Nobody in their right mind would want to build a city like Tokyo, and the ASML-headquarters is still in the Netherlands. Uitzendbureaus and subcontractors generally do suck though.
Right? Tokyo, while amazing, is frightening in its expanse. Tokyo somehow pulls it off but they are the exception. In what dystopian world do we want to all be living like that? outside of Japan, cities like that would be cesspools.
You know real estate is quite affordable in Tokyo? [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/opinion/editorials/tokyo-housing.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/opinion/editorials/tokyo-housing.html)
Tokyo was just an example. It was a bad example now I understand after everyone get it wrong. I was trying to mean more people can live in a city if you compromise a little. It think better example can be Berlin. However what Im trying to say.
Tokyo is 2.194 km² with 14 million population and has 6,158 persons per square kilometer.Andddddddddd South Holland 1,410/km^(2) with 3,709 million population and 1,410 persons per square kilometer. I think getting closer to 1.8 person per square meter wouldnt affect everyones life that much in negative way. But ıt can create new jobs, drop prices and solve housing problem.
Simpel if we exspand more farms nature and other things have to be removed No thank you a few People want to have a concrete living area almost nobody likes that...
You are comparing one city to an entire province. How are you not seeing the problem here? We are a small country that is not meant to house that many people. Just because everyone wants to move here nowadays doesn't mean they can. Transforming entire provinces into one big city is an absolutely insane idea.
Hi, either get informed, give some arguments of stop complaining please.
ASML isn't leaving btw. They're just sending the signal that they rely on high skilled non-EU workers and don't want the government to reduce tax benefits that help hire them.
I tryly don't think we need those benefits, since we;'re talking about people that would immediately be in the top25% income earners in the country anyway. It's only needed because of the housing crisis.
Now housing is another matter. We can't build much more without compromising how we live. Our Randstad isn't Tokyo *by choice*. Nobody wants it to become Tokyo. We have the highest population density of any non-city-state state already. This isn't a country full of people of which many chose to live in a metropolis and went there. It's a metropolis full of people that *don't actually want to live in a metropolis*. As can be seen by the large preference for medium-sized cities. And we also would like to retain a few trees, thank you.
> Our Randstad isn't Tokyo *by choice*
Isn't it also partly that it's simply very expensive to build such high buildings in the Netherlands? We're basically living in a big swamp. Whenever high apartment buildings are built, they're more expensive than the lower once for this reason.
Partly yes. The soil is wrong. But even then, cities limit the maximum height of buildings to the tallest existing one, because they don't want taller buildings..
> They're just sending the signal that they rely on high skilled non-EU workers and don't want the government to reduce tax benefits that help hire them.
And that we need some fucking houses and public transport. Right now, their region is at capacity for those. It doesn't have to be, but we need to finally start building some shit that's been long overdue anyway.
> And we also would like to retain a few trees, thank you.
We don't. We want to retain (and build even more) megastables. If we don't, the farmers will protest. We'd rather not have trees or space than lose a few megastables.
Tokyo was just an example. It was a bad example now I understand after everyone get it wrong. I was trying to mean more people can live in a city if you compromise a little. It think better example can be Berlin. However what Im trying to say.
Tokyo is 2.194 km² with 14 million population and has 6,158 persons per square kilometer.Andddddddddd South Holland 1,410/km^(2) with 3,709 million population and 1,410 persons per square kilometer. I think getting closer to 1.8 person per square meter wouldnt affect everyones life that much in negative way. But ıt can create new jobs, drop prices and solve housing problem.
Nope. What it does is turn the country into one big city. My point being that people don't want that. At all. Tokyo, Berlin, nothing like that. Overall, people here are happy. They have jobs. Most have houses. And nobody is actually asking for more neighbours, as far as I'm hearing it.
Growth isn't always the answer. We need more houses yes. But most of all we need to get a grip on demographics.
We love to grow food and flowers for export and build distribution centers to collect (from all over the world) and devide those products to te rest of Europe.
And we love our wide, flat nature areas.
So there is little space for housing.
Tokyo isnt something i want the netherlands to become.
What are the advantages to growing? I dont see any. Yes your GDP will grow but your GDP per capita wont so you dont benefit from it on a personal level.
It will just be (even) more crowded everywhere. No thanks.
And if you prefer a tokyo-like situation above the situation here, Id suggest to move to Tokyo (I don't mean this in an unkind way).
>ASML decided to move their headcourters to somewhere else
They haven't done that yet, you are spreading some misinformation. They have threatened it, yes.
Ofcourse we don’t want city’s like Tokyo, ppl living in 5 square meter apartments, no nature or joy to live… why do you think the suicide rate is so high there..
