Randstad Holland — III

Abstract

The northern complex of the Randstad lies wholly within North Holland Province, the second most densely populated province with some 2,022 persons to the square mile (see 29). Like its counterpart in the south it consists of two large urban agglomerations, Amsterdam and Haarlem, which are ominously close to each other, and in which a major waterway has exercised considerable influence over development in the one case but not in the other. The waterway agglomeration is dominated by the capital city of Amsterdam and also includes the heavy industrial area at the IJmond; and the waterway is, of course, the Rhine linked to the city by the long Amsterdam-Rhine Canal and thence to the sea via the North Sea Canal. (The latter was constructed in 1865–76, rather earlier than the Rotterdam Waterway.) A third agglomeration in the south-east corner of the Province, not so large as the other two though bristling with expansion problems, is the Gooi group dominated by Hilversum. The remainder of the Province, lying north of the North Sea Canal, is beyond the immediate influence of the Randstad, but will nevertheless make an indirect contribution towards solving some of the problems of population pressure engendered by its cities.