International academics have variously extolled the country as having “one of the world’s most successful systems” (Alterman, 1997), as being a “world-wide lead” in the co-ordination of spatial and transportation systems (Hall, 2007), as “the most planned country among the European nations” (Dutt and Costa, 1985) and as no less than a “planners paradise” (Burke, 1966). Fainstein has dubbed Amsterdam a “grounded utopian actual city that, w hile not, of course, really utopia, offers a picture of possibility, at least in relation to the Anglo-American city” (2005: 127). In sum, there is strong consensus among many experts that there is much to leam from the Netherlands’ oft-studied spatial planning system. What some view as success - such as “the containment of open space in the Green Heart and buffer zones between agglomerations” - others view as problematic (Roodbol-Mekkes, van der Valk and Altes, 2012: 378).