The Compact City: Planning Strategies, Recent Developments and Future Prospects in the Netherlands

Abstract

The compact city has long been a central planning strategy in the Netherlands, aimed at limiting suburban sprawl and promoting sustainable urban development. Since the 1960s, successive national policy documents have emphasised urban compaction, from ‘clustered dispersal’ and ‘growth centres’ to the compact city model of the 1980s, and later the concentration areas and densification goals of the 2004 National Spatial Strategy. More recently, responsibilities for compaction and regeneration have been decentralised to regional and municipal levels, while national financial support has been reduced. At the same time, densification efforts face limits due to ownership complexities, high costs, and legal constraints. The paper analyses recent trends in housing, population, and employment in Dutch cities and surrounding areas, assessing whether they reflect compact development, and discusses future prospects for compact urban strategies in the Netherlands.