How The Netherlands Failed At Housing

this is the randstadt a ring of major cities including Amsterdam Rotterdam the Hague and Utrecht all connected by suburbs and small towns altogether the Randstad houses nearly half of the Netherlands population given the country's population density the Dutch had to avoid the american-style urban sprawl and instead design compact cities this approach has led to the Netherlands remarkable public transport and biking infrastructure and means even suburbs are connected to the biking Network and all the results of this focus on avoiding the all-encompassing sprawl is the green hearts a protected green area which is surrounded by the Randstad cities the Greenheart is a natural ecosystem full of pads bogs Meadows and Farms when you look at the big picture the Dodge are great at designing efficient cities which are really Pleasant places to live but when you compare the country's small size currently around 33 000 square kilometers of land with its population of 17.4 million people it starts to seem a bit crowded and while the round starred and green hard show how the Netherlands is ridiculously well designed no country is perfect despite the country's reputation as an urban planning Utopia some serious problems are cropping up and the ordinary people affected by them are not happy in the fall of 2021 they took to the streets to protest in major cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam the truth is that the country is currently experiencing a major housing crisis just a few months before the country recorded a shortage of 279 000 homes which is expected to grow to 316 000 by 2024 while the country plans to build a million housing units over the next decade or around 100 000 per year that's not enough to address the demand in the meantime Brands continue to increase in cities like Rotterdam going up 9.7 percent just last year the demand for housing has caused a current shortage of 27 000 student housing units leaving University students with fewer options for Dutch students this could mean living with their parents for longer as 47 are already doing but that's not an option for international students who make up two out of 5 first-year students and 15 percent of the total student body in one city this is led to tents being set up to house homeless students Last Summer the University of Amsterdam told incoming foreign students to reconsider coming if they couldn't find housing before the school year started the student housing situation has gotten so bad that the Dutch Parliament has even asked the country's universities to stop taking foreign students in response to this issue the government recently announced an action plan to build 60 000 affordable student residences by 2030. while that's more than double the current shortage we'll have to see if that keeps up with future demand in any case student housing is only part of the housing shortage with oil prices increasing 75.8 percent from 2015 to 2021 it's increasingly hard for young people to enter the housing market that means fewer people are likely to have children going forward since they can't afford to rent an apartment let alone buy a house with multiple bedrooms the government has tried to alleviate this problem Problem by cutting taxes for first time home buyers under 35 they're also reducing them for those over 35 who live on their property as inflation pressure job interest rates it may sound like good news that housing prices are finally starting to fall but demand for housing is still too strong for this to really impact the housing crisis with this unprecedented situation could the country look to its past to solve this problem historically the Netherlands has had a pretty genius way of creating new land out of basically nothing see for centuries the Dutch reclaimed Land from the sea and marshlands to increase their territory to give an example flavorland a province of the Netherlands since 1986 was completely below water before 1924. it's pretty incredible that they were able to bring 2400 square kilometers of land from the seabed I mean you can even see it from space there were also plans to fill in most of the neighboring 700 square kilometers makamil Lake but the idea was abandoned due to political infighting while I may have made the Netherlands seem like an overcrowded Urban hellscape preserving Nature has long been important to Dutch planners a significant part of Levelland was left undeveloped and became part of the 29 000 square kilometer new land National Park the world's largest man-made National reserve and while continuing to reclaim land may seem like an easy option to address the housing crisis nature is increasingly taking priority which means the competing priorities of Agriculture and preserving nature are inevitably butting hats what's crazy is how much of a 180 this is compared to the historical approach while plants and animals were always an important part of land reclamation the fertile land was used for farming crops and racing animals while the market meal leg Reclamation plan was scrapped long ago several islands are now being built there as part of the new land park eventually covering 10 000 hectares of land but instead of using this land for badly needed housing it's addressing another needs biodiversity which has diminished over the centuries due to expanding urbanization only one island is accessible the public allowing nature to take over the rest sprouting new life and attracting birds and other Wildlife to ensure us thanks in part for land reclamation about a third of the country's land