Last month we launched Volume's 36th issue, 'Ways To Be Critical'. We published a selection of articles from the issue here on the blog so you can get a little glimpse of what's inside.
It is rare that people spend a whole day discussing their own happiness, but in Houten they did. Houten? Yes, Houten, a town of 50,000 inhabitants in the center of the Netherlands – a suburb of the city of Utrecht really, but a very successful one. During the seventies this agricultural village was planned to receive a serious portion of the additional housing needed at the time in the Netherlands and during the nineties another national housing expansion program transformed it into the town it is today. The most remarkable thing about Houten is that we don't hear about it. It never hits the news with riots, political scandals, alarming unemployment figures, vacant office buildings, or cultural clashes. It is a quiet town.