The Netherlands is a Giant City

[@theninjabird9510]

As one of three people that live in Monaco I have to say we are not a real country, you got us

[@hsdsaunders]

Still real nice for you to be legally not french

[@benedict6897]

A blessing@@hsdsaunders

[@linkvos8151]

You’re not from Monaco

[@benedictdawkins]

​@@benedict6897rly random but I have never met another person called Benedict

[@zergling2621]

​@@benedictdawkinsdo people just call you Ben?

[@NiAlBlack]

My takeaway from this video is that New York City's urban area as well as other urban areas in the USA should be built more like the Netherlands.

[@red_roy]

HEAR HEAR !

[@connorcrowley1]

NYC has better Urbanism than the Netherlands. The peak density and lowest car ownership rates of the Netherlands would match Brooklyn and Queens, suburbs of Manhattan. Manhattan generates much more wealth, and has half the car ownership rate of Amsterdam because it's level of density supports transit based urbanism rather than the Dutch suburbanism of bikes in Amsterdam. I write this as a nederlander. Street space allocation is a small but important subset of the subject of urbanism AND is entirely independent of density. Transit... Is not.

[@teaser6089]

@@connorcrowley1 What, there is less homelessness in The Netherlands because of our Urban design, than there is in NYC or the rest of the USA for that matter. The Netherlands has denser and more livable urban area's, designed to make the life of citizens more convenient, instead of the life of motorists...

[@monopixel5569]

BIG YES! anyone has exposed to the Netherlands urbanism knows we all should follow their lead in urban design

[@connorcrowley1]

@@teaser6089 the Randstad rate of homeless is as high as NYC. Utrecht has a homeless rate that is 10x houston metro despite a much slower growth rate. I wouldn't conflate road space allocation with the entire subject matter of urbanism. There are crazy great levels of walk ability Tokyo and NYC can easily be improved with political will. Nothing inherent with NYC densities that require a large amount of traffic lanes. The car ownership of Manhattan is 1/2 the rate of the car ownership in Amsterdam. Transit ridership is way way way higher in NYC and in absolute numbers more people cycle in NYC than in Amsterdam.

[@lesumsi]

I think the story of Urk & Burk is great summary of Dutch history. This should become a full-length movie.

[@noelxlk]

urk and burk die me cry 😭😭😭

[@schellwalabyen4656]

Luckily one of the biggest shitholes of the country is named after Urk.

[@bedeckt]

​@@noelxlkbut urk & buruk have achieved their true purpose and even made sure that their children carry on the important message. From my view it's the best ending possible

[@forsomereasonistillcannotfly]

@@bedeckt too many word. no understand

[@realcanadian67]

​@@forsomereasonistillcannotflywhat "understand" mean. Big word, no think.

[@EenGamer.]

As someone who has cycled across the whole country in 1 day, I can confirm its mostly fields.

[@RonDgasz]

jahoor

[@therealspeedwagon1451]

But what do they grow in those fields? You have to feed such a massive and dense population somehow

[@brianlbeck]

@@therealspeedwagon1451 ohh so you're like an actual idiot, huh?

[@brianlbeck]

@@therealspeedwagon1451 are you a social engineer? What a smart comment!

[@EenGamer.]

@@therealspeedwagon1451 potatoes and grain

[@5am646]

I cannot believe I didn't realise you were Dutch until you pronounced 'Randstad', your (American) accent is seriously impressive

[@NXTI0]

Same

[@jwzm6115]

i think he is dutch... de manier hoe hij "Utrecht" zegt, dat kan geen amerikaan zo uitspreken zoals hij

[@babs3872]

He's German

[@5am646]

@@babs3872 The channel information cleared up that he is in fact Dutch

[@KholodG]

Until this video i thought he was german.. i lived in germany for 2.5 years already, and his pronunciation of german words led me to believe that he was german..

[@markuserikssen]

If you talk about The Randstad, it's perhaps one big city region, but once you get out there, it's definitely not like that everywhere. Here in the north, we have way too much space between cities and towns for it to be called a giant city. In that way, we are just a country with some very dense populated regions.

[@-haclong2366]

As someone who moved from a rural small village in Eastern Groningen to a suburban part of a major city in the Randstad I'd say that it's not all big city here, in 5 minutes I'm in a village that looks and feels similar to a northern village and the metro goes through some of it.

[@HermanWillems]

@@-haclong2366 Netherlands is very strict on what each square meter should be used for. Water? Nature? Buildings? Farming? We get now problems because there is not enough land for build houses. But nobody is like.. lets use the water or nature. So there is one thing left. Use farmland for more buildings. as more than 50% of all land is allocated as farmland. Which makes these stark differences even in the randstad.

[@SteveVJones]

@@-haclong2366 So true, i live in a village in the Randstad, but also have a view of miles of uninterrupted Polderlandschap. Doesnt feel like living in a giant city at all.

[@scipio42]

I mean, sure it's a village, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking it's some kind of rural outpost far away from the big city or something like that. It's still very much interconnected with the city. In fact, you've said it yourself: it's like a spear throw away from the city, just like the other five/six tiny villages in the area. There are no wide open spaces in the Netherlands, except for the occasional agricultural fields and even those are negligibly small in comparison to what our neighbours boast.

[@thijmstickman8349]

He should have mentioned that the reason that it is this way is that the government had pretty strict urban growth boundries to make sure that the cities became dense instead of sprawling out, in order to preserve the very valuable farmland.

[@CkBr]

Most of the Netherlands isn't 'actually a giant city', and yet infrastructure outside of de Randstad, is still excellent. It isn't just the city aspect of the Netherlands that creates good infrastructure, its also government regulation. I feel like you should have at least mentioned that.

[@opethium647]

Man I wish that were the same case for Norway then. Infrastructure in northern Norway is nonexistent..

[@DanDanDoe]

Compared to many countries the Netherlands is still very dense. A Dutch urban planner once said something along the lines of: "We need to decide whether we live in one of the densest countries in the world, with our own food production, industry etcetera or we live in the greenest city state in the world, but have to import more goods." It's a somewhat different mindset and will influence what we do with things like agriculture and industry. We could add a lot of nature by taking away agricultural land, but that's less exports and will change rural communities.

[@dutchman7623]

@@DanDanDoe There is no nature in the Netherlands, every tree has been planted, every river is where we put it and we should see our country more like a city and some city park areas. Where we do not have highways we have intercity bicycle paths, separated from the mountain bike paths and of course the pedestrian paths for walkers. All planned, separated, with signs who can use them and when. Our 'nature' is man made, nothing natural about it, where we used the harvest peat, where we removed the forest, where we drained the water. And yes, we have to manage the environment, like our neighbors cannot just start a barbecue while we have our windows open. But this is control over social behavior, and has nothing to do with nature protection. We cannot protect what has been gone for more than 1000 years.

[@arminmatthes]

Agreed. All I took away from this video is American arrogance and ignorance.

