Europe’s Controversial Tri-State Megacity

This is the idea of Tri-State City in Europe. A metropolis that stretches over three countries and would be home to up to 45 million people.

Today on MegaBuilds, we’re taking a look at a very early stage concept that could change western Europe forever.

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0:00 Tri-State Megacity
0:39 Vision
2:15 The Netherlands
4:24 Peter Savelberg
6:02 Benefits
7:02 Railway Network
9:00 Challenges

#megaprojects #europe #megacity
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[MegaBuildsYT]

What do you think? Is a megacity like this one realistic in the distant future? And would that even be worthwhile?

Thanks a lot for watching!💛

[MalPhunktion]

You’ve shown province of Utrecht as if it was the city. The city of Utrecht is waaaay smaller than depicted on the map.

[LiteraIIy_Nobody]

I hope Dr. Doofenshmirtz doesn't try to take over the tri-state area.

[jurjenvanderlaan]

3:05 You confused the city of Utrecht with the province of Utrecht

[bentels]

Anybody from The Netherlands, like me? And never heard of this? Neither had I. Don't feel bad. This isn't a thing. Turns out, this "idea" is a brainfart by one guy, Peter Savelberg. There's not really anybody behind this.

[emiliovisje]

If Lille is part of the Tri state city, shouldn't it be called a Quatro state city, since Lille is in France

[andrekloer]

The Netherlands is not divided in the Randstad 'and the rest'. There is another Conurbation in the Netherlands, in the province of Brabant, with tech centers Eindhoven and Veldhoven, home to AMSL, manufacturer of computer chip machines, and the highest valued European tech company. So no: outside the randstad is not only farms!

[Felix_Duesenburg]

The Rhein-Ruhr area between Duisburg and Dortmund is already Germany's megacity with about 6 million people. It's just not administered centrally as one city because it grew this way historically, but pretty much functions like one.

[FreekDijkstra]

Dutch citizen here. The key part of this video is at 14:14: "the cities that would form Tristate are destined to become more closely interconnected anyway." Indeed, this is nothing new. This is just a large metropolitan area with multiple cities. The only reason to call is a "megacity" or "Tristate city" is to explain it to foreign investors who are only familiar with metropolitan areas that only contain a single city. So with that, I just consider it a marketing term. And to be frank, a failed one, given there are multiple Dutch here (including me) who never heard of the term "Tristate" to this day, despite being pitched 10-years ago. With the farmers backlash, I doubt it will be coined by politics. Why should they? There is already the government-backed Euro Deltametropool (covering roughly the same area from Holland in the Netherlands to the Ruhrgebiet in Germany), covering most of the ideas. The only thing that I like -which definitely could use more political attention- is further integration. With the 1995 start the Schengen Area, free flow of persons and freight is possible. And there are many more integrations, ranging from joint police teams (Grensoverschrijdend Politieteam, GPT) to integrated European energy markets. That said, it is not perfect yet. My personal annoyance is the poor border-crossing rail transport. Yes, sure, there is fuss about high-speed lines (both positive and negative), but regional train networks are either still nation-based (restricted to one of the three countries) or are poorly integrated. Change is way too slow there. There is some push by EU, which resulted in some niche companies in 2023 (e.g. Eurosleeper, Qbuzz. FlixTrain), but with NS in the Netherlands clinging to the core network, decades of negligence of infrastructure in Germany by DB (and subsequent plummeted punctuality from in the high 90% to low 70%), and the Flanders-Wallon divide in Belgium, I do no see a truly integrated intercity service anytime soon.

[bsdpowa]

that's a metropolitan region not a city ffs

[roeland]

Never heard of it, and I live their. Only thing that may be this is the train network via high speed train, but not a huge city

[Vonnimwegen]

Utrecht is the smallest city of the 4 major cities. The video does not show the city of Utrecht, but the province of Utrecht.

[lost_porkchop]

So they want to build a transportation network? Wow, that's so revolutionary /s

[katego]

Belgian here. 🙋‍♀
I'm only halfway through the video but I just can't stop laughing! 🤣
This project is positively ridiculous. It could never work without major, and I do mean _major, _ compromises by the NL.