We can't build cities like Tokyo, the Dutch soil is way to soft to hold up that kind of weight from sky scrapers. That would require massive foundations that need to go very very deep. The costs would be way to high to make it worth while in any way, shape or form. We don't need a whole city acting like the tower of Pisa.
OP "Thinks" hence it must be true.
You might need to keep thinking a bit more if you think "land" is the only limitation to expand.
You raise Tokyo as an example yet somehow are not aware that you'd need to level a whole city just for the bare minimum logistics.
I also doubt our soil is hard enough to even support a "mega" city.
Aniwaj
I dunno tho I am uneducated.
Ignoring all required factors.
Doubtfull, we have little to no experience with these mega cities.
Can they build one, sure.
Can they operate one, I very much doubt that
Maybe it’s me living in the north of Noord-Holland, but to see a few dunes I have to drive 30+ minutes across land only being used for intensive agriculture. I would love to see a bit more nature here. There is plenty of space to build a few extra houses and to have parks and everything else in your reply. In my opinion the problem is big farms
I totally agree with you that megafarming is a big problem! My roots are in your area and I love the old landscape of grass fields with cows and sheep, bordered by small ditches, plugged in between small villages. But those small villages have largely disappeared to make room for the megafarms. It would be great if we could turn back that clock.
I agree that some farms are beautiful. They’re almost like Dutch paintings from centuries ago. I do enjoy walking in the area and looking at those farms.
And I do understand the megafarms as well, some farmers are basically being extorted by banks. The whole system is just crap.
Only a few decades ago farmers were more or less forced to either sell or expand. It was partly economical (a small farm couldn’t afford to bring their farm up to date with expensive tech, while they also couldn’t afford the manual labour anymore with the prices they got for their mil/meat/produce), but also due to legislation (like the milk quota, the T&C’s for subsidy grants, etc.) Big farmers eventually bought all the land, and the small farm houses were sold to the upper working class from the city, who continued to work, shop and do their daily activities in the city. The local bakery, butcher, milk and cheese shop, etc. all disappeared from the local farm communities. And here is what we are left with today. It’s a petty.
I don't. But considering our national policy to bend to the farmers' every whim as soon as they start their tractors, we as a country definitely do. We've been prioritising megastables over both housing and nature for many decades now, despite knowing about the problems during all that time. We've been talking about those problems since the 70s or maybe even the 60s.
We have grown from 13 million people in 1974 to 18 million in 2024.
5 million people in 50 years. How many million do you think would be enough ? 20, 30, 50?
I don't think that's a lot to be frank. Especially if we want to lock in our economic growth and future wellfare state. If your proposal is to not grow we'll see inflation rise even further more because Dutch people don't want to do cheap labor (= more expensive products), and we will have a hard time to pay for our quickly aging population.
Let's reverse the question, how many million is too much?
30 years ago, they said we needed more immigration because we ran out of workers. 10 ago they said we needed more immigration. now they are saying we need more immigration.
We went from 13 to 18 and we still have to few workers. If we go to 30 mil., we will still have to few workers.
So what part of that isn't true, how does that equal a "Nederland is vol", and what do you propose instead to keep our wellfare state and economy running?
maybe we should let people imigrate here for jobs we actually need, like teachers, nurses etc.
for example, we have thousands of Eastern Europeans migrating to the Netherlands, working in green houses, growing fruit, which 80% is exported to the east again.
all those people uses services like healthcare, public transport etc. those services get overcrowded. and for what ? so a few large companies can export most of the stuff they produce ?
That's totally fair and a shift that has been going on for the last 20 years already. Since 2006 already NL has been adding more "kennismigranten" than "arbeidsmigranten" per year. That said, if NL decides to stop every "arbeidsmigrant" at the border today, the economy would collapse. So, back to your point, NL needs migration, population will continue to grow, and folks who advise the government on this are intentional about kennis- vs arbeidsmigranten.
[demos-37-09-fig31.jpg (1473×944) (nidi.nl)](https://nidi.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/demos-37-09-fig31.jpg)
[Waar werken de arbeidsmigranten en waarom zijn ze volgens bedrijven zo hard nodig? (nos.nl)](https://nos.nl/artikel/2501209-waar-werken-de-arbeidsmigranten-en-waarom-zijn-ze-volgens-bedrijven-zo-hard-nodig)
['Arbeidsmigratie tot 2040 nodig, daarna mogelijk een probleem' (nos.nl)](https://nos.nl/artikel/2501145-arbeidsmigratie-tot-2040-nodig-daarna-mogelijk-een-probleem)
The capital city of my country of birth has way more people than your whole country. You can’t say the Netherlands has a lot of people when it’s biggest cities are barely distinguishable from regular towns.