[@HülyeLó]

@@arminmatthes these guys are Germans living in Amsterdam. Still, this video is entirely unnecessary. It's obvious they only made it to talk some shit about the Netherlands, but even they didn't find any valid points to do that. It's a shame because I liked their content so far

[@tatyboy1337]

The difference imo is that it is done so well - it's planned to be like this. England could have Manchester&Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, and London connected in a similar way. but instead we have London and everything else.

[@HermanWillems]

The City Of London is a country on it's own right? Own laws and things? Especially they got nice laws for White Collar Criminal things. (Well criminal in the eyes of EU and other NORMAL countries regarding Tax evasion.)

[@miroslavbulldosex]

london itself have more people than the randstad while being bigger in size, you don't understand the scales the randstad really is decently big city (smaller than london and Paris though) with the unique exception that it's multipolar because it's based on 4 smaller cities

[@tatyboy1337]

@mr-dan-coleman yeah Scarborough-York-Leeds-Sheffield-Manchester-Liverpool-Blackpool (or similar) could be amazing with proper transport links (and less neglect of the seaside towns) but they're instead almost all commuter rail which doesnt run past 10pm :( heavily encourages drunk driving when someone comes to AO Arena (literally IN a train station) but the last train back to where they came from is 30 minutes before the end of the show...

[@Tamarlane389]

@@tatyboy1337did you say ‘drunk driving’ is encouraged?

[@Tamarlane389]

They will be more connected (well London, Birmingham and later Manchester) with HS2

[@ArturoStojanoff]

I love the Urk and Burk section as a linguist. People are often confused as to how it is that languages get simpler over time, yet they still haven't all collapsed into the most simple they could be. Also they wonder why languages wouldn't just tend towards more simplicity, as it is much easier to learn, and anyone who has to learn the complicated grammar rules of a foreign language can attest to the fact that simplifying things would be great for learners. But that section shows how simpler grammar, with fewer specific features designed to organize and classify information makes it harder to understand language, so it makes sense languages would not tend towards the most simplicity, but instead towards a balance of simplicity and complexity, since a simpler language is easier to learn, but a more specific language is easier to understand once you've already learned it. And the Urk and Burk section shows this in how it was actually harder to understand than if you'd use normal English grammar.

[@mikespearwood3914]

Why does he even do that?? It's jarring! This is the first video I've seen of this channel, and then I'm curious why he randomly starts talking like a simpleton??

[@CantTellYou]

@@mikespearwood3914 to insert humor into an otherwise serious video. They, self-admittedly, simplify explanations of things in order to keep videos

[@rvs1]

more upvotes on this. nice tangential lesson.

[@danyl.fernandes]

> how simpler grammar...makes it harder to understand That's illogical. It's only harder to understand because you're used to the complexity. If this is how it always were, you wouldn't find it difficult.

[@SibaNL]

@@danyl.fernandes it's about nuances

[@Alacernovum]

And even though the Randstad is pretty dense, go the het Groene Hart (the Green Heart) and you'll find towns and villages just like in the rest of the Netherlands, but right in the middle of the Randstad. We Dutch complain a lot about everything in our country, yet no one argues our planning skills.

[@mother-fng-bonswa3612]

be honest, its to bussy , it lost its charm. its all about making money

[@-haclong2366]

N.Y.C. is actually a giant city, the Randstad isn't interconnected enough to be comparable. As someone who has lived in both I can see that N.Y.C. is actually a concrete jungle while the Randstad is the opposite of N.Y.C. While Central Park is the sole exception to the large urban landscape of New York, the high rise districts in the Randstad are the exceptions surrounded by lots of rural land. If you travel from The Hague to Leiden you'll find lots of farnland with cows.

[@miroslavbulldosex]

N.Y.C is either 8x denser or 2x bigger than the Randstad at the same density, the comparison was retarded to begin with The Randstad is a conurbation of 4 decently big cities while New York really is centered around Manhattan and its close area. The randstad is "like a city", but isn't contiguous enough to be one like other multipolar cities like tokyo

[@TheLikeys]

@@miroslavbulldosexI think that’s also because of how cities and districts work in Europe. You rarely see multiple cities right next to each other (oc there some exemptions) but generally speaking it applies. Compare that to the us where often one city (thinking about the metropolitan regions) is just one block away from a totally different one.

[@TheOriginalDogLP]

you have the same metropolitan regions in europe, and the us has also "single" cities, especially if you not looking at the coasts. Neither of those are unique concepts.

[@AudieHolland]

*@-haclong2366* Spot on observation and analysis. I have lived in Utrecht for quite a few years and have travelled to Amsterdam by train on numerous occasions.

[@mulethedonkey2579]

Still the country is denser overeall which lowers infastructure cost but Netherlands is big on agriculture

[@Ninjaeule97]

As someone who lives near Frankfurt and is currently staying in Helsinki (two metropolitan areas), I have to say this: Higher density leads to higher density if you let it. Real-life lore has a video series called Curious Population Patterns (Why x Country is y% empty). While geography plays into the makeup of a nation, there are limits to geographic determinism. The way people interact with geography is far more important. Places in the US could be much nicer if they hadn't decided on Euclidian zoning, but they did. Of course, high density leads to worse air quality if we continue to burn fossil fuels (or wood). That's not the fault of density that's caused by burning stuff. Having high density in some places and low density in the rest could actually make dealing with problems like Climate change easier. In the high-density areas, get rid of fossil fuel-powered vehicles and connect buildings to heat networks. Use the low-density regions to generate renewable energy and food to power the high-density ones.

[@johnlastname8752]

Like a less horrific morlock system.

[@marcoroberts9462]

realest comment in the whole section

[@Cawksawka]

I am also from Frankfurt/Glashütten and I have a friend from Kriftel who, like me, lives in Helsinki and I was 99% sure that you are him :D.

[@Karim94222]

Sounds like communism, everything planned, no thanks, and perhaps Americans just like having more space for them, their family and house with a garden, which is totally understandable, and people living on the countryside dont want their whole landscapes being destroyed by stupid windmills which could just as easily be replaced with nuclear, which takes a lot less space, is more reliable and is not emitting CO2 either

[@Ninjaeule97]

@@johnlastname8752 what's a morlock system?

[@mariusfacktor3597]

The Netherlands is the #2 country in the world in food exports, behind the United States. A city can't do that. The Netherlands is small but has good land-use while most other countries have egregious land-use. That's why the Netherlands can offer amazing amenities and services.

[@DGCNYO]

All flat....This is why u can and we can't

[@AlejandroRamirez-le2vv]

​@@DGCNYOif it was designed like the US it would all be suburban developments with huge freeways and interchanges

[@Lucardini]

Number #2 exporter, not #2 producer of food. We import most of those exports first. We are essentially a trade hub. (but yes we are also very efficient producers of food just not as much as that stat implies.)

