CONNECTIONS

[DEN HELDER, NETHERLANDS]

Den Helder, a city with 45.000 inhabitants, is situated in the province of North-Holland. Den Helder is a coastal city which implicitly has to deal with coastal defence. The ecological and biological scenery of the water structures surrounding Den Helder is world cultural heritage, where we can find a lot of animal activity (Waddenzee).

 

Den Helder is using the sea in many different ways and is also one of the main occasions of the increasing inhabitants in the 20th century. It has the largest marine base in the Netherlands, which has always been the main source of jobs in the 20th cen­tury. Unfortunately this marine base will leave within the next couple of years. This has made a great impact on the inhabi­tants, since this city is shrinking rapidly. People are leaving be­cause of the bad living qualities, lack of universities and decreasing job op­portunities; Den Helder is often mentioned as one of the ugliest cities of The Netherlands.

 

Close to the Marine, the ferry towards Texel is located. Den Hel­der is the main hub to travel towards Texel, the island on the North side of city. This ferry is the main attraction why people pass Den Helder. And this is exactly the problem. They only pass the city, but do not enter the city. It has a great cultural history, but these aspects are bad maintained and not well-known.

 

Emphasis is put on De Schooten. An area where around 17% of inhabitants from Den Helder live. It is a neighbourhood, which was built around the end of the 1960’s, and exist mostly out of small family houses (rent) and large flats in the centre. The neighbourhood was built because of the increasing employees of the marine that moved to Den Helder.

De Schooten is, compared to the rest of Den Helder, an aging neighbourhood. Almost 30% of the inhabitants have the age of 65 and up. In the centre this number is even higher; 66%. One of the reasons is that most of these inhabitants have been living here from the moment De Schooten was build. Another reason is that a lot of elderly facilities are settles in the centre of Schooten.

 

The vision of the project is to try and find ways to improve the attractiveness of the city and incorporate new sources of employment. In addition a connections is established between the three city centres; old Den Helder, Nieuw Den Helder and De Schooten. De centres of Nieuw Den Helder and De Schooten are secondary to Old Den Helder.

 

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