an in memoriam for the just city of amsterdam

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An in memoriam for the just city of AmsterdamJustus Uitermark

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Social housing in the Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood (above) and gentrification in process (below). Photos: Goezde Tekdal

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CITY, VOL. 13, NOS. 2–3, JUNE–SEPTEMBER 2009

ISSN 1360-4813 print/ISSN 1470-3629 online/09/02-30347-15 © 2009 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/13604810902982813

An in memoriam for the just city of Amsterdam

Justus UitermarkTaylor and Francis

This paper shows how the just city of Amsterdam came to live, celebrates its achievementsand mourns its death. The paper suggests that an equitable distribution of scarce resourcesand democratic engagement are essential preconditions for the realization of a just city.Social movements of Amsterdam struggled hard to make their city just and they hadconsiderable success. However, in the late 1980s, social movements lost their momentumand, in the late 1990s, neoliberal ideologies increasingly pervaded municipal policies.Whereas urban renewal was previously used to universalize housing access and optimizedemocratic engagement, it is now used to recommodify the housing stock, to differentiateresidents into different consumer categories and to disperse lower income households. Partof the reason that these policies meet so little opposition is that the gains of past social strug-gles are used to compensate the most direct victims of privatization and demolition. Futuregenerations of Amsterdammers, however, will not enjoy a just city.

Introduction

he Nieuwmarkt subway station hasa collage of monuments of resis-tance and reminders of oppression.

One picture on the wall shows a sign ‘JudenViertel’ and a road block. The Nieuwmarktneighborhood had been a predominantlyJewish neighborhood and the Nazi occupi-ers had closed it off and turned it into arepository for Jews that were to bedeported to concentration camps. Onanother picture we see a person blindfoldedon a stage. Perhaps it was one of the dockworkers who went on strike to protestagainst the deportations and had to paywith their lives.

The walls also tell another story, namely,that of the resistance against draconicurban renewal that hit the neighborhoodtwo decades after the war. The authoritieswanted to raze the entire neighborhood.

The old buildings as well as the messy streetplan had to be replaced by straight roads, ametro and high-rises that would allowpeople, traffic and capital to circulate withunprecedented speed. On one of thepictures some of the houses are still stand-ing amidst the rubble. On another picturethe riot police are gearing up to sweepprotesters out of the streets to make wayfor the next round of demolition. On oneside of the platform, just before the tunnel,there is a small and fractured wooden wallwith a slogan on it—‘we will continueliving here’ (wij blijven hier wonen). On theupper platform, in a corner, the wall ismade of red brick instead of the usual ster-ile light grey paint. There are beams andgirders sticking out of the wall and, as if toremind us that this is not just a forgottencorner, a replica of a wrecking ball.1

It would be grotesque to draw a parallelbetween the atrocities of the Nazi occupiers

T


UITERMARK: AN IN MEMORIAM FOR THE JUST CITY OF AMSTERDAM 349

and the modernization agenda of an electedgovernment—but I do not think that this iswhat the monument intends. The monument,in fact, seems to lack coherence. The picturesjust hang there and I never found any sign toexplain what is on display and why it isthere.2 The only printed text is below a giant,kitschy picture frame and says ‘Greetingsfrom the Nieuwmarkt’ (groeten van de Nieu-wmarkt). There is a broken mirror in theframe but it is unclear whether this was theintention of the creator or the work ofvandals. If this collage of pictures, props andmurals has any meaning, it does not lie in theparallels but in the differences between thetwo eras; differences that, I think, capture theessence of democracy and the essence ofthe right to the city. During the occupation,the Jewish residents of the Nieuwmarktneighborhood were exterminated and theresistance activists were executed. Anyoutcry against injustice or solidarity with theJewish residents only reinforced the atroci-ties. During the urban renewal operation, bycontrast, the authorities not only allowedresidents to voice their discontent but also—ultimately—gave in.Figure 1 Social housing in the Nieuwmarkt neighborhood. The pillar on the turtle in the forefront belongs to a monument with the text ‘Up to this point the old city pattern disappeared. Beyond this point the urban renewal of the neighborhoodstarted. By way of commemoration, this memorial stone was erected in 1986.’ Source: Goezde Tekdal.Above ground, one can see where modern-ism was halted: at the border of the Nieuw-markt neighborhood, at Waterlooplein, wherethe four-lane highway ends. Where hotels andbanks were planned, there is now social hous-ing (Figure 1). The fact that the governmentmemorialized the resistance against itself

signals a belief that defines the differencebetween the darkest pages of Amsterdam’shistory and the heydays of democratization:protest against inhumane authorities is not acrime but a duty. This official memorializa-tion of resistance against state-mandatedurban renewal projects rather graphicallyillustrates Amsterdam’s importance as asource of inspiration for contemplating whatthe just city might actually look like. Thispaper indicates what I understand by the justcity, examines how the just city came to life inAmsterdam, and shows how it also came to itsend there. Against this background, the paperargues that the movement successes of therecent past (strong tenant rights, a large socialhousing stock, formalized resident consulta-tion) do not necessarily pose an obstacle togentrification. In fact, these institutionscompensate the most immediate and resource-ful victims and thereby help to co-opt orprevent resistance against policies that seek topromote gentrification.

