When I traveled through Brazil some years ago, I ended up in a city called Patos de Minas. It lays in the inlands of the state Minas Gerais in between smooth hills and surrounded by country land and forests. A real provincial town with already nearly 150.000 inhabitants. That is almost the size Almere!
Though almost as big in size, I noticed one big difference: city services. A little two-room cinema, a small theater, a few clubs, a number of bars and restaurants, and that’s it. Apart from that housing (mainly one-family), shops and small companies and a few large factories.So, what surprised me was to see a city of such a size and a city services level of a small town in the Netherlands. No clear, visible city plan, no planned public realm. A church, a square, a park, and nothing more. At the mean time local inhabitants told me new initiatives in the city (like a new club) were embraced really quickly, being the talk of the town for a few moths, and then dropped as fast as they rose.
This phenomenon triggered me strongly, and I got really curious to discover what the causes were, and, more important, what could be done to change it. I wanted to discover what the secret or hidden reason was behind this behavior. And, as a real solution-based TU Delft product, find a way to change things structurally to the better in this city.
