$The City of Unplanned Energy: \"We are a terribly long way behind London and Paris.”$

The City of Unplanned Energy: "We are a terribly long way behind London and Paris.”

ReUrba interview Alexander Rinnooy Kan

What is the future of cities? Why is it important to invest into cities? What changes should we make in our investment policies in cities? Twelve leading European thinkers about cities answer these three questions.

Read here the thoughts of Alexander Rinnooy Kan: The City of Unplanned Energy."We are a terribly long way behind London and Paris.”

‘I don’t know anything about cities,’ is Alexander Rinnooy Kan’s cautious opening. But that soon proves to be an understatement. Rinnooy Kan is a man with a vision. He thinks of himself as a lover of the city and he finds it difficult to imagine a life without it. What is important for him is the intellectual and cultural innovation generated by cities. ‘People can meet each other there, stimulate and motivate each other. The economic and cultural opportunities are definitely in the urban area.’

Rinnooy Kan thinks that the problem with many “new” cities is their sterility. “A city has to go through a clear development process. Visible decline is a part of that process. Reversing the decline often results in decline elsewhere. Development means perfection and imperfection rubbing shoulders. That is essential for a living city.”

Human interaction

He believes you can’t control and organise everything with urban planning. “But it is a good thing to set out your ambitions in a blueprint, even if it will not succeed in the end. Often, the problem with blueprints like this is that the scale is too large and that human interaction is eliminated as a result. And it is precisely this human dimension that is important. You can’t build a city from skyscrapers alone. You need something that people can embrace.”

Rinnooy Kan gives a number of examples of beautiful cities that cannot function. Brasilia, with its fantastic architecture, lacks the human dimension. Or take Canberra: a city that has been built as a capital but hasn’t come to life. And even Prague, which he thinks is one of the most beautiful cities he knows, left him feeling uncomfortable after a while. “Everything there is so neat and tidy, all the paintwork is perfect, you never see a dilapidated house or a street that is not up to standard, nothing is dirty or messy. It’s like walking around Disney World.”

Meticulous maintenance

Rinnooy Kan doesn’t expect the problems in the French suburbs to be repeated in the Netherlands. “In the Netherlands, we have always paid more attention to the human dimension of designing. And we are better at the upkeep of our built environment.” He quotes the policy in Amsterdam of removing graffiti as quickly as possible as an example. “By doing that, you tell people that we are devoting care and attention to our built environment and that we won’t let it go to the dogs. The challenge is to provide very meticulous maintenance, with attention to detail.”

On the economic side, Rinnooy Kan thinks the trick is to establish the right balance between housing, jobs and shops. “It is particularly important to keep work in the city. That can be very tricky. For example, because of high property prices and poor accessibility, the centre of Amsterdam has become unattractive for many commercial activities. As result of the movement of production to other areas, the market is forcing us to transform the economy. In order to attract international companies to our country and keep them there, we will have to provide an appealing and stimulating climate in our major cities. Culture is another important factor when it comes to keeping cities habitable, particularly in the evenings and weekends.”

The Randstad as an entity

He believes that the quality of the climate in large Dutch cities is attributable, to a major degree, to the landscape of the Randstad as a whole. The “Green Heart” of Holland plays an important role here. “We still haven’t found the right mix of urban surroundings and outside areas,” he says with concern in his voice. “In the Green Heart, you see more and more ribbon development. Often, it is not nice to look at, and so the quality of an area declines. And it is precisely in these areas that a need arises for a highquality living environment.”

Rinnooy Kan sees the Randstad as a single whole. “This is essential if we are to compete with London, Paris and New York. The potential of the Randstad is still not being exploited as it should. Improvements in the Randstad are not only required at the administrative level; there also needs to be a better idea for the Randstad as a whole. Something more exciting and better balanced.” His preference would be for a single Randstad province covering all the cities. “The multitude of intermediate layers we have at present, such as the Urban Regions, are a sign of our inability to organise on the right scale.”

Public and private investments

Both public and private investments are important in the urban area. Rinnooy Kan believes that investments by government, particularly in accessibility and infrastructure, are required to attract private investment. “Public parties must create the conditions that encourage the requisite private investments. In time, this will also generate the necessary returns for the public sector. The failure to invest in public transport in the Randstad in recent years is a missed opportunity. We are a terribly long way behind London and Paris.”

The city as a creative workshop

Rinnooy Kan thinks government has another task alongside investment: providing facilities for creative industry. “Even though the main thrust will be directed at cities such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Eindhoven. When, for example, international advertising agencies move in, they have a magnet effect. But that does depend on the climate in the large cities. These sorts of processes are also furthered by investments in culture, such as the location of a design centre in the south of Amsterdam where creative people can meet.”

“It should be pointed out that a lot of economic and creative energy arises naturally in an unplanned way. The government needs to train itself in identifying and providing facilities for these developments. You have to keep the energy that is generated.” So he believes that politicians and civil servants must provide direction and, above all, listen properly to what residents have to say. “A good example of the encouragement and preservation of energy is the clean-up activities in some areas of Rotterdam. This ‘opzoomeren’ project (named after Opzoomer Street, where it started) encourages residents to do something about their own surroundings. “If you can mobilise and organise energy like this, you will achieve much more than a hundred politicians and civil servants ever can.”

Alexander Rinnooy Kan was appointed chairman of the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands on 1 August 2006. Before then, he was a member of the Board of Management of ING Bank. From 1991 to 1996, he was the chairman of the employers’ organisation VNO and, after the merger with the NCW, of VNO-NCW. Before becoming chairman of the VNO-NCW, he held a range of positions at various American and European universities. From 1986 to 1989, he was Rector Magnificus at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

This publication was enabled by ReUrbA2, Provincie Zuid-Holland and the Interreg IIIB programme of the European Union:

This interview is part of a series of twelve, made by Mark Reede, Ellen Weerman, Simon Maas of ReUrbA and Hans Karssenberg of Stipo. They interviewed ten leading European thinkers avout cities to be able to write the Statement for Strong Cities, that was presented to the closing conference of ReUrbA and to Danuta Huebner, the EU commissioner for Regional Policy.

Downloads / links

ErasmusPC article on ReUrbA’s Statement for Strong Cities
Danuta Hübner EU Commission Website
View the compilation of quotes from the interviews on film
View EU commissioner Danuta Huebner’s welcoming response to the Statement for Strong Cities on film

- The Stipo approach	- Introduction to Stipo
- A field trip to Dublin	- Team members
- ReUrba interviews	- Addresses