Edge-cities

Introduction to edge-cities

Because of the limited amount of space and the big influences that the politics have on the amount and size of space that may be used for creating an edge-city or build buildings in general, The Netherlands does not have an edge-city yet (if you look at the criteria of what an edge-city should have to be called an edge-city). But there are some cities that are developing such edge-cities in the near future if the population and economy keeps on rising. The criteria for edge-cities is not something that has been proven to be right. So for a small country as the Netherlands one can say we already have some edge cities but only in a smaller form (e.g. in Rotterdam and Amsterdam)
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Scenario: Edge-cities are becoming more valuable

2009-2010
A recession is ruling the economic, not much will change, some constructions are on hold, building plans are delayed. But even now the economic has a down turn, teleworking is still not becoming more dominant. It’s the opposite. Most people don’t want to work at home because they cannot concentrate or don’t have a separate room to work in, so they rather go to the office and the demand is rising. Plans are made to only drive with electric cars in Amsterdam in 2040 (which is too short for this scenario to fully develop, but still interesting to know because it will come). [2]
Other cities will also follow this trend towards a cleaner environment, not on short term but they have to because the government is forcing larger cities to take part in this kind of projects.

2011-2012
The economy is growing again. People are more stuck in traffic jams than ever before. New political agreements will be made to reduce the traffic jams. The hybrid car is getting more popular to travel and companies now make parking spots to not only park your car, but also charge it. All large cities within the “Randstad” are making plans for creating edge one or more edge cities or expanding there almost already recognizable edge city to become a full edge-city. Gas stations trying to abandon the hybrid cars needs because it is too expensive to build an electric station compared to the prices they can charge customers for the amount of energy.

2013-2014
Traffic jams are still a big issue.The politicians figure out that they lose a lot of money because of missed tax payments because of the cheap fuel for the hybrid cars. Also the politics decide to come up with a plan that will change the highway structures in the future. Because of the need of CO2 reduction and the lack of free space. The government decides to expend the city on top of the highways (of course with enough space to each highway can expand to 10 driving lanes, 5 in each direction). This way CO2 emissions can be collected and filtered and cities can expand the business parks as close as possible to the highway. This way the traffic jams will also slink a little bit and the environment will be saved as much as possible. The plan will only be documented in concept and a lot of discussions are going on how this plan can be executed with as less risk as possible.

2015-2016
The government expand their idea’s and plans to build offices, hotels, shops, etc on top of the highway. New opportunities are born for larger companies and shops, because it’s not going to be the cheapest buildings. Some cities also are allowed to build more skyscraper like buildings in edge-like-cities to accommodate more people on the same amount of ground space. More farmers have to sell their ground to the government in order to make this highway expansions possible. Gas stations finally realize that they need to come up with an solution for the loss in profits since more and more people are buying hybrid cars. Some of them will be partially transformed into larger shops to support the needs of nearby offices. Gas stations are creating plans and making deals with the government to put some electric tanks stations near the offices, so that all cars that are parked can be charged for a fair amount of money without having the office owners have to worry about the energy need.

2017-2018
We already have hybrid cars, but complete electric cars are finally fully introduced on the market. The business market people are the first ones that are using this fully electric car because they get a nice tax reduction from the government is they fully stop with leasing benzene/diesel/LPG cars and make the switch to electric cars. The lease companies having problems to keep up with the demand of hybrid and fully electric lease cars. In Amsterdam and Rotterdam, we finally have the first fully recognized edge-cities of the Netherlands and more cities in “de Randstad” will follow the trend but a bit more slowly because of the lower demand and a slightly decreasing economy.

2019-2020
Because a new car is a great investment and some people already invested in the hybrid car. Most people wait with the purchase of an electric car, so it will not grow that rapidly. The build on top of the highway plans are confirmed and will companies can start building this year. Wind turbines will be build between skyscrapers [3] to get as much green power as possible. With this growing edge-cities not only people with cars have to move themselves to those places. Also busses/trains/metro have to be created. One of the new developments could be a large magnetic train around the highway to transfer people as fast as possible from the central station of a city to the edge-cities and vice versa.

Conclusion

If Edge cities become bigger and bigger, the traffic will become more crowded than ever before. New technologies will be applied to get as much green energy as possible (sun/wind). Skyscrapers will become more dominant to save as much building space as possible. New ways to travel fast to these edge-cities are being developed (public transportation/car). The need for energy, shops, food and drinks and probably also entertainment will rise in and around these edge-cities. The government will make new rules to control everything as much as they can(tax/buildings/traveling).