The Netherlands will be a little less crowded

At a conference on Wednesday, government officials and researchers get together to discuss how Dutch municipalities can deal with a diminishing population.

The Dutch minister for housing, Eberhard van der Laan, said he was “slightly depressed” after visiting the southern cities Heerlen and Maastricht earlier this year. There he saw what is unheard of in the west of the country – unoccupied houses, boarded-up shops, schools closing down and companies moving away. Van der Laan has since declared the population shrinkage a national problem.

Read full article: NRC International, 17 June 2009