InTrans Maart 2010

Visiting address:

Erasmus University Rotterdam

Room H12-05

Burgemeester Oudlaan 50

Postal address:

Room H12-07

P.O. box 1738

3000 DR Rotterdam

Year 2009/ 2010 - Number 3– March, 2010

High, higher, highest!

From the president

What have we done?

Breaker. breaker, calling rubber duck

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page 3

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InTrans

Special issue: high, higher, highest! page 5

How are you doing ? page 12

Is Rotterdam really becoming ‘ Manhattan at the river Mause’ ? page 15

Meet our new board member page 11

From the president….

Pagina 2 InTrans, March 2010

By: Paul Blijs

Everyone is trying to achieve a greater cause, at work, in sports or even on a social level. At the moment, we are at a point where we all realize that we are close to a masters’ degree. Maybe for many of us, the greater cause of the moment. We all experience this in different ways, whether it be challenging, exciting, or even frightening. Challenge yourself to reach that top, nothing is impossible.

In practice, many examples are visible to us where people show that that top can be reached and people are even able to go beyond that top. Momentarily, the Arab world experiences a cri-sis, but looking at the near past, they showed us what is possible. Skyscrapers have reached a certain height, but each time architects and builders have proven to be able to go even further. This strongly relates to the subject of this issue of the intrans, high, higher, highest.

With Transito we are also trying to reach out and achieve some goals. We have managed to ar-range an Inhouse day with OBR of the municipality of Rotterdam. We will let you know what we are going to visit, but it will definitely be interesting half of April. Besides this, other annual activi-ties are coming up, like the studytrip and the master recruitment event. We are working hard to establish all these events. Fortunately we have extra help with this in the board. Robert joined us in December, after already being in the InTrans committee. He will introduce himself on page 11 of this issue. Together, we will be able to set up great events.

Further I would like to invite everyone for the half yearly general assembly of members meeting at the 18th of March in the Tea-Room of the H-Building. The board of Transito will present its half-year report from 19.00h onwards. As already mentioned a lot of exciting things are coming up, for the Transito as an association and for us as individual students. I wish everybody success in their seminar and with the start of their thesis, both for bachelor and master students. We will be pleased to hear whether some of you were able to reach that high point on top. We try to inspire you, but we would also like to be inspired by you.

Reminder:

Half Year General Assembly Of Members will take place the 18th of March in the Tea- room of the H– Building.

Start: 19.00 hours

Everyone is invited


What have we done? In this topic we would like to tell you what we, as Transito, have done.

The 3rd of December Transito’s annual Sinter-klaas drink took place. Ofcourse Sinterklaas provided some presents. The nicest present could be won by answering the question: What was the length of the biggest traffic jam in the Netherlands? This resulted in a lot of different answers with a lot of laughs and surprised faces amongst our international students. All in all, we had a fabulous Sinterklaas drink with each other, where Sinterklaas as sponsor pro-vided us with some pepernoten and other chocolate delicacies.

City marketing innovation day

In January we were invited to join the City marketing innovation day. This turned out to be an inspiring day for all of us. After a short introduction, we were presented with a crash course offline networking. Online networking, like LinkedIn and Facebook, seems to become more popular. At the same time, offline net-working still is and will be very important and should not be neglected. The crash course pro-vided by Johan Stassen made us able to con-nect with everyone in the auditorium via balls of wool. Some of us got to do some networking themselves, whether it turned into a result is still the question.

After this fun with the balls of wool John Heeley gave an inspiring lecture about his experiences in the field of city marketing. From his presenta-tion it can be learned that the use of (and rela-tion with) the local press is very important for successful city marketing.

During a discussion round with Frits Huffnagel (Alderman City marketing Den Haag), Gert-Jan Hospers (Professor Citymarketing), Loek Her-mans (Chairman MKB Nederland) and Gerben Baaij (Manager Dordrecht Marketing) the impor-tance of city marketing was explained and dif-ferent points of view were presented.

At the end of the day the city marketing innova-tion awards were presented. The winner: The truth about Amsterdam. This YouTube movie was made as a reaction on a comment of Bill O’Reilly on American television about Amster-dam. (The clip can be found on YouTube, search; The truth about Amsterdam).

We believe it is fair to say that this successful day shows the importance of city marketing in the Netherlands. We would like to thank Bart van den Velde, former Transito member, and Cityresult for their provision of the tickets for the day!

