This "The Dutch do X" kind of story is almost always taken way too extreme. Same as the main article, the author describes many things about the Netherlands which don't apply to that extreme in practice at all.

The country is tiny (3x smaller than the state of New York) but differences are huge by area. For example the "1 (or 1.5) car per house" thing you describe only applies to some neighborhoods in specific cities, people that live there choose to live with that but it's definitely not a country wide thing. As a counter example I live 20 minutes outside Amsterdam, can park both my cars on my own driveway plus more than 10 visitor spots less than 50m walk from my house.

As for the permission to build: That only applies to the outside of the house never the inside, so the bathroom example doesn't exist. And even on the outside it's not for small things like a dormer. The practical restrictions are not that different from what most HOAs in US suburbs put in their contracts. And if you live outside a city you don't have any of these restrictions, because there are no neighbors to be inconvenienced.

> Expecting visitors? Sorry.

Of course this is not "Sorry, no can do" but a "sorry, they'll have to come by public transport, park their car at the edge of the city and do the last part by public transport/bicycle/foot, or park their car in one of the free spots that's available because some neighbours are away with their cars".

This is not accurate. Although I don't own a car, my neighbors do and there is enough space left for visitors.

You don't need a license for every change to your house. For a tree, depends on the tree.

As a US-born immigrant to the Netherlands 10 years ago, I'll differ slightly. Bureaucracy here IS real, but I observe a relentless pragmatism among individuals. Rules are not, I've observed, sacred. The Dutch are inveterate jaywalkers, literally and figuratively.

Every Dutch (and American, to be fair) homeowner at some point will have to make decisions about what work to do by the book, and what gets done "zwart" (yes, "black" as in market. No permissions sought and Usually cash "under the table" too.) At least in my experience and observation in the Hague, anything non-structural within the building envelope is done this way by default.

Digression: the politics of migration here are far from settled and this is one implicated area. Dodging permits and taxes is often stereotyped here as behavior of migrants from the eastern EU working in bulding trades but my native-born Dutch contractor was surprised when I told him I wanted the finish work in our house done on the books with a factuur, taxes paid. Even for things outside the building envelope, there are substantial gray areas where one could seek permission (and thus denial) but one need not.

Honestly the thing that rang most false to me in this article, though, is the bit about parallel parking competence. My experience is resolutely the opposite to the point of ridicule. After a decade I can count on two hands the number of successful parallel parking attempts I have observed (i.e. made by locals, not me) in The Hague requiring 3 or fewer moves. 7, specifically. I keep score because on my bike I am often obstructed by people attempting to park and it baffles me how people who do this so regularly can be so bad at it.

I'm a dutch native and can give some background on the "black money". Growing up in the 80s, it was everywhere, in every sector. You could work a factory job and in part be paid in untaxed money.

Now that society is a lot less cash based, this practice is very uncommon as it comes to wages in normal jobs. It still exists in exactly the type of work you describe: any type of contracting where a private individual (home owner) is the client. Cleaners and gardeners working for private individuals may also be entirely paid this way.

These last remaining pockets of untaxed money continue to exist as the cost of regulation is higher than the reward. For example, cleaners typically do it as a side job, and they'd simple stop cleaning altogether when taxed on their low income. So it's better to just tolerate it.

Further, black money is considered spending money. You can't really hoard it and buy a house with it. You'd have to explain to the IRS where this money comes from. So it's considered "extra" money, money to directly spend in the economy, so it flows back in any case.

I understand the analogy, but jaywalking isn't an offence here.

(In English: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2017/09/05/when-there-is-...)

How is that difference than the U.S? People don't try to dodge taxes there?

It's not different in this respect, which was my point: the reason planning works (or doesn't) in NL isn't due to deeply ingrained orderly, rule-following cultural norms at the individual level relative to the US.

I think the central thrust of the article - which I agree with - is that what works in NL works because there is political buy-in from the voting public for meaningful restrictions on the activity of real-estate developers with specific, desired outcomes.

It's exactly the same everywhere. Taxes are rarely paid in full on cash kind of jobs, because there is no way to enforce it.

Do people in the center of big cities in the USA have multiple private parking spots right out front? (I genuinely don't know but I'll make an assumption.) Perhaps in smaller cities they might have made it a priority over the decades while the city grew, but in something like NYC I can't imagine they didn't run into practicality issues. Do people there not expect visitors ever? Of course they do. You hop on the metro, I assume at least. Same here, and if you live outside of a big city's center, you'll find it's not only free to park anywhere, it's actually annoyingly hard to do normal things without a car. I was in Limburg a few weeks ago for 8 days, alone without a driver's license to use said car parked out front (the thing expired, I didn't notice). Let me tell you I didn't see many places and family had to pick me up or I'd have had hours of public transport time for a 20 minute drive to their place.

Most cities in America are very car-focused, including metropolises like Los Angeles. San Francisco also needs cars, at least uber, given the downtown transit system is a joke for true commuting.

The only cities in the US with actual transit systems that can 100% replace cars without being super annoying / delayed are NYC (and larger commuting areas like Jersey City), Boston, and Chicago. I know people in Boston who have lived in the farther-out neighborhoods (Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, etc.) completely without cars and it is do-able.

Within those three cities, there is still a lot of parking, and if you need more dedicated space there are garages with reasonable monthly rates. My understanding in places like Amsterdam the parking / driving situation is vastly different.

Considering how rampant and meaningless HOAs are I am not really sure things are better here too. My co-worker here has been fighting a losing battle for the past year to get solar panels on his roof.

That's already much more restrictive than even inner-city rules in the Netherlands. Solar panels don't require permission, only bigger changes that affect neighbors do.

Apparently the solar panels destroy the "look" of the neighborhood.

HOA -> Vereniging van eigenaren.

I assume one needs to reach an agreement.

Except that the VVE thing in the Netherlands is only customary for apartment buildings (and then limited to only within the building) while in some places in the US the HOAs have grown to control neighbourhoods of detached housing.

The Netherlands is a complex, densely populated country with more ethnic and religious diversity than NYC. It's an overbearing nanny state or anarchy.