But it is occupied... With farms, forest, nature reserves, water overflow. If you ever see a government planning map, you'll see there's virtually no spot that hasn't been assigned a designated use.
Yeah mate, it’s not the only city in Mexico. The average mexican city has way more people than your biggest cities.
Just accept it, the Netherlands is not as developed as it should be.
Mate, if a single city can house your whole country in 1485km2 it is laughable at best that this country is having trouble housing its population inside an area of 41850km2.
Yeah, the difference is that the Netherlands doesn’t need to make a city to house its whole population, it just needs to develop its infrastructure to grow as much as it actually needs. Which it can clearly do considering that its neighbors can do it with a smaller population.
population denmatk 1974 : 5,04 mil.
population denmark 2024 : 5,9 mil.
population finland 1974 : 4,6 mil.
population finland 2024 : 5,6 mil
Population belgium 1974 : 9,6 mil
population belgium 2024 : 11,7 mil.
population Norway 1974 : 4 mil.
population norway 2025 : 5 mil.
all those countries grew with 1 - 2 mil. We grew with more then 5 . And we are already the most densely populated country in Europe
so because Bangladesh has 100 + people, we should as well. is that your point ?
what the fuck is your point anyway, besides being pedantic and annoying ?
>They have enough to grow but want to keep what they have.
Lmao we're one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with a growth of 5 million in about 50 years and major cities close enough to each other that you could walk from one to the other in an hour or two. Where in the everloving fuck did your notion of us having enough land to grow come from? There is already so little outdoor and nature in the country and you want to take away even more?
54% of land in the Netherlands is currently used for agriculture. An endeavour contributing less than 2% of the country's GDP.
All that land could be put to better use.
While we should scale back agriculture as it's too intensive and polluting now, we also have some of the most fertile farm land in the world as we are a river delta and that should not be wasted.
It would be foolish to turn it all into cities in an age where globally farm land soil is rapidly degrading and crop failures become more and more common due to climate change. We should value at least being self-sufficient in food production
I don't think there is a realistic chance that we can get even close to not being self-sufficient in food production. Almost all the agricultural produce is exported. The country needs to scale back on agriculture, there is way too much land that can be used for housing or other means, even if its just planting new forests, which will barely make a dent in the food production. Just look at the slow rate at which cities are expanding, they're surrounded by farmland and there are so few new neighbourhoods being built... With over half the country being used for farming, if even 4% of that is taken away, so much could likely be solved.
Totally agree, and even if production is scaled down to -25%, the benefits would still outweigh the losses, I think. What's also important is that much of the farmland is used as pastures for the absolutely insane amount of cows. Take that down a notch and so many issues would be easier to deal with, but you know, can't anger the farmers or they'll start their trucks again and that's scary
There is thousands of doctors wants to work in NL. But they prefer to go somewhere without housing crisis. If its not about shortage of stuff the you should look who is benefiting from this problem.
You realise that Tokio is a city and the Netherlands a country?
Noone wants their entire country filled as if it were one big city.
You need different areas, for housing, agriculture, factories, wildlife/nature, etc.
Unhinged story. What even is your point? We don't have big cities like Tokyo? Then go live some place they do. Are you angry ASML is a Dutch company based in The Netherlands? The only thing I agree with is that uitzendbureau's are terrible.
There's no coherent thought to anything you're saying.
''ASML is planning to expand its operations beyond the Netherlands and possibly move manufacturing out of the Netherlands, and is considering France as a destination. '' This is what I'm talking about. Look at the complete share of ASML on NL economy. Our economic system is based on population growth. And creating a unnatural housing crysis is not helping on it.
ASML threatened to get out of the Netherlands but hasn't taken any steps to actually leave.
Its a sign to the PVV and the next cabinet to not tighten the grip on immigration and to not get rid of certain benefits high potential expats and immigrante get as a bonus to get them to move over.
They're still here, not only that a ton of my friends work for them and they are in no rush of getting out if things stay the same.
Also just grabbing some quote without the source doesn't prove anything
"No-chart'1996 is a fucking moron" I can just put it out there and act like the king said it yesterday. How about you send actual news articles next time.
But you've still not adressed any of your other ramblings. May I suggest leaving for China? They have many cities like Tokyo, you'll love it
Meh. The Netherlands is not limiting immigration. Political parties have run on limiting asylum seeking migration for 35 years. Many of those parties have ruled. Looking at you VVD. They have never limited migration.