Page 4 InTrans, March 2010

Breaker, breaker, calling Rubber Duck By: Maarten van der Westen

The movie “Convoy” from 1978 is without a doubt the best trucker movie ever made. You won't find any trucker movies in movie theatres today, but in the 70s en in the beginning of the 80s movies like Convoy, Smokey and the Bandit and White Line Fe-ver were very popular. With a revenue of $ 46,5 mil-lion, Convoy was one of the biggest blockbusters of its time.

Convoy is about a group of truckers, that tries to es-cape to the state line after getting in trouble with the law because of a corrupt cop. Seen as an act of pro-test, more truckers join the convoy. The rebellious convoy receives wide support from the general pub-lic, which of course politicians and law enforcement officers do not like very much.

In the end of the movie, hundreds of trucks follow the leader, with the nickname Rubber Duck. He is seen as somebody who can really make a difference and becomes a symbol of hope for many people. But when told “they are all following you,” Rubber Duck replies: “No, they ain't, I'm just in front.”

The movie offers a unique look into trucking life in the 70s, when truckers were lonely cowboys, with truck driving as a way of life. The truckers were viewed as one of the last people that were actually free to do what they wanted. This simple but free lifestyle appealed to many people, which explains the success of the trucker movies.

Truck driving was a nice but lonely job. Trucking was viewed as a calling instead of a job. Truckers would be away from home for weeks, if they even had a home beside their own truck. It was a completely different lifestyle from “normal” people: truckers drove, lived and slept in their trucks, ate at roadside diners. They had to look after themselves, because no-body else did. The public, police and politicians saw them mostly as out-casts.

Nowadays, the life of a truck driver is a lot different. The life of a truck driver is stressfull, the loads are al-ways late, the roads are busy and time is money. One thing is still the same though: truckers are often still viewed as outcasts.

the same though: truckers are often still viewed as outcasts.

Life isn't easy when hundreds of laws and taxes are in your way of making a decent living. However, trucking as a way of life still exists.

The freedom of the trucker nowadays is very lim-ited. Sure, the truckers are not confined to small offices, and travel to places where other people only go on holiday. But with tight schedules and many kinds of tracking and tracing devices, truck-ers can no longer do as they please. The freedom of the 70s, as seen in Convoy, is gone.

Imagine if the movie really happened, today. Imag-ine a group of truckers, sick of the way things are going, became civil inobedient. Today, not only truckers but people everywhere have lost their trust in politics, in the justice system and in each other. Personally I believe that soon this group of reluc-tant truckers would have a lot of support, not only from truckers, but from everyone.

The gap between politics and the general public is bigger than ever. Instead of fighting crime and pro-tecting the public, the police seems just another instrument to collect taxes via useless fines. Thanks to years of mismanagement in banks and insurance companies, the world has plummeted into the lar-gest crisis ever, and politics are powerless to fight it. But the most worrying of all: people seem to be without hope of improvement; they stopped caring about it.

It might just be that we need Rubber Duck and his convoy today more than ever.


In 1998 the Wilis Tower was surpassed by the Malasian Petronas Twin Tower. This is a very special tower because it has a skybridge between the two skyscrapers.

The Burj Khalifa is currently the tallest build-ing in the world. This building is the proud owner of the following world records: Tallest building in the world, tallest free standing structure in the world, highest number of sto-ries in the world (more than 160 stories), high-est occupied floor in the world, highest outdoor observation deck in the world, elevator with the longest travel distance in the world, tallest service elevator in the world. But besides these world records they want to be more than just the world's tallest building. The Burj Khalifa is: “an unprecedented example of international cooperation, symbolic beacon of progress, and an emblem of the new, dynamic and prosper-ous Middle East.” [1] [1] http://www.burjkhalifa.ae/language/en-us/the-tower/vision.aspx

Special issue: High, higher, highest!

The largest skyscrapers through the years

The Slinger building (1909) is Detroit’ s sec-ond –oldest skyscraper and one of the first sky-scrapers receiving real international attention. With its 18- story building Detroit was able to give the downtown central business district re-newed strength.

The Chrysler Building (1930) is another fa-mous skyscraper in America. This skyscraper was the world’s tallest building for only 11 months before it was surpassed by the empire state building. A special aspect of this sky-scraper is that it is a favorite among the New Yorkers themselves. A survey from the New York’s Skyscraper Museum announced that the Chrysler Building has been chosen most popular from New York’s skyscrapers in 2005.

