nov 2022 // issue 1

MET
gazette

OPPORTUNITY
OPPORTUNITY
OPPORTUNITY
OPPORTUNITY
OPPORTUNITY
OPPORTUNITY
O
C NTENT

INTRO/ 1
Foreword: Manifesto - Gayathri Angou

Column: Art, Tech & Science - Matthijs ten Berge

OPINION/ 8
Essay: The death and life of great digital cities - Marijn Veraart

Opinion: An underlying philosophical problem in planning - Rakan Dajani

Experiences: Train Propaganda - Kyra Koning

EXPRESSION/ 22
Poem: Opportunity Riddle - Alex Brown

About the MET Gazette

Director // Gayathri Angou Brought to you by

Editor in chief // Mariana Bobadilla García MADE-IT study association
Public relations // Mees Deknatel and MET Forum.
Creative director // Matias Cardoso
Editorial support // Beatrice Molteni
Editorial support // Daphne Plaza Alemán

Platform manager // Jonas van der Ham

Cover // Alex Brown

FOREWORD

Manifesto
Gayathri Angou

The MET Gazette is a new MADE-IT and MET
forum initiative to develop a student-run magazine
and offer a platform for articles, essays, and other
print media. When I started MADE in September
2021, I was curious to pen down my perspectives on
urban challenges especially as a woman of color
and international student in the Netherlands. This
led me to seek out publications at TU Delft and
Wageningen with little luck, as it can be logistica-
lly challenging to partake in TUD and WUR student
groups with MADE being an off-campus program
based in Amsterdam. And as I became part of
Board 4 and the MET Forum, it was an opportunity
to then wonder how we can develop a publication
of our own.
Chair) gracing our edition with creative graphics
and his talent in simple, beautiful design.
So, this first edition is merely a prototype, one
where we learned by doing and now understand
the behind-the-scenes of running publications.
The hope is for the new generation of MADE IT
Boards and MET Forums to establish a rhythm for
issues and further develop the structures behind
marketing, sourcing articles and beyond. This first
edition is aptly themed “Opportunity” - a stepping
stone towards bigger and better editions down the
line.

With the wonderful minds of Board 4 and MET

Gayathri Angou
forum, we were able to brainstorm the structure
she/her
behind such a project and hit the ground running.
Director, MET Gazette
What makes the MET Gazette different than a
publication at TUD or WUR is the affiliation and
close collaboration with AMS Institute – and we’re
grateful to AMS directors’ immediate willingness
to help make this happen.

As luck would have it, my dear friend Mariana

(our Editor-in-chief and MET Forum member) had
extensive editorial experience in Mexico prior to
beginning MADE.

Our team formed organically with Mees (Board

VP – External Relations) enthusiastically chasing
partnerships, and our friend Matias (MET Forum

Intro | 1
 Here goes a nice picture relating to the topic of the column :)

