In 1928 the pamphlet Het toekomstig landschap der Zuiderzeepolders appeared in the Netherlands. A large inland sea (the Zuiderzee) would be closed off from the North Sea, and large areas would be drained for agriculture. The surface area of the Netherlands was thereby increased by 10%. We are now almost a hundred years further on. The relatively young area has, over time, slipped into the background, but that is changing again. The polders and the IJsselmeer and Markermeer are returning to public interest. Housing shortages, the energy transition, freshwater buffering, climate change, space for defence and ecological challenges are not passing the Zuiderzee polders by. What's more: for some national challenges, the solution lies precisely in this area.
This brings opportunities as well as tensions. Can the old ideals remain standing? Or do they clash too much with the new spatial claims? How can it be prevented that this area is colonised without love and becomes the Greenland of the Netherlands?