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ROTTERDAM
During a mid-career education in Public Administration (MSc) at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, I encountered a lot of stimulating questions. One of my most central questions of the last years is ‘How can you reduce tension within a community?’. After the terrorism attacks in America (before already in Africa) the flavour of global and national politics started to change. Privacy protection was perceived in another light, repression and prosecution as well. Not only terrorism took care for a change. Migration, an increasingly globalized economy and individualism contributed as well. The Dutch way of dealing with the challenges of Mega Cities has undergone some significant changes in the light of these trends. The town council of Rotterdam, for example, has started a more rigorous approach towards liveability in the town by implementing a special Rotterdam law. The city had undergone a paradigm shift. In this city I did research to ‘Social trust in relation to government, civil society and citizen in Detroit and Rotterdam’.
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DETROIT USA
Traveling memoires, Detroit april 2006, JV:
'Drive of I 94 and Hw 10 to Detroit, business centre. The Pontchartrain Hotel, at the place of a former castle and fortification, stands tall and grey near the Detroit river.
The centre's infracture of five-lane road systems, gigantic intersections and extensive space for car parking suggests to
be in a hotspot of American downtown life. Instead, there
are hardly any cars, let alone people on the street. The staff
takes
our car for $20,- vallet into the basement parking.
The Pontchartrain reception hall is as huge and empty as
the space outside the hotel. We get room 2308 on the 23rd
floor. A somewhat discolored, beige and brown confinement,
with a view through a corner window that once could be considered as spectacular, but the blind glass is broken and
the view is dominated by the large parking lot of Cobo-centre which makes the river look distant and meaningless. The TV
sits in a big wooden box. No fridge.'
Downtown Detroit
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