The Netherlands put up a national program in the mid-1980s to build 20-30 of these downs.
It was a program aimed at building "new room" for the Dutch population (Netherlands was suffering a severe shortage of housing as household size had shrunk and many more people were living by themselves or as single parents etc)
The philosophies of these towns (VINEX) was:
- building them close to mass transit (train lines, subways)
- providing different housing options
- offering spaces for new architectural forms that played with water, "rough green" etc.
- being located close enough to big cities to act as escape valves for demographic pressures in these towns
They have unique looking and awesome design.
My city is the location of one of them,
De Reeshof
(
Google MAps)
View within the region (yellow: build-out official urban areas including industrial parks)
Master plan
The street plan is build with just a few through-streets. The rest allows only easy crossing for pedestrians and bikes, there are 11km of segregated bike paths within the project.
Single-detached houses with backyard canal
(C) Cast
Row houses
(c) Cast
More semi-detached houses, with "bike priority" street design
(c) Cast
Single-detached houses (just 5% of the development provide this typology)
(c) Cubra
"Anti-traffic" typical measure: cars can't take shortcuts
New school (opened 2013)
Low rise flat area
Community center
Aerial view of area still to be developed (train station Tilburg Reeshof, that serves the development, can be on lower right)
(c) NieuwbouwTilburg
More low-rises
Sports' center
The commercial center (location
Google Maps), it is nice, but I hate they built flats over the stores, makes it look bad