2 | Intro
OPINION
Art, Tech & Science
Opportunities for the Marineterrein as nursery for
a learning city.
Matthijs ten Berge
The theme of this Met Gazette brought up a memory
of an animated conversation I recently had with a
close friend about my work. The discussion was
about the efforts to connect art, tech and science
on the Marineterrein, which were described with
the term ‘opportunistic’. The conversation got me
thinking. I work at the Marineterrein on develo-
ping this learning area in the heart of the city for
the Amsterdam University of the Arts, a knowle-
dge institute comprising six leading art and culture
academies. In my work, I constantly look for oppor-
tunities for collaboration. And I consider seeing,
finding and seizing opportunities as essential parts
of this task, be they real-life learning opportunities
that my colleagues in education can use in their
teaching, urgent research topics that my colleagues
in research can use in their projects, or other oppor-
tunities that can help accelerate the transformation
of the Marineterrein.
It is obviously too short-sighted to see opportunism
and opportunity as two sides of the same coin. Still,
I wondered what had caused my friend’s scepti-
cism. It took me some time to get my head around
this, especially because I don’t view opportunities
and ‘healthy’ opportunism as a bad thing per se.
In setting up a collaboration or a project, opportu-
nities are the spark that makes a new relationship
and, thus, development possible. The crux turned
out to be in the questions of opportunities: who gets
opportunities (and who doesn’t) and why?
And are the opportunities that arise only accessible
to a limited vanguard and possibly only to an elite
group or a broader audience? In other words, are
these opportunities inclusive?
The questions that arose from our conversation
may eventually lead to a better understanding of
the chances and hurdles that still need to be over-
come. In the past period, I have gained a clearer
picture of the necessity of our presence at the
Marineterrein and the value of creating a place for
a much broader group of students, lecturers and
researchers. What is that necessity?
In recent years, under the curation of Projectbureau
Marineterrein, something special has emerged in
the area. A community of innovative small and
medium-sized enterprises, start-ups and important
network organizations have temporarily settled
here, with three large educational and research ins-
titutions also joining. These three parties, the AMS
Institute, Codam and the Amsterdam University of
the Arts, have been coined ‘the ‘knowledge coalition’
by the municipality of Amsterdam. This knowle-
dge coalition has a particular DNA that consists of
top education and research in the fields of art, tech
and science, locally anchored in Amsterdam and
internationally networked. Suppose you view the
Amsterdam metropolitan region as one large open
campus. In that case, it quickly becomes apparent
that you will not find such a combination anywhere
else in the region, let alone in the Netherlands. Why
is this relevant? Because in a period in which tran-
sitions and times of crisis are ‘the new normal,’
collaboration between disciplines is crucial to find
solutions.
Opinion | 3
Art has intrinsic value independent of any exter-
nally formulated social utility and can also stand
for art-driven change. It is precisely through the
involvement of artists that the perspective on a
transition and, thus, on a solution direction can
change radically. Open and value-driven techno-
logies can structurally change and support how
we work together towards solutions. Scientific
research provides us with the language and fra-
mes of reference to create and share knowledge. If
it is possible to work from these three directions,
which in practice often already overlap, the odds
of finding answers and providing solutions are so
much greater.
How then should we seize the opportunities offered
by a knowledge coalition of art, tech and science?
The word “we” is chosen here, as this is a joint
search for the most elegant way to stimulate and
facilitate collaboration. The opportunities are latent
and apparent, but cooperation will never come
about without commitment and continuous atten-
tion based on deep knowledge of how education
is organized. It may sound technocratic, but any
attempt will die without this insight. If this insi-
ght is there, the party can begin. Links between
existing education programs can be made, new pro-
grams can be jointly explored and even developed,
urgent themes such as the Climate Emergency and
social justice can be tackled jointly and may lead to
collaborative research and experiments. Students
4 | Opinion
who gain expertise within their own educatio-
nal setting can be given the opportunity to step
out of their silos and become acquainted with the
world in all its complexity. Crossroads in the subs-
tantive programs are conditional for this, but also
actual places on the Marineterrein that make these
meetings and collaborations possible. Places and
programs that enable and perhaps even organize
serendipity.
The greatest opportunity in this regard is the
temporary nature of our current presence on the
ground. It is precisely by embracing this interme-
diate phase, for example until the 750th anniversary
of Amsterdam in 2025 or the planned renewal of
the area that all the knowledge and experience we
are now gaining can directly influence the shape of
the Marineterrein as an innovation district.
In this way, we can create an open test area for the
ideal city 2050 together—a lively place in the middle
of the city where everyone is welcome. Where con-
tinuous learning and experimentation are central
and new connections between education, work and
living are stimulated. The nature-inclusive oasis
of greenery with peace and bustle can become a
place where cross-pollination between experts and
non-experts forms the basis for groundbreaking
innovation and inclusive collaboration by making
surprising combinations, allowing start-ups to flou-
rish and jointly discover new worlds that match the
DNA of the Marineterrein.
At the Marineterrein, the Amsterdam knowle-
dge coalition of the Amsterdam University of the
Arts, Codam and AMS Institute can be an essen-
tial catalyst for maximum cross-pollination, to
facilitate interaction, collaboration and chance
encounters between art, tech & science and to link
the local Marineterrein community to the city of
Amsterdam and the international network of our
partners through the connection of education,
research and entrepreneurship.
An image looms of the Marineterrein as a perpe-
tuum mobile for a continuous flow of education and
research designed to play a role in the regeneration
of a planet in peril. A nursery for a learning city.
However naïve this idea might sound, the renow-
ned British economist Kate Raworth, author of the
bestseller Donut Economics and a regular visitor of
the Culture Club on the Marineterrein, has demons-
trated that at the beginning of everything lies a
story. A story that is written by a person who picks
up a pencil and sets in motion a whole new path.
The opportunity is here to write this story together.
Matthijs ten Berge
Head of the Art & Society Development Office of the
Amsterdam University of the Arts, co-founder of
the Culture Club at the Marineterrein.
matthijs.tenberge@ahk.nl | www.ahk.nl/cultureclub
Opinion | 5
S
E SAY
The death and life of great digital cities
A historical exploration for guidelines towards a more diverse and resilient internet
Abstract
This essay attempts to provide new perspective
on the development of the internet ecosystem,
with a specific focus on tech giants like Google
and Meta which currently dominate it. These new
perspectives are brought by looking at historical
developments such as the rise of the Web 2.0, and
a concept of the digital city from Amsterdam in the
1990’s. Their aim was to introduce readers to alter-
native visions of what the internet could look like.
Because my conclusion is not only that the way the
internet is currently used should change, but also
that these changes can only be realised through a
radical social change along with fitting regulations
from (inter)national governments.
This essay was originally submitted for the course
Metropolitan Innovators in December of 2021.
1 Introduction
The revered and celebrated city planning publicist
Jane Jacobs stated that the city can be viewed as
a man-made ecosystem, and that it has quite some
similarities with natural ecosystems. For instance,
cities demand great diversity to sustain itself, just
like nature (Jacobs, p.14, 1961). Can something simi-
lar be said of another man-made ecosystem such
as the internet? The knowledge and perspectives
shared on the internet can be diverse. There is a
diverse amount of information that can be found
on the internet. The problem however lies in who
accesses what information. Big tech algorithms
create bubbles for people so that they get access to
only a limited amount of sources and thus limited
diversity of perspectives and information. Instead
of one extremely diverse jungle, the internet has
6 | Opinion
become a multitude of different monoculture
plantations.
I’m not the first that uses the city as a metaphor
of cyberspace. During the 1980’s, in the early days
of the internet, emerged the concept of ‘Free-nets’.
One especially successful Free-net was that of ‘De
Digitale Stad’ (DDS), or ‘the digital city’ in English.
DDS used the city as a metaphor to make the
cyberspace understandable; mail could be found
in the post-office and other online spaces could be
reached through the train station. But DDS provi-
ded more than just accessibility of the internet, it
was also home to a resilient community (Rustema,
2001). This led me to wonder whether the ideas of
DDS might still be relevant in the current inter-
net ecosystem. Could similar commandments be
drawn for the digital city, as Jane Jacobs did for
urban planning of the physical city?
2.1 Free-nets and Community networks: Reinder
Rustema (2001) defines free-nets accurately and
concise:
Definition Free-net - Netscape
File Edit View Go Communicator Help
Free-nets are computer networks that are
situated in a specific geographical place, like a
town or a rural area, on which communication
takes place between citizens about their
already existing community in real life.
(Rustema, November 2001. The rise and fall of DDS; evaluating the
ambitions of Amsterdam’s digital city)

