Is the Randstad a city network?
In recent years the concept of city networks has been introduced in Dutch spatial planning [Ministry of HSPE, 2004]. In previous policy documents the ‘daily urban system’ was considered as the level at which main interactions took place. However, an (assumed) expansion of the span of activities to larger networks underlies the new policy. The relationships with other cities or ‘daily urban systems’ in the region are gaining importance over the relationships between urban centres and their suburban areas. Specialisation of centres within this network and, as a result of that, complementarity are factors in this process. In the Netherlands the Randstad Holland, the western most urbanised part of the country, is viewed as an example of the expansion of urban interaction to a polycentric city network. In a recent study, the Dutch National Institute for Spatial Research is looking for answers to the question to what extent specialisation en complementarity of centres within the city network
