Urbanization around the world has taken a flight towards rapid, sometimes uncontrolled growth. Megacities expanded, whilst erasing the developable area and adjusting the existing landscape to artificial water and nature systems. This rampant expansion often leads to monotonous new neighborhoods, often …

In this chapter we move back in time, to when it was not an usance to base our city designs on the natural systems of water and ecology. By the end of the 1980s the dogma of separation of functions, and dividing the city in areas for working, living, leisure and traffic was slowly abandoned and especially …

Over the next 10 years, the City of Amsterdam plans to develop major housing schemes provide 90,000 new homes within the existing urban fabric. At the same time, an urban renewal program is being launched to revitalize the most deprived neighbourhoods. Together, these challenges call for more evidence …

2007, the Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning took the initiative to issue the social building blocks: real estate for facilities. This has been the first attempt to deal with social real estate professionally as an asset. In 2008 the professorship of public real estate started with its first Barometer …

Due to lack of proper stormwater drainage in the Waymouth Hills, stormwater runoff have often caused undermining of the road infrastructure and disrupting traffic flow in the study area. Sediments are often deposited to the low-lying terrain from the runoff and this reduces the storm drains capacity …

Places matter for economic and social development. In an increasingly globalized world, people are looking to local and regional factors to optimize competitive advantage, inclusivity, and well-being. The ERSA congress “Places for People: Innovative, Inclusive and Liveable Regions” puts people back at …

The increasing rate of urbanization along with its socio-environmental impact are major global challenges. Therefore, there is a need to assess the boundaries to growth for the future development of cities by the inclusion of the assessment of the environmental carrying capacity (ECC) into spatial management. …

Urban water bodies like ponds or canals are commonly assumed to provide effective cooling in hot periods. Some of the evidence that feeds this assertion is based on remote sensing observations at relatively large scales. Such observations generally reveal reduced surface temperatures of water bodies …

As in many large European Cities, Amsterdam is confronted with a large housing boom, partially fuelled by shortcomings in (affordable) housing development. Simultaneously, there is a persistent need to improve neighbourhoods with a weak socioeconomic status. The municipal government aims to both, develop …

Now, that the European cities are overcoming the recent economic challenges, they accelerate the development of major housingschemes to accommodate their growing urban population. Amsterdam for instance, sets out to construct 50,000 new homes by 2025. Parallel to this, the City Council presented a new …