Besides being a free-net, DDS was also a commu-
nity network aimed to distribute information to
everyone in a community. Those with an internet
connection had access to information and those
without would not. But access to information should
be a public good, accessible to everyone. Just like it
always has been since the dawn of public libraries.
Hence it was a goal of community networks such
as DDS to increase the accessibility of information
(Rustema, 2001).
2.2 Web 2.0: To explain the Web 2.0, I will do some-
thing that is considered blasphemous in academic
writing: reference Wikipedia1.
Definition Web 2.0- Netscape
File Edit View Go Communicator Help
To start off, Web 2.0 (or Participative Web or Social
Web) was a philosophical concept, there was no
change in software of the world wide web, nor was
every website part of this movement. Its goal was to
increase accessibility to the internet by making it
easier to use, and provide the opportunity for users
to become (co-)authors of a website (Wikipedia
contributors, 2021b). Everyone should be able to
participate. This resulted in several new types of
websites such as social media (e.g. Facebook,
MySpace), media sharing websites (e.g. YouTube,
Flickr), blogs and wiki’s. The Wikipedia contributors
also define five key characteristics for the Web 2.0:
Folksonomy; which allows users to classify and find
information (i.e. tagging)
Rich user experience; dynamic content that respons-
es to user input (e.g. click on something for more
information)
Definition Web 2.0- Netscape
File Edit View Go Communicator Help
User participation; the flow of information on a
website goes two ways (e.g. review, comment on or
edit a web page)
Software as a Service (SaaS); web 2.0 sites developed
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to allow
automated usage (e.g. Web Apps, Mashups)
Mass participation; to create a wider variety of users
than just hackers and computer hobbyists
2.3 What’s wrong with the internet: The current
internet ecosystem has since evolved from the
Web 2.0 to dominate the internet by the develop-
ment of an extremely successful business model.
People can use their website without having to pay
money, instead advertisements are shown. What
makes this model so successful is that the adverti-
sements are well targeted by the use of the data that
users create by simply using the website. The algo-
rithms are opted to strengthen this business model
by maximizing usage to increase data creation
and advertisement sales. This algorithm design is
widely used by the big tech firms that currently
dominate the internet (e.g. Google, Meta) and brings
up various problems and moral objections that can
be divided into three categories:
1. This is especially fitting because I argue that Wikipedia is the
most successful product of the Web 2.0. The English Wikipedia
page of the Web 2.0 is a comprehensive article with eighty
references which indicates to some extent the validity of this
source. The same can be said for another Wikipedia page I will
refer to, the dot-com bubble which has 109 references.
Opinion | 7
Surveillance based advertisement: Targeted
advertisements from companies already give me
the shivers. But the real problem of these adver-
tisements is the susceptibility to misinformation
campaigns, which create polarised societies.
Misinformation campaigns create confusion on
topics like vaccination and politicians can win the
people’s vote thanks to a successful twitter account
rather than well argued plans and ideas for the
nation (Somula et al., 2020).
Mental health problems: Social media platforms
such as Facebook and Instagram are (designed to
be) addictive and posts about insecurities or sad
feelings are a rare sight. People that are insecure
and/or sad only see their friends, family and favou-
rite influencers feeling the complete opposite on
social media. This combination can lead to depres-
sion and loneliness (Shakya & Christakis, 2017).
Bubble creation: As has been stated in the intro-
duction, a resilient ecosystem is a diverse one. This
is not the case for the internet (i.e. social media)
as the information users are presented is actively
prevented to be diverse by the algorithm of the pla-
tform. Due to the overload of available information
on social media, combined with the users personal
profile based on ‘clicks’ and ‘likes’, the information
presented to the user becomes narrowed down.
This in turn leads to ‘social fragmentation’ and
‘digital isolation’ (Hidayah, 2019).
Thus, the current ecosystem contributes to the
degradation of developed societies by alienating
people from their community and an influence of
politics in a toxic manner.
8 | Opinion
3. How did we get here, a Multi-Level Perspective
Geels’ model of the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP)
provides an opportunity to pinpoint how such a con-
cept can develop from a niche to the mainstream.
MLP consists of three layers: Technological niches,
the Socio-technical regime and Landscape develo-
pments. Landscape developments can be seen as
the external context that influences the regime.
This external context entails all societal, cultural
and economical aspects, as well as physical infras-
tructure that affect the socio-technical regime. The
socio-technical regimes are the dominant forces
on a market that determine the rules due to their
large market share. Lastly Technological niches are
new technologies and concepts that try to enter the
market and challenge the socio-technical regime
(Geels, 2005).
What Geels’ model depicts so well in figure 1, is
that a new concept usually does not strike gold
by accident. What’s more likely is that there are
multiple technologies and concepts that iterati-
vely get tweaked and linked together to a concept
that eventually breaks the regime once a win-
dow of opportunity presents itself. The same can
be said for the Web 2.0, its predecessors (commu-
nity networks such as the digital city) developed
the concept to eventually come to the philosophy
and key characteristics of the Web 2.0. The win-
dow of opportunity presented itself for this concept
because the contemporary regime, the ‘dot-com
bubble’, had burst.
The dot-com bubble is a phenomenon that occurred
between 1995 and 2002, Internet based companies
were enormously popular in the stock market and
created an increase of the NASDAQ index of
Figure 1: Geel’s Multi-Level Perspective - Netscape
File Edit View Go Communicator Help

