- Flashcards
Why is the demand for housing in the Netherlands so high?
Because of…
- Existing housing shortage
- Expected population growth
- Shrinking household size
What is the main reason for people to move into cities?
Because of basic amenities and secondary amenities.
How is densification made possible?
Thanks to the redevelopment of many areas and the idea of a compact city.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of densification?
Advantage: reduces traffic; everything is close to home.
Disadvantage: Small, expensive apartments are built; often unaffordable for people with lower incomes. Above that, many families want private family homes with a garden.
Give three examples of technologies that a smart city should have.
Sensors, cameras and fast-working apps.
What measures do we need to take to turn all cities into sustainable cities?
- Start using circular materials.
- Build flexible houses; just perfect for a family but also for a senior.
- Greening the city to prevent heat stress or floodings, and improve the quality of life by making the city more appealing.
If it’s becoming unaffordable to live in the city, who is even moving there?
Young, highly skilled people that graduated from universities and can work in creative industries and contribute to our sustainable living.
What is the solution for people who can’t afford homes in the city? And what disadvantages does it bring when people with lower incomes move away?
One solution could be social housing, although it’s not available for everybody, because some people have a bit too high income to benefit from social housing. Those people usually have to move away, and that means a poor neighbourhood will gradually develop somewhere else.
Where is housing density smallest?
Away from the city.
Explain the process of gentrification.
When wealthy people move into an area and start renovating and buying houses, the area obviously becomes more expensive. Many middle-income families have to move away, because their homes are being redeveloped and will no longer be affordable for them.
Explain how urbanization causes pressure on the environment and possible solutions to overcome them.
Urbanization causes pressure because of the ongoing high gas emissions and the high demand for energy and food.
Solutions:
1. Installing more renewable energy sources and insulating homes.
2. Investing in public transport to waste less fuel and prevent traffic jams.
3. Building vertical farms in business parks which take up less space and are more sustainable.
What is the biggest land user in the Netherlands? And why is that quite surprising?
Agriculture. The Netherlands also placed second after the United States of America for being one of the biggest exporters of agricultural products. It’s quite astonishing because the Netherlands is actually a small country.
What are the advantages of our intensive agriculture? And what are the disadvantages?
Advantages:
1. Full supermarkets.
2. Billions of euros for exports.
Disadvantages:
1. We’re using lots of manure, artificial fertilizers and pesticides which not only worsen the quality of our soil, water and air, but also make our food poisonous.
2. Because of our technology, farmers earn too little and end up jobless.
3. Less people want to live in the countryside, resulting in population shrinkage and a decrease in the quality of life because of lacking amenities.
What can we do with the countryside if everything disappears?
- Create nature and recreation areas.
- Build renewable energy farms (wind turbines, for instance).
- Try decentralization.
What can we do to make our agriculture future proof?
- Help farmers to transition to environmentally friendly methods such as returning land to nature and growing crops without artificial fertilizers.
- Concentrate land-dependent-farming to fertile areas of the Netherlands, which would reduce the need for fertilizers and would save us space.
- Move non-land-dependent farming to business parks in the form of vertical farms.
What kind of issues could our farmers be experiencing due to the measures?
- Job loss and lower incomes, but that could be compensated by selling our knowledge and innovations abroad.
- Having to install expensive equipment such as air filters.
What three forms of land use do our countrysides have?
- Agriculture.
- Nature.
- Recreation.
How do both specialization and intensification benefit from each other?
Because of making use of specialization, we know what resources a specific type of livestock or crop needs and can adjust intensification to it.
Give an example of the economies of scale.
If a farmer spends €100 dollars to produce 100 tomatoes, each tomato costs €1. But if a farmer spends €100 dollars to produce only 10 tomatoes, each tomato would cost €10.
What two types of intensive agriculture are there?
Intensive crop farming and intensive livestock farming. (Also called factory farming).
Explain the idea of a radius and why amenities are more likely to survive in urban areas rather than rural areas.
Radius is the maximum distance that people are willing to travel to use an amenity. An amenity is more likely to survive in an urban area, because more people live there and therefore the support base is higher. It’s more likely to reach its threshold value than in a rural area.
Give the ranking of the land use in the Netherlands.
- Agriculture
- Nature
- Housing
- Work
- Infrastructure
- Recreation
- Other
What are our goals with public transport and name vehicles that already meet the expectations.
Our goals with public transport is to make it as fast and as sustainable as possible. A few examples of vehicles that already meet these measures are the Randstad Rail, waterbuses and computer-operated metros.
Why is building housing close to amenities more efficient than by expanding our infrastructure?
- It will reduce the need for mobility.
- Expanding our infrastructure would cost us a lot.
