Green Technology for Cities

"One element of Amsterdam's strategy is the development of networked co-working centers, the first of which opened last week in Almere. The fast-growing satellite city to Amsterdam's east is typical of sprawl that has emerged as the Netherlands' population has grown in the past few decades. Created in 1971 in part to ease crowding in Amsterdam and now home to 185,000, Almere is expected to double in population by 2030, according to the city's mayor, Annemarie Jorritsma. The Smart Work Centre provides working space for area commuters, including meeting space and fiber-based videoconferencing facilities, taking advantage of the massive fiber network infrastructure that has been laid under the Netherlands in the past decade. The city of Amsterdam uses the co-working space, as does IBM, but it will take many such centers to make a significant impact on working and commuting patterns in the region, and even then proponents will have to break through a traditional work culture built around 9 to 5 presence under management's eye."