INCREASING STRUCTURATION OF ACTIVITIES IN LOCAL PRACTICES

Socio-techical
landscape
(exogenous context)

Landcape developments put

pressure on existing regime, which
opens up, creating windows of
opportunity for novelties.
New regime
influences landscape
Merkets and users
preferences
Science
Industry

Culture

Policy

Technology
Socio-techical regime is
dynamically stable. New configuration breaks through, taking
On different dimensions advantage of “windows of opportunity”.
there are ongoing Adjustment occur in socio-technical regime.
processes.

External influences
on niches.
(via expectation
and networks)

Elements become aligned, and

stability in a dominant design.
Internal momentum increases.

Small networks of actors support novelties on the basis of expectations and visions.
Learning processes take place on multiple deimnsions (co-costruction).
Niche- Efforts to link different elements in a seamless web.
innovetions
Time

Opinion | 9
400% in 2001, Only to decrease 78% again a year
later. Several fast growing internet companies
were forced to shut down (e.g. pets.com, Boo.com,
Worldcom and Global Crossing). Others endured
the hit and managed to eventually grow again, for
example, Amazon, Ebay, Cisco, etc. (Wikipedia con-
tributors, 2021).
As previously stated, the current regime is unsus-
tainable. What should change in the regime and
how to change this regime? Is another finan-
cial bubble needed in order to change the current
regime? Or are there other ways for the landscape
developments to create a window of opportu-
nity for a niche to break through? The landscape
is a rigid entity and its development is slow.
Alternative message platforms like Signal and
Telegram are still no competition for Whatsapp,
which is owned by Meta. Alternative search engi-
nes such as DuckDuckGo and Ecosia also remain a
small niche in comparison to market leader Google.
However, user preferences are changing and policy
changes are being put on the (inter)national politi-
cal agenda (Savin, 2017). An example of a company
that already took notice of these developments is
Apple, which in 2021 released a handful of new fea-
tures which are meant to make your phone less
distractive (read: less addictive) with one specially
exciting function to disable endless scrolling. This
is a tool that several social media and news apps
use to keep you (endlessly) engaged with their ser-
vice, as there seems to be endless content. Without
endless scrolling, users get reminded more often
of their phone use and are harder to keep engaged
in the app (Apple, 2021).
10 | Opinion
A successful example of a government’s ability
to change company policy are cookies. A review
on the General Data Protection Regulation from
the European Union, which went into effect in
May 2018, shows positive results. It describes an
increase of 4.9% of companies having a privacy
policy at all and/or inform their users about their
cookie practices (Degeling et al., 2019). This study
also tracked when policy changes were implemen-
ted, and noted that roughly half of the monitored
companies updated their privacy policy just before
the regulation went into effect. This exemplifies
two things. Firstly, the EU regulations have a big
impact on privacy policies worldwide. Secondly,
the majority of companies seem to lack the cor-
porate social responsibility to pioneer in privacy
policies and prefer to wait until law enforces them
to change.
At first one was used to just click on ‘accept coo-
kies’ without knowing what these cookies were.
Nowadays websites provide more insight on what
kind of information is exchanged through these
cookies by the categorization of different types of
cookies. There are always the necessary cookies to
make the website function accordingly, but appa-
rently websites also use cookies to: 1, remember
your preferences; 2, remember your activity on the
website; 3, create a personalised advertisement pro-
file. Most websites have a cookie wall where the
cookies for all categories are ticked on by default.
But some websites have taken the initiative to flip
2. I would like to emphasize that I refer to the same thing with
the socio-technical regime and the internet ecosystems. What
I refer to are the websites and platforms whose algorithm and
business model revolves around data harvesting (i.e. Meta,
Google, Twitter).
the nature of cookies, with only the ‘necessary coo-
kies’ category ticked by default.
4. What can we learn from the digital city
4.1 The value of information: Community networks
like DDS foresaw a division of classes with the
upcoming of the internet. However, access to
the internet is not a large issue anymore in the
Netherlands.
Manage your privacy
Allow the use of cookies in this browser?
Allow Only Necessary
The distinction lies in what information is pre-
sented to whom. Two persons that enter the same
search terms in Google can get different results.
This creates ambiguity on an already ambiguous
subject: the value of information. In the time of
free-nets, information was exchanged for free, even
when it was considered valuable. This was done
by hackers and other early adopters of the internet,
with the expectation to receive valuable informa-
tion back at some point, by someone (Rustema,
2001). In the contemporary internet ecosystem,
information is not valued anymore by the person
that receives it but by the clicks it generates. This