The just city and Amsterdam

The achievements of urban social movementsin Amsterdam have been extensively docu-mented and praised in the international litera-ture. In the late 1960s, Amsterdam attractedthe attention of Lefebvre, who ventured toAmsterdam to explore the city with artistsand activists who were experimenting intel-lectually and practically with new strategiesfor resisting modernization. Around 10 yearslater, in 1977, Susan Fainstein arrived inAmsterdam for the first time and discoveredin it an equitable alternative to the cities of theUSA. In the 1990s, Ed Soja wroteof Amsterdam as a city that fosters a cultureof tolerance and civic engagement (Soja,1992). After several return visits in the late1990s and early 2000s, Fainstein praisedAmsterdam as a city that approached herideal of a just city, that is, a city that has foundthe right trade-offs between equity, diversity,growth and sustainability (Fainstein, 2005).In 2008 John Gilderbloom organized a

Figure 1 Social housing in the Nieuwmarkt neighbor-hood. Source: Goezde Tekdal.


350 CITY VOL. 13, NOS. 2–3

conference in Amsterdam on the ‘ideal city’,praising the conference site as a place wherepeople are ‘more tolerant, secure, happier,and healthier compared to citizens in theUnited States’ because of a unique blend ofprogressive policies (with respect to drugsand prostitution) and a comprehensivewelfare state. ‘Amsterdam, at this moment inhistory, might be the world’s greatest citybecause of its ability to ensure basic necessi-ties, freedom and creativity.’ Most impres-sively, everybody can partake in this successas ‘quality housing is supplied to everyonethat gives pride of place’ (Gilderbloom, 2008,n.p.; see also Gilderbloom et al., 2007).

My understanding of the just city isslightly different from that of Fainstein andGilderbloom. Gilderbloom emphasizes thatAmsterdam outperforms American cities oncriteria as diverse as prosperity, quality, toler-ance, health and welfare. While all thesefeatures make a city nice or good, they do notnecessarily make it just (see also Fainstein,2006, p. 3). A just city, in my view, is a citywhere exploitation and alienation are absent.In this sense my understanding is closer toFainstein for whom equity is central to theconcept of a just city (Fainstein, 2000). Muchmore than Gilderbloom, she argues thatdemocratic participation and an engagedpopulace are crucial for realizing the just city.However, like Gilderbloom, she also praisesAmsterdam for its capacity to combinegrowth with diversity and sustainability(Fainstein, 2005). In my view, ‘growth’ canhelp to promote justice but it might just aswell exacerbate injustices. Likewise, it is verywell possible to imagine a city that is sustain-able and diverse, yet replete with inequalities.According to my understanding of the justcity, then, growth, sustainability, health, andso on, can be valued but not traded off for lessequity or lower civic engagement. In order toclearly differentiate the just city from a nice,prosperous, sustainable or safe city (all ofwhich have their specific contribution tomake to the well-being of urbanites), I wantto focus on two preconditions that, in myview, are essential (but perhaps not sufficient)

for realizing the just city: mechanisms thatguarantee an equitable allocation of scarceresources; and mechanisms that engage resi-dents with the ongoing project of making thecity.

A fair distribution of scarcity is one of twocrucial preconditions for a just city. Thecommitment to make the city accessible toeach and every person irrespective of theirpurchasing power is a cornerstone of anyproject that aims to fairly distribute scarcity.Note that this is not the same as quality—itmay be the case that houses are small or ugly,but I still think a city could be legitimatelycalled just (though not necessarily pleasant) ifit provides its limited or imperfect housingevenly across the population. This means thatthe just city would either create an egalitarianincome distribution or that it would createinstitutions that prevent households andinvestors from translating their economicallyprivileged position into a privileged positionin land and housing markets (which thereforewould cease to be markets).

A second precondition for the just city isthat residents have control over their livingenvironment, that is, they engage with thepolity of which they form part. Since it isusually the state that enforces the firstprecondition of a just city, there is a very realdanger that economic egalitarianism leads tothe concentration of power in the hands of abureaucratic apparatus that defines what isjust, without too much consideration for theindividuals and groups that are supposed tobenefit from the system. Rather than simplyreceiving whatever provisions are allocatedto them, residents should have the right andcapacity to inform and shape the distributionof universal provisions in particular ways.This implies that they should have whatrecent literature on civil society refers to ascollective efficacy and social capital; theyshould have the right and ability to organizein such a way that they can effectively informand shape the distribution of universal provi-sions according to their particular needs.

These two criteria are formulated in such away as to demand the impossible. There is, to



my knowledge, no city in the world that canlive up to the standards of a just city. Butsome come closer than others and it is exactlyfor this reason that we should be interested inconcrete approximations of abstract ideals.And, even though my criteria are differentfrom those of Fainstein, Gilderbloom andothers, I agree with these authors thatAmsterdam provides fascinating insights andinspiring examples for other cities. However,I think Amsterdam should not only be heldup as an example of a just city but also as anexample of how quickly and dramaticallymovements striving for the just city(Nicholls and Beaumont, 2004) can lose theirmomentum. Amsterdam, I argue, has degen-erated from a city that aspires to be just forall into a city that is nice for many.

The ascendancy of the just city

In the 1960s and 1970s, the state as well ascapital discontinued investments into innercities. Investors as well as governments feltthat the city had to be drastically renewedand restructured according to the demands ofthe time. The demands of the time, in turn,were defined in modernist terms. Throughmodernist lenses the city looked like a hope-lessly dysfunctional, chaotic and ugly mess.But a growing number of people identifiedstrongly with exactly those parts of the citythat disgusted the modernist planners. And,equally important, those urban residents nolonger perceived the government’s wishes asdivine law. Criticism and imaginationdemocratized rapidly. The authorities thathad previously appeared as skillfulexecutioners of the collective were now rein-terpreted as modernist fanatics.

