[stinos]

Sure it is densely populated, but doesn't the major part of that density reside in cities and villages, while once you get outside of those there are vast amounts of land with only some farms?? As such, are they really always in one's backyard (if you don't consider a farmer's land far far away from the actual farm as a backyard)?

Actually I think wobbleblob's reason (because they scare birds and pollute the horizon) is a more prominent reason, I find the Netherlands always quite pretty in comparision with surrounding countries so I'd understand people are reluctant to change that much. Nicer, more colourful buildings, nicer gardens, ... then again it's also a bit boring to me due to being quite flat.

[wobbleblob]

> I find the Netherlands always quite pretty in comparision with surrounding countries

Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but this is really not something I have ever heard before. There are many things to like about living here, but what parts of it are pretty?

[stinos]

I guess you're used to it :] I'm mainly comparing to Belgium, and most people I know here actually think the same; might be because we look at it from a more tourist POV and tend to ignore uglier things but still:

- not a lot of ribbon development. That alone makes a huge difference.

- cities of comparable size seem to have more green overall (trees, plants in front of houses, more parks etc). Typical example is something like Ravenstein. Seems to have more park than actual housing area.

- nicer architecture (again, eye of the beholder, but hey we have a 'ugly belgian houses' book :]) for instance streets whith all pretty much the same houses, but every third house has a door in a different pastel color etc. Not sure that even existst here. Or apartment buildings with some color to it.

Of course there also are more ugly things (e.g. there are beautiful pieces of the Waal with nice tiny isles and such, then you look more to the left and there's a rather ugly concrete factory or so; some cities have more 'ghetto-style' places but still not as bad as some parts of Brussles I think). But in general I like it more.