has changed the nature of exchanged information;
especially on social media, where even the time
you look at a certain post is transformed into data
(Meta for Business, 2014).
4.2 A level playing field: DDS was a digital city with
unique power relations where all actors and ins-
titutions had a right to an equal amount of space.
This created an appearance that every individual
and organization was of equal importance, which
was in line with the inclusive philosophy of DDS.
For instance, the small weekly opinion magazine
‘De Groene Amsterdammer’ had an equal presence
in the digital city as the national daily newspaper
‘NRC Handelsblad’ in the newsstand of the digital
city (Rustema, 2001).
When this level playing field of DDS is compared
to the current ecosystem; a similar argument can
be made as the diversity argument from the intro-
duction. In a sense, the internet is inherently a level
playing field when space is defined by number of
web addresses, which can be infinite. I could for
instance own the same number of websites as a
company like Google or Meta. But reality appears to
be different from theory again. The example implies
that I would have the same presence on the internet
as these giant organizations. Whoever’s websites
get more attention would then be a case of healthy
competition. However, in practice it has become
hard to escape Google or social media, because you
want to use the same platform as your friends and
family. I wouldn’t switch from Facebook to MySpace
because I don’t know anybody on MySpace and the
same goes for messaging platforms. In economics
this is called network externality, which means
that you need to use the same medium as the per-
son you want to interact with. This plays a big part
in gaining a dominant market position. Network
externality gives Facebook such an advanced mar-
ket position that it has less need to innovate and
the power to block competitors which is counter-
productive in terms of market development (Tirole
& Rendall, 2018).
Opinion | 11
Google expanded their company to become a con-
glomerate with all kinds of services for a single user
(e.g. Android, Google Drive, Google Maps, Gmail etc.).
Countless other platforms now have the function
‘login in with your Google account’ which is extre-
mely convenient, but also entangles people further
in the web of google dependency. Hence new plat-
forms that provide a similar service as Google, have
little chance to gain the same presence because
Google offers that service and ten others in one
convenient package.
Sign in
Welcome back.
Sign in with Google
Sign in with email
No account? Create one
This reminds me again of Jane Jacobs. One of
her commandments to create a diverse city was
the use of small building blocks in neighbour-
hoods. She plead for small blocks (and thus more
streets), because otherwise people of a neighbour-
hood would all use the same street when they
travel from A to B. Smaller blocks and more streets
would lead to a higher permeability, which meant
that people would have more freedom to choose a
route from A to B. This should result in more acti-
vity throughout the neighbourhood instead of just
on the one street where everybody always walks
(Jacobs, p.244, 1961). The same could be said for the
internet, where Google’s strategy to increase their
12 | Opinion
market share seems to decrease the permeability
of the internet; make sure everybody passes Google
Avenue because that’s where all the services are
and any other route would be a detour.
In order to create a level playing field again, a viable
alternative is needed where people have the free-
dom to choose their own route to services with the
same level of convenience. Otherwise people who
try to release themselves from Googles’ grip will
often fall back to its convenient and streamlined
services. A platform like DDS, seems to be close to
such a viable alternative. A place where I could have
all the webservices I need in one place provided by
the company of my choice.
5 Conclusion
Although the digital city had the mission to make
the internet accessible for everyone, which is now
almost obsolete in the Netherlands, there are still
elements that can act as an inspiration for a more
resilient (internet) society. Information distributed
on the internet should regain its actual value as
public good instead of the monetized value from
data-harvesting companies. The data-harvesting
companies in question used their capital gains to
increase their market position by actively reducing
the permeability of the internet. Google Avenue and
Meta Street are the easiest ways to get to your des-
tination, and no niche website will easily change
that. For that to happen, a change in regime, a
window of opportunity must be created through
landscape developments. However these develo-
pments are a slow moving entity; (inter)national
legislation does not happen over night and neither
does a worldwide change in public opinion.
But to end on a positive note, the creation of a
cultural shift is not unthinkable. Jane Jacobs
successfully created a cultural shift within her
discipline by taking a rational, holistic standpoint
from the perspective of the ordinary citizen, which
was often perpendicular to the contemporary ideas
of her colleagues (the regime). Maybe this kind of
empathetic thinking can reach the likes of Google
and Meta in Silicon Valley in time.

