Veenhuizen

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Veenhuizen is a village (around 800 inhabitants) that was in the municipality (or gemeente) Norg before is was reorganized to be a part of a larger collection of municipalities including the lager village of Roden to become the municipality of Noordenveld (since 1998). The larger cities in the area are Groningen and Assen (20 to 30 km) and Amsterdam and Bremen (Germany) (around 200 km). Veenhuizen has an elevation of about 7 metres. What makes Veenhuizen special is that is started out in the early nineteenth century as a reeducation colony for the poor and homeless from the large cities (like Amsterdam and The Hague) It was, together with a town in Australia, the only colony within a country's own borders.

The history of Veenhuizen goes way back in to the late Middle Ages but only as an insignificant hamlet alongside a little stream called the "Slokkert". This was situated a little to the north of the current village. Change came when the general Johannes van den Bosch started the Maatschappij van Weldadigheid (which translates freely into Company for Benevolence) in the 1820s. The company bought 30 km² of land to found colonies which would house and provide work for the poor from the large cities in Holland's west.

The change is still evident in the way the village was set up. It looks, when seen through Dutch eyes, almost American as it is made up of roads in a grid pattern with blocks measuring 700 by 700 metres. The difference with the United Sates is that most of these blocks are still filled in with farmland on which the inmates used to work.