America’s largest skyscraper to date is the Wilis Tower (also known as Sears Tower). This sky-scraper is constructed in 1974 and is located in Chicago.

Since its opening on January 4th of 2010, Dubai has become the proud world record holder of the tallest skyscraper in the world. A lot of countries and cities still want the prestige of having the tallest building in the world, even though skyscrapers are not that unique anymore. In this theme issue, some interesting facts about skyscrapers are pre-sented. After these facts and figures of the world’s most prominent skyscrapers an interesting article about skyscrapers and the economic recession follows. After which, an article about using skyscrapers as urban icons in the world of city marketing is presented.

Petronas Twin Tower Burj Khalifa Slinger Building

By: Noortje van de Burgt

Chrysler Building Wilis Tower

InTrans, March 2010

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Should the skyscraper heights be limited to prevent economic crisis?

Source: Thornton, 2005

Skyscrapers and major economic downturns

By: Ewa Paluszkiewicz

financing. In other words, “easy financing underlie all booms” (Willis, 1995).

So does the construction the world’s tallest building cause economic collapse? Rather, a period of “easy money” leads to expansion of the economy and a boom in the stock market. The construction is dri-ven by economic forces. Simplifying, low rate of interest (the relative price between consumption goods and capital goods increases the value of land and drives the demand for office space in central business districts. Easily available credit fuels capi-tal expenditures. This is when the world’s tallest buildings are begun.

As explained by Thornton (2005), the skyscraper project is announced and construction is begun during the late phase of the boom in the business cycle, when the economy is growing and unemploy-ment is low. This is then followed by a sharp down-turn in financial markets, economic recession or

In early 2010 the world got its new tallest building – a 828 meters high Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It is hard not to notice that the grand opening coincided with current economic recession, the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The same as The Great Depression of late 1920s was market by three record setting skyscrapers: 40 Wall Street (completed in 1929), followed by the Chrysler Build-ing in 1930 and the Empire State Building in 1931. During the oil crisis of 1970s also new record break-ing skyscraper were completed: World Trade Centre (1972 and 1973)and the Sears Towers in Chicago (1974). Another world’s tallest building, the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, marked the beginning of the East Asian economic crisis in late 1990s.

Is it just a coincidence? According to economist Andrew Lawrence, surely not.

In 1999 Lawrence found correlation between the building of the world’s tallest building and the econo-mic downturn. He showed that in almost all cases the initiation of construction of a new record-breaking skyscraper preceded major financial correc-tions and turmoil in economic institutions (Thornton,2005). He concluded that construction of world’s tallest building is a good proxy for predicting major economic downturns and called it the “skyscraper index.”

The Skyscraper index predicted, among others, the Panic of 1907, the Great Depression and the Asian crisis. And it seems that also the recent economic crisis. The picture below shows track record of the skyscraper index in predicting economic downturns.

Although the skyscraper index proved to be quite accurate, it did not predict all major economic collap-ses, such as the depressions of 1920-21, 1937-38 and 1981-82.

The index builds on economic linkages between con-struction booms and financial bust. Lawrence noted overinvestment, monetary expansion, and speculati-on as possible foundations for the index. The history of speculative bubbles in construction is paralleled by a history of big increases in debt


Rotterdam, where six of the ten tallest Dutch build-ings can be found.

But for how long will Rotterdam remain “market leader”? The city almost lost its position to Utrecht, but (“thanks” to the economic crisis) the Belle van Zuylen project has been cancelled in January 2010. With 262 meters the Belle van Zuylen tower would have been considerably higher then the Maastoren, with 165 meters the current tallest Dutch building. Indeed, a dwarf if compared to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is exactly five times as high!

It seems that among countries (and cities) currently most eager to build super scrapers are those who think it is necessary to put themselves stronger on the global map, like Malaysia, China, Taiwan and Du-bai. What happened in Dubai must according to Matt Philips [1] be considered as “a manifestation of irra-tional exuberance”, in line with the indoor ski slope and the artificial palm islands. Dubai, an Emirate without its own oil, economically thriving on real es-tate, tourism and financial services has attracted world attention through some megalomaniac con-struction projects and sport events. The economic crisis brought a deep financial deficit. Foreign wor-kers (90 % of the population) are leaving and parts of Dubai look like a ghost town. Ultimately, Dubai was saved by its “oil brother” Abu Dhabi.

