Zutphen is a postcard-perfect town of 30,000, two hours east of Amsterdam in the flat cow-laden farmlands for which The Netherlands is known. My mother grew up in this city that dates back to Roman times. She actually met my father on a bridge a block from where we are renting a brownstone. No, he wasn’t trying to jump off. He was actually trying to pick up girls while in the Dutch Army. My father dragged the family to America several years later, but that’s another story.

When we came here, I promised my family that I wouldn’t absorb myself with architecture and design. Even so, this very Dutchy city is teaching me several urban lessons that we Seattleites can learn from:

1. Plan/design everything, every square meter (oh, don’t I sound Euro?) of your city. Don't leave anything to “what the market wants” until the market proves it can create very cool urban places. As is typical in Holland, Zutphen has VERY strong central planning (your average American developer would probably consider it downright suffocating). I have yet to see a corner of this city that wasn't thought out, purposeful and clearly articulated.

2. Taxes actually pay for things...like great cities. 40% tax brackets pay for (among other things) tree-lined roads and highways, trains and light rail, brick streets, cool outdoor furniture, modern metro stops, great plazas, bike lanes, more bike lanes, even more bike lanes. You get my drift.

3. The Dutch have a different brick for everything! It is amazing the rich urban mosaic that can be created by using brick so intelligently. Yesterday I went around counting how many different bricks were used in typical street configurations around the neighborhood. I counted up to ten different patterns on some streets signifying distinct zones such as traffic lanes, parking strips, bike lanes, sidewalks, intersections, etc. It helps to create a wonderful pedestrian and bicycle scale. I guess in a land as flat as a drafting table, when you don’t have a view to look out to, you need a great foot-scape to look down at.

4. In Holland biking is a lifestyle, not a hobby. And if you plan to come here and bike, please don’t think you are going to impress anyone with your expensive biker jerseys and spandex shorts. One Dutch friend who has visited Washington asked me why Seattleites need special tight clothing to ride bikes…

5. A town like Zutphen has an evolving beauty, which is often in the details and tactile experiences rather than in singular gestures. American cities with their rigid street grids give it all to you in one big swoop. These towns with their twisted streets and small scales are experienced in a constantly evolving manner that not only requires patience and time, but also invites it. We are so used to instantaneous imagery of cities and buildings in our automobiles that Americans need a decompression time to really comprehend European townscapes.

6. Fat? What fat? Just eat it!!!!

7. Related to item 5, designers can make very great places to live with a city full of background buildings. Conformity in Holland isn't a bad thing. Not every house or building has to scream individuality. People don't seem to care as much here that they are part of a larger context than their individual dwelling unit. The Dutch seem comfortable that they live in a brick house next to a brick house next to a brick house....

8. Good Cheese!

9. My God, we need to reduce our energy usage. The Dutch make us look like energy savages, pigs, hill-billies, Neanderthals, Texans, whatever meanest title I can come up with. I am stunned to see that Europeans have been able to survive the last 20 years without American SUV's, and they have snow and hills too!!!! (OK, I am exaggerating about the hill part.) In housing, they have somehow found a way to live with shared bathrooms, small kitchens, adjoining side-yards, bedrooms sized for beds, neighbors who live so close by you have to talk to them, and in general, homes you don’t need maps to find your way around in.

Now, I know there are gong to be some die-hard American ARCADErs reading this article thinking that I am way too biased towards this flat, liberal little cow country. To be fair, I have put a list together of what the Dutch can learn from America:

1. Poop Scoop Law. Come on Euro-man, this is a public park...

2. Starbucks Coffee. I never thought I'd come to the place in my life where I would actually miss American coffee.

3. Cheap soft drinks. Two Euros for that?!?!?

4. Ice. Those two Euros paid for a small, WARM soft drink...

5. Five weeks vacation for every worker? Ridiculous! What can you do in five weeks that you can't in two?

6. Dutch, Holland, Nederland, the Netherlands? Make up your freakin’ mind!

Got to run for now to take my 80-year-old aunt out for dinner. Though the rain is pouring outside, she insists we ride our bikes instead of drive! And we say Europeans are wimps!

Tot Ziens from Zutphen,
Ron van der Veen and family