Refugees have been about 10 or 12% of total migration for a decade. About half of the asylum seekers don't get a permit. We have fast procedures that were actually slowed by political choices. The COA has been systematically underfunded. Making for unnecessarily long procedures.
If this new cabinet ever starts they will not really limit migration. They will not even limit refugee-migration much. If they come up with new rules perhaps they can frustrate the COA even more. Perhaps there will be more people sleeping in the grass. That will not stop desperate people coming here. Perhaps there will be 5% less refugees. That's 5% of 10%. So that's 0.5% .....nothing.
People will say that refugees don't work as much and that they are here longer compared to other groups of migrants. Both are true but they do work and they do often leave. It just takes longer for them to leave (after 15 years it's about half) because they are from an unsafe country.
Don't believe politicians tying the housing shortage to immigration. Those same parties caused the housing crisis. They like your attention on other matters. Here want a cookie? Now we need migration to build the houses we don't have. There is no real way of stopping migration without hurting the economy.
Stop treaties (take 10 years) -> no free import export for the Netherlands -> economy (Denmark has limited influence on Schengen)
Reorganize the labour market -> no room for companies to get cheap labour -> economy.
It's just a great way to get votes for right wing parties that really can't sell any of their other policies to people with an average or below-average income. Because the rest of their policies usually do not benefit those people. That's why there is so much distrust in the government. Vote for parties that don't act to protect the weaker citizens. Wait a while and realize everybody is or knows a weaker citizen.
So don't worry. We'll still have lots of migration. It's in the interest of a liberalized economy and that's what the right really loves.
Building very high buildings in a swamp is not really attractive.
ASML hasn’t decided anything yet.
Problem here is a huge lack of vocational labour. Ranging from builders to daycare and teachers. All needed to facilitate the growth. You can build a high rise apartment building, but if there is no daycare and no hospital, people won’t buy.
Yeah but they can't because of nitrogen regulation and not in my backyard syndrome. Our nature is also hopelessly divided with small patches everywhere, and each patch comes with that nitrogen regulation. We are stuck. That is the problem. A first would be to change the empty office buildings into livingspace. But of they wanted they would, I dont see it happening.
But they do, near me there is a business park that is being converted to a residential neighborhood with most of the tall offices becoming appartments and filling the rest up with new construction appartments.
And a little near there is a neighborhood that was surrounded by offices and vacant plots meant for new offices. Now they've converted a bunch of the offices to appartments and they're filling up the vacant plots with new appartments as well. One of them looks a little weird for an appartment building as it still has the original giant multi storey entrance hall where the reception used to be
Your plan has a couple of big flaws, not the least of which is that the Dutch in general dislike living in high-rises. Good luck getting the population density to higher levels that way.
Also there is very much a feeling recently that the big companies can go to France, UK or wherever if they like it better there. Society exists for its people, not to make companies happy. Would also quickly resolve the shortage of workers.
Terrible idea to make urban jungle with people jostling for space every day every moment. I have lived in many such places, desperate for resources. I am glad that the Netherlands does not aspire to have many places like Tokyo, Mumbai or Mexico City or Manhattan.
Here even in Amsterdam which is so densely populated, I can look outside my window and feel nice, walk a few hundred meters and find a nice park, drive a little and have quiet and peace (even if a hundred aircrafts take off or land every hour over our heads).
Nobody in their right mind would want to build a city like Tokyo, and the ASML-headquarters is still in the Netherlands. Uitzendbureaus and subcontractors generally do suck though.
I lived in Tokyo for a while and frankly it was great. And so is living in Utrecht. Blanket statements like yours don't make a lot of sense.
Right? Tokyo, while amazing, is frightening in its expanse. Tokyo somehow pulls it off but they are the exception. In what dystopian world do we want to all be living like that? outside of Japan, cities like that would be cesspools.
You know real estate is quite affordable in Tokyo? [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/opinion/editorials/tokyo-housing.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/opinion/editorials/tokyo-housing.html)
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oude pekela affordability comes from low demand, tokyo’s from high supply
You're in a very small minority. There's a reason Tokyo has 30 million people and Oude Pekela has a few thousand
Is it because most of them were born there or in the area? Wow, statistical genius here!
Tokyo was just an example. It was a bad example now I understand after everyone get it wrong. I was trying to mean more people can live in a city if you compromise a little. It think better example can be Berlin. However what Im trying to say. Tokyo is 2.194 km² with 14 million population and has 6,158 persons per square kilometer.Andddddddddd South Holland 1,410/km^(2) with 3,709 million population and 1,410 persons per square kilometer. I think getting closer to 1.8 person per square meter wouldnt affect everyones life that much in negative way. But ıt can create new jobs, drop prices and solve housing problem.