[@etr1182]

@@DGCNYOthe land around NYC is all flat too

[@opethium647]

Norway is like 50% self sufficient in food, that with just 2.7% land that is actual agriculture land.

[@sitrek1423]

Belgian Propaganda

[@Kirby_Edits69]

FRRR

[@VonHeims]

True.

[@Gamer_Anthon]

1000%

[@OfficalBird_man]

As a Belgian i would formally apologise for you thinking that but still we beat you in 1831

[@neogivxapwntcpaa]

​@@OfficalBird_man belguim fell off after that, only used as a speedbump in ww2

[@m_a_e_x]

I love the blender shots. It's really nice to see the underlying software and to give others a little bit of understanding how this kind of video is produced. 10/10 please add more random blender insights in your videos from now on.

[@samoerai6807]

Agreed!

[@LinusKuehl]

I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make here --- the Netherlands isn't the only dense place in the world. For instance, the comparison to New York State isn't an argument for why what's been done in the Netherlands can only be done there. New York is also densely populated.. so why couldn't similar infrastructure be built there? It also ignores that, even if a large area is not densely populated, cities very much still tend to be. Meaning that also in places that aren't densely populated, it doesn't mean that the cities and town in that place can't afford to build better infrastructure. Sure, you can attribute the Netherland's rail infrastructure to its large-scale density, but nobody is using their bike to go from Amsterdam to Enschede. So why couldn't any other city still do as good of a job building infrastructure for short-distance trips that don't leave the city?

[@evandealy3493]

It goes back to space and living preferences. NYC does have a metro. Lots of people in NY do walk to place. But that may as well be just Manhattan. The crown Jewel of NY gets all the attention. The other districts are just suburbs. When space is limited, you tend to build efficiently. When it's not a problem, you can build comfortably. Manhattan is an island. The rest are not (barring long island). If people have a choice, most would like to live in spacier homes. The Netherlands should be underwater so the space they gain is limited, hence the dense population and efficiency of their infrastructure.

[@KajiRider1997]

So when you got more space you make it a car infested hellhole and parking lot wasteland? @@evandealy3493

[@D3nn1s]

Im not sure either what theyre trying to accomplish. NYC has over 10k ppl/km² making the netherlands seem empty by comparison. I get the feeling theyre just trying to bash the us ans thats coming from a european and generally dislikes the american culture...

[@thijmstickman8349]

I agree, this video was really weirdly scripted and didn't seem to really have a point

[@richardhouben7013]

new york was created by the netherlands

[@thijmstickman8349]

You should have mentioned that the reason that it is this way is that the government had pretty strict urban growth boundries to make sure that the cities became dense instead of sprawling out, in order to preserve the very valuable farmland. The Randstad isn't one big city, because in between the cities is the green heart, which is basically just farmland

[@idromano]

Thank you for this info! I had this hypothesis from watching YT videos and checking out Google Maps, but I never confirmed it. If possible, would you kindly point me towards sources that say more about this? It'd be great for a research I'm doing. Anything would be appreciated.

[@thijmstickman8349]

@@idromano I get this info mostly from what I learned in my dutch high school geography classes, so I honestly dont have a siteable source. If you know dutch the words you want to research are "ruimtelijke ordening" translating to spacial planning. There are books about the history of dutch spaical planning, but I'm afraid I haven't read them. If you want to know anything specific about the Netherlands in terms of land use and statistics check out the edugis map, it has basically every statistic about every place in the Netherlands. If you just want to know more holistic information about the netherlands wikipedia does a pretty good job

[@erikthehalfabee6234]

The green heart is farmland, small towns, lots of lakes and rivers.

[@thijmstickman8349]

@@idromano I got a bunch of likes, so I was notified of this comment again. I'm now studying architecture and urbanism at TU delft and we had to read the boopk URBANISM by Han Meyer, MaartenJan Hoeksta and John Westrik. It contains tonnes of information on the topic if you still need to research what you were researching. The book is pricey though.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

In theory, that is the case. In practice you can now drive from Rotterdam to the Hague through one big suburb. In fact you can then drive on to Zoetermeer through more suburbs. Rijswijk, Ypenburg. I went for a 20km bike ride recently along this route and didnt see any farmland. Just one park and a golf course. There are tons of houses being built. Barely any greenhouses or grassland left. Cities like Zoetermeer, Gouda, Alphen etc in the green area between the cities are ever expanding. And along the highways, new business parks and massive distribution centers are being built at a crazy pace. In a few decades there wont be any green left, especially with the government now threatening to change the law so they can force farmers to sell their land. Ostensibly this is because of the environment, but its obvious they are just going to selll the land they seize to housing project developers. Thats where the money is.

[@xdmelone3333]

Build a city like New York the way Randstad is built then. The fact that Randstad is technecally an area with cities instead of a city with districts, doesn't change the fact that it is functionally the same. City infrastructure in many cities (for example the US) could be like Randstad instead of the way it currently is. Sure, connection between those cities is a different story that the Netherlands don't have, but that could probably be solved by high speed trains between the cities. For the minority living outside of these clusters, there can still be cars. Cars as main transportation inside cities and their direct surroundings is just ineffective and stupid.

[@connorcrowley1]

Why? As a NYer and Dutchie living currently living in Den Haag, NYC transit urbanism with high density cities is much much much better urbanism than Dutch urbanism.

[@teaser6089]

Indeed, the first step is understanding that designing your urban area's to be car friendly is shooting yourself in the foot. Cars are the enemy of the city, they make everything suck. Public transport and mixed zoning are what make Dutch Urbanism so successful, by allowing shops and jobs to be close to where people live, it reduces the amount of times people need to move large distances, and when they do, by offering a good alternative to the car, they might chose that instead of the car, which reduces load on the road network.

[@teaser6089]

@@connorcrowley1 Disagree, Dutch Urbanism results in higher quality neighbourhoods, less traffic and happier citizens.

[@connorcrowley1]

@@teaser6089 I agree that Dutch cities like Amsterdam are great templates for suburban level densities, but they are not urban densities. NYC has millions of people living in Amsterdam style neighborhoods in it's Brooklyn and queens suburbs. But if the goal of urbanism is density of minimizising car ownership, Manhattan style, transit dependent cities, have half the car ownership rate of Amsterdam. Street space allocation is not the entire subject of urbanism.

[@HasanUnknown]

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[@dond3r183]

0:24 Funny fact is, that New York was founded by the Dutch. Plus New Netherlands was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic located on the east coast of what is now the United States, including New York (New Amsterdam).

[@AlRoderick]

Switzerland is in many ways completely the opposite of the Netherlands, but it is also a good place to live with good public transit and a high standard of living. So I clearly there's more than one answer and any individual region of the United States could probably figure out how to be more like one or the other. I live in Michigan and I always figured we'd have a better time trying to emulate Swiss urbanism than Dutch.

[@user-ku1np8bs8n]

This.

