Green Space from Different Perspectives

2 December 2009

Open, green space in a crowded Randstad. How much is it worth to us? This space does not remain green and empty all by itself. Research shows that even with a government that leaves plenty of freedom to the market, a restrictive government policy works best. There are plenty of interests and forces at work here, with the economic perspective determining only part of the story. In order to deal with the issues surrounding the conservation of green space in the Dutch urban landscape, a multidisciplinary approach from different scientific disciplines has turned out to be fruitful. Researchers from Wageningen, Amsterdam and Delft are working together. Let's meet them to find out how this came about.

Spatial planning and the decision making process for green space could be better according to a number of researchers. It is essential to have more attention for the role of private planners and initiators, more emphasis on the positive role of the conservation of open, green space between dense cities and a stronger realisation of the shortcomings of the neoliberal view that the (real estate) market can be left to their own devices to carry out sufficient landscape conservation. In order to be able to give this attention, professor Arnold van der Valk from Wageningen University developed an interdisciplinary programme combining various expertises. This programme is called ‘Metroland’ and it is financed by the NWO-programme Gamma-research Milieu, Omgeving, Natuur, which is nearly completed now. Terry van Dijk is the coordinator of Metroland. 'I had just received my doctorate, my contract came to an end and I was having a cup of coffee with Van der Valk. I asked him whether he had a job for me. He did not have a job, but he did have a challenge for me. He asked me if I wanted to try and get a grant for the Metroland programme. The GaMON-call had only just been made, so in principle there was money. We were successful but it was not easy.'

A little force and lots of chemistry

Van Dijk: 'Multidisciplinary cooperation never originates by itself. It has to be forced into action by organisations like the NWO. And then it can definitely work very well.' The public administration and legal expertise came from Delft University of Technology, the economic expertise from the Free University of Amsterdam and the town and country planning knowledge from Wageningen University. Mark Koetse, Jasper Dekkers and Eric Koomen are responsible for the economic aspect. Eric Koomen: 'The will to cooperate was there of course. But actually doing it is something else.' Something that did work well was to limit the number of people involved. The professor already had longstanding relationships with each other. Van Dijk: 'One of the critical success factors of Metroland was a small network of people who like each other.' Koomen: 'The sessions we held to produce a detailed research proposal were very creative because each participant offered added value.'
Evelien van Rij, public administrator and lawyer, did not join the team until later. 'I applied for a PhD position. It really appealed to me that I would become part of a multidisciplinary team. That would mean not having to write my doctorate all by myself. However, we did have to get used to this way of working.'

Shopping in each other's store

Van Dijk: 'In practice a programme always shifts a little. You are planting three seeds - as it were – and once they start growing you never know how they will turn out.' Van Rij: 'In our case our cooperation has generated new insights. Particularly when it turned out that the free market did not manage to conserve green space of its own accord. Money does play a role but it is important for the conservation of green that other actors and mechanisms in the decision making process determine whether a piece of land remains green or not.' That's when it became - if possible - even more fascinating for the researchers. Koomen: 'We subsequently aimed our analyses at the question of how effective the restrictive spatial planning policy in the Netherlands is and we decided to write joint papers with the other researchers.' Van Dijk: 'We learnt an important lesson from Adri van den Brink, professor at Wageningen University. He taught us that it is essential to see each other as suppliers. What would I like to know from the other person? What do they have on offer in their store that I would like to have?' Koomen: 'We had something to offer with our calculation of economic value of green space and suddenly there was a customer for it. What's more, we had a positive message. After all, the Dutch spatial planning policy is so often complained about. People are basing their opinion on the latest piece of land nearby that has been built on. However, we did show that the spatial planning policy had indeed worked very well for the conservation of the Groene Hart.' Van Dijk: 'Very little research has been conducted in terms of policy evaluation. This is really innovative.'

Quantitative versus qualitative research

The different research cultures meant that the researchers did have to do some adjusting from time to time. Van Dijk: 'Economists mainly look at reality in a quantitative way. Planners have a more qualitative view and work with case studies for example. It sounds obvious, but this is how you stumble on new insights. You discover something, you suspect something and then you begin to test your hypotheses in a quantitative way.'
Van Rij: 'As a laywer I am an outsider to that quantitative/qualitative debate. We never really explain our methodology that much.' Koetse, surprised: 'But surely that isn't right? You do have jurisprudence that allows you to conduct quantitative research.' In law, however, this is not standard practice. Each science has its own specific history in terms of methodology, influencing the current practice of conducting science to a large extent.

A multidisciplinary solution

Van Rij explains that she has developed a completely different view as to what really keeps an area green. 'I used to think: zoning plans! But the planners say: concepts such as the Groene Hart. These concepts influence rules and regulations and vice versa.' Koetse: 'We do know that the market only plays a small role in this.' Koomen: 'Whichever approach you take they are all suboptimal.' What does work, apart from a restrictive policy? Van Dijk: 'You can support a policy by criticising the free market system, which has become so exaggerated – if something cannot support itself then it has no right to exist.' Van Rij adds: 'I discovered that for green landscape conservation we need to strengthen the position of farmers.' Koetse: 'If farmers disappear, then the landscape will disappear with them, even though this land also has other benefits apart from its agricultural production. The government could intervene then because the market fails. It could well help if the other benefits are expressed in terms of money, to be able to compare them with other costs and revenues of the landscape. That is what we have investigated.'

Interdisciplinary by nature

When asked about the success and failure factors of multidisciplinary cooperation, Koetse remarks that for this kind of project there are probably more failure factors than success factors. 'If you do not get on well with each other on a personal level, then the project is doomed to fail very quickly. Another danger is being too far apart geographically.' Koomen: 'What does help is that all of us are somewhat interdisciplinary by nature. I used to be a physical geographer and have now joined the economists.' Van Rij: 'I am a public administrator and a lawyer.' Van Dijk: 'I know both Delft and Wageningen inside out. And planners are generalists.' Van Rij mentions another success factor: ‘Writing publications together really helps. Fortunately there is a growing demand for multidisciplinary articles.' Van Dijk: 'We did have a laugh when the NWO asked us to divide the conclusions and publications into each separate project for the final report. But with us everything was integrated. That was the whole point, surely?'

You can find more information about Metroland on www.nwo.nl/gamon and www.metroland.nl