In the course of the 1970s, resident resis-tance intensified in cities throughout WesternEurope (Castells, 1983). In the case ofAmsterdam, the emergence of the squattingmovement contributed to an intensificationand radicalization of resident protests. Squat-ting is usually a marginal urban practice ofpeople left without other options, but in the

1970s squatters gained significance as a move-ment against the demolition of affordablehousing and the imposition of modernistfantasies on urban space. In the Nieuwmarktand many other Amsterdam neighborhoods,vacancy rates accelerated in anticipation ofdemolition or due to speculative reasons;subsequently, large numbers of squattersmoved in. It is in the very nature of squattingto achieve revolutionary change throughconservation—that is, by preventing spacefrom being redesigned to maximize profit.Squatters have always been disliked by largeparts of the Dutch population, but during thistime they were actually a natural ally of resi-dents who demanded proper housing for areasonable price. Everywhere in the city resi-dents—tenants and squatters—successfullyopposed modernist renewal plans. In thespace that had been left by capital and had notbeen colonized by the state, a residents’ move-ment grew that propagated an alternative viewof the city. This movement advocated theconstruction of new houses, the maintenanceof the existing stock and the democratizationof planning (Pruijt, 1985; Mamadouh, 1992).

The strength of this movement ultimatelyled to the overthrow of the modernistic tech-nocrats within the ruling Labor Party. Morethan anyone else, Jan Schaeffer personifiedthe new urban vision. He had activelyresisted modernistic renewal in the Amster-dam neighborhood of De Pijp during the1960s and early 1970s, and he had subse-quently made his way into the higher ranksof the Labor Party on the wings of the resi-dent movement. In 1973, he became JuniorMinister of Public Housing in the nationalgovernment, and in that position he wouldhelp to create the institutional preconditionsfor a further deepening and broadening of theresidents’ movement. In the most left-wingcabinet that the Netherlands had ever seen,he could break with the conception thaturban renewal should serve to restructure thecity to better meet the ‘demands of the time’.Instead he helped to popularize and institu-tionalize the slogan ‘building for the neigh-borhood’ and to work out the concept of the


352 CITY VOL. 13, NOS. 2–3

‘compact city’. Rather than razing entireneighborhoods, projects would be realized asmuch as possible within the existing urbanstructure and, wherever possible, renovationwould be chosen over demolition. Thecentral government made considerablebudgets available to stimulate housingproduction.

When he moved back to Amsterdam in1978 as a local party leader and alderman forurban renewal, he could demonstrate that hisapproach was not only more humane, butalso more effective: housing constructionexploded from 1100 units in 1978 to 9000units in 1984 (Dienst Wonen, 2008, p. 7). Therecession of that period did not at all hinderSchaeffer’s plans. At the national level, theexpenditures for housing were consideredessential and beneficial for the economy.Because private owners were confronted withhigh interest rates and low demand, theyoften preferred to sell their properties to thegovernment. Around 35,000 houses (c.15%of the stock) were taken out of the marketand put under the control of housing associa-tions and the state (Dienst Wonen, 2008,p. 12). The belated acceleration of urbanrenewal also triggered major conflicts. As thestate took over urban space, squatters werepushed out of their houses and violent clashesensued. But this only helped Schaeffer inpushing through his agenda. As his successornoted:

‘[Squatting] gave him an incredibly strong argument to break through everything. We are in a war and as a government we have to show that we do not only evict those people from their squats but that we also build appropriate housing. That gave him wings.’ (Stadig cited in: Dienst Wonen, 2008, p. 15)

Figure 2 Social housing of the 1980s in the Oosterparkbuurt in Amsterdam East. In the 1960s and 1970s the quality of social housing was often poor according to contemporary standards. However, quality gradually improved and housesin these kinds of complexes can sell for anywhere between 150,000 and 300,000 euros. This block is still 100% social housing. Source: Goezde Tekdal.Decommodification and equity

Even though the mechanisms for allocatinghousing and determining rent levels aredynamic and intricate, we can neverthelessobserve three general trends in the directionof a decommodified housing stock. These

trends occurred nation-wide but they wereespecially pronounced in Amsterdam as aresult of the strength of the residents’ move-ment. First, the rights of owners to determinerent levels were gradually curtailed. Overtime a comprehensive system was created todetermine a fair rent, the so-called pointsystem (puntensysteem). In the point systemrents are based on the use value of a house.Use value is calculated according to objectivecriteria, like the size of a house and thequality of its amenities (Huisman and Kelk,2008). These regulations apply to all housesregardless of ownership. The points systemdoes not apply if the total number of pointssurpasses a certain threshold. Currently thatthreshold corresponds to a rent of 620 eurosbut before 1991 it was substantially higher.This basically meant that the entire rentalsector was subject to strong regulation. Andsince owner-occupied houses constitute avery low share of the stock (13% in 1997), itmeant that, by the late 1980s, the Amsterdamhousing market had in effect become decom-modified (Huisman, 2009, p. 9).

Second, the rights of owners to determinethe use of their properties were graduallycurtailed. Property owners in the 1960s stillhad major discretion to choose their tenants,but in the course of the 1970s their discretionwas circumscribed through the centralizationand standardization of allocation. Standard-ization was achieved through the formula-tion of universal criteria of eligibility.Waiting time is by far the most importantcriterion, but under some conditions (urgent)need also plays a role. Centralization wasachieved through the creation of a city-widedistribution system. Private landlords had toregister their property and the municipalityand the landlord alternately allocatedthe accommodation that would becomeavailable. Housing associations initially eachhad their own waiting lists but these weregradually fused together.

