Volkskrant fails: not 'region' but Randstad suffers

I would like to take a moment to put this one to you. Quote from this morning's volkskrant, where editor Harmen Bockma makes a valiant attempt to list all the figures of culture carnage, but fails a little in doing so. It also remains difficult to identify the fallout in the basic infrastructure add to the dropout at the fund, but it is proving altogether difficult to discern what exactly what 'regions' are and what 'cities' are. At least, I can't figure it out.

I quote:

"Because of the emphasis on top institutions in the BIS, which are located more in the big cities than in the region, the big cities make a 20 per cent cut, and the regions 49 per cent. The Performing Arts Fund corrects this by cutting institutions in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam and The Hague by a combined almost 48 per cent. The regions lose 15.2 per cent. But because the Fund has 24.5 million to spend on multiannual grants, compared to almost 114 million in the BIS, the outcomes in the BIS carry much more weight.
In absolute terms, the big cities collectively give up the most: 42 million, compared to 37 million by the regions. But in percentage terms, the proportions are different. Amsterdam loses 32 per cent, Rotterdam 36 per cent, The Hague 17 per cent and Utrecht 35 per cent. Of the regions, Noord (Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe) yields 25 per cent, Oost (Overijssel and Gelderland) 43 per cent, Zuid (Brabant, Limburg and Zeeland) 38 per cent, Midden (Utrecht and Flevoland) 55 per cent and West (North and South Holland) 82 per cent."

So here it is about what the regions are. In Amsterdam, they usually mean by that areas far beyond the A10 and at the end of the A2, A7 and A1, but the regions at issue here are much closer. Namely, not the east, south or north turn out to be the big victims of the austerity drive of Bosma/Zijlstra cs, but the west. This is because it is not only the big cities, which are nominally the hardest hit, but also the provinces of North and South Holland, which together are slashing 82 (!) %.

The Geenstijlers among you will now rapturously say: just as well the periphery is being targeted, because that's where all the subsidy junkies are, but previous research has already shown that subsidy money is better spent in the periphery, because there is also more of an audience there for the kind of art that qualifies for subsidy.

But suffice it to say here, then, that the Volkskrant headline is correct in the strict sense, but that a wrong suggestion is made. Or am I seeing it wrong now? Comments welcome.