Curiosity about a planning system without any apparent shortage of space made me decide to discover Australia.

And, after arriving in your country, I was struck almost immediately by the passionate level of debate about the quality of the urban environment.

I have yet to discover whether that debate is exclusive to academic circles and the incrowd of professionals, or whether it is generated by a manifest public feeling of discontent with the current way things are done.

It seems to me it’s mostly the first.

I think I can find a confirmation of that observation in reading the excellent report from the ’94 Taskforce for Urban Design, established by the NSW Prime Minister of that time:

The question is one that relates to the responsibility for the way cities look now and it seems as if that is the responsibility of engineers, planners, building surveyors, lawyers and other professionals.

But seriously, I cannot believe that. When these people, individually or as an organisation do not fulfil their tasks properly, i.e. do not satisfy public expectations, they can simply be replaced.

Planning is the result of a cultural awareness within society, what I call the public attitude. Of course, technicians like me are useful for converting ideas and needs in plans and procedures, but technicians can never be anything other than skilled guides; interpreters of what is expressed by society.

But whether we - as professionals - like it or not, planning is ultimately a political responsibility. Those who are politically responsible, chosen by the people to perform public duties cannot hide behind the somewhat arrogant backs of professionals: researchers, engineers, designers and lawyers. And those professionals, asked to work in planning, in the development of our built and the unbuilt living environment, need to be conscious that it is neither their personal vanity nor their idiosyncrasies that matter, but the genuine needs of society. And quarrelling professionals contesting supremacy do not help society.

But if society is to recover control in the decision-making process over the total environment, it needs to display energy and determination.

Since 1981, I have been responsible for Spatial Management of the city of Amsterdam, as Director and Chief Planner.

I deliberately use the term "Spatial Management" as, in Dutch, German and French, it has a meaning that differs from the Anglo-Saxon "planning". "Planning" refers to a once-only activity, well defined in time, whereas "Ordening", "Raumordnog" or "Aménagement du Territoir" refers to an ever-necessary, continuous care and attention. "Ordening". or Management, is cyclic in character: observation and research, analysis, development, consolidation, evaluation, management and redevelopment. In other words, "management" is the recycling machine for our physical environment.

There is another difference between the worlds of the European mainland and the Anglo-Saxon, which is not only explained, by differences in jargon. "Urban Planning" in West European countries is a specific discipline, not an expertise identical to that of architects. On the contrary, it is generally observed that the guidance of the development of urban and rural matters is far too important to be trusted to architects. An integrated expertise in technology, social processes and design is needed and for those specific needs we educate Urban Planners.

My familiarity in these matters is based on the fact that I myself was educated as an architect - by people like Bakema, who thought that architects should run the world and - of course - I believed him. But after a few years I discovered the limitations in a profession that is primarily static and object-oriented. Our cities, our landscapes, in short our physical environment, is alive; it is subject to a dynamic continuum and a multitude of transforming mechanisms. So real life demands an understanding of the temporal dimension - a skill landscapers have developed so well, and that urban planners simply must have.

So I re-educated myself from a simple architect into an urban planner.

My predecessor in Amsterdam, the famous Cor van Eesteren, the co-founder and chairman of the CIAM wrote in a letter to Bakema:

This manifesto is for me still one of the most impressive and convincing personal credo from any professional I know. I am quite certain such a choice is in direct contradiction to the architect’s nature.

I suppose, I myself was known in Amsterdam as being difficult, stubborn and controversial

but we - that is, my 250 staff-members and me - never disputed our role as interpreters of what I would like to call the public attitude towards matters of the function and shaping of our common physical environment.

Cities, human settlements, are made by man and reflect the views people have about their society. Space and time are the dimensions shaping these views and all possible human emotions can be recognised, such as: safety, hope, confidence, solidarity and comfort. And, fortunately, in all times and all cultures people have a desire for beauty and want to experience the sensation of beauty.

But other qualities are recognisable also. Throughout history greed, fear, perverted exercise of power, sadism, vanity, opportunism and indifference can be found in the traces of our presence.

Whoever visits Sienna or Florence can still sense the utopian atmosphere from the Renaissance. Utopias as visions of a better life: a society freed from material and mental poverty and pressure, and its repercussions on the design for the ideal city, reflect a clear expression of life-conditions of that time.

It is mainly within the socio-economic context and the arena of technological knowledge - two different but nevertheless very interwoven dimensions - that the utopian urban picture is determined.

In 1516 Thomas Moore describes his island Utopia, where all inhabitants live in freedom and are equal. First of all the baleful influences of property and profit are banned and the people, freed from corrupted justice and illegal concentration of power and wealth, live in fifty spacious, identically laid-out cities, all with identical language and administrative structures.

He describes the layout of these cities in a detail, because their actual structure expresses the utopic ideas of the society itself. He describes basic form: the width of the streets, the height of the buildings and the size of the whole city. He describes everything that forms the underpinning of his utopian urban dream.