From this short general intro it appears that speak-ing about these kind of tall buildings brings in an ele-ment of competition: who wins? Who is record holder? Who will be the next biggest? From an urban management point of view landmarks have become a tool of city promotion. Impressive high rise

Some insight from the professionals: To answer the above stated question we asked a professional in urban economics, Dr. Jan van der Meer from the Erasmus University, to give some insight information.

By: Jan van der Meer

The InTrans editors have invited me to comment on this intriguing index. They posed three questions to comment: (1) Could you explain the cyclical character of the real estate market? (2) Does the skyscraper index, in your opinion, have any scien-tific relevance? (3) Is the skyscraper index still valid in the 21st century? With pleasure I take up this challenge although I must admit that I never had heard of this phenomenon before. But you are never too old to learn! I prefer to give a short gen-eral comment first, followed by some words about the real estate cycle (question 1) and my vision on the scientific relevance and validity of the concept (questions 2 and 3).

After visiting several websites it appeared to me that in the world of real estate this index, some-times referred to as ‘erection index’, is quite well known. When I read about the ‘erection index’ I immediately recalled the words spoken by a left wing Rotterdam alderman in the early 1970s on the occasion of the completion of a (former) head of-fice of Shell, situated on the Hofplein-Pompenburg corner. This nowadays rather moderate office build-ing - when looking at its height - was indicated by him as “de laatste erectie van het grootkapitaal”, freely translated as “the last erection of the big capitalists”. It was the period that local government established an “office stop” for the city centre. In-vestments in office buildings were banned. The oil crises in the course of the 1970’s, resulting in the economic recession of the early 1980’s, had a dra-matic effect on the Rotterdam economy and put an end to this nowadays inconceivable ban. That al-derman could not be blamed of being a man of foresight because since the mid 1980’s high rise buildings have become a “business card” for

depression, and significant increases in unemploy-ment. The skyscraper is then completed during the early phase of the economic correction, unless the correction was revealed early enough to delay or scrap plans of construction.

The skyscraper is here an important manifestation of the 20th century business cycle, just as the ca-nals, railroads and factories were in previous times. Is it still valid in 21st century?

References: Lawrence, A. (1999), The Curse Bites: Skyscraper Index Strikes, Property Report, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson Research. Thornton, M. ( 2005), Skyscrapers and Business Cycles, The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 8 no. 1 (Spring)” 51-74 Willis, C. (1995), Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago. New York: Princeton Architectural Press

InTrans, March 2010

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do exist but - just like on financial markets - the turning points cannot simply be predicted.

A major question for the real estate sector is to be able to forecast the real estate cycle. It has been tried to map real estate cycles covering a period of 76 years (1921-1997) [4]. The UK is probably the only country in the world with such a long and de-tailed real estate database. In contrast to most other countries, scientific research into real estate has a longstanding tradition in the UK. The result for the UK market was that the average real estate cy-cle takes eight years with ups and downs from four to twelve years, which makes a forecast not very reliable. An important nuancing is that cycles appear to differ according to market categories. The most outspoken cycle was found for the office market, which is the most developed investment market which strongly reacts on economic fluctuations. The shop market and the (commercial) housing market are important real estate categories as well, but they do not show outspoken cycles, although they rely on variables (consumer spending and dispo-sable income) which are subject to economic cycles too. Based on the so-called Kuznets-cycle, which is attributed to investment in housing and building construction, some authors [5] argue, that a real estate cycle covers a period of 15 to 25 years with an average of 18 years. Based on a number of regu-larities they state that the office market has a big cycle that lasts 18 years and that this cycle com-prises two smaller cycles of 9 years on the average.

One may conclude that both empirical and theoreti-cal research show that the future of the real estate market remains - like most futures… - difficult to predict. The skyscraper index has indeed shown an amazing correlation between record breaking buil-dings and economic downturns. Most authors agree that “manifestations of irrational exuberance” of this kind will only take place after a long period of eco-nomic prosperity when the cycle is at its peak. These kind of constructions are seldom started un-der uncertain circumstances when the economy is not booming, although the world’s next tallest buil-ding (“Shanghai World” [6] is scheduled for comple-tion in 2012 and it competes with Moscow, another city to unveil plans to build the world’s tallest buil-ding [7]. But perhaps these plans have been can-

buildings, architectural design and a breath taking skyline play the part of city image builders, rather then as the required expansion of office or other floor space capacity. The city of Rotterdam is proud of its skyline, but not everybody prefers to live in high-rise apartments. The city of Utrecht re-grets the blow off of its landmark along the A2-motorway, but not everybody in Utrecht regrets the cancellation; opponents are not convinced of the usefulness and need of the project.

