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Squatted Social Centres and the Housing Question
M.A. Martínez López (ed.), The Urban Politics of Squatters’ Movements, The Contemporary City,, 2018
Squatted Social Centres (SSCs) can hardly be detached from the housing question. Housing shortage, unaffordability, real estate speculation, market failures, social housing policies, and increasing pressures towards home-ownership in capitalist cities are usually contested by most forms of squatting. However, housing needs and struggles are not the only motivation behind the squatters' movements. Drawing upon previous analyses of squatting presented in this book, this chapter examines whether squatters' movements evolve as a self-driven process independent of the 'housing question' or as a direct response to it. Although the data we have gathered for the nine European cities under study are mainly focused on SSCs and they do not address squatting forhousing in depth, there are alternative sources of empirical evidence that allow us a comparative approach. In doing so, we discuss the particular interactions of the squatters’ movements and the neo-liberalisation of both housing markets and policies. We explain the main differences between European cities in terms of alliances of squatters with other housing movements and, as in Spain after 2011 and in Rome after 2008, the revival of the housing question by new widespread experiences of squatting.
This article examines squatted social centres in Amsterdam and the political squatters' movement which created them. Amsterdam has long been regarded as one of the squatting strongholds of Western Europe. A database of 115 social centres is analysed in terms of housing, legalisation processes, time period, duration of project, type of building occupied and location by borough. The database was produced using a range of sources, including participant observation, archive materials, conversations with squatters past and present, academic sources and activist websites. I consider external factors affecting the squatters' movement such as gentrification and anti-squatting. I pay particular attention to the broedplaats concept as it pertains to institutionalisation, with significant individual projects described where appropriate. Conclusions are then reached about the contexts, cycles and institutionalisation processes of the squatters' movement in Amsterdam.
Housing Theory and Society, 2007
In the last fifteen years, the Dutch housing associations have been transformed from strictly regulated and heavily subsidised into financially and administratively independent organisations. This transformation has led to an active discussion about regulation and the role of the government in social housing. It is widely believed that the performance of housing associations in the Netherlands need attention. Currently the position and performance of housing associations are subject of discussion in the Dutch parliament. In this paper, we present a network perspective on public management. This perspective describes the policy environment as a network of actors, characterised by interdependencies, multiformity and closed-ness of the actors. Government is not seen as the hierarchical top of the field, but as one of the actors with its own specific goals and sources. To safeguard good performance, governance instruments should be to adapted to the network characteristics. Using this perspective, the paper discusses the instruments used in the Dutch social housing network and presents the results from a case study in The Hague. This case study showed that the network perspective can be fruitful in analysing the social housing field and outcomes shows strong and weak point of the current governance structure.
Material immaterial: social housing in the Netherlands
International Journal of Engineering Science, 2017
Purpose - Housing associations make too small a contribution to society, the government has to step in too frequently because of maladministration, and the associations’ executives are often unaware of the far-reaching impact of their decisions. These are the conclusions of new academic research conducted by Jan Veuger of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM). In his dissertation, he asserts that in numerous cases there is no correlation between social and financial objectives. The Dutch House of Representatives debated the results of the report Ver van huis from the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry on Housing Associations in early December 2014. Design/methodology/approach -After extensive exploration of the literature and PhD studies on the period from 2005-2009, the research design inspired based on the grounded theory, which has a certain bias as a result of the extensive literature study. In the line of thinking of the grounded theory, interviews with direc...
Social Housing in the Netherlands, Chapter 10
2007
Nowhere else in Europe does social housing dominate the housing market as it does in the Netherlands. Over one third of all households rent a social-sector dwelling. There are 2.4 million social rented dwellings, a number that has been stable during the last decade. Almost all social housing is owned by housing associations. These have to act on a commercial basis, but are required to use their profits for meeting general housing need - that is, for housing those people who are not able to find decent housing themselves. Housing associations are able to operate in a very flexible (or arbitrary) way. Much of the current discussion in the Netherlands surrounds the use of this flexibility.
Squatted Social Centres in London: Temporary Nodes of Resistance to Capitalism
2016
This article assesses squatted social centres in London as a means to understand the cycles, contexts and institutionalisation processes of the local squatters movement. This diffuse social movement had its heyday in the late 1970s and early 1980s when there were 30,000 squatters and still exists today despite squatting in residential buildings being criminalised in 2012. Analysis is based on a database of 245 social centres, which are examined in terms of duration, time period, type of building and location. Important centres are briefly profiled and important factors affecting the squatters movement are examined, in particular institutionalisation, gentrification and criminalisation.
This article analyses a database of 44 squatted social centres in Rotterdam. The database provides a useful lens to examine the squatters' movement which in Rotterdam (as opposed to other larger cities such as Amsterdam or London) is underground and little studied. The database was produced through reference to a range of sources, including participant observation, archive materials, conversations with squatters past and present, academic sources and activist websites. The projects are analysed in terms of time period, duration, location and type of building occupied. A problem experienced and evaluated is the lack of both primary and secondary sources. Some significant individual projects are described and one area for which suitable information data is available, the district of Bospolder, is used as a case study regarding the issue of gentrification (which first necessitates a review of the relevant literature on gentrification). Conclusions are reached about the cycles, contexts and institutionalisation of the squatters' movement in Rotterdam.
Inclusionary housing in the Netherlands: breaking the institutional path?
Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 2013
In an international comparative perspective, the Netherlands was relatively late in introducing Inclusionary Housing (Buitelaar and De Kam in Housing Theory and Society 29(1):56-64, 2012). Referring to a conceptual framework of the institutionalisation of planning regulations, the article links this late introduction, as well as the specific content, and the actual use of inclusionary housing (IH) measures to the context of the Dutch housing and planning system. In the Netherlands, the legal 'package' that in 2008 explicitly introduced the powers for local authorities to require IH (both for social/ affordable housing and-a unique feature of the Dutch rules-also for privately commissioned housing) was strongly tied to new rules for cost recovery. The article partly draws on a review of existing studies, of the use made of these different elements of the Dutch IH measures, but its main empirical data come from a large survey of strategic choices made by housing associations in the land market. The paper shows that local authorities do use the new legal opportunity to prescribe IH in their land-use plans, but that there is a relatively low actual use of IH requirements 'with a bite' in the Netherlands. This outcome reflects the level of congruence of the IH requirements with formal and informal institutions in the Dutch systems for planning and housing. The institutional design of the rules is well attuned to existing path-dependent local policies which still deliver substantial numbers of new social and affordable housing without the use of IH. In these practices, value capturing is partly internalized in the operations of housing associations that develop mixed projects of social and commercial housing. In this respect, the real test of IH measures in the Netherlands is yet to come, depending on the resilience of tried and trusted (other) practices for providing social housing.
Quality of social housing in the Netherlands and England
The Netherlands and England both have a large social housing stock. At first sight the quality backlog of an average public sector dwellin g in the Netherlands and England seems to be similar. However the way quality backlo g is defined and measured in the Netherlands (all backlog) and in England (backlog a bove fixed levels) differs. Within England there is a pronounced difference in quality between the social housing stock of local authorities and housing associations. The reasons for the difference in quality backlog are related to the age of the stock and dif ferences at the sector level. Housing associations in the Netherlands are private compani es who have a strong desire to develop businesslike approaches. They are also conf ronted with less regulation. Whilst English housing associations resemble the Dutch social sector, they tend to be smaller in size and as such lack the power to devel op businesslike approaches. They also have to deal with more regulations and supervi si...