Third, access to the centrally allocatedhousing supply was gradually universalized.Initially only married couples qualified forhousing that was distributed through the



municipality but in the 1960s the growinggroup of single-person households andunmarried couples also qualified. The agelimit was gradually reduced from 26 in theearly 1960s to 18 in the early 1980s. Thehousing associations initially only catered tospecific groups like members of unions orother professional associations but they grad-ually opened up access to the general public.Corporations thus never catered only to theneeds of the poorest segments of the popula-tion but there was a conscious effort in the1980s to develop a housing stock thatprovided appropriate and affordable housingto all income groups. Although definitions ofwhat is appropriate varied over time, it meantroughly that a two-person household wouldhave a two-room apartment, a three-personhousehold would have a three-room apart-ment, and so on. In other words: housingcomposition rather than income would deter-mine what is appropriate and what is not.

Democratization and engagement

The growing power of the state was abso-lutely central to this project but so was thepower of residents over the state. Manyspecific institutions were created in the 1970sand the 1980s to ensure that residents wouldbe able to claim their housing rights. Officialorganizations to provide support to orga-nized resident groups as well as the legalassistance to individual tenants were created,offering activists the chance to transformtheir movement careers into careers in thestate bureaucracy. The profession of socialwork was thus completely reconfigured inless than two decades. Many young activistswent to schools for social work (socialeacademie) which—under pressure of thestudents—adopted an increasingly suspiciousattitude towards authority in general and thestate in particular. There was a paradoxicaldevelopment: the state increasingly tooksocial work out of the hands of private initia-tive and civil society, but social workersincreasingly saw themselves as an ally to resi-

dents in their struggles against the state(Duyvendak and Uitermark, 2005). Theycould afford this position—another irony—because they were fully funded by the centralstate. Since they were not dependent on localgovernments or housing associations, theycould choose the side of (the most radical)residents.

Community workers were just one actorin a larger network that provided logisticaland professional support to residents whowanted to change plans to better meet theirdemands. With state subsidies and voluntarysupport of sympathizing professionals, resi-dents could win the advice of architects,academics and planners. With all these insti-tutions and professions working increasinglyas an extension of the residents’ movement,abstract ideals could be translated intoconcrete policy suggestions. It is this powerto translate intuitions and desires into formalrepresentations that is crucial for shapingurban space in such a way that it meets theneeds of residents both as individuals and as(diverse and overlapping) collectives.

The birth of a just city

The history of Amsterdam’s housing politicsafter 1960 was a double development: grass-roots mobilization brought the state underdemocratic control and the housing marketwas gradually brought under state control.The resident movement and emerging institu-tions helped to create a decommodified hous-ing stock that universalized accessibility andmaximized affordability, while in the processpromoting resident engagement and facilitat-ing direct action and direct democracy.3 If wewant to decide on a birth year for the just cityof Amsterdam, it would have to be 1975—themoment that residents and squatters unitedaround the preservation of the Nieuwmarktneighborhood. It reached maturity in 1982when the city constructed no less than 9000housing units and had reduced the waitingtime for a two-room apartment to an all-timelow of two years (Figure 2). These really were


354 CITY VOL. 13, NOS. 2–3

revolutionary developments: they gave thecity to its people and they helped generate avibrant creativity in spaces that had beenfreed from both the state and the market.

This is an idealization of course—therewere many things to criticize (perhapsincluding the inclination incessantly tocriticize)—but I think this is the type ofidealization we need in order to imaginewhat a just city would look like. What shouldbe idealized then, and elaborated throughdialectical analysis, are the processes thatempowered residents to make the city. Whatshould be dissected and struggled against arethe processes that give urban developmentover to the state and the market.

Recommodification and disengagement

The emergence of a just city was the outcomeof the interaction between a radical residentmovement and a national housing policy thatwas designed to solve the housing shortagethrough massive investments in socialhousing (Fainstein, 2000). But in the late1980s national policies were starting tochange. As neoliberal ideologies pervaded thegovernment subsidies for social housing and

housing construction were increasingly ques-tioned. Budget-cutters of the Christian andRight-wing parties reasoned that there wasplenty of scope drastically to reduce publicexpenditures on social housing. For the firsttime, administrators said that the housingshortage was ‘qualitative’ rather than ‘quanti-tative’—they claimed that everyone couldfind accommodation; the problem consistedin the fact that not all groups could realizetheir preferences. The government thereforedecided that no subsidies should be madeavailable to promote housing constructionand that the upgrading of the housing marketshould be promoted through privatization:the large-scale selling of social housinggenerates funds to maintain the stock while itcreates a stimulus for private investmentsinto the more expensive segments of themarket.

Segregating the housing stock

The ideological core of the new policydiscourse on housing is that all incomegroups should have their own segment of thehousing market. The working class, accord-ing to this discourse, should live in socialhousing. If their rents are high in proportionto their income, they can claim rent subsi-dies. The middle and higher classes shouldown their houses; the government supportsthem with subsidies for purchasing a house,especially the so-called hypotheekrenteaf-trek, which allows homeowners to deductmortgage interest from their taxable incomes.Whereas in the old policy constellation,subsidies were used to make social housingavailable to all income groups, in the newpolicy constellation subsidies are used tosegregate the housing stock; residualizationof the social sector is not merely a side effectof policies but one of the key objectives(compare Malpass, 1990 for the British case).