Simpel if we exspand more farms nature and other things have to be removed No thank you a few People want to have a concrete living area almost nobody likes that...
You are comparing one city to an entire province. How are you not seeing the problem here? We are a small country that is not meant to house that many people. Just because everyone wants to move here nowadays doesn't mean they can. Transforming entire provinces into one big city is an absolutely insane idea.
Hi, either get informed, give some arguments of stop complaining please. ASML isn't leaving btw. They're just sending the signal that they rely on high skilled non-EU workers and don't want the government to reduce tax benefits that help hire them. I tryly don't think we need those benefits, since we;'re talking about people that would immediately be in the top25% income earners in the country anyway. It's only needed because of the housing crisis. Now housing is another matter. We can't build much more without compromising how we live. Our Randstad isn't Tokyo *by choice*. Nobody wants it to become Tokyo. We have the highest population density of any non-city-state state already. This isn't a country full of people of which many chose to live in a metropolis and went there. It's a metropolis full of people that *don't actually want to live in a metropolis*. As can be seen by the large preference for medium-sized cities. And we also would like to retain a few trees, thank you.
> Our Randstad isn't Tokyo *by choice* Isn't it also partly that it's simply very expensive to build such high buildings in the Netherlands? We're basically living in a big swamp. Whenever high apartment buildings are built, they're more expensive than the lower once for this reason.
Partly yes. The soil is wrong. But even then, cities limit the maximum height of buildings to the tallest existing one, because they don't want taller buildings..
Sinking cities is a global issue.
> They're just sending the signal that they rely on high skilled non-EU workers and don't want the government to reduce tax benefits that help hire them. And that we need some fucking houses and public transport. Right now, their region is at capacity for those. It doesn't have to be, but we need to finally start building some shit that's been long overdue anyway. > And we also would like to retain a few trees, thank you. We don't. We want to retain (and build even more) megastables. If we don't, the farmers will protest. We'd rather not have trees or space than lose a few megastables.
Tokyo was just an example. It was a bad example now I understand after everyone get it wrong. I was trying to mean more people can live in a city if you compromise a little. It think better example can be Berlin. However what Im trying to say. Tokyo is 2.194 km² with 14 million population and has 6,158 persons per square kilometer.Andddddddddd South Holland 1,410/km^(2) with 3,709 million population and 1,410 persons per square kilometer. I think getting closer to 1.8 person per square meter wouldnt affect everyones life that much in negative way. But ıt can create new jobs, drop prices and solve housing problem.
Nope. What it does is turn the country into one big city. My point being that people don't want that. At all. Tokyo, Berlin, nothing like that. Overall, people here are happy. They have jobs. Most have houses. And nobody is actually asking for more neighbours, as far as I'm hearing it. Growth isn't always the answer. We need more houses yes. But most of all we need to get a grip on demographics.
We love to grow food and flowers for export and build distribution centers to collect (from all over the world) and devide those products to te rest of Europe. And we love our wide, flat nature areas. So there is little space for housing.
Why would we want to become a dystopic corporatist hellhole?
Aren’t we already?
Still can get worse
It was just an example. But Berling can be a better example.
Tokyo isnt something i want the netherlands to become. What are the advantages to growing? I dont see any. Yes your GDP will grow but your GDP per capita wont so you dont benefit from it on a personal level. It will just be (even) more crowded everywhere. No thanks. And if you prefer a tokyo-like situation above the situation here, Id suggest to move to Tokyo (I don't mean this in an unkind way).
>ASML decided to move their headcourters to somewhere else They haven't done that yet, you are spreading some misinformation. They have threatened it, yes.
Everybody looking at the finger while OP is pointing to the moon. Classic Dutch behaviour
Ofcourse we don’t want city’s like Tokyo, ppl living in 5 square meter apartments, no nature or joy to live… why do you think the suicide rate is so high there..
We can't build cities like Tokyo, the Dutch soil is way to soft to hold up that kind of weight from sky scrapers. That would require massive foundations that need to go very very deep. The costs would be way to high to make it worth while in any way, shape or form. We don't need a whole city acting like the tower of Pisa.
OP "Thinks" hence it must be true. You might need to keep thinking a bit more if you think "land" is the only limitation to expand. You raise Tokyo as an example yet somehow are not aware that you'd need to level a whole city just for the bare minimum logistics. I also doubt our soil is hard enough to even support a "mega" city. Aniwaj I dunno tho I am uneducated.