The real estate cycle [2]

The real state sector is extremely sensitive for cycli-cal fluctuations. Therefore understanding of the cycle is of crucial importance for the real estate business and all its actors, among which the end users, who ultimately decide about buying or rent-ing. The cycle is rather simple. Given the relatively long realisation period of real estate the supply re-acts with considerable delay on demand. Empirical research [3] into office development in 10 large European cities put forward a strong correlation between economic growth and office stock growth, albeit with a delay of 3 years. The same three 3 years delay hold for the relation between office stock growth and the growth of vacant office space. During a period of economic take-off or recovery business activities expand and employment rises, resulting in demand for space. If the supply of space can no longer satisfy demand, prices and market rents will go up and new planning activity will start. As long as economic growth continues more plans are developed and more constructions are started to profit from favourable market circum-stances. However it takes time to bring a new pro-ject on the market (2 to 5 years on the average, but much longer for major revitalization or expan-sion schemes). If economic growth slows down it influences the demand for space. This demand will stagnate or decline. New projects arrive at an al-ready saturated market, leading to more vacancies and rents going down. During the stage of declining or negative growth decisions to expand or relocate will be postponed. Spatial dynamics slow down making economic recovery difficult. In such periods the public sector sometimes takes up the role of catalyst and keeps investing in infrastructure, public buildings and (subsidized) housing schemes to keep activities going. Everybody knows that these cycles


cancelled too?

Lawrence’s started his paper about the skyscraper index as a joke, by referring in the paper’s title to the crazy comedy show “Falty Towers”. He based his in-dex merely on comparing (US based) historical data focusing on record-breaking projects only, not on a clear trend in overall building construction or on real estate investment behaviour. His simple concept has been cross-checked by Thornton [8] in 2005 who found a remarkable significance. Willis, who analysed the New York and Chicago experiences with skyscrap-ers, stated that in “normal” times the performance of a building project can be estimated reliably through well-tested formulae. But in ”boom” times rational pricing gives way to irrational buyers’ behaviour; buy-ers bet on ever-increasing demand and rents and are willing to pay more that they would normally. Willis concluded that “height is a barometer of boom”.

Under such circumstances irrational decisions can be taken.

To finish this comment, despite the evidence pre-sented by Lawrence, Thornton and others I do not answer the question posed in the title of this con-tribution (“Should the skyscraper heights be lim-ited to prevent economic crisis?”) affirmative. The skyscraper index is remarkable but understand-able, given the emphasis on international competi-tion leading to behaviour of being or becoming the biggest, the tallest, the greatest (or the “riskiest”?). In booming times the chance that ex-travagant projects are started is more obvious then in times of economic recovery or moderate growth. And I don’t think that a ban on higher buildings will prevent a next crisis or that it will put an end to the existence of real estate cycles.

A skyscraper as a flagship building?! Implementing citymarketing By: Noortje van de Burgt

Our urban landscape is increasingly dominated by skyscrapers. Sky-scrapers influence more than just our landscape and the real estate market. For example, skyscrapers are sometimes seen as urban icons. These urban icons make people able to form images about places. Therefore they are used in the city marketing field to change the asso-ciations of people about a place and thereby change people’s decisions.

Urban icons are thus important symbols for people to identify a city with. At the same time, it should be kept in mind that for each person the image of a city is different. This depends on the individual charac-teristics of a person and the different associations a person has with a place. According to Graham (2002) signature buildings are part of something called the ‘external’ city. This ‘external’ city should interact with the ‘ internal’ city. The ‘internal’ city is what he calls the city of mind. Something that is formed by a persons’ characteristics and asso-ciations. Together they the internal and external city, form the city’s image.

