What the Dutch get right..and the English don't

[hauxwell]

Just returned from six days cycling round the southern Netherlands with the missus and the kids and here are my personal thoughts on how I felt it compared with England...

 

As with England, there are a similar amount of people, but the impact on their urban environment and their society in general, seems to be much

better handled than in England.

 

The cities (Maasluis, Delft, Leiden), small towns and villages we travelled through were very well kept...graffiti was limited to the underside of bridges and underpasses and never really seen elsewhere. Litter was non existent.

 

Even the obviously poorer parts of large cities and towns were well looked after. Tower blocks were set in well kept grounds with the obligatory lake or canal and I noticed large teams of council workers busy keeping them well presented.

 

Our host in a B&B one night said that in the Netherlands a lot of emphasis is put on looking after their towns and cities, and it seems she is correct...although I do wonder how much more it costs them in taxes to achieve that level of care.

 

Everytime we passed a playground we had to stop and let the kids have 30 mins. Nowhere were we hassled by the obligatory drunk or local weirdo and all we received was curiosity, smiles and interesting chats with the locals (who all had very good English).

 

The cafes were full of people drinking (sometime very strong beer), but nobody was loud, nobody was drunk.

 

The only exception was the 10 seater pedal powered bar we saw in Briele, being peddled erratically down the cyclepath...but that was funny and mellow, not hostile.

 

On the weekend, people were out on bikes in packs, and sailing and paddling down the waterways...in the week it was deadly quiet.

Nobody was angry and nobody was in a hurry and yet the country still functioned.

 

All in all it was a very relaxing, six days and I was well impressed by the Dutch and the way they run their country...

 

So why can't it happen here?

 

What are the differences?

 

Being a cyclist my first thoughts are that the infrastructure put in place for bikes slows down the whole pace of life over there...people simply cannot rush anywhere and do not seem to want to even when they can (for example, I noticed when riding next to dual carriageways, that none of the cars and trucks seemed to be in a particular rush). Everyone rides bikes and seems content to dawdle along.

 

Also nature seems to be embedded into the urban environment...even in large cities, the lakes and canals were full of wildlife...ducklings ambled across the cyclepaths and people sat on canalside benches watching them thoughtfully.

 

Perhaps they don't have the wide inequality we have in England, perhaps people are better educated (everyone spoke excellent English) and have more stake in their local environment, perhaps it is their different drinking culture...or a different work ethic.

 

Obviously it is not Utopian and they do have their problems...I spent an interesting time talking with a group of Dutch in a kids playground and they complained loudly about now having to work until 67 and felt they should leave the Euro etc...similar to people's concerns here I guess.

 

England has a lot going for it, friendly people (in Sheffield especially), empty wild space even close to cities (Sheffield again), interesting people and history, good food and drink...

 

...but England also has that dark, hostile, grey, miserable, frantic and unwelcoming side...that just does not seem as evident in The Netherlands. I guess it must exist, but I simply couldn't see much sign of it.

 

Any thoughts?

 

We have a forum member who regularly posts on here and I am sure he is from the Netherlands. His forum name is tzijlstra perhaps he could give you some answers.

[The Joker]

I think the dutch had/have some very feisty football hooligans, don't know whether that is still the case.

 

indeed they do, but since their hatred is aimed squarely at Ze Germanese, I don't have a problem with it.

[andrejuan]

They built my car so they are alright in my book

[tzijlstra]

Where's tim when you need him?

 

Haha! I have been taking a forum sabbatical (more or less), I'm spending most of my time behind the screen learning how to use video-editing software at the moment and I am getting a bit addicted to it...

 

Anyway, on the subject of the Netherlands. You have to keep in mind crazyhorse that the Dutch pay rather exorbitant amounts of tax for the pleasure of keeping the country well managed. That, coupled with a natural believe that the country we live in is manageable and thus should be managed combines to the pleasant experience you had.

 

the reason you don't see a lot of speeding on dual carriageways is because the amounts of taxes we pay aren't enough, so the police collect some more in the shape of speeding-fines.

 

What I am very positive about, though, is the infrastructure for cyclists. You will have noticed that in the Netherlands, on equal roads, traffic coming from the right always has right of way. It means drivers are far more considerate, the whole infrastructure of our towns and cities is designed around this principle and it means that in built-up areas people just don't speed. The roads don't allow for it. (And there is always that policeman on roads where they do allow for it...)

 

British roads are completely geared towards cars, in my opinion that is something that needs to change, but it requires a collective push. I am rather puzzled why the Amey work, for example, hasn't been used by the council to make considerable changes to the way cyclists move around the city. Would have been an ideal chance?