[@swissarmyknife7670]

but we in switzerland are also living close together. we are less people than the netherlands but the actual inhabited area is also alot smaller. so we are infact even denser populated.

[@WillemvanderPijl]

@@swissarmyknife7670 No the Netherlands has twice as many people per square KM

[@yaush_]

Switzerland is one of the only countries in Europe that is more wealthy than the US and half of its residents are foreign. Also the mountainous terrain means it is very dense in a lot of areas and difficult to build car based infrastructure. But again it mainly has to do with the fact that its rich and recieves a lot of foreign investment

[@udishomer5852]

This pattern of large dense urban areas is common in many countries, yet the Netherlands stands out with its exceptional infrastructure, urban planning and land use. This video is either meant to make Americans feel better about themselves, or to create controversy (which improve viewership and engagement).

[@Simon-zan]

Totally right

[@pontiuspilates]

Oh yes. Another good example would be Ruhr-Rhein or Silesia. I guess stereotypical American ignorance is a real thing, sadly.

[@chigchong2805]

bro no. a lot of countries are incapable of doing this. and im saying as a dutchie. STILL NETHERLAND NR !

[@therealspeedwagon1451]

But what makes the Netherlands so special is its massive urban area compared to the rest of the very rural country. 20% land area for one mega city for such a tiny country is insane. Rndstad is about the size of London, New York, or Tokyo. And for a country that isn’t anywhere near as economically or militarily as powerful as America, the UK, or Japan. Imagine if there was an entire US state that was just one massive mega city. Not just one with a mega city, there’s already plenty of those, but one where the whole state *is* a city. That’s how insane Rndstad is.

[@brianlbeck]

@@therealspeedwagon1451 terrible analogy but I'm sure it was the best you could do

[@leonpaelinck]

The netherlands may have similar amount of vehicles per capita than the rest of europe, but the amount of miles traveled are quite low. That's obviously thanks to the amazing bike infrastructure

[@MegaBanane9]

And the average dutch household has one car, while the average american one has two.

[@HermanWillems]

@@MegaBanane9 lol 1 car? Most families i know have at least 2. And maybe 3 or 4 when young adults still live at home.

[@vocassen]

@@HermanWillems Tf? Even in germany it's rarely 3 or 4. 2 at most. Found a master thesis at TU Delft titled "Household car ownership in the netherlands" that said 50% of households own 1 car only (plus 15% that own none). Only 2-4% own 3 or more. That leaves ~30% that own 2 cars. Edit: You seem to equate household with families, which might be the source of your discrepancy. Not everyone is a family of 5

[@jan-lukas]

Sadly I have to say that even some families in medium sized cities connected by excellent transit still sometimes have one car per person!

[@udishomer5852]

And the train infrastructure.

[@RandomFBIguy]

Hoog has sneakily infiltrated this channel with more Dutch content

[@brodoxl]

and i dont mind

[@zekiz774]

Well... David and Jonas also live in the Netherlands

[@lukaz078]

The shock I experienced when I found out you were dutch by your great pronounciation of the Randstad lol

[@mellon4251]

I recommend the video "The dumbest excuse for bad cities" from Not Just Bikes as a counterpoint to this video where he argues that almost every country has areas like the Netherlands, yet they arent nearly as well built for reason of bad infrastructure planning

[@karolinakuc4783]

True.

[@Croz89]

Consider that these countries cannot focus their infrastructure funding exclusively in these densely populated flat river valleys, and they usually have multiple flat river valleys separated by less ideal terrain. Imagine trying to tell your rural and low density suburban populations that you're slashing infrastructure funding for them and concentrating it into one or more high density city regions. It would clearly be politically untenable, any party trying such a thing would lose any support they had in those areas and would probably lose the next election. If the UK were to follow the Netherlands, whole swathes of the country, especially in Wales and Scotland, would have to be "sacrificed" in order to bring up infrastructure quality in London and the South East, maybe the West Midlands, the North West and Scottish Central Belt if they're lucky. Smaller cities too far away from larger ones would also have to be deprioritised.

[@pmlb7715]

A fact absent from those videos that put the Netherlands on a pedestal, is that the Netherlands has a unique geography which the locals learned to take advantage of. They have the luxury of living in a country without mountains or rocks, a country which they can mould and shape into whatever they want. No other country in Europe is like this.

[@boscojwho]

This ought to be the top comment. A poorly done video that presents superficial arguments and kinda makes me question the quality of this channel’s other videos that I’ve watched.

[@ruizvz9445]

Utrecht is centred in the middle of our country, which makes it a city that is used for many events during the year but also transporting people between the randstad and other parts of the country via Utrecht Central Station.

[@134343]

Found the Utrechter

[@HermanWillems]

But that's it. For the rest its a boring useless city.

[@ysbrandd]

well Amersfoort is more central, and the very small place of putten is the exact middle so this point is kinda invalidated. It really is only that the seat of a bishop used to be there which meant he got wealth funneling in during the middle ages, cities will try to become useful or they die out. Utrecht managed to do it by having a university and corporate life outside of Amsterdam. And yes Amersfoort is way more central, the original plan for Amsterdam to be a better port city would've been by connecting Amersfoort to the Rhine, then sailing up the Rhine and Eem to the zuiderzee and from there to Amsterdam.

[@lichtsprecher]

My only memories of Utrecht are the train delays

[@andrewmiller407]

So it's the Netherlands' Indianapolis.

[@nikkizi.]

I'm not just saying I want it - I urgently NEED a whole "Urk and Buruk" spinoff series! 🔥 With episodes like "Urk and Buruk Going On Holiday," "Urk and Buruk's Climate Change Calamity," or "Urk and Buruk vs. The 'Totally Sane' North Korean Dictatorship"!

[@maximianocoelho4496]

Damn, I was about to say something similar, as soon as I saw the Urk and Buruk narrative going for more than 30seconds, I said, this is getting out of hand.

[@robinvonken9975]

This would be gold!

[@thymen3431]

We need Urk and Buruk, connecting to mainland. (look up urk)

[@__-fu5se]

Frankly I was about done after 10 seconds of it.

[@knpark2025]

I can understand the premise of this video by my instinct: Seoul and its surrounding provinces combined is home to more than three times the population of the New York City Metro area, within a landmass one-third of NYC metro's landmass.This so-called "Sudogwon"(Seoul Capital Area) accounts for 12% of South Korea's landmass yet has more people living in it than the rest of South Korea combined. It makes South Korea a "Sudogwon versus everyone else" country, too, with the population density slightly higher than the Netherlands. I suspect this "core versus everywhere else" dynamic you've explained in this video could be found on many compact, densly populated countries other than the Netherlands and South Korea as well, one famous example being the Japanese Kanto (Tokyo et al.).