Innovative design buildings can be used to influence the image of peo-ple of a certain city. In this way flagship buildings can increase the

The Burj Khalafi

References: [1] Dubai debacle: validation of the skyscraper index, Wall Street Journal, 30 November 2009 [2] Belle van Zuylen-toren omstreden megaproject, Trouw, 31 January 2009 [3] Jones Lang Lasalle for European Commission, 2001 [4] Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (1999), The UK property cycle 1921-1997, London [5] Among them Bodewes, Fieggen and Jannink (1992), Leading and Lagging indicators, Rotterdam, Rodamco Continental Europe BV [6] http://seekingalpha.com [7] Phil Anderson in MoneyWeek, 11 February 2008 [8] Willis, C. (1995), Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.


amount of visitors, investors, employers and resi-dents coming to a city, by using city marketing.

Obviously not all skyscrapers can be seen as urban icons. Only the real innovative design buildings will be seen as urban icons. When for example thinking of Dubai, one has several associations with “flagship” buildings, namely the newly build Burj Khalifa or the Burj al Arab hotel. These innovative skyscrapers are part of the different associations a person has with Dubai. For Dubai this can be a way to use urban icons, as a city marketing tool, and get people to visit, move or work in Dubai.

These flagship buildings should not be used solely in a marketing campaign. According to Braun (2008), the way to successfully implement city marketing is by using multiple city marketing tools in a coordi-nated way, with a shared customer- oriented phi-losophy. Flagship properties should also fit within

the local culture (Faulconbridge, 2009). Namely, the local culture is present in the images and asso-ciations a person has about a city.The question re-mains whether to use an innovative skyscraper as your most important urban icon and central focus point in marketing your city? Since skyscrapers are something of everyday life in the 21st century, it looks like they are not that interesting anymore to really be attractive urban icons and change the de-cisions of people to live/ work/ visit/ invest in cer-tain place for the mere existence of an innovative skyscraper.

It seems like they are not that interesting anymore to really be attractive urban icons and change the decisions of people to live/ work/ visit/ invest in certain place for the mere existence of an innova-tive skyscraper.

Some insight from the professionals:

Are skyscrapers useful urban icons in a city marketing strategy?

Dr. Erik Braun: Skyscrapers can indeed increase the associations people have with a place. How positive the effects are for a city, depends partly on which public you want to reach. It is much more difficult to receive international attention with your sky-scraper then receiving regional attention. For at-tracting visitors and investors to your city you might be more focused on an international public. If for example the city of Rotterdam would become the host of the Olympic Games, an urban icon can get sufficient international attention to create an addi-tional association in the mind of an international public. However, normally the impact a skyscraper can have in changing associations of people outside the daily environment will be minimal. This means that in the end only a few skyscrapers have the ability to permanently change the associations of

References: Braun E. (2008), City marketing: towards an integrated approach, ERIM, Rotterdam. Faulconbridge J.R. (2009), The regulation of design in global architecture firms: embedding and emplacing buildings, Urban Studies, vol. 46, no. 12, pp. 2537- 2554. Graham B. (2002), Heritage as knowledge: Capital or culture?, Urban Studies, vol. 39, no. 5- 6, pp. 1003- 1017.

To answer the above stated question we asked a professional in the city marketing field, Dr. Erik Braun from the Erasmus University, to give some insight information.

people of a city. Therefore the risk of spending too much money on something that might not bring in the desired results is quite high.

Did this change in time; were skyscrapers more important in the past?

Dr. Erik Braun: In recent decades changing percep-tion of places through investment in urban icons -including skyscrapers – has become much more diffi-cult. In the 90’s many cities tried to create urban icons and hiring an famous and expensive architect became very popular. At the same time the real ‘image value’ of such icons declined as it is hard to create an unique urban icon. Furthermore, the life cycle of such icons has shortened as the supply of icons competing for the attention of the public in-creased. It has become riskier to use urban icons since the added value drastically declined. Therefore the chance that a skyscraper is not able to fulfill the desired effects is high. Only very special skyscrapers

By: Erik Braun


will be able to really change an image of a city nowadays. Therefore it is important that not too much money is spent on skyscrapers with the aim to change the city’s perception.

Is it better that city’s do not use skyscrapers as urban icons at all?

Dr. Erik Braun: Only if people already have strong associations of skyscrapers when thinking of a city, it is more likely that a strategy to build skyscrapers as urban icons will be successful. An example of a city that could do this is New York. Skyscrapers are already part of the associations people have with New York. Therefore this city might succeed in spending money on these icons. If the link is not there, creating an attempting to create an associa-tion with skyscrapers might even lead to the idea that a city invests in the wrong priorities.

