Adaptable Housing To Combat Housing Issues

The concept of adaptable housing is becoming increasingly relevant in the Netherlands as the country faces a number of housing challenges. As the number of students in need of housing continues to grow, and universities and university cities are struggling to keep up. However, this is not the only housing challenge the Netherlands will face in the coming years. As the population ages, there is expected to be a growing demand for elderly-suitable housing that can accommodate the unique needs of this demographic group.

That is where adaptable housing comes in, offering a flexible and modular solution: living spaces that can be easily modified to meet the changing needs of residents over time. This type of housing is designed with the future in mind, ensuring that it can adapt to the changing demands of the market. The ability to make changes to the layout, fixtures, and accessibility features means that adaptable housing can meet the needs of a variety of residents. By offering a customizable solution, adaptable housing can provide a comfortable and suitable home for people from all walks of life.

Benefits of adaptable housing: addressing housing shortages and cost-effectiveness

And there are plenty of reasons why adaptable housing is such a hot topic. For one, it helps to address the issue of housing shortages by reducing the need to build new housing units every time there is a change in demand. This is particularly important in the Netherlands, where suitable places to build are scarce, and the high cost of real estate and construction make it challenging to build new housing units quickly enough to meet the demands of a growing population. Furthermore, adaptable housing offers a cost-effective solution for addressing changes in housing demand over time. The cost of modifying existing housing units is often less than building new ones, making adaptable housing a more sustainable and economical option.

Another key benefit of adaptable housing is the sense of security and comfort it provides to residents. Residents can feel confident that their homes will be able to accommodate their changing needs as they grow older or when their living conditions change. This is particularly important for elderly residents, who may have or develop mobility or health issues that require them to live in homes that are specifically designed for their needs. By providing adaptable housing, developers and providers can ensure that a supply of suitable accommodation is available to meet the needs of this growing part of the population.

When it comes to designing adaptable housing, there are some key considerations. Firstly, the design of the housing unit must be flexible enough to allow for easy modification. This typically involves using modular construction techniques, allowing individual elements of the housing unit to be easily replaced or reconfigured. Secondly, the design must take into account the unique needs of the target audience. For example, when designing student housing, the unit should be able to accommodate multiple occupants and provide space for studying and socializing. When designing elderly-suitable housing, on the other hand, the design must take into account the mobility and accessibility needs of the residents.

Conclusion

In conclusion, adaptable housing offers a solution to some of the housing challenges faced by the Netherlands, both now and in the future. By providing flexible, modular living spaces that can be easily modified to meet the changing needs of residents over time, adaptable housing can help to address the shortage of student housing and meet the growing demand for elderly-suitable housing. With its cost-effectiveness, versatility, and potential to meet the needs of different groups, adaptable housing is a promising solution to the housing challenges faced by the Netherlands, but also in other countries.

This article is published in the booklet of the Geo Promotion Conference 2023, themed “0 to 100: Solving multi-generational spatial needs”

The Community in Times of Need  

The Mexican Fisherman’s Simple and Satisfied Life

Once upon a time, an American businessman was on vacation in a seaside village in Mexico. There he met a fisherman docking his boat after a catch. Impressed with the fish’s quantity, the American asked the Mexican how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “only a little while.” The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish. The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife and stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.”

The American scoffed. “I have an MBA from Harvard, and can help you,” he said. “You should spend more time fishing and buy a bigger boat with the proceeds. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, and eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middle-man, you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening up your own cannery. You could control the product, processing, and distribution,” he said. “Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles, and eventually to New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”  

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?” The American replied, “Oh, 15 to 20 years or so.” “But what then?” asked the Mexican. The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time was right, you would announce an IPO, and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions!” “Millions – then what?” The American said, “Then you could retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you could sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your community.”

This parable gracefully reveals to us the basic needs for a full and happy life: livelihood security, having a family, friends, pastimes and, in general, belonging to a community. It also exposes the pitfalls of rat-racing wealth hoarding, being similar in wisdom to the Biblical Parable of the Rich Fool which warns of greed because “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:16-21). As the fisherman told the businessman, he works enough so as to “support his family’s immediate needs”. Now do not take this literally as an indictment against owning a business, but ponder about how the fisherman was happy living in the moment –carpe diem in Latin- and fulfilled his family’s multigenerational needs.

The Concept of “Gemeinschaft” and Its Importance in Urbanism

One concept of urbanism present in our little story was that of “gemeinschaft” or community. This implies proximity and a concrete geographical setting such as that seaside village, but it also provides routine and familiarity to the human life. But modernity, especially since the widespread urbanization, has bred a new kind of alienation or solitude of the city dweller. Alvin Toffler described in his 1980 book “The Third Wave” how the industrial revolution ended living in the same household with your extended family.

Immigration historian Oscar Handlin portrayed in “Uprooted” (1950) the archetype of immigrants as peasants guided by religious convictions with no familiarity with wage work or urban settings. Further still, University of Chicago sociologist Louis Wirth studied the psyche of big city residents in “Urbanism as a Way of Life” (1938), arguing that three characteristics of cities lead to a peculiar “urban personality”: large population sizes, social heterogeneity and population density.

However, others have argued that there is no universal “urban way of life”; instead, ethnicity plays a more important cultural role. Sociologists Herbert Gans in the “The Urban Villagers” (1965) and William F. Whyte in “Street Corner Society” (1943) believed that people tend to maintain their pre-existing cultures and personalities. Places like Little Italy in New York or North End in Boston fulfilled “an important but unrecognized function in the city by providing a stable community for newcomers from different parts of the world and for people with low incomes.” We can see how ethnic neighborhoods were a lifeline for multigenerational needs.

eighborhoods were a lifeline for multigenerational needs.

From top left corner: futurist Alvin Toffler (1928-2016), author of “The Third Wave” (1980); immigration historian Oscar Handlin (1915-2011), author of “Uprooted” (1950); sociologist Louis Wirth (1897-1952), author of “Urbanism as a Way of Life” (1938); sociologist Herbert Gans (1927-), author of “The Urban Villagers” (1965); and ethnographer William F. Whyte (1914-2000), author of “Street Corner Society” (1943)

What about contemporary immigrants and foreign ethnics who settle in a new country and city? How can these people fulfill their multi-generational gemeinschaft needs? In the 2021 Québécan short film “Ousmane”, a home-sick francophone immigrant from the West-African country of Burkina Faso is likened to an elderly woman with dementia who was tragically abandoned by her daughter. The film’s director, an immigrant himself, thus tried to portray the mutual feeling of invisibility that these groups of people bear and to advertise their need of a caring community above all else, rather than contentious state welfare. The deep humanity resonating from this story can guide our understanding of the importance of “gemeinschaft”.