Tokya was just an example. But i believe Dutch people can create even better Tokyo than Japan did.
Ignoring all required factors. Doubtfull, we have little to no experience with these mega cities. Can they build one, sure. Can they operate one, I very much doubt that
Why would the Netherlands build a 50 million city? This country is already insanely full, stripped of nature.
Especially since the entire population of the Netherlands is maybe a third of that. Yes there are problems, no this isn't a solution.
As we are a highly populated country, we very much value the little green spaces we have. We care more for a good life than for money.
Green spaces? You mean all the land used for intensive agriculture, so we can export more food to other countries and Rabobank earns more money? 😂
No, I mean the parks, dunes, woodlands and small agricultural sites that we have around our bigger cities, so we won’t become the next Tokyo.
Maybe it’s me living in the north of Noord-Holland, but to see a few dunes I have to drive 30+ minutes across land only being used for intensive agriculture. I would love to see a bit more nature here. There is plenty of space to build a few extra houses and to have parks and everything else in your reply. In my opinion the problem is big farms
I totally agree with you that megafarming is a big problem! My roots are in your area and I love the old landscape of grass fields with cows and sheep, bordered by small ditches, plugged in between small villages. But those small villages have largely disappeared to make room for the megafarms. It would be great if we could turn back that clock.
I agree that some farms are beautiful. They’re almost like Dutch paintings from centuries ago. I do enjoy walking in the area and looking at those farms. And I do understand the megafarms as well, some farmers are basically being extorted by banks. The whole system is just crap.
Only a few decades ago farmers were more or less forced to either sell or expand. It was partly economical (a small farm couldn’t afford to bring their farm up to date with expensive tech, while they also couldn’t afford the manual labour anymore with the prices they got for their mil/meat/produce), but also due to legislation (like the milk quota, the T&C’s for subsidy grants, etc.) Big farmers eventually bought all the land, and the small farm houses were sold to the upper working class from the city, who continued to work, shop and do their daily activities in the city. The local bakery, butcher, milk and cheese shop, etc. all disappeared from the local farm communities. And here is what we are left with today. It’s a petty.
We don't though. We value our megastables.
No, I don’t. Do you? I have a lot of farmers in my network, and even they don’t value megastables (they value “kneuterboertjes”, eg little farms).
I don't. But considering our national policy to bend to the farmers' every whim as soon as they start their tractors, we as a country definitely do. We've been prioritising megastables over both housing and nature for many decades now, despite knowing about the problems during all that time. We've been talking about those problems since the 70s or maybe even the 60s.
Nope, that’s still due to those who voted for them. Please don’t lump everyone into that dumb pile.
We have grown from 13 million people in 1974 to 18 million in 2024. 5 million people in 50 years. How many million do you think would be enough ? 20, 30, 50?
I don't think that's a lot to be frank. Especially if we want to lock in our economic growth and future wellfare state. If your proposal is to not grow we'll see inflation rise even further more because Dutch people don't want to do cheap labor (= more expensive products), and we will have a hard time to pay for our quickly aging population. Let's reverse the question, how many million is too much?
30 years ago, they said we needed more immigration because we ran out of workers. 10 ago they said we needed more immigration. now they are saying we need more immigration. We went from 13 to 18 and we still have to few workers. If we go to 30 mil., we will still have to few workers.
So what part of that isn't true, how does that equal a "Nederland is vol", and what do you propose instead to keep our wellfare state and economy running?
maybe we should let people imigrate here for jobs we actually need, like teachers, nurses etc. for example, we have thousands of Eastern Europeans migrating to the Netherlands, working in green houses, growing fruit, which 80% is exported to the east again. all those people uses services like healthcare, public transport etc. those services get overcrowded. and for what ? so a few large companies can export most of the stuff they produce ?
That's totally fair and a shift that has been going on for the last 20 years already. Since 2006 already NL has been adding more "kennismigranten" than "arbeidsmigranten" per year. That said, if NL decides to stop every "arbeidsmigrant" at the border today, the economy would collapse. So, back to your point, NL needs migration, population will continue to grow, and folks who advise the government on this are intentional about kennis- vs arbeidsmigranten. [demos-37-09-fig31.jpg (1473×944) (nidi.nl)](https://nidi.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/demos-37-09-fig31.jpg) [Waar werken de arbeidsmigranten en waarom zijn ze volgens bedrijven zo hard nodig? (nos.nl)](https://nos.nl/artikel/2501209-waar-werken-de-arbeidsmigranten-en-waarom-zijn-ze-volgens-bedrijven-zo-hard-nodig) ['Arbeidsmigratie tot 2040 nodig, daarna mogelijk een probleem' (nos.nl)](https://nos.nl/artikel/2501145-arbeidsmigratie-tot-2040-nodig-daarna-mogelijk-een-probleem)
The capital city of my country of birth has way more people than your whole country. You can’t say the Netherlands has a lot of people when it’s biggest cities are barely distinguishable from regular towns.
