Cybercat Works 2.0

  Recently the high-speed rail company Eurostar announced that they were considering scrapping their services to the Netherlands in the coming years due to increasing reliability problems, capacity problems and delays for the passengers(1). If implemented this would practically remove all proper high-speed rail from the Netherlands and cut us off from connections to London and Paris. While I do not like Eurostar much with their extremely high prices and seats being difficult to book on a short notice do I however completely understand where they are coming from and do I find this a troubling development.   Let me be clear. High speed rail is a good thing. If implemented properly it can pull large urban areas closer together and put short to medium distance flights out of business, something that is very much needed if we are truly serious about becoming a more sustainable society and for tackling climate change. However there is the crux. If implemented properly. It has become...

  Note: This article started live as a video script. Most of the content has been regained but alterations have been made to adept to the blog format.  This… is Lage Zwaluwe train station. It is a train station located between the three Dutch cities of Dordrecht, Roosendaal and Breda and has regional train connections to all three of those places. It is also one of the most poorly designed and serviced train stations in this part of the Netherlands.   Now I can already hear you ask: “But Pim how is that possible? Those charismatic North American urbanist Youtubers told me that the Netherlands is urbanist heaven! Surely you must be exaggerating!”. Now hold your horses there because we are getting ahead of ourselves. I will talk about the portrayal of the Netherlands on urbanist Youtube later. For now let’s take a look at Lage Zwaluwe station and see what connections it has and how it’s location makes it impractical and difficult to use.    Oh my look at how ...

CW: Ableism, Bureaucratic fuckery  A little while ago while browsing the news I stumbled upon a strange occurrence. I found a news article which told the story of a woman living in the Dutch municipality of Wijdemeren and how she was apparently eligible for a fine of about 7000 euros(now reduced to 2835 euros after a political uproar) because she was given groceries on a regular basis by her mother while also receiving social assistance and welfare benefits(1).  This is an outrageous story about how a woman got punished by the Dutch state and social services for receiving help from her well meaning mother and although she deserves justice, her story is not exactly new to me. I myself have also been punished by Dutch social services for receiving help or due to circumstances beyond my control on numerous occasions. This is not exactly new but I am using this story as an example because it shows very well the results of the participation society and how neoliberal policies punis...