Capture from the short-film “OUSMANE” (2021) by Jorge Camarotti – “Feeling uprooted and looking for a purpose, Ousmane, a newly arrived Burkinabé immigrant living in Montreal, has his life take a turn when he meets an elderly, disoriented lady, Edith, at the end of a long workday. After learning about Edith’s terrible living conditions, but not fully understanding what the task entail, he naively decides to take on the role of her caregiver as if she was his own mother.” 

Our western cities, increasingly aging and multicultural, will need to adapt to new demographics. Moving forward, a key multi-generational spatial need lies in a revitalized neighborhood which can emulate a non-material, community-based living. It will be the task of planners to imagine the future which will take care of everyone’s multigenerational spatial needs, be them young or old, immigrant or native.

This article is published in the booklet of the Geo Promotion Conference 2023, themed “0 to 100: Solving multi-generational spatial needs”

What an Architecture Summer School Taught Me about Spatial Planning and Design

For two weeks in July 2022, the Faculty of Construction, Cadaster and Architecture of the University of Oradea in Romania organised an open-entry summer school intended to be a student ideas laboratory regarding the rehabilitation of the city’s university campus. Here is how it went and what participating in such an educational event taught me about architecture and spatial planning.

Read until the end to find out more about similar, multidisciplinary summer schools which will be organized by the University of Groningen (RUG) and our Faculty of Spatial Sciences (FSS) here in the Netherlands, in the summer months of 2023 ! 

At the end of every academic year, students of architecture are required to assist in a real life construction project of their choice for about two weeks, this obligation being called the “practical assignment” – or simply “the practice”. The idea is to accommodate the future architects with the work place environment and to afford them the chance to comprehensively apply their various skills hands-on onto a specific site. 

What was this summer school about?

In 2022, the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Oradea prepared a more special kind of summer time practice when it announced the first edition of a so-called summer school, wherein both students and professors from different fields and specialties of the built environment would work together to propose solutions and modernisation plans for the old university campus. The University sponsored the accommodation and meals of participants from outside the city, as well as a one-day trip to the nearby city of Debrecen in Hungary. In total, about 40 students and professors participated, numbering among them: architecture and civil engineering students from Oradea and Cluj-Napoca, landscape architecture students from Sapientia University in Târgu Mureș, as well as high school students in the architecture track from Satu Mare. Because I am studying spatial sciences at the RUG, my curiosity pushed me to enroll and take a closer look at how architecture students learn, think and work. For me, this close-up experience was the equivalent of a bachelor’s open day, but instead it lasted 12 days!

Group photo: students and professors of the 2022 architecture summer school of the University of Oradea, in Romania, while visiting the neighboring University of Debrecen campus in Hungary (left) & Dr. arh. Guttmann Szabolcs István, coordinator of this architecture summer school, explaining to the students the university campus’ history and geography (right)

On the very first Monday morning, the summer school participants gathered inside the university library’s conference room, which would act both as a lecture hall and a design atelier. The school’s main coordinator, dr. arh. Guttmann Szabolcs István proceeded to address us. He said that “we architects”, unlike in most other jobs, “ought to love learning about and caring for the spaces surrounding us”, especially with the historical heritage which embodies architectural values and classical beauty (his sayings reminded me of our Faculty of Spatial Science’s own motto of “let’s make places better together”). Therefore in these two weeks, we would struggle to understand, measure, photograph, draw and finally rehabilitate the old University of Oradea’s campus, in order to make it attractive and more accessible to students, professors and the larger public. The final result would consist of several large posters to be printed and publicly showcased in the city center  for everyone to see. Kudos to the professors for trusting their students to not disappoint them! 

Students discuss a sketch glued on top of a topographic map of the university campus (left). The professor joins the students in sketching and debating how should the campus look like (right)

Rehabilitating the Campus of the University of Oradea

After the introduction speech, we proceeded to tour the university campus* and listen about its history, as we explored the tree-lined alleys, the ornate facades, as well as the inside foyers, staircases and classrooms of the buildings. The academic nucleus is made of a set of 4 buildings displayed around a circular square and erected between 1906-1913 in the Jugendstil style by architects from Budapest, brothers József and László Vágó. However, this whole compound was originally designed to be an army training school – complete with dormitories, bathhouses and horse stables – until 1963, when it renounced its military function in favor of civil higher education. During that transformative socialist era, the campus was extended with new student dormitories, a cafeteria, and new sport fields like football, tennis and athletics. Since the era of democracy, the campus received a wooden Orthodox church, a library, a music conservatory, a new sports hall and some new dormitories. While the greatest investments in infrastructure extensions were announced in a new master plan in 2019, the summer school participants were nevertheless asked to imagine their version of a rehabilitated campus.

*To compare university campus architectures and the student housing situation in different countries like the Netherlands, Ireland, UK and Romania, read this previous Girugten article: https://www.girugten.nl/student-housing-around-the-world-perspectives-and-solutions-for-groningen/ 

The last activity of day one was to list, explain and assign the design themes conceived by the organising professors. Basically, this large and complex campus was divided into smaller sections, reasonable to manage for individual teams made up of ±6 students and an assisting professor. Students got to choose their preferred theme and the teams were formed that same day. In the beginning, the bucket list had 12 points of interest, but some of them were very interconnected, so in the end, they were lumped together into 6 different design themes (see pictures of the final posters* below).

* To see a higher definition version of each poster, click this link. https://arhicon.uoradea.ro/ro/evenimente/universitatea-de-vara/ 

  1. Ideas for transforming the northern entrance gate of the campus into a FORUM STAGE (open-space square). 
  2. Surveying the previous GUARD’S HOUSE and transforming it into a tourist INFOPOINT.
  3. Ideas for the JUNCTION between the North-South public road (to be turned pedestrian in the future) and the (future) East-West grass lawn.
  1. Rehabilitation of the original CENTRAL SQUARE from 1912.
  2. Surveying and rehabilitation of the dilapidated GENERAL’S HOUSE into a     coffee shop.
  3. Ideas for an abstract SCULPTURE and for a new square surrounding the campus LIBRARY.

