Since the late 19th century, polders have been criss-crossed by navigable waterways, railway lines and motorways and occupied by industrial areas, business parks, recreation areas and airports. After the Second World War, almost all the agricultural land was consolidated into larger tracts of land and thus made more efficient, while horticultural areas were overrun with glasshouses. At present a number of urban and rural issues will again entail a further metamorphosis of the polder landscape. In that respect, the Zoetermeerse Meer Polder, the Zuidplas Polder and the Horstermeer Polder stand at an important watershed.

Change
Besides advancing urbanization, further increases in scale in agriculture, the creation of a feasible and sustainable countryside, the search for suitable locations for water storage, a less interfering government and the abandonment of the hard and fast boundaries between town and countryside will all have repercussions on the landscape. Put simply, some polders will be swallowed up by urban sprawl, while others will be preserved for the time being as countryside. They will often serve as green buffer zones. But even in the latter case the polders will be transformed to some degree, simply because a more accessible and recreational-oriented countryside for the city-dweller is after centuries of absence once again a high priority of urban planners.

Zoetermeerse Meerpolder (1614-1616)

Zuidplaspolder (1818 - 1839)

Horstermeerpolder (1629, 1882)