New Zuiderzee Lands

OR SOME time now, planned settlement and development of areas has been advocated as a desirable substitute for the undirected and unregulated working out of social forces. Social planning assumes that we possess sufficient knowledge regarding social development to manipulate and control it; that it can be directed to the achievement of a preconceived social order; and that such an order will be better suited to man's needs than any society produced by uncontrolled growth. Earlier attempts at social planning were merely efforts to modify the commonly recognized faults of the laissez-faire order. During the last decade, however, many systematic attempts to create a social order have been carried on in various countries. The ultimate consequences of such experiments are not yet evident, but these experiments are already providing sociologists and other scientists with invaluable data on the factors which planners are endeavoring to control. This paper is an analysis of the controlled settlement of one planned area,-the recently acquired Zuiderzee lands of the Netherlands.' On an even more grandiose scale than in past centuries, the Dutch are again busy adding extensive fertile areas to their country by diking off the sea and draining out the water.2 The national undertaking which is now being carried on called first for the construction of a large dike across the mouth of the former Zuiderzee. This dike is equipped with sluices which make possible the gradual discharge, through the movements of the tide, of the salt water of the old sea and its partial replacement by the fresh waters of the new inland lake, the Ysselmeer. As that is accomplished, the successive erection of dikes in the Ysselmeer make possible the drainage of polder areas fit for human settlement.3 The completion of this project will add to the domain of The Netherlands a total of 555,ooo acres, repre

Archaeology · Business · Geography · Political science · Settlement (finance · Dutch Social and Cultural Studies

• Stratification in Low and Middle Income Housing Areas 1

  Open Access•William H Form•Journal of Social Issues•1951

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