THE BRIGADE of the NIEUWMARKT an Ethnographic Account of Change and Tourism in a “Small Village” in the Center of Amsterdam by Corina Enache

Home , Nieuwmarkt, Sint Antoniesbreestraat, Spui (Amsterdam), Waterlooplein, Zuiderkerk

THE BRIGADE OF THE NIEUWMARKT An ethnographic account of change and tourism in a “small village” in the center of Amsterdam by Corina Enache

THE BRIGADE OF THE NIEUWMARKT

An ethnographic account of change and tourism in a “small village” in the center of Amsterdam

Corina Enache 10861939 Master Social and Cultural Anthropology Graduate School of Social Sciences University of Amsterdam Academic year 2014-2015 Word count 27,498

Supervisor: dr. O.G.A. (Oskar) Verkaaik

Readers: dr. I.L. (Irene) Stengs dr. V.A. (Vincent) de Rooij

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION

"Declaration: I have read and understood the University of Amsterdam plagiarism policy [published on http://www.student.uva.nl/fraude-plagiaat/voorkomen.cfm]. I declare that this assignment is entirely my own work, all sources have been properly acknowledged, and that I have not previously submitted this work, or any version of it, for assessment in any other paper." CORINA ENACHE, AUGUST 7st 2015

DEDICATION

I dedicate this thesis to Jet, Joost and Marten for opening the door wide while the rest were still looking through the keyhole. Through this difficult, yet exciting journey, they were not only my guides and friends to the day to day of the “small village” that is the Nieuwmarkt but also my inspiration to keep my faith that the answers are there, acting themselves out in front of me every day. I just needed time to see them. They were right.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For Oskar Verkaaik. For being not only my supervisor but also a great teacher and mentor through my journey to understand and love anthropology. For not giving me the answers but creating an environment where I was stimulated to search for them and where I believed enough in myself to be able to find them.

For Kristine Krause, for encouraging and supporting me to write the best proposal I could have ever written. For Mihalis Karavatzis, for supporting me from afar and linking me to the wider discussion on participative city marketing.

For Camiel and our endless thesis writing sessions in the Spui building and being the best sparring partner I could have wished for. For Veronica and her critical thinking; her believing in my work was an anchor in times where I didn’t know where I was going.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..7 Theoretical framework……………………………………………………………………………………………………….10 Methods and selection……………………………………………………………………………………………………….15 Chapter 1: The Nieuwmarkt & its residents…………………………………………………………………………17 1.1 From the outside looking in - the rebirth of a small street………………………………………………….19 1.2 A place of one’s own and the fight to keep it. The original Nieuwmarkt brigade……………….25 1.3 The 70s brigade, the present “voice” of the Nieuwmarkt…………………………………………………..31 Chapter 2: The second fight for the Nieuwmarkt: residents vs. tourism………………………………38 2.1 Long Stay, No way. The No SoHo group and the hotel ban…………………………………………………40 2.2 The Nieuwmarkt square and its terraces. United in a common goal………………………………….45 2.3 Sint Antoniesbreetraat and the Skylight café. The future is prosperous…………………………….48 Chapter 3: Amsterdam Marketing: the tourist whisperer……………………………………………………56 3.1 Amsterdam Marketing and the residents as national visitors…………………………………………….57 3.2 History of Amsterdam Marketing……………………………………………………………………………………….62 3.3 Amsterdam Marketing and the business sector…………………………………………………………………65 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….67 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….71

