Europe’s largest seaport is a fluid, flavorful and architecturally inspired new world. Katendrecht – a former Chinatown and red-light district – is now Rotterdam’s culinary and cultural heart. Museums could move up from #142: FENIX, a migration museum, now rises like a stainless steel tornado from warehouses that welcomed immigrants. The massive port is also built sustainably. The Shore Power Project at the cruise terminal is online and the Maasvlakte 2 expansion positions Rotterdam as a hydrogen ecosystem and offshore wind hub.
Air matters, too: the city’s #14 Airports ranking and #85 for public transit could rise as the first public road tests with self-driving buses begin, linking the city center to The Hague Airport.
Across the Maas in M4H, 2025 brings phase one of the Merwe-Vierhavens Circular Makers District, an incubator, testing ground and showcase. Housing supply is diversifying – the contested Feyenoord City plan should result in 9,500 homes and infrastructure, although the fate of a stadium for Feyenoord remains uncertain. Lloydkwartier, a mixed-use district on the site of a former power plant, is home to the mass-timber SAWA, “the healthiest building in the Netherlands”.