The objective I opted for was related more to urbanism and landscaping – the space between the buildings – and my team included freshmen and sophomore students. In turn, the more experienced 3rd or 4th year students were assigned a more technical task, to 3D scan* an abandoned residential house and imagine it as a café, and refurbish the guard’s house into a tourist info point (These design ideas remind me of “Power of Design”, a first year course from SPD, wherein we had 2 similar fieldwork assignments, in which students proposed optimal facilities for underserved, but promising places). 

*The process of measuring the lengths and widths of all the chambers, staircases, windows and doors of a house, then inserting this info into a computer model, is called SURVEYING. You can also read about the technology of 3D scanning and indoor mapping of buildings in one of Girugten’s articles: https://www.girugten.nl/black-box-mapping-indoor-environments/ 

The daily schedule was quite standardised and consisted of a working period from 9:00 to 17:00 (which included discussing, sketching, ideating, but also on-site measuring, 3D scanning, computer modeling etc.) with a breakfast and lunch break at 10:00 and 13:00. In most days, either during the atelier hours or between 18:00-19:50, we were invited to learn about architecture good-practices in lectures given by the architecture professors from Oradea or by guests from Cluj, Timișoara, Tîrgu Mureș and even from Budapest! In the evenings without lectures, we visited museums and other tourist attractions of the old town, while one day we were even invited to the city hall. On Saturday, we visited the city of Debrecen in Hungary, where we examined the impressive Debrecen University campus. Their on-campus multiconfessional church had a tower which resembled that of Stanford University’s campus in the US – Google it! Our Hungarian architect guides were, in fact, the designers of a modern medicine faculty building inside the campus, and everyone was impressed with the high quality of the learning environment. It challenges the campus of the RUG in Groningen, too! Speaking of Dutch architecture, in one informal evening of this summer school, students and professors had lots of laughs while watching the hilarious movie “Koolhaas Houselife” – a documentary about the struggle of being a housekeeper in a modernist house designed by architect Rem Koolhaas in Bordeaux. I recommend architecture enthusiasts watch it too!

The University Library hosted the summer school design studio, as well as several architecture posters from previous years, for inspiration purposes (left). Participating students visit in the picturesque old town of Oradea with their professors, after a long day of work in the design atelier (right)

Thoughts and Comparison between a Spatial Planner’s and an Architect’s Craft

The very nature of architecture – be it regular or of the landscape – makes it different from spatial planning (which – fun fact – has its origins in the subject of geography rather than in the former), because they work at different scales in space. This dialectic can be compared with two courses from the bachelor of Spatial Planning and Design (SPD), my programme at the FSS in Groningen. While the course Spatial Design Atelier (SDA) focuses on the regional scale of metropolitan areas, the  Urbanism Atelier (UA) course deals with smaller urban land plots. So, too, architecture work is concerned in great detail with buildings occupying a well-defined land plot, while spatial planning mostly relates to the zoning and regulation of large amounts of surfaces. Nonetheless, what both architecture and spatial planning have in common is the design component.

Throughout this summer university, similar to the SPD design courses, it was possible to distinguish a “design cycle”: the comprehensive process regarding the work of architects and spatial planners alike, which runs from analysing the beginning problem statement, to ideating, debating and settling on the most promising design, and finally to crafting the finite design project and presentation posters. The beginning design phase for us participants in this summer school was very fuzzy. At least I myself had troubles understanding where the professors were hinting at with their sketches, as in what objects would be reasonable to keep and restore, or rather remove altogether within my design theme of modernising a public square (tiny communication flaws…). However, in the end, my pragmatic architecture student friends settled on a design and hurried up in the last three days to finish the computer models and assemble the final posters. After all, they are the ones being graded here.

In the studio where we improvised a design atelier, we all received several tools such as measuring roulettes and drawing materials to work with, including topographical maps of the campus and tracing paper to sketch our design solutions. Coupled with many back-and-forth site visits (which was easy to do, since the library itself was located in the campus) and guidelines from practicing architects or landscape students, we gradually, albeit slowly, got to understand what we were dealing with, what was missing and what original solutions could we implement. During all this time, I remembered the guiding principle that I learned from the design courses at our FSS faculty, namely “what-goes-where-and-why?”. In this regard, my colleagues who study architecture or landscaping were more technical on the visual aesthetics of their proposed plans and gave clear details in the type of pavement, or benches or trees and bushes they proposed.

The most obvious difference between spatial planners and architects may be the fact that architecture students can draw professionally. For instance, by only using crayons and liner pens, they can draw a technical blueprint of a wrought iron fence. In effect, enrolling into an architecture faculty practically requires students to have learned beforehand how to draw geometry and 3d space perspective. But one freshman student revealed to me that he had to master the art of perspective drawing all by himself, and he was preparing early to learn computer modeling alone too, but that is just how things go in most architecture schools. Learning by doing. To an extent, SPD students use pen(cils) and paper too when we sketch on tracing paper, but we do not need to bother about exact contours or emulating the reality as in a photography.

Architecture student sketch depicting the library, dormitories and the wooden church: perpendicular (left) and oblique P.O.V. (middle) + For comparison,  perspective drawing of “Veendam, circa 1873” in the Netherlands, sketched on a whiteboard by a RUG SPD student during a spatial design atelier (right)

An architecture student’s drawing depicting the University of Oradea’s main entrance gate and fence. Achieved with liner pens, crayons and various rulers.

Regarding computer software used, architects have various programmes for different stages of their project: the laborious 3D modeling is done in either ArchiCAD or AutoCAD (CAD=Computer Aided Design), but SketchUp is also a common tool for simple 3D building models. Then, they might use the Lumion app to achieve nice renderings with natural day or dusk light. Finally, they all use the Adobe arsenal to edit their posters. In this regard, SPD and architecture require similar digital skills. We both use InDesign or Illustrator, but architects focus more on Photoshop, for instance, to add smiling people walking on the streets they just designed. Architects are taught well how to highlight and sell their projects.

Architecture students in the design atelier, drawing and sketching on paper (right), doing 3d computer models of buildings on the ArchiCAD software program (left) and lastly making visuals in Photoshop and the final posters layout in InDesign (middle)

This architecture summer school ended on the second week’s Friday morning when, after the 2-meters-tall printed posters were placed in front of each 6 design objectives throughout the campus, the participating students provided a open-air, walking tour presentation to the Rector of the University. He awarded us not only accolades and a diploma, but also support towards the architecture students’ direct involvement in the campus modernisation process. It was also announced that future editions of this multidisciplinary event would be organised in the next years.