1. Language shenanigans. There is no chance in this universe that Brussels and Wallonia would let themselves be Dutchified. To illustrate my point; Belgium still holds the world record for time taken to form a new democratic government after an election. *589 days* to be exact. This comedy was entirely about Flanders vs Wallonia (or Flemish Dutch vs Belgian French). We cannot even agree on a national level on these issues so there is absolutely no way the Walloons would let themselves get outnumbered by the Dutch and their grand ideas. Effectively, the NL would have to become bilingual in everything that has to do with this "Tri-City". And that's not even mentioning German...
2. Clearly, the NL would be levied as the superior party to this project. This is precisely the reason why Belgium is Belgium and not some backwater province of the NL like it used to be before 1830. Back then, religion was the breaking point as one of the reasons the Southern Netherlands wanted independence to get out from the control the NL had on current Belgium. Now, the Benelux partnerships equalize Belgium and the NL because we both need each other in equal parts but our independence allows us autonomy and respects our cultures. Thus, the project would have to be run by an equal number of Walloons, Flemish, Dutch, and Germans. Every agreement on how to run this city would have to be agreed upon by each demographic.
3. Germany. Germany is governed in a strange way compared to its neighbors. The provinces are essentially like a mini European Union with each its own laws but working together as partners federally. The NL and Belgium do this too to some extent but the scale of it in Germany definitely changes things. Intermingling this with NL and Belgium would be _complicated_ at best.
4. Money, Money, Moneeeyy. 💸💃 One would expect the NL to be the economic hub, I suspect. So why would Belgium agree to all this trouble if they'd get less wealth out of it than its neighbors? This might sound like any other inter-nation economic agreement but it's not. The complexities are like an iceberg on this one. And as we know, money can make any ship sink. This one will be sunk before it ever sails.
5. Cultural differences. This isn't just about minor cultural nuances between each country, this actually affects the realization of this project. (general stereotype warning) The Dutch are shockingly blunt, they have zero social tact. To Belgians, they often come across as offensively rude. The Germans are very unromantic. They are punctual, organized, broody people who don't really do small talk or relationship greasing. In reality, they are just very introverted as a people but it can be a real turnoff to outsiders. Belgians are indecisive. They take a million meetings and a whole lot of "we'll see" and "let's think about it" to plan anything. It's bureaucracy at its finest. The wheels turn slowly, painfully slow. Basically, we're kinda like the French and Lord knows they're _not_ easy. Everything in Belgium is a figure of speech, the way we communicate is generally not the literal version of words. For us, this is our idea of politeness but to our neighbors, it's usually described as "Weirdddd" and stand-off-ish. None of this is ordinarily a problem because we know how to respect each other's cultures and autonomy - not my circus, not my monkeys kinda thing - but this Tri-City is more than individual economic relations. People in every branch of life would have to communicate. Most worryingly; politicians. And they're not known for their tactful communication skills.

So, now that you've read my latest novel, you probably get why I find this Tri-City idea a hilarious joke. Benelux; we can do that. EU; sure sounds simple enough, a tri CITY? Goodness, this Savelberg guy sure is a funny comedian. 🤣

[ruud]

The nitrogen issue is not a greenhouse problem but an over-fertilization problem. There are quite a few more inaccuracies.

[MoempfLP]

Flemish is often regarded as a dialect of Dutch, not a separate language.
Thus, the region only has 2 languages.

Edit: Aussuming Wallonia and France are not part of it like shown in 0:25

[andrekloer]

A serious error at 10:16 : nitrogen is not the same as nitrous oxide. The Netherlands doesn't have a nitrous oxide (or greenhouse gas) problem, but a nitrogen deposition problem, causing loss of biodiversity. The nitrogen deposition causes an explosion of some plants that do well on nitrogen rich soils, taking over many other plants that do well on poor soils, resulting also in the loss of many insects that are depending on those plants, and many birds and other animals that are depending on these plants and insects.

[weeraanmelden]

3:20 Pretty sure you used the province of Utrecht vs the city of Utrecht, ...

[oliviercwergermusic]

I live in the city of rotterdam and i did not know many of these things🤣

[Diwi]

I'm from Aruba (the Dutch Caribbean) and i've only heard of the Randstad in NL 🇳🇱, never heard about this one. NL is already feels like one big megacity in a lot of the country, don't think Dutch people would approve the rest of whats left of their nature to be turned into urban centers.