[@schtormm]

This is definitely a thing here too in voting; voters from the perifery don't like "those havercappucino drinking Randstaders" and vice versa

[@karinneeskens]

Same with budapest in hungary

[@longiusaescius2537]

Yeah

[@longiusaescius2537]

@karinneeskens great country, have excellent friends from there

[@artimist0315]

But doesn't South Korea has other major cities like Busan that aren't in it ? As for Japan, I don't really get the comparison, Japan is a country with multiple agglomerations, just like any country. Sure the Tokyo-Yokohama-Chiba agglomeration can be compared to the ranstad, but the whole country has a much more even repartition of population with other agglomeration like Osaka, Fukuoka, Sapporo, Nagoya, ... while the Netherlands only have the ranstad.

[@joshswenk1967]

5:37 uga booga explanation is top tier

[@remonm990]

When he said randstad I discovered this channel was dutch

[@azarine]

The time and effort put into these videos is something else - you’re revolutionizing the docu-space on KZbin with your videos.

[@Wonder1613]

give tips for blitz

[@ElliotJokelson]

How so? 😂

[@Kromiball]

He stalked and kidnapped two German KZbinrs to make this channel

[@GoJays]

Ya it's very challenging to search google

[@alleghanyonce]

I don’t even think he knew what this one was about 😂

[@octaviansandu218]

You should make a video about the booming economy of Eindhoven (basically home of ASML, Philips etc), it's always lost in the discussions about the Netherlands and the Randstad, but it's quite impressive for a small city, poised to become a huge tech hub in the coming decades, projected to add 70.000 new tech jobs by the end of the decade in a city of only 300.000. Keep up the good content, really like it!

[@lynxloco]

Yeah agreed, it's more impressive than the randstad.

[@guususus]

Agreed, it’s always forgotten when you talk about the four mayor cities. When in fact Eindhoven has been arguably more important for the world than Utrecht for example.

[@tesoulx]

ASML is in Veldhoven. Well, Eindhoven, Veldhoven, Helmond, Nuenen, Geldrop is like a Techstad or mini Randstad

[@maiskorrel]

Eindhovuuuuhh

[@iyt6407]

Yes brabant also has high density with Den Bosch, Breda, Tilburg and Eindhoven all within 50 km radius.

[@ECTCalvin]

I think the ruhrgebiet is very comparable to the Randstad. Might make for an interesting comparison

[@hermannpaschulke1583]

Yeah and public transport sucks there

[@dpt6849]

Ruhr is much bigger

[@PoisonelleMisty4311]

Great insights! The way you break down the Netherlands as essentially a giant city is eye-opening. It's fascinating to see how urban density impacts infrastructure and quality of life. Thanks for sharing!

[@vincenttichler5461]

Love the sneaky diss on Utrecht!😂 Keep up the videos my man!

[@sjeese4666]

The reason why NOx emissions in the netherlands is high, is because we have a LOT of farming going on which emits a lot. However it is much more efficient than farms in other countries (meaning that per kg of crop, we emit less and use less water than other countries

[@paxundpeace9970]

Thought about that too not only just farming but farming for flowers and vegetables which make it even more polluting with a lot of Chemicals and Pesticides and fertilizer used in addition a lot of farming is done for lifestock.

[@DanDanDoe]

Important to note that of the farming, a lot is livestock. The Netherlands exports a lot of meat and dairy to the rest of Europe. Also lots of greenhouses, though I'd say the efficiency of those is debatable. I even saw Dutch tomatoes in Italian supermarkets this summer. So we export tomatoes to countries that can and do grow tomatoes.

[@ReezMediaOfficial]

Stikstofdioxides komen niet van landbouw, dat kan alleen van verbrandingsmotoren komen. Het stikstof dat in de natuur voorkomt en in de landbouw wordt gebruikt is heel wat anders qua molecuulstructuren.

[@shitpostgrotto2982]

The New York urban area has a population either similar or greater than the Netherlands, on either less or roughly equal land area (depending on where you draw the borders of the urban area). Even just the urban centre of NYC definitely has the density of people to afford plenty of public works. Yet we have better infrastructure and public services in small Dutch towns than the biggest city in the US. The urban centre of NYC is also in a river delta, nice and flat, though like the Netherlands that brings problems of its own. Still, we see a difference. We can't compare what is rural in the Netherlands to what is rural in the US. The US has vast stretches of essentially 'people deserts' whereas in the Netherlands you can't get further than a couple kilometres from some sort of civilisation unless you go out to sea. Still, we can compare urban areas. Economies of scale exist in both places and we find that the Netherlands does infrastructure, among other things, better than the US. It's not an apples and oranges story at all. The Netherlands might have some innate advantages, but nothing that other US cities don't also have. The difference is one of urban design. American cities sprawl instead of trying to densify. Land is cheap and it's less hassle to build on unused land. The Netherlands doesn't have this luxury, all land is valuable, expecially because most of it is also arable. There's probably a farmer on that land who's not too eager to sell it to you. So, you build inwards, and make every square metre count. America has built its cities for the car. American cities used to resemble European ones a lot more before the 40's, they were densely built and trams and streetcars were commonplace. They bulldozed those cities to make way for highways. The old cities had no space for cars, so space was made. In doing so American cities entered a feedback loop where they get more and more reliant on cars, pushing out other options. There's reasons why the Netherlands is different than the US. This video makes a valid point but I feel it ignores the much more influential differences. Geography does determine some things, but a head start isn't a reason for why one of the most resource rich, wealthiest, most advanced countries on the world can't run more buses in their cities, or make them more walkable, or put some bike lanes amongst all that asphalt.

[@duaneeitzen1025]

Apples and Oranges. NY and NL. I see what you did there 😊

[@Anonymous-sb9rr]

The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia is similar. It has about the same population, same density, it's also connected by rivers and canals and it has a central conurbation the same size as the Randstad. The north of England also has a lot of big cities close together,

[@udishomer5852]

This pattern is common in many countries, yet the Netherlands stands out with its exceptional infrastructure, urban planning and land use. This video is either meant to make Americans feel better about themselves, or to create controversy (which improve viewership and engagement).

[@katii1997]

@@udishomer5852 i didn't understand anyhting that he said in the video... and why all of the things he said would mean that the netherlands "is just a giant city". is the video supposed to be positive or negative ? why is that supposed to make the US feel better about themselves ? I'm confuessed.

[@martinr7728]

The story of Urk and Buruk really added something special to this video

[@empmachine]

Your Geo Nodes skills are strong; respect

[@ErnestasMage]

The comedy and educational content is why I love channels like fern.

[@anderson._.._.8801]

It's just simplicissimus In English

[@darkii4978]

@@anderson._.._.8801 No it's the humour from both Hoog and Simpli.

[@Idkpleasejustletmechangeit]

@@anderson._.._.8801 Simplicissimus is a lot more serious than this. They have their main channel(also in German) for the comedy and use their little side channel for the serious stuff.

