The Netherlands is hiding something. You see a country that does everything right. Fantastic bike lanes. Trains that work like metros. And parking garages that get millions of views. But the Dutch have a secret. The Netherlands is not a country. It's actually just a giant city. And that changes everything for how we should view it and compare it to others. The Netherlands is the densest country in Europe. Wait, I know, I know, there's like two people in Monaco that’ll get angry, so let me nuance it. The Netherlands is the densest real country in Europe. See, people are important because they’re kind of nice. They make us laugh, love, and they also make it easier to deal with the fact that we’re all going to die after a cosmologically insignificant short life. But the best thing about people is that they make it a lot easier to build things. The more people you have on a piece of land, generally, the more money you have on that land as well. Put people close together, and building gets better. Building a metro to a neighbourhood of a city will cost less than building a new metro for every farm in the middle of nowhere. In dense, urban areas the cost of infrastructure is distributed among more people. The further you need to expand roads, the heavier the financial load. When people are separated, it becomes harder to share - now we need our entirely own supermarkets, hospitals and schools. now density can only help us to a certain point, of course. It’s not technically easier to lay a brand new train station in the middle of a city than in the middle of a field. But the main point stands. When we have lots of people together, we need to build less infrastructure to satisfy each other. The more consumers, means that more people pay, meaning that you pay less; “Infrastructure costs per capita are the highest in low-density areas and the lowest in high density areas.” So when the world asks, why can't we have nice things like the Dutch? The answer is not just more bikes. The Netherlands is actually made up of two places. The Randstad and everything else. The Randstad is a cluster of the Netherlands’s main cities and covers around 20% of the surface area in the Netherlands, but it is home to around 45% of the population That statistic is crucial. Almost half of the country lives in an area whether the density is around 1000 people / 1km². Half of the Dutch population lives in an area more dense than some of Europe’s densest microstates, like San Marino or the Channel Islands. Compare the entire country’s population density as well as the Randstad with the average density in the US, and the differences become even starker. Where the US's average density is around 30 people / 1km², in the Netherlands it’s 500 across the country, and around 1000 in the Randstad. That’s no small difference. In the Randstad alone, the Netherlands has a city density with practically half of its entire tax paying population concentrated inside of it. So, on the one hand the Randstad is impressive. Dutch citizens can travel and afford infrastructure that brings them to all of its major cities in like two hours via public transport. But on the other hand it isn't that impressive when that same area is shown alongside the New York Metropolitan area. Half of the Netherland’s lives in a place that's built more like New York City, than the United States. In terms of distance, the Randstad's individual major cities can be seen more like individual City districts themselves: Amsterdam, the business and financial district; Rotterdam, port and logistics; Den Haag, government and international justice; and then you have Utrecht, nobody really knows what that city does anyway. The Netherlands’s trains really are more like oversized, spacious metros. Even cities further away from the Randstad in the Netherlands are not that much further than the distance between Manhattan and the tip of Long Island. Now we can interpret this two ways. Either the Netherlands is really small, or New York is just very large But when we celebrate the Netherlands's world-class infrastructure, we should understand that things are made easier by the fact that it has a lot of people, and those people seem to not be that far away from each other But, the Netherlands with all of its beautiful density isn't perfect Being a giant city, also brings giant city problems. Even within the country, there are large public budget productions discussing whether the Netherlands is filled with too many people. The Netherlands may have a lot of bikes, but it also has the most personal cars / 1km² with the exception of Malta. Density may bring reduced per capita infrastructure costs, but density can also bring worse air quality. European cities have a dirty secret: “thanks in large part to denser living, few towns in Europe can match the air quality of similarly-sized places in America.” And the Netherlands is no exception. One of the densest places in Europe, the Netherlands has some of the highest rates of European children with traffic induced asthma Of course there are important caveats to this - the Netherlands has a massive seaport and airport, but the Randstad with all its beautiful interconnected features, like a giant dense city, remains one of the most polluted areas in Europe. But density isn't the only thing that makes the Netherlands a giant city it actually goes even deeper. Back in around 4000 BC, some humans noticed something. “Land close to water good. Food grow good in good mud. But Urk can’t do everything on his own. Better Buruk put seed in mud and Urk take food out mud when mud turns seed into plant. Good. Now we have lot of plant, too much plant, but more food for Urk and Buruk. we build mud hut for Urk and Buruk children, and some get bigger mud hut. And to carry mud and plant to mud huts, we need water near plant. So we build more mud hut on water land. Water land flat. But Urk see problem. Too many Urk and Buruk child - not enough plant or good water land. Land dry. Urk angry. Urk have big thought. Urk change mud in water, and Urk can make more flat water land. Now more mud hut, and more plant. Urk and Buruk die, Urk and Buruk child sad. Urk and Buruk parent time short, child wish they spent more time tell Urk and Buruk parent they were loved. But time make Urk and Buruk child... but the time make ... but time make Urk and Buruk child learn. Urk and Buruk child show love to gone parent by doing the same. Build more flat water land for more plant and mud hut, and their Urk and Buruk children do the same. Early civilizations were built on river valleys and great irrigation projects. They came with fertile land, provided easy transportation, food sources, and also fresh water. They were also built in valleys, which had a major advantage: they're flat. The Netherlands is not only dense like a major city, but the entire country is essentially a gigantic river valley the place where urban development was born. It has some of the highest soil fertility in the world, partially inherited from its vast river system. And its intricate canal network provided easy transportation throughout its history, improved trade, and eliminated one of the biggest bottlenecks for good infrastructure in small but dense countries: a lack of resources. They’re one of the flattest countries in the world, which helped remove a variable that produces high construction costs: variations in elevation. So, when we look at the Netherlands it's important to remember something. It has trams with the agility of taxis, windmills that work like house fans, and neighborhoods built for walking, but the Netherlands has a secret. Not a secret that other countries can’t follow or copy. Many places should be built like the Netherlands but choose, instead, not to. But to be like the Netherlands, it’s important to be built like the Netherlands. And the Netherlands is not built like a country - it’s built like a giant city. Designing and building cities requires a deep understanding of physics, maths and geometry. Without this knowledge Urk and Buruk would have not been able to build their mud huts. Luckily we don't need to go out into the wild anymore to learn such concepts. Having access to Brilliant is enough. 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