The national policies of the 1990s were adirect assault on the universal provisions thathad been created in the 1980s. The problem ofthe housing shortage was declared solved,

Figure 2 Social housing of the 1980s in the Ooster-parkbuurt in Amsterdam East. In the 1960s and 1970s the quality of social housing was often poor according to contemporary standards. However, quality gradually improved and houses in these kinds of complexes can sell for anywhere between 150,000 and 300,000 euros. This block is still 100% social housing. Source: Goezde Tekdal.



which meant—in the case of Amsterdam—that the 50,000 people on the waiting list forsocial housing simply disappeared as a targetgroup. The general trend of bringing the hous-ing stock under state control, and of bringingthe state under control of the resident move-ment, was thus reversed. Housing associationswere formally privatized and transformedinto housing corporations in which tenantsare mere consumers (woonconsumenten) andnot even the most important types of consum-ers. That privileged role has now beenassumed by the middle classes. They areexpected to purchase the newly privatizedsocial housing and to invest the capital neces-sary to upgrade the properties. Apart fromrelegating each class to its own segment of thehousing market, the government fragmentedresidents through the creation of new tenuretypes, such as so-called anti-squatters andtemporary tenants.4 Anti-squatters are resi-dents without tenant contracts and (hence)without tenant rights. They can be requestedto leave their residences within a day or withina month, depending on the agreementsbetween property owners and anti-squatters.Temporary tenants also do not enjoy the legalprotection of regular tenants but they do havecontracts which stipulate that the propertyowner needs to inform them at least onemonth before they have to move out. Anti-squatters and temporary tenants have a posi-tion on the housing market that is analogousto flex workers in the labor market: becausetheir position is so precarious they areextremely unlikely to protest against propertyowners. Property owners, including housingcorporations, often place anti-squatters andtemporary tenants in houses that are to beredeveloped in order to prevent oppositionfrom residents with full housing rights and inorder to avoid providing compensation toresidents that are to be displaced.

These general trends in Dutch housingpolicy—privatization and consolidatingtenant rights—did not circumvent Amster-dam. In the late 1980s, the Amsterdam govern-ment had protested against the nationalpolicies to privatize the housing market, but

during the course of the 1990s it began to adoptsuch policies. The government no longerconsidered the large stock of social housing asan achievement of social struggles, but insteadcame to view that stock as an impediment to awell-functioning housing market. The localalderman for housing, Tjeerd Herema,recently summarized this new, market-basedvision for local housing policy: ‘the housingpolicy aims at a much more diverse group thanbefore. The focus is no longer exclusively onthe lowest incomes. Amsterdam is a city foreveryone’ (press release, 7 December 2007).This quote is interesting not least due to itsflagrant misrepresentation of Amsterdam’srecent history. Policies in the 1980s were basedon the premise that no differentiation shouldbe made between different income groups,because all households could apply for socialhousing. This misrepresentation of historyallows the government to present its focus onthe higher income groups as an inclusivemeasure: they, not the working class, suffer.The number 1 target group for current policiesare the so-called scheefwoners: tenants withhigh incomes who are, according to the policydiscourse, trapped in a segment where they donot really belong. A visualization of thisdiscourse is depicted in Figure 3.Figure 3 Income segments and housing market segments compared. Source: Gemeente Amsterdam (2008, p. 27).Figure 3 suggests quite forcefully whatwould previously have been consideredabsurd, namely, that there is a large surplus ofaffordable housing in Amsterdam. It suggests,further, that the main challenge is to reducethe number of affordable dwellings so that thehousing market becomes more balanced(Gemeente Amsterdam, 2008, p. 27). Themunicipality uses several tools to achieve this.One simple strategy is to allow owners—bothhousing corporations and private real estatefirms—to sell apartments that were previ-ously in the regulated sector.Figure 4 Gentrification in process. In the process of renewal or renovation, the share of social housing is typically reduced from 100 to around 20. Source: Goezde Tekdal.

Integrating neighborhoods

Another strategy has been to use urbanrenewal policies to change tenure composi-tions. Instead of constructing housing for a


356 CITY VOL. 13, NOS. 2–3

broad cross section of the population, thegovernment and the housing corporationsnow pursue a strategy of ‘social mixing’which refers—as usual—to attempts toreplace a proportion of the low-incomehouseholds with high-income households(see Uitermark et al., 2007). The goal of‘constructing for the neighborhood’ has beenreplaced by the goal of making neighbor-hoods ‘livable’ and ‘integrated’. Livability hasbeen a central concept in Dutch urban poli-cies since the late 1970s. Initially, it was usedby resident groups who protested large-scaledemolitions and who argued for more subtleinterventions that do not force tenants torelocate. Now, 20 years later, housing corpo-rations and governments argue that their ownpolicies are supposed to promote livability.But if we look at the operationalization that isused for calculating livability scores,5 it isevident that the concept has been completelyredefined (Uitermark, 2005). Residents’perceptions are still included in the opera-tionalization, but the score is also said to bebased on ‘objective’ criteria. For example, if aneighborhood has a high share of ethnicminorities, the score goes down. If it has ahigh share of lower income households, thescore goes down. If it has a high share ofaffordable housing, the score goes down. Inshort, what is really being measured here isnot the extent to which residents can live apleasant and affordable life in neighborhoods,but the extent to which housing corporations

and governments can govern these neighbor-hoods and extract profits out of them. Similararguments could be advanced about thepolicy construct of ‘integration’. This term nolonger refers to the composition of a societyor a neighborhood, but rather to a processthat minorities are said to have to go throughin order to become part of Dutch society(Schinkel, 2007). Hence, in practice, the idealof ‘undivided cities’ means that policies try todisperse concentrations of migrants andlower income groups (Figure 4).

There are many possible criticisms againstthese policy discourses and practices. Thefirst and most obvious is that the policies donot work. Renewal operations are used todrastically transform the tenure composition

income segments

housing stock

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

lowest incomes / most affordable houses

high middle incomes / low market price

low middle incomes / affordable stock

high incomes / high market price

35

57

24

15

24

16

17

12

Figure 3 Income segments and housing market segments compared. Source: Gemeente Amsterdam (2008, p. 27).

