Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second largest city in the Netherlands. It has about 600.000 inhabitants. Nearly half of the inhabitants of Rotterdam has roots in a different part of the world, mainly Surinam, Turkey, Morocco and the Dutch Antilles and Aruba. Rotterdam is a young city. In contrast with the rest of the Netherlands the share of youngsters in the total population grows. Rotterdam will be European Youth Capital in 2009. It will be a year for and by young people in Rotterdam and the rest of Europe and the world. During this year Rotterdam should transform into a lasting city for youngsters.

Rotterdam once was a port city. This former port city has transformed itself into a city with a port. Now 63% of the local economy consists of business services. Lately innovative entrepreneurs in animation, IT and new media settled in Rotterdam.
The port of Rotterdam remains one of the largest ports in the world. Goods are trans-shipped from ocean-going vessels to inland-going vessels, trucks, trains and vice versa. It’s important for the Dutch economy that the port of Rotterdam keeps growing. This makes it important for the port to remain accessible via different modes of transport.
Petrochemical industries are also present in the port of Rotterdam. This industry refines crude oils into various product, e.g. motor fuel and plastics. The petrochemical industries use not only ships, trucks and trains but also pipelines to transport raw materials and products.

A ring of highways surrounds the city of Rotterdam. Every day traffic jams occur. Busy roads also lay in the city itself. In and around the city also lay a lot of cycle paths. The public transport system consists of trains, trams, metro lines and busses. The local government wants to avoid unnecessary use of cars by stimulating the use of public transport and bicycles. The government also wants to make traffic more safe, so less people die or get hurt in traffic.

Rotterdam has a lot of inhabitants and there is a lot of traffic and industry. Traffic and industry emit CO2 and other toxics into the air and cause air pollution and climate change. To keep the living environment safe and clean it’s important to restrict the emission of these matters. The City of Rotterdam, the Port of Rotterdam, the regional environmental office (DCMR) and the businesses in the port cooperate to reduce the emission of CO2 and other toxic gasses by 50% in 2025 in comparison with the emissions in 1990. They established a task force to reach this goal. This task force is called the Rotterdam Climate Initiative (RCI). The RCI develops policies on five themes: Sustainable city, Energizing city, Sustainable mobility, Innovationlab en Sustainable energy port.