Flevoland

Flevoland is the world's largest artificial island—a province that exists only because Dutch engineers transformed the deadly Zuiderzee into habitable farmland. When Cornelis Lely published his reclamation plans in 1891, he was proposing the biological equivalent of niche construction on a continental scale: creating 970 square kilometers of new land where only water existed before.

The construction sequence mirrors primary succession on volcanic islands. The Noordoostpolder was drained in 1942, Eastern Flevoland in 1957, and Southern Flevoland in 1968. Each polder began as sterile clay seafloor, then was planted with nitrogen-fixing crops like rapeseed to build soil fertility, followed by colonization with planned settlements. Unlike natural ecosystems where species arrive chaotically, Flevoland's ecology was designed—right down to the precise angles of streets optimized for wind protection.

Almere exemplifies this planned-organism approach. Founded in 1976 specifically to absorb Amsterdam's overflow population, it grew from zero to 220,000 residents by 2024 and is projected to add another 50,000 by 2040. The city functions as a commuter symbiont: residents sleep in Almere's affordable housing but metabolize Amsterdam's job market. This dependency is literal—without constant pumping, Flevoland would flood within days, as the entire province sits 3-4 meters below sea level. The absence of historical path dependence creates both advantages and constraints. Lelystad's street grids were designed on drafting tables, not shaped by medieval cattle tracks. But this rational planning produced sterile urban environments that required expensive retrofitting in the 1990s when entire neighborhoods were demolished and rebuilt with more organic layouts.