But utopias are rarely sustainable, and at best, only random indications of lost dreams are left behind: reproductions in stone of whatever used to be a common social spirit. It is the nostalgia for lost ideals that induces us to watch, with bated breath, these artefacts from the past, these monuments to short periods of hope: beautiful cities, their significance reduced to places of touristic interest. Places of interest dating from before the time of the great European potentates. Popes and secular tyrants who reshaped cities like Rome, Paris, Vienna and Berlin as monuments to their own pathetic glory.

Amsterdam has not experienced the intervention of such powers. Amsterdam has always been a city of burghers and that civic society always has set great store by consciously shaping its own environment. The most remarkable aspect of that Amsterdam attitude, is its sustainability. It has survived many centuries, and it was - and is - the continuous inspiration for its development. It would almost seem that a sense for urban planning, urban development, urban management and urban care is part of the DNA patterning of the Amsterdammer.

Evidence for this is obviously to be found in the Amsterdammer’s natural environment.

Life with water has forced the Dutch into a highly sophisticated pattern of planned and organised behaviour. Dikes need to be constructed and maintained. And for agrarian use as well as for the preservation of buildings a punctilious management of water levels is of vital importance.

That is only achieved by co-operation and organisation, based on common interest.

The result is not only a fully man-made landscape dating from the 13^th century, but, most importantly, a social culture and organisation which has formed the basis of Dutch society and the very way that, even today, society deals with its physical environment.

From the 13^th century on small scale landowners and peasants were forced to engage collectively in the maintenance of dikes, canals, sluices and mills. These collective organisations, the waterboards, still exist. They are the basis of our democratic organisation. In Holland democracy did not emerge from a political philosophy but just from practical necessity.

Barnouw wrote:

Compared to many other European cities, Amsterdam is not particularly old. It was not until the 13^th century that the low countries were adequately protected against flooding and it was only then that the political situation was sufficiently stable to allow towns to be founded.

The fact that Amsterdam was built on marshy ground continues to pose specific problems for builders. The surface soil usually consists of layers of soft peat, several meters thick. At an average depth of 11 to 12 meters there is a layer of maritime sand, 3 to 3.5 meters thick. In construction, builders make us of long piles, made from Scandinavian pine, which are driven straight through the soft upper layer of soil into the first sand layer. The walls are then mounted on wooden piles below ground water level, to prevent rotting of the pile heads. A great part of the total building stock and most of the buildings in the historic centre are built on wooden piles, and these piles, which have been in the ground for centuries will suddenly fall apart if no longer submerged. Thus it is evident that sophisticated control over the water level is a matter of life and death for this city.

It is unimaginable that, through inattention, the water level in the urbanised area of Amsterdam would sink too low. This would cause an apocalyptic vision of horror with the whole historic inner city crumbling - not unlike the tumbling walls of biblical Jericho.

So, if Amsterdammers speak of canals they are speaking of part what we call - the "water-machinery"; the mechanisms that enable us to live in peaceful coexistence with the water.

Indeed, by the 17^th century - when the fishing village had become a city - it was an act of unimaginable vision to develop a scheme such as the canal-belt: a reasonably simple concentric grid, based on practical basic assumptions for transportation, water management and - for the time - hygiene. The unit is the building block, but minus monumentality: the design is not based on a desire for decorum or dramatisation, but is simple, functional, clear and has, most importantly, a superb refinement in measure and proportion.

However sophisticated it may be, it is not the scheme itself that causes wonder. The most fascinating aspect is that this scheme was gradually realised over a period of two centuries and remains fully intact today. Obviously no one has felt the need for change or modification; thus this scheme has survived changes in functions, in political regimes, in economic circumstances and - the most dangerous - fashions in architecture.

Amsterdam: the burghers, the administration, the technicians were obviously so satisfied with, and proud of, their city that they were immune to diversions or the temptations of new trends and fashions. They adhered to the essentials of the plan - a plan for the unbuilt area, the public space; the profiles for the canals and the secondary roads; the length of a profile, to a bend, and the angle of the bend. And, possibly the most crucial, the regulations for building on those canals: in an unobstructed alignment with strictly regulated height and parcelling.

For more than two centuries Amsterdammers have shown a sense of good taste, inventiveness, flexibility and, most importantly, concern for their city.

Because the emphasis was so much on public space the plan became a plan of - and for - the people of the city. The city could be experienced from a humane, understandable and pleasant public space. The city was defined by the quality of space that belonged to everyone, not by the splendour of individual buildings, which are to be looked at but not entered.

People enjoyed a special relationship with their city, regarded it as something of their own; were proud of it and cared for it. It defined that specific attitude towards planning which has been referred to as genetically programmed in the Amsterdammer. This mentality is still present, sometimes in a very manifest way.