Marijn Veraart
Profession, MSc MADE student
He / him
Marijn.veraart@hotmail.com

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Opinion | 13
OPIO
IN N
An underlying philosophical problem in planning.
Rakan Dajani

As urban professionals – we are faced with the propose. For the intents and purposes of this arti-
task of designing our future built environment. cle, I want to exaggerate the compromise between
However, there is an underlying philosophical maximising housing and basic infrastructure
problem in planning – specifically, what are our with enhancing the quality of the built environ-
underlying ethics and philosophy? What princi- ment involved in urban plans in ‘developing’ cities.
ples are we led by? And when confronted with Addressing and figuring our professional philoso-
difficult questions pertaining to how to allocate a phy is important as the question reappears– which
city’s resources, what values influence the criteria is more important, the now or the future?
for decision making? These philosophies impact
In my discussions with urban planners, residents,
and influence even the most mundane street fur-
and academics in Dar es Salaam – it was made
niture. The impact is even higher in cities such as
clear that our interventions in the city are concrete
Dar es Salaam which is composed of 70% informal
– literally and metaphorically. “In planning, we can
settlements. When we look around the city – we
make some very expensive mistakes” remarked
see millions of people living in subserviced and
one urban planner. The reality of physically built
neglected areas and we are faced with the ques-
areas is that they are difficult to unbuild and so, the
tion: How do we make decisions concerning these
decisions we make now carry a momentum that
places? Emerging from these challenges, I urge
impacts the future. For example, if we plan for eight
us all to interrogate our ethics and philosophy of
high rises in a parcel of land – 50 years down the
planning to guide how we should approach urban
line, there will be a need for a public park or space
problems.
for emergency services – it is rather difficult to
Dar es Salaam faces the challenge of being com- undo that mistake. It is with a heavy pen that any
posed of mostly informal settlements. Simply put master planner proposes or speculates the ‘best’
– yes, we house these communities. However, as way forward.
you may have already anticipated, it is not as sim-
Let’s do a short thought experiment. We have
ple as that. We are forced to face the question – do
10km2 of informal settlements. 100 million of fun-
we design for the now or for the future? The former,
ding. [If only, the numbers were so simple!]
a much more urgent and practical ‘emergency’ type
response – we build fast, cheap, dense and maxi-
mise the output of housing to input of funding. The
latter, designing for the future, makes provision for
quality of life and a healthy urban environment
at the expense of maximising housing. Without
doubt, there are greys and nuances in the binary I

