Dutch Jane Jacobs
Tracy Metz has been described as the Dutch Jane Jacobs. Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was an American publicist and urban activist, mainly known for her fight against mixed neighbourhoods and her campaigns against the building of freeways through residential areas. Tracy Metz has the same passions: writing and the fight for public space. Tracy Metz is well known for her book 'FUN!' about the spatial and social impact of the leisure industry.
Metz is opposed to random demolition in urban renewal districts. “Demolition destroys entire social networks that can be preserved with creative transformation.” She quotes the shining example of Betondorp in the 1980s. “In this area of Amsterdam, public spaces were tackled and homes merged with great commitment and a lot of attention to detail.”
Public space
As well as demolition, or rather non-demolition, she is interested in public space. “This is an important challenge for government. The public sector will have to get to grips with the private sector, or rather join forces with it, to give shape to public space. The private sector can respond more easily to changes in demand; it is more flexible, it acts faster and provides better maintenance than the public sector. That is true of both new and existing locations. The idea that the public good can’t be served by private resources should be kicked into touch. If there is a clear framework, private resources can easily be used to serve the common good.”
Metz does warn of the danger of decentralisation. “After all, municipalities are not as strong as, for example, provincial or national authorities. Certain sectors, such as water and large-scale infrastructure, will require national control. But central government operates in a half-hearted way in many sectors. It is transferring responsibilities to lower levels of government; but it still keeps a finger in the pie. And government can’t do everything itself, but it is still not clear where the public and private sectors can and should collaborate.”
Leisure
City branding and city profiling are hot issues, but Metz believes they are much less important than we think. “The problem in the Netherlands is that we always want a bit of everything. The result is fragmentation of our strengths and resources. Many cities concentrate on tourists and recreation and so compete with each other to a certain extent. That can result in conflicts in some places between visitors and residents: these are two groups with different interests. Municipal authorities have the tendency to listen too much to visitors.”
Metz believes it is important for cities to find a good balance between visitors and residents. “People want intensity in the city, to feel the experience. Residents and visitors have the same motives. The difference is that residents want to appropriate the intensity. The challenge for cities is to prevent inner cities becoming enclaves without a unique selling point. But cities must also avoid a situation in which they become alienated from the current inhabitants by focusing too much on new residents.”
Large-scale retail outlets and rioting
Metz does not expect developments in the Netherlands to follow developments elsewhere in Europe. “In the Netherlands, there is little demand for large-scale retail outlets on city outskirts like the hypermarkets in France. This is a result of the close-knit network of shops and the Dutch habit of shopping on an almost daily basis. The Space Policy Document, that officially went into effect on 27 February 2006, allows shops of this kind to be built here. I hope municipal authorities and provincial authorities will adopt a cautious approach to locating shops on the outskirts; it is the inner cities that will suffer if they don’t.”
Riots like those in Paris in 2005 are also not likely here. “In the Netherlands, there are no isolated, impersonal enclaves for the poor, of the kind often found in other countries. Furthermore, in the Netherlands, management is organised close to the residents, for example by appointing caretakers and wardens.”
Room for innovation
Metz thinks that cities with old industries in or near the centre are currently at an advantage, even though she does admit that regeneration in these areas will probably be expensive. “But,” she explains, “locations like this do provide buffer space that make it possible to work on city centres. Cities should not develop all the available space because this limits their capacity to respond to new developments. Creative densification is a more intensive and more expensive process but, in the end, it leads to better results. It involves a lot of work but very special surroundings can be created in this way. For example, you can adapt these surroundings to the wishes of the creative classes or to particular lifestyles.”
She is not a fan of the current approach, in which there is an emphasis on keeping residents with higher incomes, who used to leave because the cities no longer gave them what they wanted. “It is important to focus on diversity.” Finally, urban dwellers take different forms. A large group consists of young people who live in cities during the initial years after completing their studies. When they become parents, this group leaves because their lifestyle changes. They want to know which city is the safest and most child-friendly. “This group is not catered to. A new group of urban dwellers is the RUPpies (Retired Urban Professionals); at present, they account for the increase in the population in city centres.”
Shrinking cities
It is still unclear what the consequences of shrinking cities will be in the Dutch circumstances. She does not believe that space will be used any less intensively. “Compared to the last generation, space is used twice as intensively and this tendency is continuing. The idea that cities are prospering if the population is increasing could prove to be incorrect. In an article in Newsweek, Saskia Sassen points out that one banker uses just as much space as four families. It is possible that a fall in the population, combined with economic growth, is actually a good sign for a city.”
Tracy Metz works as a journalist for the NRC Handelsblad. She is also a member of the Rural Council and a guest researcher with the Spatial Planning Bureau. During the next academic year, she will be one of the Loeb Fellowship students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States, a course covering architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and urban design. At Harvard, she will be concentrating on inner cities, identifying the results of efforts in recent decades and changes in the perception of inner cities.
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
