“The city has no plan to retain students and young professionals”

“Who does the city actually belong to? We’re facing a huge demographic challenge. For us, the environmental vision lacks a clear plan for how to retain students and young professionals in the city”.  These are the words of M:OED citizen council member Bram van den Berkmortel during the discussion of the 2040 Environmental Vision. In this Environmental Vision, the municipality claims that it wants to retain more graduates and school leavers, but it provides disappointingly little information about how they intend to achieve this.

Background

In Maastricht, about a third of young people leave around age 18. These are mainly pre-university education (VWO) students who go to study in another city. The vast majority of these students never return. On the other hand, many thousands of students come to live in Maastricht every year, but most leave by age 23. By age 30, almost everyone in that group has left. As a result, Maastricht has a clear shortage of people in the 25-40 age group. If 10% of graduates could be retained in Maastricht, that would be enough to replace the departing VWO students. It would be very beneficial for the city if a significant portion of these students were also entrepreneurial types.

The environmental vision states an intention to “retain more graduates and school leavers.” Very vague and simplistic. Maastricht has been trying this for years, and it still doesn’t work.

The key lies in entirely different aspects that are also described in the environmental vision. The city must become much more attractive to the group that is currently leaving the city en masse after graduation. The primary stumbling block isn’t to have sufficient housing, shops, etc., for this target group, but to create a living environment that appeals to them. The environmental vision doesn’t make clear choices in this regard. It touches on the relevant points, but primarily conveys the message that everything must remain as it is.

Despite years of effort, Randwyck has still not been successfully transformed into an attractive area. The city centre seems to be somewhat worried that Randwyck will become too attractive, and that this will come at the expense of their revenue. The fact is, the city centre is precisely Maastricht’s asset in making the city more attractive to its own residents. In this sense, Randwyck is primarily used as an excuse to avoid adapting the city centre to make it more appealing to students and young professionals. Therefore, if we want a healthier population structure for broad prosperity, we must stop exploiting the city centre as an open-air museum for tourists. The city centre should become a much more vibrant place where residents from all demographics meet.

There also needs to be many more affordable spaces for young entrepreneurs. Not in Randwyck, and certainly not in the overly neat and expensive university buildings, but in buildings like the former work building on the Tapijn site. We also believe it should be located in the heart of the city, so that the people who work here feel connected to the city and it becomes more vibrant again. Many of the choices that have been made are actually at odds with this necessary development:

• Landbouwbelang is being demolished, while a lot of money is being poured into a characterless middenzaal;
• Vrijthof is used for insipid events like Rieu and the Preuvenemint, but there’s no room for exciting new developments;
• A few ad hoc subsidies are being arranged for Bureau Europa and Opera Zuid, while videopower is fobbed off with a small amount. Innovative art is barely encouraged.
• When push comes to shove, everything has to stay as it is, and a self-absorbed Maastricht Museum is even being built instead of, for example, an attractive meeting place for sustainability and climate change.

Much more attention is also needed for good public transport. This encompasses more than just the bus from Randwyck to the station; it also includes good train connections: from Maastricht to Brussels, an intercity train from South Limburg to Cologne, and of course, a rail link to Hasselt to eventually create a better connection with Antwerp. Trains must therefore run again over the old railway bridge. It shouldn’t become a cozy walkway for the elderly and tourists. The transition from car to walking and cycling city is also far too hesitant. All proposals are subject to ifs and buts, because motorists, in particular, must not be inconvenienced. Having a vision also means making choices: Much more space is needed for cyclists and pedestrians, and that is only possible if there is much less space for cars.

We applaud the plan to make neighborhoods greener and more vibrant, but that doesn’t mean that shopping centres like the Brusselsepoort should be the heart of the local community. If the goal is to get more people cycling or walking, amenities need to be much closer to the people. Modern cities have cafés, restaurants, and shops on many street corners. In Maastricht, these kinds of things are actually discouraged.