Beginning in the late 18th century, this overview of town planning in the Netherlands records the way the Dutch rebuilt the cities they inherited from the 17th ... » 

Beginning in the late 18th century, this overview of town planning in the Netherlands records the way the Dutch rebuilt the cities they inherited from the 17th century.

They first replaced the water-based infrastructure with extensive railway systems and in the twentieth century with a network of highways. They restructured the rural countryside to increase agricultural production and then redeveloped it as the setting for suburban sprawl. And along the way they created planning tools envied in the rest of the world and replaced them with nebulous forms of public private partnership. Providing an anthology of plans and planning methods, the book illustrates how urbanism reflects history: the ambitions, concepts, dreams and visions not only of the designers and planners, but also of the institutions and individuals who were their patrons.

Focusing on the Netherlands, this study is totally embedded in its international setting. Forces from outside - political and economic realities, ideas and concepts - have always had a huge impact on a country that from its very beginnings acted on, and was influenced by, the global theatre.

This book is about how cities, villages and landscape changed in the last two centuries and it explains why Holland looks the way it does. «