14 | Opinion
DAR ES SALAAM

Opinion | 15
10,000 people living in vulnerable housing. We
could spend 100 million (hypothetical) dollars
on housing and infrastructure with nothing left
for public space, quality housing, greenery and
so forth. We could allocate 10% funding towards
the beautification and the less urgent amenities
of urban environments. That is more reasonable,
perhaps. I am more interested in our ethical stance
rather than the fine grain of percentages. It would
be naïve to think that the ‘middle ground’ option
denies a great portion of people to housing and
basic services. And so, every one of us should be
led by principles and thus, when faced with ethi-
cal problems, we can be guided by them. It is not
too dissimilar to the utilitarian stance to spread
the benefit for the maximum amount of people. Or
is it best to maximise benefit to a slightly smaller
number of people?
‘community feeling’ of the area. But they missed
the point that people want what they don’t have.
Referring to a known anecdote of Nelson Mandela
– he remarked, “we have community, but we do not
have money” and so the decision to take monetary
compensation is completely logical. Unfortunately,
our current system, sometimes, binds us between
such conflicts, which place money and community
in opposition.
At what point does a planner or so-called expert
intervene to account for the future implications of
planning decisions. There is an information asym-
metry between planners and residents when it
comes to urban resilience – it is our responsibility
to figure out how to give agency to residents whilst
paying attention to potential ramifications to the
common future.

Whilst looking at the future of our cities, I urge

The city’s environment is our common in the clas-
all of us to interrogate the underlying philosophi-
sic tragedy of the commons problem. Addressing
cal decision of our planning decisions. These few
the immediate needs of individuals does not
examples of typical conflicts and decisions are
necessarily improve the common. For example,
not purely technical but rather reflect the way we
my personal need for accessible and affordable
should approach building a society – and so, it is
sufficient services outlies my personal desire to
more than worth its time to get it right and be led
improve the shared common of a neighbourhood
by values.
park or high street. Our local communities have
immediate needs, and they should be answered Rakan Adel Dajani
to with the greatest attention – more so than any He/Him
other source. We answer to the people. However, Msc MADE alumni,
socio-economic pressures can overshadow the Geography and Environmental Science.
value of the common. A resident of Dar es Salaam rakan.dajani@gmail.com
explained the appeal of monetary compensation
to residents living in floodplains over rehousing in
the same neighbourhood. He explained that many
government officials and planners urged them
to stay in the neighbourhood as it retained the