 

PS - on football hooligans, nothing worse than here. Just idiots who claim to support a club but instead get drunk and start smashing each others' heads in. None of that with the National team by the way, it is mainly Feyenoord, Ajax, Utrecht and ADO fans that still persist in that idiotic culture.

Edited June 13, 2016 by tzijlstra

[ez8004]

Holland has some of the best workers' rights and laws on the planet.

 

Why do you think Tata Steel Europe automatically starts cutting its costs and jobs from the UK first? It is far cheaper and easier to do so compared to Ijmuiden. Not to mention their European Works Council actually has influence compared to the lame unions in this country.

[tzijlstra]

Holland has some of the best workers' rights and laws on the planet.

 

Why do you think Tata Steel Europe automatically starts cutting its costs and jobs from the UK first? It is far cheaper and easier to do so compared to Ijmuiden. Not to mention their European Works Council actually has influence compared to the lame unions in this country.

 

It used to, it has all been eroded in the last ten years to create a 'flexible' workforce. Most people in the Netherlands who aren't fortunate enough to already have been in a permanent job now get told, when the third annual renewal which should make their work permanent is due; 'sorry, we can't hire you, go do something else for three months and then we can take you back on.' Simply because of the way the law works. This way the employer avoids getting full responsibility for the pension of the employee.

 

Tata is staying in the Netherlands because the Dutch aren't British. Dutch management culture is to be ruthless but with a firm eye on investment. Hoogovens (as it was before Corus, before British Steel, before Tata) were always at the frontline of innovation, working closely with Dutch universities. It is based directly on a deep sea harbour (it is amazing how few of the British Steel works actually are) and it has made a profit every year since Tata took over.

 

On top of that, the Dutch government has been fighting tooth and nail in Europe to deal with Chinese steel imports, whereas Javid has been trying to get it to continue. If you are a huge multinational that is suffering because of these steel dumps, where do you continue to invest?

[blake]

basing your impression on a cycling holiday where the Netherlands will obviously shine, may not be the best way to come to a balanced conclusion to where the country is headed as a whole.

 

there was a really rather hard-hitting article in the Guardian last week concerning the Netherlands : http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/06/netherlands-eu-immigration-liberalism-european

 

Once a beacon of progressive politics, the Netherlands today is a traumatised, angry and deeply confused nation. Support for immigration and the European project are at all-time lows. Synagogues and Jewish schools need police protection from homegrown jihadists, and freedom of expression is under serious pressure. An unprecedented series of catastrophes have hit the country over the past 15 years. Three high-profile political murders. The country’s first mass shooting. An attempt on Queen Beatrix’s life in which eight people died. And finally the downing over Ukraine of an airliner, nearly two years ago, killing all 298 on board. Of those, 193 were Dutch, meaning that, relative to population-size, the country suffered a larger loss of life than the US did on 9/11. Self-confidence is gone and what will take its place is anyone’s guess. What seems certain is that the heady days of progressive optimism are not coming back.

 

As for the football, the Netherlands did not even qualify for this year’s European Championship.

 

together with Germany's decaying infrastructure now meaning a commuter train is less likely to be on time there than a British train is, the old assumptions that used to be heard a lot, about Europe's 'superiority' in efficiency, can no longer be so easily made.

[spilldig]

When we visited Amsterdam last year a drunken Dutchman on a push bike nearly knocked me into the canal. He was really swaying so he was high on something. Anyway it was a nice break.

[APrice]

I think the Netherlands is doing fairly extensive trials of Universal Basic Income. I think it'd be interested to see similar trials run in some comparable northern cities.

[DnAuK]

As with England, there are a similar amount of people, but the impact on their urban environment and their society in general, seems to be much better handled than in England.

 

Any thoughts?

 

On my very first visit to Amsterdam (many years ago) I ended up in a bar on a Sunday afternoon with some quite rowdy but good natured Ajax fans singing songs and swigging beer. When we asked who they had played it turned out they hadn't yet - they were on their way to play PSV and we could come along if we wanted. No sense of malice or antagonism or anything. It was such a great experience.

 

I have since been many times, but the high tax level mentioned by Tim, plus the high cost of property in Amsterdam has always put me off moving there. Though I have learned more recently it drops dramatically just 20 minutes or so from the city centre. So maybe worth a revisit.

 

Just picking up on one point you made tho. Similar amount of people? Population of the Netherlands in 2013 was quoted as 16.8m . England was 53m. So I think it's fair to say our systems are a bit overstreched and our big cities crowded. Maybe that itself doesn't help?