The map of Amsterdam can be read like a history book, with events and opinions dating from different periods being immediately obvious. Most striking, however, is the consistency of a few main principles; a consistency that, depending on time, place, circumstances and current fashion, allows an interpretative freedom in functional, architectural and technical matters,

More than two centuries elapsed before the canal-belt was completed. During that period, opinions and needs sometimes altered quite dramatically. For example, totally different functions have been required of buildings that were originally trade houses for merchants, and building techniques and architecture have altered through time. Change is still occurring, with the building, replacement of buildings, and reconstruction continuing.

Yet the concept itself survives it all. It can adapt to all these changes without difficulty. It represents a remarkable synergy between the strength of the concept and the mentality of the Amsterdammer.

He or she does not even wish to discuss the value of the concept!

* * *

There certainly was in the history of Amsterdam a recession in the continuum of planned urban development. The 19^th century brought a period of extreme liberalism and little governmental power. It was in Europe an era of absolute cultural stagnation. But this changed at the end of the century and in the Netherlands in 1901 the Housing Act went into effect, which obliged municipal councils to develop strategies for further growth and development.

At that time the City Council of Amsterdam decided to take urban development actively into its own hands again.

Two far-reaching decisions were taken. In 1897 it was decided that the city would no longer sell land but would simply lease it out. This land policy had been frequently discussed during the previous hundred years. As a result, the municipality owns more than 85% of all the land in its territory. This farsighted land policy has been the most powerful planning instrument and has formed the basis of the city's prosperity.

The other decision, in 1905, was the commission, to the young architect Berlage, for a plan for a comprehensive urban extension. In this commission the City Council stated explicitly that Berlage should draw up "a beautiful urban area".

While the realisation of Berlage's Southern extension was still in full progress the city again decided to take its future in its own hands. It wanted an overall strategic plan to envisage possible long-term urban development for the entire municipal territory. For that reason it decided to add a new Department of Urban Planning to its Public Works Department.

The city again chose a representative of the avant-garde as its chief planner: Cornelis van Eesteren .

The plan was ready in 1932 and approved by City Council in 1935. It proved a milestone in international planning practice; one of the first plans where scientific research was combined with physical planning. It was based on estimated population increase up to the year of 2000.

That General Extension Plan of 1935 was largely realised in the years before 1970 and at that time the post-war reconstruction period was completed. New acts of urban planning policy were the construction of the "Bijlmermeer", the supposed "city of the future" and the urban renewal program. The Bijlmermeer was mainly a planners-dream, which, in spite of its beauty, was not such a success.

The urban renewal program however represented an incredible example of planning by the people. While the planners dreamt of total reconstruction of the depressing 19^th century neighbourhoods according to the CIAM standards of "light, air and space", the people opted for the preservation of the existing. And their choice was not based on romantic heritage-nostalgia but on practical rationale: the optimisation of technical improvement with as little nuisance, cost and disturbance of social patterns as possible. Although almost 100% of the houses were social, rented houses, those people loved their environment and were prepared to demonstrate their attachment in very outspoken ways.

All pre-war neighbourhoods with 25 % of the total Amsterdam housing stock were renewed, reconstructed or renovated, with strict regulations that existing street patterns, existing alignments and existing building-heights were to be respected.

Finally, in the recent nineties, the people were back at the barricades. Demographic development asks for a production of at least 4000 new houses a year; and for reasons of sustainability these houses have to be built in or adjacent to the city. 65% will be realised by intensifying and densifying the urban body; for 35% the only solution is a new extension.

Again, discussions relating to the site and the type of plan were very public. Almost no Amsterdammer refrained from participating in that debate, in meetings, in the newspapers and on television. The outcome at the end was a choice for IJburg, east of Amsterdam, in the waters of the IJ-lake, the former Zuiderzee. As during the period of urban renewal, the people again placed conditions on the development. As it would take place in an ecologically sensitive area with great emotional significance to many Amsterdammers, the harm done to the natural environment had to be minimised by building in high densities and using as little space as possible. Plus the new area had to meet the highest technical standards relating to the natural environment and the use of energy and other resources.

The most encouraging outcome of the discussion was that the people, via a referendum, chose an extension "in the best tradition of Amsterdam planning".

* * *

Even in our modern, somewhat over-organised times, people still care and fight for the qualities of their environment. Mobilising that potential power is the essential task of everyone involved in planning for, and management of, our urban and rural areas. It is no use to talk about sustainability as long as we refrain from that task. Sustainability is merely an intellectual fantasy if we do not achieve the commitment of those who will actually use the space, the land, the waters, the air and the soil. And that is not so difficult. They have only to be taken seriously.

I am not trying to say that Amsterdam has got everything right. On the contrary, many things happen in an unsatisfactory way and after frustrating discussions. My point is that planning is not merely a professional or intellectual activity but a cultural achievement of a society.

As a professional I have fought many fights with politicians, community groups, investors and activists. Sometimes I convinced them, sometimes they convinced me. But I was - as a professional - lucky to find an atmosphere where all those groups and individuals were concerned and willing to invest much of their emotion, creativity and energy in such discussions.

Like I said, a collective, cultural responsibility for our common environment is the achievement of every society.

It is there, it only has to be activated.