A multidisciplinary approach of railway station development: A case study of ’s-Hertogenbosch

Abstract

Railway stations have a dual character, as they are nodes in transportation networks as well as places in the city (see chapter 3). A combination of accessibility and potential as a concentrated area of urban activity therefore makes station areas favoured locations for the development of structuring nodes in the network city (Bertolini and Dijst 2000 p. 41). With reference to Castells (1989), Bertolini (1996 p. 332) subsequently pinpoints the tensions this combination embodies: “On one hand, stations offer a (potential) connection to several material and immaterial flows that create value in the current ‘informational’ mode of development. Stations are (or may become) important nodes in both transport and non-transport (e.g. business, consumption) networks. The connection to ever denser, faster and further reaching transportation systems, as well as the development there of office complexes and shopping centres are materialisations of this network dimension of station areas. On the other hand, stations identify a ‘place’, a both permanently and temporarily inhabited area of the city, a dense and diverse conglomeration of uses and forms accumulated through time, that may or may not share in the life of the node. The mixture of housing, small business premises and informal public spaces of the station’s neighbourhood are an expression of this local dimension.”