In conclusion, by participating in extracurricular events such as a summer university, I observed not only the tense working environment and the requisite technical skills of architecture, but I got to meet many awesome people, enjoy fun times and laughter, explore new places and make lifetime memories. Perhaps the RUG’s Faculty of Spatial Sciences could organise its own kind of summer school in Groningen, a sort of design atelier, either for outsiders or for students to learn from practicing architects. Because deep inside, spatial planners, geographers and architects are all nerds of the built environment. 

N.B.: the University of Groningen does in fact maintain a yearly list of every summer school organized by its various faculties -> https://student.portal.rug.nl/infonet/studenten/opleidingen/meer-studiemogelijkheden/summer-winter-schools/summer-schools/sorted-by-theme/

Groningen’s summer school “Sustainable Landscapes – the Wadden Experience” will take 20 “talented bachelor, master and PhD students and professionals in the field of spatial planning, economics and business, landscape ecology and human geography” on a 5 day sailing trip  around the World Heritage Wadden Sea Region starting in August 28th 2023. “Leading experts will guide participants in lectures from different fields such as: cultural heritage, coastal tourism, landscape stewardship, regional food production and sustainable entrepreneurship”; so as to help students resolve the conflicts between economic activities like fishing and tourism with the “utter stillness” of nature.Upon successful completion of the program, the Summer School offers a Certificate of Attendance that mentions the workload of 84 hours (3 ECTS; 28 hours corresponds to 1 ECTS).

The design challenge “Save the Fochteloerveen” 2023 will take place in a village next to a 2,500 hectare heath nature reserve on the border of the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Drenthe. For 3 days between June 25-27, five teams of 3 students each will analyze the nitrogen fertilizer pollution problem in light of both agriculture, the local farmer’s livelihoods, as well as nature conservation urgency. Being hosted by design professor Terry van Dijk, this event will bring experts on hydrology, ecology, agriculture and economy and also politicians to give inspiring lectures on this very current topic. By using the what-goes-where-and-why? principle, the teams of FSS students will pitch a local spatial design to the jury of experts. While this contest promises to be an unforgettable experience, it is outside of the University’s official summer schools programme, therefore no ECTS are given at the end. For comparison, the summer school in Oradea used the “stick method” and compelled architecture students to deliver a good poster for their mandatory practice assignment, but this optional design challenge employs the “carrot method” by rewarding the team with the best design proposal with €500! A great call for arms, but not as important as the goal of making places better together.  

Reclaiming Food Deserts

Food is still a basic human need; there has not been any discussion regarding that in the last five years opposing that view. Food and an ability to consistently access nutrition are fundamental, as it supports individual growth, energy levels and immune system functioning. (Stray Dog Institute, 2022) The role of food in the last five years has changed very little, but that was the expectation going into this piece. The more important aspect, one more prone to change in the last five years, may make for more exciting reading, food deserts. I use the word excitingly with caution, as the topic of Food deserts is not a laughing matter and is a significant problem for many.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines the subject as “a low-income tract where a substantial number or substantial share of residents does not have easy access to a supermarket or large grocery store” (The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2021). Despite the widespread acknowledgement that the United States is a developed market economy, with ridiculous amounts of wealth and resources within its borders, it is interesting to note that the US is often in the spotlight regarding food deserts. How can a country so powerful and wealthy on the world stage fail to provide ample opportunities for its residents to purchase nutritious food? It is staggering to realize, but nine mil­lion peo­ple have lim­it­ed access to a super­mar­ket or gro­cery store in the United States. The Annie E. Casey Foundation (2021)

Food deserts are not spread out equally, either. Food deserts have a dis­pro­por­tion­ate effect on Black com­mu­ni­ties, accord­ing to a 2014 study from Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty.  (Food Empowerment Project, 2022) Studies have shown that affluent communities will contain as many as three times more supermarkets than their less affluent counterparts. Further, ‘white neighbourhoods’ contain four times as many supermarkets as predominantly black neighbourhoods. (Food Empowerment Project, 2022) On top of this, the existing grocery stores in African-American communities are usually significantly smaller and contain a much smaller selection of products, especially fresh fruits and vegetables. 

With such a significant problem faced in supposedly one of the world’s most developed countries, what is being done to solve it? That is the basis of this article; here, I will look at three approaches to tackling the food desert crisis in the United States that have been prevalent in the last five years. Essentially this can be seen as a follow-up to the “Food Deserts in US Cities: fast-food dependence in low-income areas” article published in 2017. 

Envi­ron­men­tal, pol­i­cy and indi­vid­ual fac­tors shape eat­ing habits and pat­terns

One of the most prevalent frameworks to fight food deserts is Envi­ron­men­tal, pol­i­cy and indi­vid­ual fac­tors shaping eat­ing habits and pat­terns. This can include a multitude of different factors and policies to fight, including incentivizing grocery stores through financial rewards to build in underserved areas, Furthering financial support and guidance for small businesses, partnering with local communities when choosing the appropriate approaches to fighting food insecurity and fund city-wide programs that encourage healthier eating. 

The funding and creation of programs to encourage healthier eating has been implemented in many US cities and has seen great success in the City of Minneapolis. The local government used a city-wide survey on healthy eating habits, revealing that over 94% of surveyed residents would purchase a higher rate of fresh produce, given that the “Minneapolis Health Corner Store initiative” was enacted. This initiative would require all small corner stores to stock a certain amount of fresh produce on their shelves. (The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2021) Using city-wide programs like in Minneapolis can help local government gauge the need for programs such as the Corner Store Initiative and help fight against food deserts.

Incentivizing grocery stores through financial rewards to build in underserved areas has successfully been used in California. The state government helped produce a “public-private partnership loan fund called FreshWorks works”. (Keleher, A. et al., 2016) The fund essentially provides a 200 million dollar investment pool to provide loans, support and grants to supermarkets that want to build and provide to underserved communities. Thus alleviating food insecurity in these areas. 