[@anderson._.._.8801]

@@darkii4978 right I forgot hoog

[@ErnestasMage]

@@anderson._.._.8801 Yeah, they made this channel together with hoog. Sadly I don't watch Simpli since I don't speak German.

[@elismart13]

😂6:46 BRO HAS ME DED in the middle of one of these type of videos, pls never stop doing these "funny bits", channels seem to stop doing anything like this when they "get big"

[@Idkpleasejustletmechangeit]

It's a joint venture from a channel with over 300k and one with over one million subscribers, so I don't think they'll stop doing this.

[@elismart13]

@@Idkpleasejustletmechangeit ik that by "get big" i obvs mean average views per video increasing a lot

[@infini.tesimo]

Can I just say that your content genuinely stands out as far as aesthetic production? The bright green logo isn't just the reason, the videos truly look extremely high quality and completely hand made in every facet of it. It's not just cinematic in presentation but an elevated version of it. It's what should be the standard for online info-tainment video content. Bravo. 👍🏼

[@larsp2457]

I always have so much trouble saying Dutch names like Utrecht, Den Haag and what not in an English sentence and you just do it so naturally. It's amazing to hear to be honest, a very clear and understandable English accent while still managing to basically drop "the rules" on how words are pronounced mid sentence to yeah.. Say Utrecht without sounding like "Ootracked" or something.

[@josja9920]

This man must be dutch himself

[@uncubeable]

Wtf I just discovered this channel and I'm astonished by the amount of work put into one video! Instant sub

[@brodoxl]

You do have the green heart in the center of the Randstad, which is filled with only green fields and small villages, so if you wouldn't count that as Randstad, the population density would be ever higher.

[@connorcrowley1]

The densest parts of the country are not dense at all. It is one giant suburban new Jersey with better laid out roads and lacking super dense places like jersey city.

[@vocassen]

@@connorcrowley1 No matter, we don't want high-rises and still have car roads between them, instead urban centers in the netherlands are walkable and more lively, without cars. And there's more of them, spread throughout. Makes for a much nicer experience. Density alone is not the goal of anyone really. And if you do want to see good dense cities, I wouldn't look at USA, but at Japan and other Asian countries.

[@connorcrowley1]

@@vocassen I am Dutch and American living in NL. Having lived in both NYC and Randstad multiple times, NYC is much more vibrant than any place in NL. Density is the goal.

[@vocassen]

@@connorcrowley1 Idk from what I see from NYC rn, apart from a few centers throughout, most seems pretty nasty to me. Too much cars, businesses are leaving, despite all that density. Density is good as long as you still have walkable neighbourhoods. NL achieves that by limiting cars, and it's doing well. German cities are not so great, medium density but also quite a lot of cars. Lived in Osaka for a few months, they did it really well as well, not a whole lot of cars and instead quite a lot of walkable, dense areas. It's not density I dislike. I like density. When it's walkable and lively. NYC, IMO, fails at that. With that density and most everybody still relying on a car (or suboptimal public transit), it's not a city I have a good impression of, sorry. Ofc I only see that through videos, so your mileage may vary.

[@red_skies80]

⁠@@connorcrowley1not everybody wants somewhere super busy and vibrant, though. I agree that NYC’s energy is unmatched in Europe, but there are certainly a few sides to the argument

[@maximianocoelho4496]

I was resisting commenting before seeing the video, but I am saving my space. Finished the video So, what I can take from the video is, that there are many countries, with many shapes and sizes, for what it looks the small countries have an ease of organising, combining, and managing the workforce than bigger countries, so the dutch system works in a very small bubble of possibilities, the dutch system is so unique that it requires a read in some material that I need to get my hands on. As an environmental engineer (almost) I feel like Netherlands is the birth place of my trade, the right combination of land and society management striving for better quality of living. I think if I approach the idea that each country is an unique case and they require there own system, I can arrive to the conclusion that each country can be organised in a system that better reflect landscape esources\culture.

[@ElliotJokelson]

He misses a big part of The Netherlands success; navigable waterways.

[@maximianocoelho4496]

@@ElliotJokelson he mentioned briefly the advantage of navigability, just didnt go in depth...to be honest, the aspects that make the dutch successful are many, and u can make a full serie explaining each, or make a 3 hour video.

[@ElliotJokelson]

@@maximianocoelho4496 The modern Dutch thrived under globalism there is no doubt but now that it’s finished they will experience a step decline.🤷🏻‍♂️ Good thing they built all that stuff while they could because going forward the capital and labor won’t be available. #shittydemographics

[@Jgvcfguy]

North West England has a bit of a Randstad thing going on. There are about 6-7 million people in an area about the size of the Randstad. It has a terrible and underfunded train system though. If it had anywhere near the same level of public transport funding as London It could become a much more productive region.

[@mellon4251]

I agree, poor arguments in the video as if the Netherlands where such an exception. Germany has it too, with the Rhein-Ruhr-valley, the entire US East coast, even Canada with Ontario and Quebec's southern area.

[@Croz89]

One of the problems with the North West is the terrain around these cities is not like the Netherlands, as soon as you get out of the city you often get 300m+ hills which means connecting them is more difficult, and quite a lot of people live in these satellite towns around Manchester and Liverpool that are at different elevations. That makes it more difficult to build train lines, though in many cases they do exist thanks to the Victorian era railway boom they're usually not as high quality. Walking and Cycling is not as easy on often windy hilly paths even with e-bikes and the cool, wet climate doesn't help. Not to say things can't be improved, I personally think Manchester and Liverpool could do with better urban transit, even better than what many Dutch cities have, but the different environment means a copy paste job isn't going to work.

[@chigchong2805]

@@mellon4251 yes but with less core infrastructure and less good yields

[@heinzhenry2047]

Brooo that Urk & Burk part was amazing 😂😂😂😂

[@TheSimArchitect]

OMG! I live here and someone finally said it! 👏🏻

[@rohansaxena4751]

3:57 having been to Utrecht the city only does universities well 🤣 and ig the Dom cathedral too 😂 Also fun fact if you climb to the top of dom tower you can practically see all the the other 3 major cities 😂

[@h4bun5]

I love how hoog is both funny and educational

[@zimne5212]

I strongly disagree with the premise of the video. New Jerseys is just as dense as the Netherlands. Cars first is just shitty city design. Everywhere.

[@JackShoreMusic]

I want an Urk and burk feature film please! Ur amazing

[@LEFT4BASS]

I’ve mentioned this many times. We can take some lessons from the Dutch for sure, but the US is 237X the size of the Netherlands, only about 1/10 as densely populated, and has a far more diverse landscape. They just aren’t the same.

[@rodrigosouto9502]

So New York should be as good as the Netherlands. Yet it is very far from them in terms of infrastructure.

[@crunchynut2559]

the urk part killed me

[@Toph95]

for real i had to skip it lol

[@Belathane]

Urk's secret is he's always angry.

