Evaluating future urbanisation patterns in the Netherlands

Although the Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries, two thirds of the land area are still under agricultural use. Major socio-economic changes are however expected for the agricultural sector. The increasing globalisation of economic relations in agriculture and the possible reduction of European price support to farmers are examples of such developments that may affect agricultural land use. At the same time other land use functions put increasing pressure on rural land in order to accommodate housing, employment, recreation and water storage. The present study takes a closer look at the expected spatial developments and simulates possible future urbanisation patterns by using an economics based land use model. The findings of this study may be especially interesting now Dutch spatial policy seems to be on the brink of loosening its traditional grip on spatial planning.