The Problems with Data Collection + Dollar Store Restrictions 

This may come as a surprise to many, but how the United States collects its data is potentially further exacerbating the plight of food deserts. The current data collection methods make it possible to overlook communities located in food deserts. The problem is due to how the US government’s North American Industry Classification (NAICS) categorises outlets that sell food. (Food Empowerment Project, 2022) This system is vital as it is used by all federal statistics agencies when classifying business establishments. The current system allows small corner stores to be statistically bunched together with larger supermarkets. Essentially neighbourhoods that may contain a few small convenience stores with limited fresh produce can give off the appearance of having adequate food provisions even though the products offered are minimal and often processed foods. (Food Empowerment Project, 2022)

Another policy that looks to limit the number of small convenience stores with limited produce is the implementation of “Dollar Store Restrictions”. A pilot campaign was introduced in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2018, which passed an ordinance limiting the introduction of new dollar stores in the cities North, predominantly communities with limited healthy food options. Dailee, A. (2021) To those unaware, the dollar store is your prototypical mini-mart in the United States, where you may go to pick up snacks or buy alcoholic beverages.

However, they often do not offer a range of fresh produce and meats. These stores saturate communities and, in turn, make it difficult for actual supermarkets to set up shop. Tulsa has introduced mandates restricting retail stores under 12,000 square feet from opening within a mile of an existing mini-mart. Dailee, A. (2021) The areas in which these laws were passed have already seen the benefits. Many of these communities have already attracted new grocery stores, which provide communities with much-needed food security. 

Innovative Community Solutions

Community resilience is evident in the fight against food deserts in the United States. Many innovative community initiatives have been planned and implemented to alleviate food insecurity at a time when their political leaders seem to be doing so little. Mobile markets have been seen in many underserved areas in recent years, sometimes at local transport hubs. These meals-on-wheels initiatives are popping up across the country, from California to Michigan. Dailee, A. (2021) Making fresh produce affordable is only have of the battle.

Unfortunately, many people who do not own cars cannot make the journeys to supermarkets weekly or bi-weekly. So the idea of bringing the supermarket to them is genius. Another way people have approached this is to call for improvements in the existing public transport systems. As mentioned before, if getting to a supermarket is a big problem, accessing healthy food options will always be a problem. Alongside the many other advantages, improving public transport may strike a telling blow in the fight against food deserts in the United States.

Source: Hub City Farmers Market

Conclusion

Whilst a lot has changed in the last five years, little has changed on the macro-scale regarding food deserts. Unfortunately, many people living in one of the world’s wealthiest countries cannot access enough healthy food. Yet, despite the best efforts of many community leaders and innovative policy initiatives outlined above, unless local, regional and national governments take such a pivotal issue to heart, food deserts may be here to stay. It seems almost paradoxical. This is the same country with so many flaunting their wealth and is the birthplace of overconsumption. If someone else looks at this topic in another five years from now, I hope the tone is much different. I hope the outstanding efforts and initiatives mentioned above have made a real impact in the fight to eradicate food deserts in the United States.

The Increasing Convenience of Travelling Through Europe

Over the years, road and rail connections within Europe have expanded, become faster and have been optimised to accommodate a significant increase in passenger and freight streams. Many of these constructions were part of a European Union-wide collective: the Trans-European Transport Network. The love of travel is in the blood of many geographers, but it usually still takes a lot of time. Further improvements are needed, and they are on their way.

The Trans-European Transport Network

From Scandinavia to Italy and from the Iberian Peninsula to the Balkan, the Trans-European Transport Network, or TEN-T, is a planned network of roads, railways, airports and waterways to strengthen the logistics within Europe. TEN-T is part of the overarching Trans-European Networks (TENs), which includes not only policies on transportation but also on energy and telecommunication. The TENs policy was already established over half a decade ago in 1957, with its primary target being the creation of an internal market and the reinforcement of economic and social cohesion within the European Union.

At the time of writing, there are nine key corridors on which the TEN-T is based, each one running through various countries and ranging between approximately 1.000 to 5.000 kilometres. The current most extended connection, the ‘Scandinavian–Mediterranean Corridor’ (Scan-Med Corridor), is a large north-south link through Europe, which will receive a significant update in the upcoming years.

The Scandinavian–Mediterranean Corridor

Running from Helsinki to Valetta, the Scan-Med Corridor is a key element of the web that TEN-T is for European travel. Linking the likes of Rome and Naples with Munich, Hamburg and Copenhagen, the route’s most challenging geographical obstacle is the Alpes. Still, on the northern end of the trip, the sea is a restriction with its own problematic characteristics.

Brenner Base Tunnel

Currently, the Brenner Pass is one of the most important linkages between the areas north and south of the Alpes. However, major construction works have been going on since 2007 to create the Brenner Base Tunnel, a 55-kilometre rail tunnel under the Brenner Pass, which upon its completion, scheduled in 2032, will cut the travel times between Innsbruck, Austria, on the north side of the Alpes and Bolzano, Italy on the south side, in more than half. Together with the Gotthard-Monte Ceneri axis in Switzerland and the Lyon-Turin rail connection, the Brenner Corridor will further improve the network of European high-capacity rail links.

The Trans-European Transport Network, source: European Commission

Fehmarn Belt tunnel

When travelling by car or train from mainland Europe to the picturesque Copenhagen, one has the choice between two options: take one of the ferries connecting northern Germany with the southern island of Denmark, or travel all the way west around the Fehmarn Belt, one of the many seas, belts and straights surrounding Denmark. But, the ferry takes 45 minutes, excluding waiting and boarding times, and the 500-kilometre detour will set you back even longer.

Therefore, two options were explored to establish a second direct connection between Germany and Denmark: the first one was the Gedser–Rostock bridge, an enormous 45-kilometre bridge that would enable a direct link between Berlin and Copenhagen, and which would also have been the longest bridge over a body of water in the world. However, too many obstacles stood in the way of realising this project.

The second option was a connection over, or under, the Fehmarn Belt, an 18-kilometre-wide strip of water northwest of Hamburg. Due to its unpractical busy shipping route, the north-south orientation (which is perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction), and the poor soil conditions under the 25 meters of water, a bridge, which might be the most logical option, was ruled out.

Two potential constructions remained: a bored tunnel or an immersed one. Due to price constraints, the first option was dismissed, so the plan for one of the longest immersed tube tunnels in the world was born. The new tunnel means a leap in efficiency for the traffic between Germany and Denmark, as it will accommodate both a highway and high-speed rail. The tunnel construction is currently taking place, and the tunnel itself is expected to open in 2029.

