The Physical Planning Department (dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening:dRO) was founded in 1928, when the political and social need for new guidelines to control twentieth-century growth was strongly felt. The agency's task was to design an adequate development plan and the city chose Cornelis van Eesteren, a representative of the avant-garde to do that job.

The result was the General Extension Plan in 1935. It was one of the first plans ever to apply scientific research systematically to town planning. The Second World War called a halt to the G.E.P. but in the fifties and sixties the concept could continue to provide the basis for the development of the city. Only a few adjustments for North Amsterdam and - especially - the Bijlmermeer had to be made.

Nowadays the Department is charged with: regional planning; urban renewal and urban reconstruction; urban extension; survey; infrastructure planning; landscape planning; urban ecology; environmental planning; recreation, urban facilities; urban design; (air)port planning; strategic (investments) planning.....