Flight Paths to a Green(er) Urban Future

The investigation will focus on the problems, which includes the dwindling levels of biodiversity that can be translated into air- soil and water quality and the availability of green space to human and non-human city dwellers.

A two-part series of articles will be published on Rotterdam The Hague Airport. Part one will be about a plan from the late 1980s to relocate the airport in order to reduce noise pollution and create space for expensive housing. Part two will compare the current problems in Rotterdam with two European cities, where new opportunities arose by relocating the airport or even removing it altogether.

The research method will include reconstruction of an earlier plan to relocate the airport, based on archive materials. The synopsis are as follows:

• Rotterdam The Hague Airport has been causing noise pollution for residents living under the flight path for over half a century;
• In the late 1980s, the municipality suffered an annual loss of 7 million guilders at the airport;
• At the time, it was the reason for the municipality to relocate the airport to the polder and to build housing in the space that became available;
• The plan was defeated due to politics. Since then, the nuisance has increased because the city has grown even closer to the airport and the number of flights has increased; Looking back, it becomes clear how politically charged the discussion is and how strong the interests of the aviation sector have become.

Photo by Remco de Vries