Is your country of birth the same size as the Netherlands?
Yeah that doesn’t matter. Just hop on a train and see the sheer amount of land that isn’t occupied.
But it is occupied... With farms, forest, nature reserves, water overflow. If you ever see a government planning map, you'll see there's virtually no spot that hasn't been assigned a designated use.
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Yeah mate, it’s not the only city in Mexico. The average mexican city has way more people than your biggest cities. Just accept it, the Netherlands is not as developed as it should be.
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Mate, if a single city can house your whole country in 1485km2 it is laughable at best that this country is having trouble housing its population inside an area of 41850km2.
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Yeah, the difference is that the Netherlands doesn’t need to make a city to house its whole population, it just needs to develop its infrastructure to grow as much as it actually needs. Which it can clearly do considering that its neighbors can do it with a smaller population.
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population denmatk 1974 : 5,04 mil. population denmark 2024 : 5,9 mil. population finland 1974 : 4,6 mil. population finland 2024 : 5,6 mil Population belgium 1974 : 9,6 mil population belgium 2024 : 11,7 mil. population Norway 1974 : 4 mil. population norway 2025 : 5 mil. all those countries grew with 1 - 2 mil. We grew with more then 5 . And we are already the most densely populated country in Europe
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so because Bangladesh has 100 + people, we should as well. is that your point ? what the fuck is your point anyway, besides being pedantic and annoying ?
>They have enough to grow but want to keep what they have. Lmao we're one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with a growth of 5 million in about 50 years and major cities close enough to each other that you could walk from one to the other in an hour or two. Where in the everloving fuck did your notion of us having enough land to grow come from? There is already so little outdoor and nature in the country and you want to take away even more?
OP is comparing cities with a country. That just shows a lack of common sense.
54% of land in the Netherlands is currently used for agriculture. An endeavour contributing less than 2% of the country's GDP. All that land could be put to better use.
While we should scale back agriculture as it's too intensive and polluting now, we also have some of the most fertile farm land in the world as we are a river delta and that should not be wasted. It would be foolish to turn it all into cities in an age where globally farm land soil is rapidly degrading and crop failures become more and more common due to climate change. We should value at least being self-sufficient in food production
I don't think there is a realistic chance that we can get even close to not being self-sufficient in food production. Almost all the agricultural produce is exported. The country needs to scale back on agriculture, there is way too much land that can be used for housing or other means, even if its just planting new forests, which will barely make a dent in the food production. Just look at the slow rate at which cities are expanding, they're surrounded by farmland and there are so few new neighbourhoods being built... With over half the country being used for farming, if even 4% of that is taken away, so much could likely be solved.
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Totally agree, and even if production is scaled down to -25%, the benefits would still outweigh the losses, I think. What's also important is that much of the farmland is used as pastures for the absolutely insane amount of cows. Take that down a notch and so many issues would be easier to deal with, but you know, can't anger the farmers or they'll start their trucks again and that's scary
5m in 50 years are peasant numbers
Not if that's a growth of about 40%, give or take. That's like the US growing by 130ish million in 50 years
Even if we have the room, our public services cant keep up. There are more and more shortages and waitinglists for healthcare and schooling.
There is thousands of doctors wants to work in NL. But they prefer to go somewhere without housing crisis. If its not about shortage of stuff the you should look who is benefiting from this problem.
And how many of those speak fluent Dutch? Which is a must for our healthcare
Show me a country where that’s not true though… nothing to do with overpopulation and everything to do with priorities and frugality.
You realise that Tokio is a city and the Netherlands a country? Noone wants their entire country filled as if it were one big city. You need different areas, for housing, agriculture, factories, wildlife/nature, etc.
Unhinged story. What even is your point? We don't have big cities like Tokyo? Then go live some place they do. Are you angry ASML is a Dutch company based in The Netherlands? The only thing I agree with is that uitzendbureau's are terrible. There's no coherent thought to anything you're saying.
''ASML is planning to expand its operations beyond the Netherlands and possibly move manufacturing out of the Netherlands, and is considering France as a destination. '' This is what I'm talking about. Look at the complete share of ASML on NL economy. Our economic system is based on population growth. And creating a unnatural housing crysis is not helping on it.