Figure 4 Gentrification in process. In the process of renewal or renovation, the share of social housing is typi-cally reduced from 100 to around 20. Source: Goezde Tekdal.



of neighborhoods, but they typically do notaffect high-income tenants.6 This is becausesuch groups are underrepresented in renewalareas and because displacees will have to beoffered another social housing unit. Thisalso leads to the second criticism: the trans-formations do not seem to lead to a reduc-tion of scheefwoners. There is no reason toassume that the transformations would havethis effect in the first place, but there is alsosome research—conducted by tenant organi-zations—that suggests the share of scheef-woners does not in fact decline through suchpolicies (Initiatief Betaalbaar WonenAmsterdam Noord, 2008). These two criti-cisms thus lead to the conclusion that thegovernment should either abandon its goalsto transform the housing market, or have theguts directly to target the higher incomeresidents.

But a more fundamental criticism of thegovernment’s policy—and one that wouldlead to a different conclusion—is that theidea of scheefwonen, the notion that thereare ‘too many’ affordable houses and thefear that social housing will lead to theconcentration of poor ethnics—is predicatedon the assumption that lower incomegroups should spend time on a waiting listfor unpopular social housing, whereashigher income groups should have the rightto instantly buy their way into the morepopular segments of the city’s housingmarket. The conclusion that follows fromthis criticism is that the state has the duty,first and foremost, to address the housingshortage in the city. Even though the wait-ing time for a two-bedroom apartment is upfrom two years in 1982 to 10 years in 2008,7

the very word ‘housing shortage’ does notappear in the current policy vision ofAmsterdam. Not only do these policies leadto less equity, they also lead to citizendisengagement at the neighborhood and citylevels. Whereas, in the 1970s, urbanrenewal was oriented towards neighborhooditself, it is now oriented primarily towardspeople from outside of the neighborhood.Housing corporations now encourage

tenants in renewal projects to try theirchances on the city’s housing market ratherthen facilitating their participation in plan-ning the neighborhood itself. In short,whereas urban renewal was previouslyinstrumental for improving the condition ofa neighborhood and strengthening tiesamong different groups of neighborhoodresidents, it is now used to disperse tenantsand to transform the neighborhood fromabove. If participation and integration areunderstood as active engagement with issuesof common concern and with fellow resi-dents, then it is clear that the renewalprocess is today designed to achieveprecisely the opposite goal: it differentiatesthe population, individualizes residents andhands over its democratic responsibilities toactors—housing corporations—that areaccountable to no one.

Discussion

One might ask: how did this happen? Whywas the ideal of the just city abandoned soswiftly and so smoothly? The largest part ofthe answer to this question cannot be foundat the local level. The ascendancy ofneoliberalism at the national level in theNetherlands—itself something that shouldbe understood as part of a global trend—was extremely consequential for those whoprioritized the use value of the city. But partof the answer can indeed be found at thelocal level. For what has become of themovements that had previously forced thegovernment to design the city for peoplerather than for profit? Why did they notprotest as they once did? The main reason, Ithink, is that the movements were sosuccessful in realizing their demands and inpenetrating the state that they created struc-tures that benefit—first and foremost—those who have the good fortune to live inan affordable house and whose rights are—as a consequence of the activism in thepast—rock solid. The movements haveturned into interest groups (see Mayer,


358 CITY VOL. 13, NOS. 2–3

2007) and they now represent only theinterests of tenants, which means they haveno interest—or formal role—for the massesof people who are not lucky enough to beinside the social sector, and are thus forcedto pay very high rents in the private sector,to resort to illegal subletting or to become atemporary tenant. The strategy of the inter-est organizations was to demand regulationsand promises of the government to protectthe position of tenants in a rapidly privatiz-ing housing market.8 One of the outcomesof the negotiations is that tenants—formally—have a very strong position inurban renewal processes: they have a rightto be consulted and a majority of tenantsneed to agree with the plans. Tenants whoare forced to relocate receive urgency statuson the waiting list and a moving subsidy ofat least 5050 euros. What we see in Amster-dam is that the gains of earlier struggles arenow—literally—sold out or given away tocompensate those groups with the mostrights or key positions. There are still manyresidents who fiercely resist forced reloca-tions and the attendant rent increases, butthe Tenant Associations (Huurdersverenig-ing Amsterdam, HA) as well as the Amster-dam Resident Support (AmsterdamsSteunpunt Wonen, ASW) generally encour-age these protesters to accept better dealsrather than to challenge the premises of thepolicies. This is not surprising because theHA has been created by the government toparticipate in tripartite negotiations whilethe ASW increasingly relies on the housingcorporations for funding. Community workorganizations at the local level are increas-ingly funded by the local government andhousing corporations, which inducescommunity workers to streamline theprocess of urban renewal rather than toequalize the balance of power betweenresidents and housing corporations.

What can be learned from the case ofAmsterdam? In my view, the main lesson isthis: the state may be a necessary vehicle forachieving justice, but there is a danger ininvesting too much power into it. Many of

the institutions that are now cooperatingwith the government to privatize the hous-ing stock used to be either grassroots orga-nizations (tenant and communityassociations) or were part of civil society(housing associations, social work). Theirabsorption into the state gave these actorsthe chance to translate their ideals into regu-lations and stipulations but it was also thebeginning of a process of gradual disconnec-tion from the grassroots. The residentmovement at the time, however, assumedthat the state would be more subject todemocratic control than civil society associ-ations, but it seems now that they werewrong.9 It is ironic that the municipality’shousing association has since its privatiza-tion made a name for itself as a ruthlessdemolisher of social housing. As a trueBrutus, it now turns against the movementthat gave it its power. In retrospect, itappears that Amsterdam would have beenfar more resilient to gentrification pressuresif squatters and militant tenants had estab-lished cooperatives to purchase and managetheir houses.

