What does a city say about its residents?
About visions of the future, Monocle guides and the question of whether you can design a city.
In 2007 I wrote about Zeist's vision for the future. In 2008 about Amersfoort. As a government advisor, I helped municipalities think about their future. They were honest attempts — participation processes, citizen panels, colorful documents with titles like "Together towards 2030".
Almost twenty years later I wonder: what became of it?
I'm looking through my Monocle city guides — 37 cities, from Abu Dhabi to Venice. What is striking: the cities that work best are not the cities with the most beautiful vision documents. These are the cities where someone once dared to make a difficult choice.
Paris banned cars along the Seine. Copenhagen chose the bicycle when no one did. Barcelona turned entire neighborhoods into superblocks. None of those choices were popular at the time.
In the Netherlands we do something different. We polder. We create support. We write visions that no one can oppose and that therefore change nothing. The question "what does the citizen want?" sounds democratic, but rarely leads to the city that the citizen needs.
A city is not a product of consensus. A city is the result of a hundred years of choices — good and bad, brave and cowardly. The question is not "what does a city say about its residents?" but "what do the choices that weren't made say?"
The empty lots, the postponed tram lines, the industrial estates where parks should have been — that is the real face of a city.