[@paprika1716]

Im confused, what was your point and the reasoning. Urk and Burk were there but your point is, that the netherlands is a giant city at the size of new york. Ok than why don't you just compare new York to the netherlands? Seems the right choice. Why are they still so different?

[@cs0779533]

Yeah I don’t like that urk and burk thing. it killed the video for me. It does not fit.

[@martso9288]

am in nethernalds atm, working abroad for the summer. it very much is a giant city, its crazy.

[@Pingpongmation]

When the storytelling and visuals are so good you watch a 10 minute video about how the Netherlands is actually a city

[@oyungogdfrust4136]

"the netherlands has advantages that make it easier to build their cities" is not an excuse. start with new york, la, wherever you're going to. you can still make a dutch city there and dutch infastructure there, then another place, then another place until your entire country is built like the dutch. easy process? no! improved life quality? yes. also please dont do urk and buruk again, you dont have to do caveman speak like you're talking as urk and buruk. you can just explain the process in a normal tone that respects people's intelligence.

[@AdrianPichler]

I don't know about you, but I thought it was absolutely hilarious! 🤣

[@oyungogdfrust4136]

@@AdrianPichler it was funny for like 1 minute then it started to feel like baby-talking. i have no problem with like a joke segment like this but it turned into half the video.

[@AnastasiosTsarouchas]

Yeah and although he is an excellent video creator, really really stellar, he is not usually inserting jokes in videos. I had the uneasy feeling that maybe it wasn’t supposed to be funny xD

[@24THOMAS241]

I get your point, but if population density is major factor for the infrastructure, this is kind of misleading as most major cities in the US have a population density similar to Amsterdam or larger. And if you travel through the randstad it’s much more like a spread out village, nothing comparable to NY city

[@iea96]

RIP Urk and Buruk.

[@rogiervantilburg3440]

Great video! I was born in the Netherlands and emigrated to Canada when l was 39. So l moved from one of the most densely populated countries to one of the least- and l agree with all of the differences that you are stating here.

[@thomasschmidt8544]

Your visuals just continue to thrill me, and I love your humor. So very well done - thank you very much! I imagine a coop between the three of you with Captain Disillusion and The Black Forest Family (she's a very sophisticated scientist in city development based close to Freiburg and originating from the US). My brain would explode.

[@CrownRider]

Decades ago we came to the same conclusion. The Netherlands is a big city with giant parcs and huge suburbs and party islands. It is in economic competition with the Ruhr area and the Antwerp/Bruxelles area. Zooming out these areas fuse together. Spreading to northern Italy and the south of England you see what is called the Blue Banana.

[@DalaiDrama-hp6oj]

And now there somehow grew a Brexit wall inside this Banana

[@jbird4478]

Yeah, yeah... and if you zoom out even more and squeeze your eyelids together you see the Eastern Atlantic Metropolitan Area stretching all the way to Moscow.

[@paulbeaucuse2092]

Well, a the cities in the agglomeration Randstad felt very provincial to me, I would say the "Ruhrgebiet" in Germany is a city, because it has a big-city mentality, 24/7 pub and clubs and 24/7 liquor shops everywhere for example. The Randstad is huge provincial city, a paradox, I realize, but life felt like that.

[@vanCaldenborgh]

True, it does not have the urban mentality like the "Ruhrgebiet", Hamburg, Cologne or Berlin.

[@redcrafterlppa303]

My takeaway is that the US is not building dense because it has lots of land but then wonders why everything is so far away and difficult to reach and connect. Giant suburbs that waste tons of space and time is just not a viable option fir living. Either you live in a low density town or in a dense city. Something in between just doesn't work and the us proved it. The Netherlands proved that dense cities can have good transport and can be built for bikes and walking. Something the US didn't manage to do in their cities.

[@AMERICANROYALFAMILYDESCENDANTS]

The united states citizens want land and privacy...thats why we own our acreage far out from the cities. We do not like the big cities necessarily because of over crowdedness and lots of crime. If you are not an American you will not understand us. We can grow our own food on our lands. We like it that way.

[@redcrafterlppa303]

@@AMERICANROYALFAMILYDESCENDANTS be honest most Americans don't grow food in their suburb garden. Also the crime of the downtown is a result of American city planing. In Europe most cities have way less crime then in America.

[@KabobHope]

​@@redcrafterlppa303To say that high crime is attributable to poor city planning seems a bit precious and naive. A simpler answer is the attitude toward gun ownership. The US has more guns than people.

[@myweirdsecondchannelwithap9070]

@@redcrafterlppa303I don't know what that guy is talking about. 83% of Americans live in urban areas

[@BayBlade2011MC]

Part of the perfection is the compactness, but ya got a point with the size

[@Some_Awe]

brotherrrr i couldnt tell you were dutch until you said randstad and them immediately the accent popped into my head xd, good vid

[@GoldenRuben1]

I, as a Dutchman, can confirm. that we are very densely populated. But calling the Netherlands a big city is a bit of an exaggeration. But otherwise a good explanation about the Netherlands!

[@connorcrowley1]

We have fewer people living here than the NYC metro area. We are somewhere between a city state and a real country. We only have pathetically small "cities."

[@ChuckThree]

Depends on how you define a city (Netherlands population 17,618,259 and density = 522/km2) … • Jacksonville, Florida USA; 11th highest population city in US at 971,319; population density = 491/km2 • Nashville, Tennessee USA; 21st highest population city in the US at 683,622; population density = 559/km2

[@udishomer5852]

I live in a giant city, of between 15-25 million people, depending where you draw the line (Metro Manila, glad you asked). And it is nothing like the Netherlands.... Also, New York City, probably the best designed Metro area in the USA, is also not as good as the Netherlands in terms of public transportation, walkability and cyclability.

[@jbird4478]

And yet NYC has a density roughly 20 times that of the Netherlands. I guess his entire argument is out the window now.

[@christophermarshall4080]

So, basically: The Netherlands is built different

[@bungasyambabu6797]

Hi madam

[@georgios_5342]

Greece is also very similar to the Netherlands in that it has Athens, a massive city where around 40-45% of the population resides, with 1000 people per km². And the rest of the country is very sparsely populated

[@lowolswijk3287]

Wow, as a fellow Dutchie, I had no idea this channel was (at least partly) run by someone Dutch. However, after your pronunciation of ‘Randstad’ and the individual cities, there is no doubt about it. Absolutely magnificent mastery of the English language. Usually we can tell other Dutchies by their accent :). Kudos!

[@MA-ck4wu]

His English is good but not perfect. There are definitely some dead giveaways here and there. Some words/phrases would be pronounced differently by an American.