16 | Opinion
Opinion | 17
P
EX R
E C
NE I S
E
Train Propaganda
Kyra Koning

In May the opportunity arose to get a cheap two-
month interrail ticket, which I bought not knowing
what my summer would look like. This ticket gave
access to anywhere in Europe reachable with tra-
ins. The planner in me started to get excited as I
mapped the route; I wanted to visit Helsinki, where
I used to study, through public transport instead of
a flight. In my opinion, this northern city is one of
the best places to spend the summer became of the
long summer night (it barely get dark) and the live-
liness of the city during the sunny months. The trip
became a two-month journey through northern
Europe, throughout which I had the opportunity
to visit 14 cities in six countries, through 62 trains,
three long ferries of over 18 hours each and one bus.
During these two months I spent more than a hun-
dred hours in trains; travelled more than 10,000
kilometres by train and 1,200 kilometres with ferry,
saving more than 90 % of the CO2 I would have con-
sumed during my travels if the trip was made with
airplanes. Travelling without planes made me more
aware and appreciative of the distances travelled
and the different landscapes crossed.
The places I visited during this trip were (in this
particular order); Århus - Stockholm – Helsinki
– Lund – Odense – (Back to Amsterdam) - Berlin
– Langeland – Copenhagen - Trollhättan – Örebro -
Oslo – Bergen - Hamburg - Paris.
From the graffiti covered streets of Berlin to the beau-
tiful islands of Stockholm, the cities visited during
this trip all had their own charm. If you like a beau-
tiful old town with loads of art, music and museums,
cute houses and small cafés: go to Århus, Denmark.
If you like medieval castles, Nordic history and
lush parks go to Örebro, Sweden. If you love hiking,
mountains and fjords go to Bergen, Norway. Even
though you need a car in most places in Norway,
Bergen, with the most dazzling views, is reachable
with relative ease from Oslo, straight through the
Hallingskarvet and Nærøyfjorden National Parks,
with impressive views of mountaintops and fjords
from the train.
Interrailing made me appreciate the time I could
spend on my own, doing exactly what I wanted and
seeing the people and places I was longing to visit. It
gave me the opportunity to reflect on part of my life
that are normally put on hold by the busy everyday
life in Amsterdam.
Spending so much time on my own I had all the con-
trol over my social interactions. I experienced less
fear in talking to strangers and combing this with a
lot of time to kill traveling and waiting for trains it
gave me the opportunity to connect to people freely.
Delay’s, train cancelations and long rides are great
opportunities to make some new connections and
even friends. This is something so valuable to me:
talking to strangers from all kinds of nationalities
and ages, all with their own stories, who had a desire
for connection and adventure in common.
This trip appealed to being self-reliant, not always
knowing where to sleep the next day or how to
exactly go to a place. This was both exciting and
intimidating, it taught me to embrace the neces-
sary changes when so often everything did not go
as I planned. There needs to be room for some last
moment decisions. This mindset made me quick on

18 | Experiences
 my feet, for example I was able to rearrange some Stats for the nerds
plans to visit a friend that I have not seen in 12
years. It was an incredible valuable experience to
meet with someone that once was so close, realising Countries visited
how different our lives unfolded, yet how similar we
still were.
8,904 54 30
I became deeply appreciative of the freedom I have, Kilometers Trains Places
to travel like this though Europe as I only needed
to show my passport crossing the German-Danish
Time on trains
border where I was let in without questions, with a
feeling of safety almost everywhere. This opportu- 4 2 31
nity of interrailing is a privilege and highlights the days hours minutes
importance of the freedom of movement.

Lastly, doing all of this made me realize the cliché is CO2 savings
absolutely true: the journey itself is more important Up to 90%
than the destination.
less CO2 than flying

Finland

Norway
Sweden

Bergen
Helsinki

Stockholm
Estonia
Gothenburg

Latvia

Århus

Lithuania

Ireland United
Kingdom
Netherlands
Berlin
Amsterdam Poland
London
Germany

Belgium

Czech Republic
Kyra Koning
Paris she/her
Engineer, MSc MADE student.
kyra.koning@wur.nl
Austria

France Switzerland

Experiences | 19

Italy
PHOTO POEM

Opportunity Riddle
Alex Brown

It is rare, yet not out of reach

Seeking refuge in places where society is rife
Yet is not confined to urbanity

20 | Expression
Bound to neither space nor time
But lies content in the towers of ivory and gold
Overlooking the inequity of the world below

Expression | 21
Some people are born in its gaze
While others live a lifetime in its shadow

It is not constrained by rivers nor mountains

Delegating power ruthlessly
By prioritising a select few, and not the many

22 | Expression
It has no enemy, but jealousy and regret
That cloud the minds of those who have squandered it

It is a gift, oh but a cunning one

Be vigilant not to miss its gaze
For it may well pass you by

Alex Brown
He/him
Geographer, MSc
MADE student.
alrbrown1997@gmail.com

Expression | 23
 MET Gazette is a student-run initiative by MADE IT at the AMS Institute.

24 | Expression
Next issue
SENSES
The making, experiencing and sustaining of cities
everywhere is a deeply sensory process. Whether
one thinks about performance & visual art or
music within a city, to the food, culture and unique
scents associated with a local market, or the tech-
nological aspects of surveying a city, our 5 senses
are intricately engaged.
We are so subconsciously intertwined with our
sensory perception, that to disengage and become
aware of them – our sight, smell, sound touch and
taste, takes conscious effort. So, for this edition, we
urge our authors to take this step back – to ponder
and postulate on some or all of these sensations as
it relates to our metropolitan experience.
Write to us about places you call home, places
you were merely a passer-by at, times when a
city stopped you in your tracks. Be that here in the
Netherlands, or corners of the world and bustling
cultures the West might be unaware of. Feel free
to explore the intersection of art, technology and
science, or economics and politics in our societies.
How does the instinctive act of sensing - of being
human - shape our individual and collective lived
experiences in our cities?
Keywords: Senses, art, technology,
science, experience, emotion.
Submissions: met-gazette@made-it.net
Expression | 25
MET
gazette