and technology - be expected to conti-nue their role in the future. However, this seems to require a further shift from a centralistic Japanese port regime to more autonomous and competitive ports, embedded in their local and regional setting and reacting directly to the (inter)national competition. This applies especially to the container sector (Zacher and Sutton. 1996).
2.2 The Cities: Tokyo and Rotterdam
Opposite perhaps to the dominant opinion in and outside Japan that pictures the urbanization in Japan as problematic, one can not escape continued urban growth and what is more this country has even in the long term the best cards for that. There is one essential condition under which this surprising statement can be experienced as plausible, that is the necessity of a lasting and increased investment in human and environmental quality of Tokyo and other urban centres in Japan, in order to correct for the negative impact of unlimited extreme urban growth over a long period. Why does Japan and Tokyo have the best cards? Just because of the fact that Japanese urban centres and Tokyo especially more than the other world cities are adjusted to extreme and lasting growth and expansion. Within this setting it is relatively easier to correct for the negative impacts with introducing a balanced system of urban control than it is nowdays in most western countries, where urban growth in the meantime has often become problematic under extreme and rigid regimes of urban control in favor of human and environmental quality. The adaptations as such with regard to urban growth in Western urbanized areas must he judged wise and good. However, in Western urban concentrations measures of urban control did degenerate often in absolute stops for further growth, causing inflexible land development and forcing to urban growth elsewhere in suburban areas or in new centres nearby or at great distance (compare the phenomenon of "edge cities"). This resulted in a weakening and a loss of functions within the urban concentrations themselves. Sure, also Japan did join Western countries in developing in the fifties and sixties regional policies for guiding and relocating extreme urban growth. However, the difference with other western countries is that the economic expansion of Japan remained related to the growth of the urban centres and first of all to that of Tokyo as top centre(Glickman, 1979).
Even if in Rotterdam the pressure on land and facilities is not comparable with that in Tokyo, then the prospects for further urban growth are in this Dutch main city limited. When it comes to continued growth in a regional context, then the zoning and more specifically the subdivisions of land within the urban centre and within the region, both part of the Western urbanized core of a small and dense populated country: the Netherlands, shows limitative for growth from the seventies onwards. One will not be surprised that Rotterdam (city and region) is losing at the moment economic functions and high income people and jobs, given the lack of land at the right location and with the necessary outfit, especially those for high quality economic and residential units.
2.3. In conclusion
What does this assessment of ports and cities mean? The conclusion is that Tokyo has overall good chances for further growth and expansion, be it in an adapted way, with more guarantees for human well-being and for a safe environment than is the case nowadays. The metropolis of Tokyo had a predominant position over a long period and will continue as one of the three world cities in the coming period, given the tradition of urban growth in line with economic and technological development over a long period. In this setting the port is only one of the basic facilities that supports this world city and the main urban centre of Japan and within Asia. The port of Tokyo can easily experience further growth as also is the case for other ports in Japan. Then, however, should the port regime more relate to the international competition between ports in the world. At the same time the linking up of the port of Tokyo (and other ports in Japan) to other ways of transport (transport by roads, railways and airroutes) and transfer (other distribution centres and main airports) becomes imperative.
In first instance one would be inclined to conclude in the same positive way for Rotterdam. If the world port of Rotterdam is approached as a huge port complex: an entity apart from the city and region of Rotterdam, then the chances for the world port seem not bad, at least if one is aware of the required continuous high investment in infrastructure, superstructure and logistics in line with the class of world port and Europort. However, if the port is seen as related to the city and region Rotterdam, then there are serious problems in organizing for economic and urban growth in this Western urbanized part of a small and dense populated country. This is the case, given the rigid and inflexible land use and land development system, gradually seconded by a pronounced opposition of population and politicians to schemes for further development.
3. Managed Growth: A Comparison of European and Asiatic policies and politics
3.1 A Story of Cities and Ports
In Rotterdam one issued in the early nineties the "Port Plan 2010", a programme for strategic strengthening the port of Rotterdam in view of the 21st Century. This plan is exemplarious for an advanced port strategy in a time of extreme competition, accompanied by many uncertainties about oppportunities and threats for the port in the future. Therefore one chosed in the Municipal Port Authority of Rotterdam for an approach of capacity planning of new infrastructure, superstructure and logistics with as much openings as possible for shifts and adaptations in the long term programme (contingency planning). This port plan got subsequently after political pressures and quarrels a complement in an Overall Plan for Rotterdam: city and region. This was the so called ROM Rijnmond Project: a set of programmes for land use and environmental protection, given the complex and often negative impact of the port complex for the surrounding urban and rural areas. With these two complementaryd plans one broaded in Rotterdam the decision-making, linking the development of the port explicitly to that of the city, be it in a limited an partial approach. The focus was on balancing aspects of (port)economy with those of quality of life and environment, expressing in the nineties once again as in the sixties the opposition of people towards an absolute economic growth. Besides, the planning was in the so called ROM project organized not at the level of the port or that of the city, but in a regional context, encompassing port and city in a wider territorial perspective. Therefore, for the first time one worked towards a joint authorities aggreement, in which the main units were brought together. This applies to the public and private sector at the municipal level (among others the Municipalities surrounding the city of Rotterdam), the provincial level (Agencies of the Provincial Authority of South Holland)and at the national level (especially the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Housing, Land Use and Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Transport).
However, it was very difficult indeed to balance between the different interests. The gap between the "world" of the port and the port economy(represented by the Municipal Port of Rotterdam) and the "world" of human and environmental quality (represented by the municipal agencies for land use planning and environmental protection) became strengthened by coalitions respectively with the "economy" agencies and the "environment" agencies at the other two levels of administration. Further, in this overall balancing in a regional context one did not succeed in arriving at operational schemes with financial commitments, decisive for the ultimate balances between port and city and between economy