[@jannetteberends8730]

3 hours before this one, Not Just Bikes uploaded a video with the title “even small towns are great in the Netherlands”. Most of these small towns were outside the randstad. What a coincidence! 😂

[@KaspersMC]

Hey what programs do you use for all your Animation ? : ) thanks for your very well explained Video : ) thanks

[@Jorge_Pronto]

7:30 this is actually not true. The reason soil fertility is so high is because the massive overuse of fertilizer, which in turn is a great contributor to the NOx problem (NL is the #1 NOx emitter per capita of the world). Naturally, the soil here has not been useful for farming grounds for centuries as the swamplands ("veen") were depleted of natural resources centuries ago.

[@fern-tv]

It's both. Fertilizers are a big part of it (we'll leave that for an entirely different video), but the sea and rivers also played a significant part. edepot.wur.nl/282212 - Elmer

[@ChristiaanHW]

A better way of determining the use of fertilizer is how much per kg of any given product produced on that land. So if The Netherlands produces 2x as much kg of tomatos with the same amount of fertilizer they are actually more efficient. (I don't know the real numbers, this is just an example) Fetrilizer per capita is a bit of a weird way to rank fertilizer use.

[@Jorge_Pronto]

@@ChristiaanHW I can follow your argumentation but it lacks taking account of the side effects such as polution. Yes, using massive amounts of fertilizer increases crop yields by a significant margin but it causes all types of (almost irreparable) damages. There is a new (Dutch) book called "Uit de sh*t" which explains the biology behind fertilizer (over) use.

[@markhemsworth2670]

I feel like you're proving the points raised by Not Just Bikes. A key point every urbanist pushed for is to remove zoning laws that only allow for single family homes. "the more people you have on land, the more money you have on that land as well". Thanks for supporting what urbanists are trying to say

[@stephanvanberkel2966]

In the encircled area is actually what we call 'het groene hart' (the green heart). It's a very large meadow-area famous for the birds breeding there. Not a city in the slightest.

[@jonashannes3793]

5:54 dafug was that

[@dezznutz472]

this video reminds me much of how Japans main island is, Honsu. Honsu has so many big cities, where many of them is connected or just really close. also with shinkanse, it makes travelling between many of the cities fell like almost one big city. think also China has the same thing. they have also a lot of cities very close to each other along the coast of China.

[@ianhomerpura8937]

The entire stretch from Tokyo to Fukuoka are full of cities that have more than 250,000 people. Hence why the first Shinkansen lines were built along that corridor.

[@Highly-grounded]

Honshū

[@blindedbliss]

I see others disagree, but I think the Urk and Buruk story was neat. I like the idea of you not being able to record it with a straight face. It's made simple, because novel ideas must be simple. This was a novel idea.

[@blindedbliss]

5:50 I've only got one criticism. Shouldn't the man seed, and the woman harvest? 😉🙄

[@CantTellYou]

Just wait til you learn Buruk & Urk are the origin of Sesame Street’s “Bert & Ernie”!

[@Nuclear_Animations]

As a New Yorker, the picture you used isn’t NYC. That’s the NYC metropolitan area. That picture includes places like long island, Newark, and Yonkers. NYC would be just the 5 bouroghs. (Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Statin Island) -Sorry if this came off as rude

[@dancostello6465]

Urk and Buruk explain so much about Dutch mud water culture.

[@gaatjeniksaan336]

Its highly wrong that Dutch people pay less on infrastructure. Every car owner here has to pay road tax dependent on the engine size and fuel type. I pay 76 euro per month road tax owning a 2 liter petrol car. For the same engine size, the road tax costs for a Diesel is more than twice that. Furthermore, NL has one of the highest fuel prices in the world. Public transport is only free for students and elsewise its more expensive that most other European countries. In comparison, in Germany one doesn't pay road tax at all and fuel is cheaper.

[@DutchDeLorean]

If you truly compared The Netherlands to New York City I think you'll find them to actually be very very different.

[@SisterSunny]

this video was absolutely amazing, and the urk and buruk bit was simply fantastic lmaoo

[@TrueMT7]

As a person from the Netherlands, i see it like this: Some things of the Netherlands are good, whilst some other things are bad, as example our train, tram, metro, bus, etc is good + the Infrastructure, but the weather, government, drunks and the addics, are bad.

[@tediz8280]

i'm 41 and lived my whole live in Delft, a city in Zuid-Holland, just between Den Haag and Rotterdam. i have lung problems, and this explains why.

[@evihippogrief772]

In all honesty, you just say Randstad is one giant city and the rest is unimportant for your statement. To be clear here: Randstad is not the entirety of the Netherlands. I would've agreed to your statement if you changed 'The Netherlands" to "Randstad"

[@SnorProductions]

Netherlands is not a city it’s a Country! With its amazing rich history! Its definitely a really rich country!!! Big economy and well treated people, we can say it’s the Perfect country/ a example how every country should be!! With Utrecht it’s a big city and province where I live it’s very nice here! With a lot of nice people! That’s all what I wanted to say! Thanks for ur time!

[@notatxmn]

and remember without the netherlands there probably wouldnt be wifi, bluetooth and other things, well maybe there would be ofc but not at the time where it actually got invented

[@YandelStedufus]

and yes without the UK🇬🇧 Netherlands would've just been a Soviet Russia satellite state

[@SnorProductions]

@@YandelStedufus nope

[@YandelStedufus]

@@SnorProductions ww2

[@SnorProductions]

@@YandelStedufus wow

[@uptoolsYTK]

I'm learning dutch at the moment, and: "Ik spreek en beetje nederlands en je bent en brood."

[@brodoxl]

Geweldig, jij bent een frikandel

[@crispyshaman4937]

Geweldig dit

[@Highly-grounded]

Jij been een croissant

[@anthonymarquez6493]

I was shocked the Netherlands has such a small population.

[@6z0]

+1 for actually getting the NY metro area correct. 99% of creators just show the 5 boroughs when talking about the NYC metro area, when in reality it has parts of Upstate, Jersey, and Long Island.

[@Luclucluclucluc]

You sound really Dutch while pronouncing“de Randstad” and you speak excellent English without a Dutch accent lol, normally you always hear Dutch people speak English and immediately know that they’re Dutch.

[@gttc321]

He definitely is Dutch

[@sirping]

The argument is not to make the whole entire US like the Netherlands but to make the Citys more liveable and walkable. This had nothing to do with how big the country itself is

[@toniderdon]

But still: You have to manage that wealth and keep it inside the dense areas. Look at NY for example. NY has more money than the Netherlands (per capita), yet their infrastructure is absolute shit because most of their income tax goes to the federal government which then spends it in other areas, but not only in NY. It is not only about how much money you get, it is about how well you spend it.

[@VentiVonOsterreich]

Thumbnail might be somewhat misleading to the title "Netherlands is one giant city", because it shows the entire State of New York over the entire country of the Netherlands, although New York itself has multiple cities that are miles away from each other, while the Netherlands consists of multiple towns and cities, many of which used to be (or stil are) forts built during the 90 Years War, that are very close to each other thanks to existing long before trains and automobiles

[@Bennie_Tziek]

Utrecht is the central transportation hub with a load of trains going everywhere