For a city it is nowadays much more important to create a certain atmosphere. The design of urban areas is very important for getting the right atmos-phere. In addition, the use of cutting-edge contem-porary architecture should fit with the city’s profile and the expectations of the public. For example, people expect cutting-edge architecture in Rotter-dam and not in Utrecht. To put it stronger: it is diffi-cult to explain why there are so few iconic buildings from Rem Koolhaas – the most famous architect from The Netherlands – in his own city. For Rotter-dam, the challenge is not to build the highest and biggest skyscraper, but to invest in special architec-ture that both fits with the city’s reputation and that makes the urban environment more attractive.

Meet our new board member:

Robert Prins, Commisioner of external affairs

Hello everybody,

I am Robert Prins, 24 years old and a student of the master Urban, Port and Transport economics. I joined the board from the 1st of January to strengthen the board with an extra board member. The posi-tion that I have in the board is the one of commissioner External Affairs. I am also a member of the InTrans committee to make this magazine a nice one to read.

Before I came to Erasmus I studied at the Hogeschool Rotter-dam. Here I achieved my bachelor degree in Logistics and Eco-nomics. After this study I finished the “Schakeljaar” at Erasmus and on the 1st of September of this study year I started with the masters program.

Besides my study I also play football. This is my favorite sport and as a Rotterdammer is am also a big fan of the nicest football club of the Netherlands, Feyenoord off course. Next to football I also like to travel when this is possible and going out with my friends.

My goal for this year as a board member is to organize a good and attractive Master Recruitment Event which will be a big chal-lenge in the current economic times and get good partners for Transito to work with in the future. Off course I also want to have a good time with the other board members.


How are you doing ?

In this part of the InTrans, we ask Transito members to tell us something about their job. In this issue: Simone Smedes

Where did you start working after gradu-tion?

So I already started working before I had cho-sen to quit. However this was my first job and after I quit I started working full-time. I was working as a business consultant at Ydo Organi-satie Adviseurs, a company specialized in im-proving primary business processes. The main focus lied on manufacturing and distribution processes and the key factor on improving those were the involved people. During my time at Ydo I got involved in a project for which I had to go to Denmark. I found out that I really like working with other cultures and meanwhile travel around. Next to that I also found out that I have a specific interest in improving business processes with IT. That brought me to my cur-rent job.

Where do you work now and what is your function there?

I currently work for DNVO (Dekker & Van Oosterhout), a company specialized in improv-ing business processes by making use of IT, specifically within the process industry like pharmaceuticals and chemicals. DNVO is a cer-tified partner for Oracle and I am working as a functional consultant for Oracle E-Business Suite specialized in Supply Chain modules. This means I am working on implementations as well as support projects.

What are the main projects you are cur-rently working on?

I currently work on a project for one of our pharmaceutical customers. This is originally an American company and to serve their EMEA markets they have an International Headquarters in Zug (Switzerland) and a Packaging Site in Hillerod (Denmark). The company uses Oracle and I am supporting their whole International Supply Chain. This means I am working on daily support issues for business users and taking the lead in small implementation projects. E.G. to im-prove the flow of goods in the warehouse by implementing Mobile Supply Chain (like bar-code scanning).

Meet Simone Smedes:

I am Simone Smedes, from 2005-2007 I studied Urban and Transport Economics after I graduated Logis-tics and Economics (Bachelor) in Arnhem. During 2005-2006 I fulfilled the function of secretary and vice-president of the Board of Transito. In 2005-2006 I took place in the Advisory Board. Next to my study I worked as a business consultant already. After I found out that my interest was more into my job than into the study I have chosen to quit before I graduated.


What do you like about working at DNVO?

There’s so many I like about this job. First of all the many different projects I’m involved in throughout the whole supply chain. I am dealing with a lot of departments like Logistics, Finance, Planning, Purchasing and they all have different requirements. It is a real challenge to have them all on one line and to finish a project with an improved process and happy users. A second aspect which I like is to work with many differ-ent cultures, this is not easy sometimes but from working in an international environment you learn a lot about yourself and how to deal with people. Also very nice is the travelling part of my job. It’s nice to discover the world in this way, to see so many beautiful countries and en-joy the foreign cultures and habits.

Do you have a good advice for the Tran-sito-members after they graduate?

