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Corridors in the Netherlands: apple of discord in spatial planning
Author(s) -
Priemus Hugo
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.766
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1467-9663
pISSN - 0040-747X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9663.00142
Subject(s) - spatial planning , slogan , geography , urban planning , regional planning , regional science , environmental planning , political science , civil engineering , engineering , law , politics
Since 1993 the spatial planning debate in the Netherlands has been enriched with a new spatial concept: the corridor. Three meanings of this concept are distinguished: the corridor as infrastructure axis, as economic developments axis, and as urbanisation axis. In the Starting Memorandum on Spatial Planning (1999) the Dutch Government seemed to accept the ‘corridor’ as planning concept, following the slogan by the VROM‐Raad: From unplanned corridor formation to planned corridor development. In the preparation of the Fifth Memorandum on Spatial Planning, however, spatial planning minister Pronk abandoned the corridor as spatial planning concept and moved to the ‘urban network’ as the central concept of spatial policy for the next decades. This may be wise but it is impossible to neglect the empirical phenomenon of the corridor. And the question remains of how the spatial organisation of corridors should be mapped out.