Regeneration of the Urban Coastal area of Scheveningen: Pearl by the Sea

Abstract

Nowhere was the advancing globalization so visible as in the coastal area of Scheveningen, one of northwest Europe’s seaside resorts with a wealthy tradition nearby the capital city of The Hague. In the 19^th century a consortium of bankers from Paris, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam established a fashionable European beach resort right next to a medieval fishing village with a Kurhaus Spa and Casino accessible to the general public. At the end of the 20^th century the bathing resort lost its image and most of the fishing industry moved away leaving the coastal zone in a crisis. The municipality decided to give the coastline an economic impulse. Not only that, their ambitions were grandiose. In 2005 they got the idea to make Scheveningen the Second International Center of The Hague with impressive architecture and town planning. The beach, the old fishing village, and the fishery at the harbor were connected into a close urban ensemble by the North Sea by a splendid boulevard. However, the financial crisis in 2008 put an end to extravagant developmental plans, to the great relief of coastal residents. They especially feared the expansion of tourism into the residential areas even though tourism had brought and would continue to bring prosperity to the area. The old fishing village was kept intact while the harbor transformed quite differently than sketched and the seaside decayed, losing to its rival the First International Center: the old town of The Hague. How could this have happened to the Pearl on the Sea? Was it the crisis or the stubbornness of residents and entrepreneurs? Or was it the unworldliness of administrators?