabs and cheap, stale-looking materials.

The criticisms are valid, but people haven't exactly given Almere a chance to be anything other than hypermodern, either.

jacquesm17• 4 years ago

If they had taken a more organic approach from day #1 I think that could have been avoided, but then the growth would have been much slower. It quite literally feels like a city designed behind a drafting table instead of something that matured over time. And that's not something that you can buff out a few decades later.

asiachick• 4 years ago

I've always wondering why can't some architects build small, twisted, imperfect, or maybe just small.

In particular, in Japan here are lots of older buildings or collections of buildings with tiny businesses. At some point developers come in, bulldoze the place, put up a high-rise building. The bottom 1-3 floors of the building have shops, but they are all 4x larger than the shops they displaced. The result is those shops end up being 90% chain stores such that there's now nothing drawing anyone to the new building (well, there are tenants).

My wish is that some architect would break with convention, build the bottom 1-3 floors with tiny spaces and then be hailed as the new fashion in architecture and see it spread.

Sure it's not the old imperfection, but I'd hope given smaller spaces you'd get the variety that was there before.

As an example here's a spot in Shibuya in 2009

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.6628366,139.7024402,3a,75y,1...

You should be able to move the timeline to 2022 and see it now.

Before there were 10 tiny indie businesses. Now there is 2 chain restaurants, 1 chain supermarket, one chain clothing store. (though at least they have 3 varying food trucks for lunch)

OTOH, I personally love much modern architecture.

theYipster• 4 years ago

Ah, Almere... The Irvine, CA of The Netherlands! :)

(NB: I have a good friend in Almere and I live in Irvine.)

ramesh31• 4 years ago

For the dutch, sure. But architecture begins with the local culture, landscape, environment, ecology, and climate as foundational axioms. The European model has never worked in North America because of vast differences in those conditions.

A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

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