Conclusion: just a nice city

Few passengers will nowadays notice themonument on Nieuwmarkt station. Its inco-herent parts are likely to merely reinforcethe image of yet another poorly maintainedmetro station with graffiti, broken glass andunmanicured edges. There is only one partof the whole ensemble that is not messy,ambivalent and chaotic. This is the sloganon the platform that is stretched acrossnearly 20 meters. There it is, grafted instone, the most fundamental element of anyright to the city: ‘housing is a right, not afavor’ (wonen is geen gunst maar een recht).The slogan represents a promise of thegovernment; the promise to provide housingto all its residents regardless of their income,background or merit. The letters are big andbright, but very few people notice them.When the monument was created, it



symbolized the power of a residents’ move-ment that had their ideas inscribed into theurban fabric and institutionalized into localorganizations. The meaning that it conveystoday is that a massive momentum can bereduced to an incoherent collage. Themonument has been transformed from asign of strength of the residents’ movementsto an in memoriam for the just city ofAmsterdam. For many, if not most, resi-dents of Amsterdam today, the idea ofpromoting egalitarianism and engagementmay or may not be appealing, but it iscertainly not something they strive for. Thefragmentation of people into differentmarket segments makes it very difficult tofoster solidarity among tenants. A waitinglist of 10 years has become a fact of life,where in an earlier era a waiting list of twoyears was considered a breach of the basicright to housing. The case of Amsterdamthus shows that it is very difficult to worktowards a just city but nearly impossible tosustain it.

Just to be clear: Amsterdam has notbecome a playground for hard-edged neolib-eralism. The stock of social housing is stillcomparatively large and tenants enjoy astrong legal position. For international schol-ars, it makes sense to hold up Amsterdam asan example that proves to conservatives andneoliberals that a city can have success whenit combines a relatively comprehensivewelfare system with progressive policies.10

But when we analyze the city historicallyrather than comparatively, the reality looksrather different. All the institutions that hadpreviously decommodified the housingmarket and engaged residents now use theirpower to promote gentrification and thepolarization of the housing market. Ironi-cally, it was the residents’ movement of the1980s that invested these institutions with thepower and resources necessary to imposetheir view upon the city. Neoliberalizationproceeds so smoothly because the gains ofpast social struggles are used to compensatethe most direct victims of privatization anddemolition.

While it is impossible and unnecessary toallocate responsibility for the demise of thejust city of Amsterdam to any specific actor,I do think that there is a special responsibilityfor scholars in general and, by way of conclu-sion, I would like to flesh out how criticalurban analysts could take on this responsibil-ity. Scholarship has played a crucial role inboth the tendential emergence of the just cityand in its demise. In the 1970s and 1980s,academics and experts actively cooperatedwith resident groups and tried to help themto translate their demands and desires inconcepts, figures and drawings. For instance,students in architecture thought of new waysto renovate houses and sociologistsattempted to unearth policy processes and tomap the needs of residents and house seekers.But in the 1990s residents lost most of theiracademic support. Today, housing corpora-tions and municipalities fund the bulk ofresearch into cities and especially lower classgroups. Thus discourses and data on citiesreflect the interests of entrepreneurialgovernments and corporations rather thanthose of residents. The idea that there are ‘toomany’ social houses and that selling socialhouses is the best way forward to improve‘liveability’ goes virtually unchallenged. Ithink critical urban analysts—includingthose who do not subscribe to the ideal of thejust city as I have sketched it here—do have aresponsibility to improve reflexivity and toopen up debate. The way to do this is to crit-ically scrutinize dominant conceptualizationsof the city and to show that alternativeconceptualizations are possible. Whennotions such as ‘integration’, ‘liveability’ and‘differentiation’ are measured and mapped asif they reflected an objective reality, thenthere is a need to challenge the discursivehegemony of the authorities and their merce-nary experts. To show that the changing defi-nition of these concepts reflects changingpower relations then is one crucial enterprisefor critical urban analysts. Next deconstruct-ing naturalized renderings of reality, criticalscholars face the daunting but fascinatingchallenge to provide rigorous operationaliza-


360 CITY VOL. 13, NOS. 2–3

tions and conceptualizations of alternativeconceptions of the city, for instance, in termsof justice or use value.

The value of such work is that it mayopen up alternative urban futures. Underpresent conditions in Amsterdam, however,it is highly unlikely that residents will regainthe momentum of the 1980s. The heritage ofthe just city can be seen everywhere inAmsterdam, but the just city itself diedsometime around 1990. The heritage thatpermeates the urban fabric is now consid-ered an obstacle to the functioning of thehousing market. Once again, ‘market’ and‘housing’ go together as an inseparablecouplet. It is now the market rather thanresidents that needs to be freed fromconstraints and put into motion. To think ofthe just city under such conditions is frus-trating but also stimulating. It is a lost cause,but perhaps that is precisely why the justcity is worth fighting for.

Acknowledgements

This paper draws from essays published inthe journals Volume and Stadscahiers and thecollection Houses in Transformation. Someof the ideas have been developed in a series ofmeetings with the International HousingActivists in Amsterdam and I would like tothank them for their input.

Notes

1 1 It is difficult to say whether it is an original. It might be the case that some government officials have pulled it from the rubble to preserve a reminder of the houses that other government officials destroyed. It could also be the case that they commissioned someone to reproduce the wall and to write—in big brushes of white paint—the words that had motivated so many to stand up for their neighborhood.