These two examples are just the tip of the iceberg concerning the continuous improvement of the Trans-European Transport Network. In the future, even more connections will be established, and existing ones will be further enhanced. This way, travelling through Europe will become even more attractive than it already is!

Sense of Scale in Seoul: What Does Public Transport Look Like For 10 Million Inhabitants?

“It is quite far though, we would have to cycle about 20 minutes” is a sentence that surprised me on my first day in Groningen. As a Berlin native, anything under 30 minutes is an easily bikeable distance and doing a 45-minute trip across town is not unheard of. On the other hand, “it’s actually close by, only 30 minutes by metro” is something many people have told me here in Seoul. Taking public transport for this amount of time is not new to me, I have relied on metros and buses in many places I have been, but somehow I feel exhausted travelling l by metro in Seoul. This stems from the sheer size of the city. I first got to experience this when I took the shuttle bus from Seoul Incheon Airport to the Seoul National University Campus upon arriving in South Korea, which took well over 2 hours. 

In the following days I made some trips to popular Seoul neighbourhoods such as Hongdae and Gangnam, which took me well over 40 minutes one way each. A few days into my stay I spent an evening in a park near Han river eating and drinking with friends – a popular activity for summer nights in Seoul – and missed the last good connection home. I had two options: either waiting over an hour for a night bus with a two-hour connection or walking for an estimated time of two hours. As my phone was about to die and I was not yet acquainted with the public transport system, I chose the latter. Another time I faced a similar situation when I arrived with a late-night train from a trip I took, but that time I was carrying luggage and rain was pouring. So I had chosen the very long bus ride, which counterintuitively first crossed the river up North to Seoul station and then returned South which eventually brought me home – about 2.5 hours later. 

Navigating Seoul’s Transit: Tips and Tricks

Generally, the public transport situation in Seoul is reliable and affordable. The metro network is reasonably sized with good explanations for your connections and a wide variety of buses that can bring you across the whole city. Usually, you never have to spend more than 1500 KRW for a ride, which is about 1 Euro. The big downside is that the metro and buses only operate between 5:30 and midnight, with most trains and buses planned to arrive at their final stop at midnight, meaning the last ones leave their origin between 23:00 and 23:30. As a student living south of the river that gives you three options about night life: stay at home or in your neighbourhood, embark on the odyssey that is the Seoul night buses, or commit to a full night out from the get-go and hop on the first train in the morning.

The first option limits you to small bars, the second option has you home by the time the first train would have brought you in but with less fun, and just as the last option you are missing out on a good night’s sleep. When comparing the operation hours to other major cities I have been in, I have to say I think that the lower frequency of certain trains throughout the night like in Berlin is my preferred option. Close second and third preference would be the New York Metro and the London Tube, which offer longer operating hours than in Seoul. I think this is a good compromise of having fewer drivers on night shift, while allowing other shift workers, from healthcare, convenience stores, security, etc to have a fast and efficient commute home. 

On the other hand, I have to admit that the various facilities surrounding public transport are way more convenient than anywhere I have been before. Every single metro stop has a public toilet. The stalls are usually clean and always have toilet paper. The signage in the stations makes it easy to follow the direction of the train, as it shows both the final destination and the next stop. The exits of the metro stations are numbered, which I think is just perfect, so you can meet up with friends at exit 9 or follow your app navigation to a shop by taking the closest exit, say, number 3, to continue on your route. That is not all: the doors of the trains, or rather the doors of the barrier separating platform and tracks are also numbered. This makes it easy to get on the same carriage as someone you are meeting with, or get a fast transfer by getting off exactly at the right staircase. All this is especially impressive knowing that the public transport system by metro is rather young with about 50 years. 

Seoul’s metro system

The Scope of Seoul’s Public Transport System

The size of Seoul was especially apparent when I took a plane from Gimpo Airport Seoul, which is more centrally located l than the coastal Incheon – which I recently learned is not even in Seoul. The orb shaped glow of Seoul in the dark from all the street lights, cars, and windows was impressive. The hectic pace of Seoul was in stark contrast to the low hum of Jeju-City when I landed. Usually New York is known as the city that never sleeps, but I propose Seoul for that title. You have convenience stores open 24/7, there are always people up and walking around on the way to who knows where, the buses are always packed. With a population of 10 million people you will surely find someone who’s up and leading their daily lives. 

It is rather curious if we compare the geographic size of the cities mentioned above to Seoul. Groningen is expectedly way smaller than Seoul, but Berlin seems to be similar in size, and both London and New York are way bigger. Why is it then that Seoul feels so much bigger? Maybe it is the never-ending rows of high rise buildings. Maybe it is that the cities surrounding Seoul just started to merge into this ever buzzing metropolis. Maybe it just because the Han river makes it feel so much bigger, when you look at the skyline on the other side. The human perception is just interesting to me. In Seoul I willingly walk about 25 minutes to campus, when I would seldomly do so in Groningen or Berlin. Who knows, maybe I will try to walk to Zernike once I finish my exchange, because Groningen will feel just so small to me.

Spirit In Society

Where would you go if you wanted to share a spiritual connection with another? In the global West religion and spirituality, as a traditional element of society, has given way to the ‘illumination’ brought forth by the enlightenment and the secularism which followed. But it is not exactly the same in most of the rest of the world. Although the negative sides of spirituality and religion are often emphasized in the West, think of the innate prejudice we are often shown towards the Muslim faith, there are many benefits in preserving traditions and cultures which enable people to share deep meaningful experiences with one another.

In Japan one never feels far from the realm of the spirit. Despite the techno-centric image many Westerners share of Japan the country has a rich and diverse spiritual background. At the base of every skyscraper in Tokyo, one will surely find a humble family shrine, or an inconspicuous Tori gate (found in picture 1) marking where the kami (local gods) once walked. The subtle nature of these traditions mirrors the value spirituality can have in creating a common foundation for people to share.

Despite the praise for secular society which many Westerners hold so dear, thousands if not hundreds of thousands of so-called atheists flock to sacred sites worldwide under the disguise of tourists. Why is this? Could it be that the hundreds of years of worship at these sites have somehow transformed the local atmosphere? It certainly feels like that in some locations. At times it even feels like stepping into another world, not just back through time but, into a different kind of space.