Whenever or however you finish your school, take your chance afterwards to discover the world. Be self-assured and develop yourself on knowledge and social skills. Don’t be afraid to fail, you will fail many times as this is the way you learn the best. Take advantage of these situations! Good luck to you all!

After our exams of the third block it was time for some relaxation. Therefore, Transito organized an after exam social drink at Café de Stoep. After this stressful week with (a maximum of) three exams, we were all able to relax. Eagle Students, an organization for secondary jobs and trainee-ships, participated in our social drink. Some of us might even end up with a secondary job after this successful drink. Hereby we would like to thank Eagle Students for the sponsoring of this drink!

After exam social drink


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Is Rotterdam really becoming 'Manhattan at the river Meuse'? The city of Rotterdam did, some time ago, proclaimed itself as the city of architecture. Almost as an im-mediate consequence, the city has to be full with high quality architectural masterpieces in order to really be able to sustain this title. The point is that these architectural masterpieces are not really modest to say the least. But is that really a problem? Shouldn't they be seen as useful and eye-catching icons? I think they should be and I also think that in terms of good looking architecture, Rotterdam could use some beautiful new icons. Of course, these icon don't necessarily have to be high rise buildings, as can be seen from for instance the newly constructed market hall. But when Rotterdam, sometimes nicknamed 'Manhattan at the river Meuse' really wants to honour this nickname, high rise buildings are the way to go.

Project developers also seem to think this way. Especially when it comes to building new mixed-purpose buildings at the river banks. As an example area, the Wilhelmina-pier, just on the other side of the Eras-mus-bridge can be mentioned. While some years ago this pier was characterized by abandoned and obso-lete warehouses, a café, Hotel New York and what is now the photographic museum, nowadays this pier is becoming more and more like Manhattan. While in the city centre the planning and construction of these skyscrapers is more complicated, in the old and derelict parts of the harbour the development and construction is less complicated since there is enough empty space.

I assume we all know the world port centre, and also the building called Montevideo. These build-ings are already on the pier. Within a few years, the pier will look more like both of the shown pic-tures, with an additional five skyscrapers, with a staggering total of ten towers. The most extraordi-nary and iconic building, of which the actual con-struction has just begun, is in my opinion the building in the centre of the above shown picture: De Rotterdam. Designed by none other than Rem Koolhaas (yes, the architect of the CCTV building in Beijing). This building will be the first building one sees when coming from the city centre looking over the Erasmus bridge to the other side of the river, and will perhaps be the business card of the city. I think Rotterdam has a worthy new icon in this new build-ing.

I think that, when looking at the current developments in the city centre, but mostly at the Kop van Zuid and the Wilhelminapier, Rotterdam is in some way really honouring the nickname 'Manhatten at the river Meuse'. But when the questions needs to be answered whether Rotterdam should really become as dense as Manhattan, I don't think that is really something to strive for. Good looking buildings at a top location, looking over the river and a beautiful city is nice, but automatic solar protection because of all the sun-blocking skyscrapers is not really necessary in my opinion. So yes, Rotterdam is getting more skyscraping architectural miracles, but I think this is as close to Manhattan as it will get.

By: Redans InTrans

Source: www.wilhelminapier.nl

Source: www.wilhelminapier.nl

InTrans, March 2010

We’re on the web!

Visit us @ www.transito.nu

The editors of the InTrans are: Noortje van de Burgt Robert Prins Ewa Paluszkiewicz

The next InTrans is coming out in June 2010. Would you like to write something for the intrans? You are invited to send us your input? [email protected]

The editors would like to thank for this issue: Paul Blijs Maarten van der Westen Redans InTrans Simone Smedes Dr. Jan van der Meer Dr. Erik Braun

Page 16

Transito is a study association for the students of Urban, Port and Transport Economics. Transito tries to bring the theory of the classes alive in practice. That can be by visiting companies and institutions ‘in the field’, but also via the articles in the InTrans. If you would like to be a member, please visit us at H12-05. If you would like more information about us, you can contact us at our addresses that are stated on the right.

Visitor address Room H12-5 Burgemeester Oudlaan 50 3062 PA Rotterdam T: 010 - 408 2070

Mail address Room H12-7 P.O. Box 1738 3000 DR Rotterdam [email protected]

Keep your finger on the pulse! Subscribe to the Transito SIN– Online channel and join our Facebook and Hyves –groups to get up– to– date information. Let’s keep in touch!

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