The gut feeling of the city
There is a fascinating phenomenon that occurs in almost every Dutch municipality plays. It is the cycle from the gut: an instinctive, almost ritual reflex to every new development in the city or neighborhood.
As soon as a plan is presentedtarred – an apartment complex, a coffee shop, a town hall, a trendy cargo bike bridge – here it begins. The guts are growling. “It doesn't fit in with the streetscape!, shouts someone who that street scene wants to keep unchanged since 1955. “Where should we park?” asks another. “Can I still get my dog out there "Should I take it out for a walk?" And then the classic: “It will probably amount to nothing.”
People gather in small rooms with coffee in cardboard cups and a PowerPoint that never works. The atmosphere is involved, but also slightly threatening. Petitions are being started, angry letters sent, neighborhood apps to explode with indignation. Gut feelings rule, rational arguments are drowned out by feelings of loss, nostalgia and fear of change.
And then… Suddenly it is there, that little park, The little neighborhood, that bridge. The sun is shining. on it, children playing there, the neighborhood cat has a new favorite spot. The world has not ended. In fact, The neighborhood even looks a bit like it. to snap. And remarkably enough – It becomes quiet. No one who still shouts that the view is ruined. The petition page has long been forgotten.
A striking example is the arrival of the hospice in Nieuw Den Helder. When the plan became known, it was The neighborhood in an uproar. A hospice? That meant driving back and forth hearses, traumatized children, impairment of houses and, there it was again, parking nuisance. The hospice came there after all. Now you don't hear anyone anymore and Even people from the neighborhood came forward. volunteers. The city hall? Thirty year of discussion, millions of euros wasted on planning and participation procedures. He is currently at Willemsoord. Except for a few lonely keyboard warriors on You don't hear from anyone on Facebook anymore.
However, it is too easy to there to make a joke about it. Because of objections are valuable too. They show that people feel connected with their environment. That they did not to be indifferent. A city without a lower abdomen is a dead person city – a place where everything without debate or feeling is placed, neatly according plan, but without a soul.
So perhaps that is the art: listening to the gut, but don't let him decide. Give him a cup tea, let him blow off steam for a bit, and then look with your head at what there is really necessary. Because if the stones once lying and the flowers to bloom, it turns out that same gut feeling surprisingly forgiving.
Until the next plan. Then it begins. the whole beautiful, human ritual Just all over again.
RONALD DEN BOER
