In December 2004, the report of the Dutch Parliamentary Investigation Committee on Infrastructural Projects was published. This committee investigated the budgets overruns of two large rail projects currently under construction in the Netherlands: the Betuwe Line and the High Speed Line (HSL)-South. The committee also looked at how mistakes that were made in the earlier projects had been avoided in the construction of the Zuiderzee Line, a project currently under preparation. The report provides a look inside the struggle of the Dutch national government from the beginning of the 1990s in their public-private partnership (PPP) efforts. In this contribution, we provide an analysis of the motives, approach and results of privatisation of these three projects on the bases of the detailed empirical analysis provided by the Committee. We seek explanations of how privatisation with these three projects evolved and what lessons can be drawn. It appears that practices have so far been far from good and instead of committing to the obligation to apply PPP in every large infrastructural project, the government should first find out how PPP in such projects should actually be carried out.

Across Europe, urban education systems are struggling with the process of integration of immigrants in its schools. This article explores the most important aspects of this new urban phenomenon and its impact on urban school systems in the Netherlands. It clearly shows that ethnic segregation in elementary and secondary schools is widespread in Dutch cities. This ethnic segregation is caused by a combination of residential segregation, and, as our own studies prove, of parental choice. The article also deals with recent Dutch studies on the effects of segregation. Finally, it treats the question how schools and authorities, in a long-standing tradition of parental choice, are dealing with this segregation.