Mobilization of the Masses: Dutch Planners, Local Politics, and the Threat of the Motor Age 1960-1980

Abstract

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Netherlands experienced a rapid growth in car ownership. Dutch planners and politicians soon realized that this growing automobility would radically transform the living environment, daily commute, and consumption behavior of millions of people, in particular of those living in or near large conurbations. By investigating how professional and political elites perceived increasing automobility, and how their responses subsequently affected urban planning in the Netherlands, this article offers a comprehensive and multifaceted narrative of the dawning of the Dutch motor age. I demonstrate how the gloomy and fearful predictions of planners and traffic engineers working in the 1960s foreshadowed a wider discontent with car-centered planning. Their engagements with local officials and urban action groups led to planning compromises I describe as a form of “gentle modernization,” typical for a country which has always opted for a cautious approach to modernity.