(Picture 1: Tori gate and mountain shrine – author’s own work)

The value of traditions in promoting shared experiences

Spirituality of some kind is found at the root of most civilizations, be it the Greek pantheons, the founders of our own modern civilization, or the array of Hindu deities that still hold sway over many peoples. These traditions, understood not as idiotic misinterpretations by primitive people, but rather as a rich cultural foundation upon which shared, meaning and fellowship could thrive seem to be one of the things missing from contemporary Western societies. Perhaps these traditions should not be taken so literally, but rather understood as a basis on which deep meaningful human interaction can flourish. Everything has its shadow, and the shadows of gods are by no means small. Terrible things have been done in the name of religion and spirituality, this is true, yet terrible things have been done for many other reasons too. The renowned historian of religion Mircea Eliade once said: “The crises of modern man are to a large extent religious ones, insofar as they are an awakening of his awareness to an absence of meaning”.


The dialectical nature of the search for our spirit can be seen in the modern resurgence of spirituality in the younger generations of many Western societies. As can be seen in the abandonment of religious traditions in the youth of many traditionally religious societies in search of freer ways to live. Few places are better to see this dialectic than in the contemporary history of Iran. Real or not the spirits walk with us, as a metaphor alluding to the debt we owe the people who came before us, or, sometimes, more literally when we walk through a forest near sundown and a fog rolls in.

(Picture 2: forest trail through the mountains of Kyoto, Japan – author’s own work)

Promoting Bicycles Like The Dutch

Choosing to travel by bicycle is rewarding both at individual and societal levels. Physical exercise contributes to the cyclist’s health, focus, workplace productivity and social interactions while eliminating the travel cost of fuel and the associated air pollution. Most importantly, bicycles require only a tiny fraction of the space needed for the use and parking of cars and they reduce aggregate traffic congestion, thus saving valuable collective time.

The Netherlands has the highest modal share of bicycle trips in the world and it is not because the Dutch don’t afford other modes of transportation. In the culture of Pays-Bas, cycling is viewed as a convenient and practical way to get around. The trip’s purpose is not mainly for recreation, but for ordinary commuting to work, school and shopping. And unlike in many countries where urban commuting between the daunting traffic is limited to adult males, in the Netherlands bicycle use is surprisingly inclusive: all ages, genders, economic groups are equally represented on the same streets.

The explanation of cycling’s popularity in the Netherlands lies in a mix of policies, education, infrastructure and land-use aspects which analysed separately may seem unrelated, but which together join forces to prioritise walking, cycling (slow modes) or public transportation (be it buses or rail-based). Here’s the story of how the present came to be and how other cities can follow the lead.

Changing Narratives in Land-Use and Transportation Planning 

Our faculty’s Bachelor of Spatial Planning and Design features the course Mobility and Infrastructure Planning (MIP), which is centered around the “Land-Use Transport Feedback Cycle”. The transport system deals with infrastructure provision (new or larger roads, bridges, tunnels etc.), technological innovations (subways, trolleybuses, electric buses fleets etc.) and general mobility policy (local travel demand computer models, frequency and schedules of public transport etc.). Spatial planning of land-use tinkers with building regulations (zoning of functions, height limits, green and open space minimums etc.), for example to pursue Transit Oriented Development (TOD) through inner-city regeneration schemes close to existing public transport corridors. This conceptual framework states that transportation is only a derived demand with no intrinsic use, but instead its value springs from the need or activity one wishes to perform. Therefore we seek to minimise costs and externalities such as fuel, energy, effort, time and distance, and an urban cycling culture can solve these criteria. But while the goal of both transportation engineers and spatial planners is accessibility to people and places, the ways these two professions approach this can be contradicting.

Historically, transportation engineers have been accused of having a bias towards cars when dealing with traffic congestion. That is to say, their solution was traditionally to build more roads for cars, like when Utrecht drained its old town moat in 1973 to construct a 6-lane motorway. This expansionist modus operandi may not only be costly and unnecessary, it may in effect incentivise further car travel in the population by syphoning off former cyclists or public transport users – the so-called “induced demand” effect. In this regard, technological innovation and spatial growth in the West after WW2 witnessed several self-reinforcing developments detailed in the diagram above/below; a vicious circle of sorts, characterised by ever-faster cars dominating public space, horizontal urban sprawl and the decline of public transport and slow transportation modes. Reversely, we can identify mirroring counter-strategies and policies that reverse the car-centric trends in our cities, so as to re-accommodate pedestrians, cyclists, public transport and vertical densification of cities. Concrete measures are to reduce traffic speed and street capacity, to pedestrianise, remove surface parking, lay out dedicated bus lanes or light-rail, perhaps accompanied by TOD housing, and, for the purpose of this article, make cycle lanes separated from traffic.

Fortunately, the history of city mobility reveals both path dependencies, as well as drastic turning points. In the beginning, people happily (sic) made use of a street’s entire width, being bothered only by horse-drawn carriages. Then, ever since the 1880s, electric trams and underground subways were introduced worldwide, revolutionising public transport in an inclusive way. Soon, the dawn of the Ford Model-T in 1908 heralded the personal automobile era, which first spawned highways in the countryside, but not too long afterwards targeted the old city centers for fast vehicle throughput. This was the case in the Netherlands too, where Amsterdam barely escaped a North American-style downtown highway (see Plan Jokinen, 1967). By this time, cars were becoming widespread and so were Dutch cyclist casualties, particularly among children. Then, a global oil crisis was the shock event required for a critical mass to demand change. In 1973, there were ample grassroots street demonstrations in the whole country called “Stop de Kindermoord” or “Stop the child murders!”, which constituted a watershed in Dutch transportation planning. This was the beginning of people reclaiming their streets by pushing back on cars and reviving cycling.

“Accessibility of destinations are crucial when choosing your daily mode of transportation”

How to Make Cycling Irresistible 

Valuable insights can be taken from the 2022 Deutsche Welle documentary “Cities for people”, which, curiously, showcases Groningen as a pioneer in transportation policies and an inspiration for big European metropolises like Paris and Barcelona. One professor of cycling and urban mobility futures interviewed here has said that “the best time to reclaim our streets was yesterday, but the second best time is today”. So how exactly do city planners or interested citizens proceed in bringing about bicycle infrastructure?

