Russell Shorto article in the NYT: Amsterdam is losing its character
 

The NYT travel section carries an article by Russell Shorto about the increasing homogenous character of Amsterdam. Apart from the fact that he's got ultra wealthy Amsterdam friends, apparently, who can loan him a cool canal house, he has a number of interesting observations.

For instance, that part of Amsterdam's character (or any Dutch city really) is that its grandness was built for its citizens, not for royalty or oligarchs and that this is now changing, with more and more real estate being bought up as pied a terres, and an influx of "capital". Hope the links works

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/tr...le-span-region

I enjoyed his book, "Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City" from a few years ago.

Similar sort of issues in lots of popular places - Paris, London, Venice.

We all know there's a problem, question is how does it get "fixed"? Or does it not and you're going to have to deal with it?

What "problem" would that be, exactly? That some journalist learned "you can never go home again?"

Yes, that.

I thought it was a good article and a nice follow-up to his fine book on Amsterdam.

That was SO interesting. Thank you.

Dukey1: in Amsterdam the problem is an ethnic, social and economic re-engineering of what has always been a very egalitarian city. Ethnic, because increasingly the neighbourhoods that were ethnic are being "hipsterized" and grey washed with a sort of international mean of rough wood/craft beer/pulled pork kind of aesthetic. Social because a defining characteristic of Amsterdam, being the fact that the inner city always was a mix of the wealthy and the modest is now being skewed in favor of the wealthy, by all kinds of cause and effect. AirBnB is a factor in this, helped by the fact that recent changes in social housing policy have meant that large volumes of social housing are now being sold to developers, active in the AirBnB marketplace. Even for outlying areas there are now waiting lists of more than 10 years for a rent controlled studio apartment inside the "Ring". Economic, because activity in the centre is increasingly being geared to the tourist market, which means an abundance of icecream and waffle shops, to the detriment of the many specialist shopkeepers that made Amsterdam a special, differentiated place. The Nine Streets area is a case in point, where one after the other independent retailer is shutting shop because real estate owners first up rental fees, then either sell or rent to large conglomerates that operate the market for large brands.

What this means is that Amsterdam becomes increasingly bland and one dimensional. A victim of its own success as a tourist destination.

It was an interesting article which showed that Amsterdam is just like most big cities - said the super-rich Chinese and Russians are buying up real estate and leaving it empty most of the year, like in London and NY. Doesn't Putin have a daughter who lives there ?