Dutch New Worlds

In the late 1980s, the Dutch planning and design elite went to unprecedented lengths to convince the public of their ideas. But the quest to reshape the Netherlands as a whole failed dismally. Their attempt, however, unleashed a wave of new thinking about the future and created an enormous number of spectacular images of things to come. Dutch New Worlds tells the story of how scenario thinking changed urbanism and physical planning, from its beginning in the late 1960s to its height in the 1990s. It shows how most of the 'grand scenario' projects came to nothing because of overambition and misuse; it also shows how, today, scenarios remain powerful tools for focused and transparent design research to create better cities and regions. Told from the perspective of an architect and an urbanist, this history of ideas holds fundamental lessons for planners, designers and policy makers.