is now below sea level which makes it particularly vulnerable to flooding while the Dutch long ago mastered the art of holding back the ocean climate change is causing new problems like rising sea levels and extreme weather for Many of the countries current 17 691 kilometers for dikes that means upgrades like racing and reinforcements are essential to keeping out higher water but since the sea is projected to rise one to two meters over the next Century the cost to upgrade the entire country's Coastline and rivers could be massive one estimate ranges from 9 billion euros for a mere 24 centimeter rise in sea level 12 sponges 46 billion for a one and a half meter rise and that excludes the cost of upgrading the existing thought protection system but even if they manage to keep the sea Out Rivers could still overflow and cause massive floods like the recent ones in the Netherlands Belgium and Germany even worse the dikes next to rivers are made of sponge-like soil called pets which can dry out with extreme heat causing it to break apart this exact thing happened in 2003 in the village of Wellness rudely Awakening 1500 villagers at 2 in the morning to evacuate the flood waters as climate change causes more extreme weather like heat waves and droughts the risk of more dikes breaking will only increase so Beyond housing the country is facing serious challenges like rising sea levels and flooding while also preparing for the possibility of extreme heat causing droughts to dry up the land with less and less space available and reclaiming land more complicated than in the past the country is having to reconsider how it uses its land and when you take a closer look the current situation is pretty shocking Farmland takes off a massive 65 percent of the country's land followed next by forests and natural areas and only then built up areas like cities that means even though agriculture is far from the most important industry economically it's by far the largest in terms of land use this dedication to farming despite the lack of land has made the country the world's second largest food exporter by value in the world and the huge portion of the country's land dedicated to agriculture is used in a few different ways raw stand for Animals arable farmland and Horticultural land for growing plants thanks to greenhouses in particular the country became the world's number one tomato exporter ahead of countries like Spain with much warmer climates which I find pretty funny but anyway the future might be Rocky for Dutch Farmers with farms in close proximity two natural habitats concerns about farming's impacts on the environment after the Dutch government to take action they recently required Farmers to reduce pollutants like ammonia nitrogen oxide and nitrous oxide as ammonia is a natural byproduct of animal waste meeting these targets means reducing livestock by 30 percent in response the Thomas protested throughout the summer of 2022 still while the ongoing dispute will definitely cause some trouble for Dutch farmers in the near future the Dodge farming industry has continued to innovate over the past 10 years massively reducing pesticides and antibiotics use considering the growth of sustainable farming practices in the Netherlands it seems there's still a future for Dutch agriculture up and coming Innovations like growing plants and even raising animals in vertical Farms could reduce farming's environmental impact while freeing up more land for housing but is still too early to see how this will play out while Simon Cooper a Dutch journalist at the financial times claims that the Netherlands quote has run out of space the country is still growing for now in 2021 the Dutch population grew on average by 316 people each day but not all regions of the country are experiencing the same challenges in more remote parts of the country like Salem Flanders Southern Denberg and parts of groning the population is declining as people move away for better opportunities those who stay are having less children causing a vicious cycle which drives employers away from the area and further reduces the quality of services for residents one positive effect of this however is that housing prices drop and Rental availability increases while I'm sure it's easier said than done perhaps remote work can help more people sustain these areas or allow theirs in search of more space to move there still for the time being the places with the most appeal are the ones most affected by the housing shortage and that's where I think we need some new ideas a startup called Michael voning meaning micro house is finding unused private land to build 20 to 40 square meter tiny houses that it rents out at affordable rates it has already applied to 40 different local governments to build 500 tiny homes across the country while the project is still in its infancy the idea has been tried elsewhere with much success tens of thousands of eight years have already been built in California and another solution seen in Denmark is forcing students to study in other parts of the country by moving the education to the provincial towns of the country which to be honest hasn't been that great of a solution as it has brought many angry students with it so this illusion isn't immediately evident but I'm sure the Netherlands will figure it out like they did with the ocean but that's it for this video thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: OBF

Views: 300,189

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Id: EF1D1kV27lE

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 18 2023