Groningen

Groningen demonstrates what happens when resource extraction benefits distant capitals while damaging local communities. The Groningen gas field—discovered in 1959 and once Europe's largest—generated €290 billion in government revenue over six decades. But the extraction induced over 1,600 earthquakes since 1986, damaged thousands of homes, and drove residents into stress-related health problems. The field finally closed in October 2024, leaving a province that must reinvent itself.

The gas story overshadows older patterns. Like neighboring Friesland, early settlers built terpen (dwelling mounds) to survive flooding—Groningen shares that tradition of niche construction in hostile environments. The city of Groningen joined the Hanseatic League in the 14th century and spent centuries in conflict with its surrounding Ommelanden countryside, only merging into a single province in 1795.

Today the city compensates for provincial decline through education. The University of Groningen (1614)—which educated two Nobel laureates and the first ECB president—and Hanze University attract students who comprise 25% of the city's 245,000 residents, giving Groningen the youngest mean population age in the Netherlands. This creates a distinctive source-sink dynamic: the province loses wealth through resource extraction and aging demographics, but the university imports youth and talent. With 80% of land devoted to agriculture and gas revenue ending, Groningen must find new economic niches—potentially in renewable energy, leveraging existing pipeline infrastructure and university research.