One of Groningen’s alderman responsible for spatial development gave us a tip in communication theory. Don’t begin your mobility reformation conversation in a combative, self-righteous rhetoric, but rather ask the car users:” What kind of streets do you want?” When you start with that question, your interlocutor will be more open to change. Another French architect featured in the DW documentary advised to tackle the problem scientifically and not ideologically: “We don’t want to pit car users against cyclists and pedestrians, instead we want to be very methodological.” Fortunately, two professors of spatial planning from the US, John Pucher and Ralph Buehler, already did the fieldwork research for us. In their 2008 academic paper “Making Cycling Irresistible: Lessons from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany” (2008), the two set out to categorise key policies and innovative measures used in Dutch, Danish and German cities to promote safe and convenient cycling. Here is the gist of it.

In principle, the most essential aspect of making safe cycling possible and popular is the provision of dedicated bicycle lanes, which do not make the cyclist share road space with neither dangerous cars nor with unwitting pedestrians on the sidewalk. The lane quality is enhanced by a raised track, green buffers and red-coloured asphalt. Well synchronised traffic lights (or none whatsoever like in Alexanderplein, Amsterdam), protected intersections and visible markings are also indispensable. But the arrival of this critical infrastructure more often than not requires claiming the space of something else: either a traffic lane, car parkings or a sidewalk segment or maybe even greenspace. Luckily, the streets of planned neighbourhoods not only in the Netherlands are wide and there is room to accommodate bicycles previously not considered – think of Zonnenlaan or Paterswoldseweg in Groningen.

A pertinent observation: for the majority of the population to adopt cycling, a city needs its bicycle lane network to have widespread coverage (it can take you from one city corner to another) and continuity (no gaps or dead-ends). However, it is impractical and unnecessary to create cycle lanes on every small street in your city to achieve good connectivity. It is enough to “tame the back streets”. When cycling in Groningen, you may have experienced that on secondary streets, the crossings are elevated at sidewalk level, that red-brick speed bumps are cleverly camouflaged in the middle of the street or that a small fluorescent “Victor Veilig” dummy is telling you to slow down. Zooming out to all street sizes, one basic traffic regulation used in the Netherlands is the white triangle paintings which signify “yield”. According to the Dutch Cycling Embassy, “«Shark’s Teeth» road markings are the unsung heroes of Dutch street design, indicating in a clear manner which users must «give way».” Another kind of symbology, used in the US especially, is a bicycle and arrow painted on the street, which may be accompanied by a sign on which is written “Share the road”. Hence the name “sharrows”, also known as shared-lane pavement marking – one ladder rung below the Dutch “fietsstraat” concept, where the cars are seen as guests.

Hypothetically, even if a city were miraculously furnished with all the materialistic bicycle infrastructure and traffic calming measures it needs, chances are the share of trips by bicycle mode would not skyrocket overnight. To catalyse this urban mobility revolution, behavioural policy instruments need to be employed. Do awareness campaigns, meetings, flyers, online advertisements and influencer promotion. Create websites with city-wide maps and a FAQ section. If needed, amend the law and the education curriculum in driving schools. Train school children to cycle prudently under supervision of traffic police. Perhaps impose a theoretical and practical cycling test for children aged 10-12, like the Dutch “verkeersexam”. It takes time and some pioneers for a cycling culture to form in cities without this tradition. A welcomed research finding is that once the trend has started in a city, cyclist numbers grow fast and exponentially. And so does safety.

Pucher & Buehler went on to identify some last pro-cycling measures that “make cycling irresistible”: extensive bicycle parking racks (on streets and in special garages), easily accessible rented bikes (see the Netherland’s single nationwide bike sharing program ‘OV-Fiets’) or coordination with public transport (trains and buses). In the end, there do exist objective reasons of why people may not be drawn to cycling, including sweltering or frosty weather, hilly topography (cities such as Stuttgart, Bristol or Cluj-Napoca) or fear for one’s very security (either due to dangerous men or traffic). But the above recipe for success must first be given a chance.

In conclusion, the sustainable future of urban mobility looks very Dutch. Cities which prioritise public transport, pedestrians and cyclists will be rewarded both on a societal and individual level. One only needs to advocate for the tried-and-true method of dedicated bicycle infrastructure to have cycling seem so irresistible. Because if you build it, they will come.

The Dutch Energy Valley

The States are considered the land of the great, though the way to express greatness in the Netherlands lies not in size but in significance. Everybody has at least once heard of Silicon Valley. Likewise, the Dutch Energy Valley can be found in our very own Northern Netherlands, ironically in some of the arguably flattest areas of all: in the provinces of Drenthe, Friesland, Groningen, and the northern part of Noord-Holland. Again, like size, height differences do not count towards the great. As is the case for its American sibling, the region forms a strong concentration of energy production, industry, and knowledge. With both large-scale generation and storage of energy, the Dutch Energy Valley forms a central roundabout in the European gas and electricity grid. 

The Northern Netherlands appear to be a driving factor for the formation of the Energy Valley. Considering the favourable location near the ports on the North Sea coast and its infrastructure the region is a flourishing part of the (North-)European energy market. Even more important than simply infrastructure networks is the concentration of knowledge and the efforts of professionals and students contributing to innovate the market, with the Northern Netherlands as a living lab. 

The Energy Valley’s knowledge network is also known as the New Energy Coalition. The coalition operates on the corporate level as well as in several interregional projects around the North Sea. It forms a network of knowledge and government institutions, businesses, and NGOs working together to accelerate the energy transition for a sustainable future. Such an environment offers the opportunity to partner up on targeted development projects. As a result, rather convenient preconditions to accelerate the energy transition are set out.

A particular type of research conducted in the Energy Valley pertains to the integration of new energy systems. The transformed energy system aims for more decentralised energy generators, more diversity in supply, and energy behaviour. This means the requirements for energy generation are becoming increasingly complex. Solutions may come as practical solutions like green gas, hydrogen energy, and heat pumps, or policy-wise like district heating and the reuse of existing infrastructural networks. Over the course of the energy transition, existing extraction and purification installations can prove valuable for the storage and transportation of ‘new’ energy. 

More than that, the Northern Netherlands appears beneficial in the transition as a living lab with the opportunity to discover energy in rural and urban areas, both covering their specific characteristics and challenges. To illustrate, the urban involves many actors and requires a systemic approach, whereas the rural often involves specific and adaptive needs per single farm. 

Then, back to greatness. What is actually great, is that you, as a student and citizen, will be taking part in this living lab. What actually is great, is that the greater Groningen area is where knowledge and practice will collide. And, perhaps, the Groningen area is where you will transform the future.