No room in the city and an aging population in the villages: will there still be enough room to exercise?

Almost every Dutch person can, within a radius of three kilometers, be on a sports field, lie in a swimming pool, visit the fitness club or play basketball, handball or korfball in a hall. There is one sports facility available for every 814 inhabitants – the Netherlands is doing “fantastically” compared to other countries, researchers from the Mulier Institute write in a study published on Tuesday. People are also very satisfied with the sports offering in their neighborhood, city or region. And moreover: there are not that many people who indicate that sports are unaffordable for them.

And yet there are concerns, the researchers write in their report. They warn about the future. For too little sports on offer in cities and too long travel distances in more remote areas. Because the population is growing, but the number of sports fields, halls and pools has not since the previous survey in 2016. And that will lead to problems in the long run, the researchers predict. In some respects it is in line with the conclusions presented by the State Commission on Demographic Developments this week. According to that committee, the population of the Netherlands should be limited to 19 to 20 million, because stronger growth will lead to “scarcity, nuisance and annoyance” in society.

There is something else involved with sports and exercise. Currently, about 56 percent of Dutch people do not exercise enough. It is one of the biggest health risks in the country. People get sick more quickly and die sooner when they are 'inactive'. The government therefore wants to get many more people to exercise and exercise – 75 percent must exercise sufficiently by 2040. The problem: the accommodations are not ready for that at all. A strong growth in Dutch sports enthusiasts, write the Mulier researchers, “leads to a shortage of accommodations in most areas, and a major shortage in urban areas.”

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Village versus city

The bakery disappears, the supermarket, the village school, the bus line, the library, the local bank branch. These are the well-known stories from certain parts of Groningen, Limburg and Zeeland, for example, that are referred to as a 'shrinkage region'. Younger people are moving away, often to cities, and the number of elderly people is also decreasing. This combination ensures that in some villages there are almost no facilities left. No longer profitable, used by fewer and fewer people.

This does not apply to sports facilities. Not yet. What is striking in the Mulier research is that especially in shrinking regions and other sparsely populated areas, there is a lot of sports on offer per capita (more than 27.5 per 10,000 inhabitants compared to less than 22 in urban areas). People have to travel a little further to exercise in these areas, but they do have a lot of choice. And yet it is precisely the regions where the population is declining that there are concerns. “As a result, support for traditional sports facilities, such as sports parks, sports halls and swimming pools, is decreasing,” the report states.

When renovating or replacing a sports hall, field or swimming pool, a decision is often made to close or merge. This makes sense from an economic point of view, because it is no longer profitable to keep a sports facility afloat. But socially it can lead to problems. Because: “As a result, the supply of facilities is shrinking. This leads to thinning out of the competition and greater travel distances, causing athletes to drop out.” It is one of the main reasons that 'traditional sports', club life, is in danger of ending up in a 'negative spiral'.

Things are completely different in cities, but problems are also expected there. There are already far fewer sports facilities per capita, and this will probably get worse in the future. The population remains young and is growing at a much faster pace than the supply of sports fields, halls, pools and halls.

The Swimming Gap

Many additional sports halls will be needed (estimates vary from approximately 1.5 percent to over 11 percent) and also significantly more swimming pools. This requires “a lot of space and large investments, both of which are insufficiently available.” The result? “Waiting lists at clubs and for swimming lessons.” Commercial providers are – even now – filling that gap.

This already has significant consequences for swimming, as another study by the Mulier Institute showed at the end of November. A gap has emerged between rich and poorer children in obtaining a swimming diploma, partly because children from wealthy families can afford lessons from relatively expensive commercial swimming schools. A quarter of children from families in the lowest income group do not have a swimming diploma, compared to 2 percent of children from families with the most money to spend.

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More than sixty public swimming pools in the Netherlands disappeared between 1988 and 2009, the new study says, while the population increased by 1.7 million inhabitants during that period. Since then, the number of swimming pools has remained stable, but the population has grown again by approximately 1.3 million people.

The number of swimming pools per capita has been declining for years, which leads to greater pressure on swimming pools. Children with a migration background are least likely to have a diploma. And although the number of drowning deaths (73 at the last measurement in 2022) has been declining in the Netherlands for years, children with a migration background are ten times more likely to drown.

To keep sports facilities accessible to everyone, there are three major tasks, the researchers write: additional construction in the (Rand) city, maintaining places to exercise in rural areas and making sports facilities more sustainable everywhere, using them more intensively and keeping them affordable.

Failure of those assignments can have serious consequences. Not only will fewer people in rural areas exercise enough – and therefore become ill more often and more quickly – there will also be a larger 'exercise gap' between rich and poor.

It can already be seen in swimming lessons: if there are insufficient options, people with money will arrange it for themselves and people with a smaller wallet will be left behind. It can be the same in other sports. Because the commercial boot camp class in the local park is not affordable for everyone.

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