Issued in parts during the mid-1970s, the Third Report on Spatial Planning operationalised clustered deconcentration by designating designated growth centres (groeikernen) and growth towns to absorb housing demand away from the big cities. Towns such as Almere, Lelystad, Zoetermeer, Houten and Nieuwegein were expanded or built largely from scratch with state support. The policy aimed to protect open land while delivering large volumes of family housing. By the 1980s its dispersal logic was criticised for draining the central cities and was reversed in favour of compact urban growth.
The growth-centre policy produced a generation of planned Dutch new towns and is a defining case of state-directed metropolitan dispersal.
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