2 2 The careful observer will find another quirky little monument above ground. It is made of stone and features a turtle that carries an ionic pillar on its shell. The symbolism is lost on me but fortunately we do find some text here. On one side of the pillar

there is a poem of Jacob Israël de Haan on the nostalgia for Amsterdam of Jews who had migrated to Israel. On the other side there is, finally, a text that describes what happened: ‘Up to this point the old city pattern disappeared. Beyond this point the urban renewal of the neighborhood started. By way of commemoration, this memorial stone was erected in 1986’ (Figure 1).

3 3 The residential areas that planners could construct without the interference of residents became planning disasters. The most famous example is the gigantic futuristic suburb in South East Amsterdam colloquially referred to as Bijlmer (Aalbers, 2006). But where residents were present and engaged, they managed to temper the modernist ambitions to write designer history and to focus instead on the needs of residents in the renewal neighborhoods.

4 4 Tenants with regular contracts enjoy very strong legal protection: the property owners can only force them to relocate if they urgently need to have control over the house (for instance, to proceed with urban renewal) and only after they have offered alternative housing and a relocation fee.

5 5 There are many varieties of the leefbaarheidsmonitor. The most recent and comprehensive is online: http://www.lemoninternet.nl/lemondnn/default.aspx (accessed 14 March 2009).

6 6 The most obvious solution would be to let wealthy tenants with low rents pay more for their units but such a plan would run into the strong protection of tenant rights. As a consequence of the decades of resident mobilization it is nearly impossible to one-sidedly discontinue a lease or to raise rents. Plans in this direction immediately trigger a response from powerful tenant lobby groups which represent a core constituency of the ruling labor party.

7 7 Among the most important reasons for the increase in waiting time is that the social sector is shrinking, the growing number of displacees with urgency status (and hence priority) and the virtual standstill of housing production.

8 8 Sometimes the drive to dispense of public goods takes on frenzied forms. While housing corporations are formally not allowed to make a profit, some managers and directors—free from state interference, accountability to residents and market discipline—have found other ways to consume dispossed surpluses. At the time of writing—March 2009—the news is full of the fraudulent transactions of one of the former directors of housing association Rochdale and especially his car park. During work-time he moved around in a Masserati with a driver (until his employees told him that he might give the wrong—that is, of course, the correct—impression on tenant representatives and others) and in his holiday



house in Spain he had a choice between a number of expensive sport cars, all paid for by the housing corporation. Other directors—who used to earn modal wages as civil servants—have been so generous on behalf of the public interest to give themselves up to 600,000 euros of salary per year.

9 9 Schools provide an interesting counter example to housing associations: they are non-profit associations that are governed by a board of parents rather than enterprises.

10 10 Still, it would be nice if they would not just idealize Amsterdam’s achievements but also defend them. The impression that Gilderbloom, Fainstein and other scholars leave behind is that Amsterdam is ruled superbly.

References

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Castells, M. (1983) The City and the Grassroots. A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. London: Edward Arnold

Dienst Wonen (2008) Jan komt. Deel 2 van De Amsterdamse Volkshuisvesting, 1970–2005. Amsterdam: Dienst Wonen.

Duyvendak, J. W. and Uitermark, J. (2005) ‘De opbouwwerker als architect van de publieke sfeer’, Beleid & Maatschappij 32(2), pp. 76–89.

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Gilderbloom, J. (2008) Ideal City: New Perspectives for the 21st Century!, http://www.hollandnow.org/ (accessed 14 April 2009).

Gilderbloom, J., Hanka, M. and Lasley, C.B. (2007) ‘Amsterdam the ideal city: planning and policy’, paper presented at Urban Justice and Sustainability, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, 22–25 August.

Huisman, C. (2009) ‘Splitsen als onderdeel van overheidsgestuurde gentrification’, Amsterdam, unpublished paper.

Huisman, C. and Kelk, S. (2008) ‘A (very) rough guide to Amsterdam housing policy’, housingamsterdam.org/po_inside/roughguide2008.doc

Initiatief Betaalbaar Wonen Amsterdam Noord (2008) Sociale woonvoorraad in Amsterdam Noord in gevaar! Amsterdam: Initiatief Betaalbaar Wonen Amsterdam Noord.

Malpass, P. (1990) Reshaping Housing Policy: Subsidies, Rents and Residualisation. London: Routledge

Mamadouh, V. (1992) De stad in eigen hand. Amsterdam: SUA.

Mayer, M. (2007) ‘Contesting the neoliberalization of urban governance’, in H. Leitner, J. Peck and E.S. Sheppard (eds) Contesting Neoliberalism. Urban Frontiers, pp. 90–115. New York: Guilford Press

Nicholls, W. and Beaumont, J. (2004) ‘The urbanization of justice movements’ [Special issue], Space & Polity 8(2).

Pruijt, H. (1985) ‘Cityvorming gekraakt’, Agora 1(4), pp. 9–11.

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Uitermark, J. (2005) ‘The genesis and evolution of urban policy: a confrontation of regulationist and governmentality approaches’, Political Geography 23(2), pp. 137–163.

Uitermark, J., Duyvendak, J.W. and Kleinhans, R. (2007) ‘Gentrification as a governmental strategy. Social control and social cohesion in Hoogvliet, Rotterdam’, Environment and Planning A 39(1), pp. 125–141.

Justus Uitermark teaches in the Depart-ment of Sociology at the Erasmus Univer-sity, Rotterdam. He has published booksand articles on a wide variety of subjects,including housing policy, rescaling processes,drug policy, social movements and urbangovernance. He is currently completing aproject on the governance of ethnic and reli-gious diversity in the Netherlands duringthe last two decades. Email: [email protected]


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