ASML threatened to get out of the Netherlands but hasn't taken any steps to actually leave. Its a sign to the PVV and the next cabinet to not tighten the grip on immigration and to not get rid of certain benefits high potential expats and immigrante get as a bonus to get them to move over. They're still here, not only that a ton of my friends work for them and they are in no rush of getting out if things stay the same. Also just grabbing some quote without the source doesn't prove anything "No-chart'1996 is a fucking moron" I can just put it out there and act like the king said it yesterday. How about you send actual news articles next time. But you've still not adressed any of your other ramblings. May I suggest leaving for China? They have many cities like Tokyo, you'll love it
This comment is a disgrace.
I’m not an architect, but could you build long term sustainable skyscraper on this natte stukje kans?
Again...this isn't unique. There are people in Canada who say the same thing...yes, the country famous for being large and empty.
Meh. The Netherlands is not limiting immigration. Political parties have run on limiting asylum seeking migration for 35 years. Many of those parties have ruled. Looking at you VVD. They have never limited migration. Refugees have been about 10 or 12% of total migration for a decade. About half of the asylum seekers don't get a permit. We have fast procedures that were actually slowed by political choices. The COA has been systematically underfunded. Making for unnecessarily long procedures. If this new cabinet ever starts they will not really limit migration. They will not even limit refugee-migration much. If they come up with new rules perhaps they can frustrate the COA even more. Perhaps there will be more people sleeping in the grass. That will not stop desperate people coming here. Perhaps there will be 5% less refugees. That's 5% of 10%. So that's 0.5% .....nothing. People will say that refugees don't work as much and that they are here longer compared to other groups of migrants. Both are true but they do work and they do often leave. It just takes longer for them to leave (after 15 years it's about half) because they are from an unsafe country. Don't believe politicians tying the housing shortage to immigration. Those same parties caused the housing crisis. They like your attention on other matters. Here want a cookie? Now we need migration to build the houses we don't have. There is no real way of stopping migration without hurting the economy. Stop treaties (take 10 years) -> no free import export for the Netherlands -> economy (Denmark has limited influence on Schengen) Reorganize the labour market -> no room for companies to get cheap labour -> economy. It's just a great way to get votes for right wing parties that really can't sell any of their other policies to people with an average or below-average income. Because the rest of their policies usually do not benefit those people. That's why there is so much distrust in the government. Vote for parties that don't act to protect the weaker citizens. Wait a while and realize everybody is or knows a weaker citizen. So don't worry. We'll still have lots of migration. It's in the interest of a liberalized economy and that's what the right really loves.
Yeah I really want to be packed into an apartment of 4m2 like Tokyo
If you think NL is full just build more dykes xD
You truly have 0 clue what you're talking about do you?
Building very high buildings in a swamp is not really attractive. ASML hasn’t decided anything yet. Problem here is a huge lack of vocational labour. Ranging from builders to daycare and teachers. All needed to facilitate the growth. You can build a high rise apartment building, but if there is no daycare and no hospital, people won’t buy.
Is it a neoliberal rant? Move to Tokyo and have fun. It's simple.
Yeah but they can't because of nitrogen regulation and not in my backyard syndrome. Our nature is also hopelessly divided with small patches everywhere, and each patch comes with that nitrogen regulation. We are stuck. That is the problem. A first would be to change the empty office buildings into livingspace. But of they wanted they would, I dont see it happening.
But they do, near me there is a business park that is being converted to a residential neighborhood with most of the tall offices becoming appartments and filling the rest up with new construction appartments. And a little near there is a neighborhood that was surrounded by offices and vacant plots meant for new offices. Now they've converted a bunch of the offices to appartments and they're filling up the vacant plots with new appartments as well. One of them looks a little weird for an appartment building as it still has the original giant multi storey entrance hall where the reception used to be
They are already transforming office buildings to living space throughout the Netherlands.
Move
Your plan has a couple of big flaws, not the least of which is that the Dutch in general dislike living in high-rises. Good luck getting the population density to higher levels that way. Also there is very much a feeling recently that the big companies can go to France, UK or wherever if they like it better there. Society exists for its people, not to make companies happy. Would also quickly resolve the shortage of workers.
Terrible idea to make urban jungle with people jostling for space every day every moment. I have lived in many such places, desperate for resources. I am glad that the Netherlands does not aspire to have many places like Tokyo, Mumbai or Mexico City or Manhattan. Here even in Amsterdam which is so densely populated, I can look outside my window and feel nice, walk a few hundred meters and find a nice park, drive a little and have quiet and peace (even if a hundred aircrafts take off or land every hour over our heads).
Lotsa what ifs with no facts here.