Introduction

In recent years one of the strongest challenges in Amsterdam has been how to manage the impact of the highly increasing number of tourists on the quality of life of the local residents. This challenge is not singular to Amsterdam and is shared by other European cities like Paris and Barcelona as tourism to Europe has exponentially grown in the last years. This happened because of two distinct trends – increase in revenue allocated to travel and price reduction of air travel. In Amsterdam, a city of app. 800.000 inhabitants, more than 6.000.000 tourists were estimated to visit in 2013. On the positive side this has generated income and jobs from tourism, but on the negative side it has contributed to an imbalance in the quality of life of the residents (especially those in the city center) who are constantly complaining of nuisances related to tourism – like noise, traffic, garbage. The residents of the city center are also complaining of economic transformations of their neighbourhood that slowly reduces its residential function, and through increase in hotels, restaurants, bars and souvenir shops, transforms the neighbourhood into an entertainment space for touristic consumption. There is a strong pressure from the residents as well as the media, on the city council and especially on its marketing department (Amsterdam Marketing) to find ways to relieve the tourism pressure on the city, and especially the city center. “Not becoming a second Venice” is the current catchphrase of policymakers, marketers and residents symbolizing both the fear and commitment of not transforming the city into a touristic product devoid of residents and local culture – as is the common perception of what Venice has become. The residents put the blame of this touristic pressure on Amsterdam Marketing and their highly successful city brand “I Amsterdam” and fear that despite multiple assurances of the policy makers the city is slowly transforming into an amusement park.

The Nieuwmarkt is a special neighbourhood in the center of Amsterdam. Special in two ways. First, in the sense that the 70s Nieuwmarkt riots are an icon for the residents’ ability to oppose capitalistic processes – in the 70s, when the city officials, in an attempt to capitalize on economic growth, decided to dismantle the residential neighbourhood and transform it into office spaces and a highway, the residents rioted and managed to alter the plans and keep their neighbourhood residential. It is the biggest riot in the recent history of the city documented by multiple articles, analyses and documentaries. Second, Nieuwmarkt looks and feels like a “small village” that somehow has managed to strike a balance and still be a residential neighbourhood in a highly trafficked touristic area. For these two reasons, I chose it as my fieldwork and hoped to find here the answer to the question: “How the highly involved groups of local inhabitants relate to tourism as a case of change in their neighbourhood?”

The Nieuwmarkt is situated in the borough of Amsterdam-Centrum, next to the De Wallen (Red Light District), Waterlooplein and Central Station (see below neighbourhood outline). As a result it shares some of their characteristics: intense foot, car & bike traffic and issues with drugs and prostitution, above average souvenir shops. It has, versus other neighbourhoods of Amsterdam, an over proportionate percentage of social houses versus the city center as well as an over proportionate percentage of inhabitants over 50-60 y.o. It is more residential and less populated with tourists than other neighbourhoods in the center but still above the average for Amsterdam.1

Source: http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/159247702#map=16/52.3720/4.9028

According to the 2014 census, the Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood has app. 9000 inhabitants. It also has 18 hotels and 30 cafes, which is significantly less than the center of Amsterdam and other European centers but still a lot for a residential area. Daily, making their way from the Red Light District or Central Station more than 4000 tourists visit the Nieuwmarkt, making it the 8th most trafficked destination in Amsterdam (based on a recent case study2). These numbers are only projected to increase in the following years (+ 29% increase in tourism until 2025 according to NBTC 2013).

1 Data taken out of the analysis of the neighborhood done for the development of the 2016 plan. See the complete analysis at the following link: https://www.amsterdam.nl/gemeente/bestuurscommissies/bestuurscommissie-c/gebiedscyclus/ 2 Sander van der Drift, April 2015: Revealing spatial and temporal patterns from Flickr photography, a case study with tourism in Amsterdam.

Many residents I have talked to expressed that the number of tourists is too much for them to handle but they have found ways to fight back – either by exerting “everyday resistance” to the tourists or by trying to influence or oppose development of commercial projects as they fear it will just increase the tourism pressure on the neighbourhood. Many of them refer to these actions as “the second fight for the Nieuwmarkt”. Only this time it is not a fight against the municipality but against the tourism industry and businesses as its economic enablers (tour operators, hotels, bars, restaurants).

In my thesis, in order to answer my research question, I aim to chronicle their actions by focusing on a special group within the Nieuwmarkt which I have called the “70s brigade”. I have chosen this group because of their special relationship to the municipality and their strong sense of legitimacy in the neighbourhood that has as roots the events of the 70s. I will show that this is instrumental to the success of their actions. I will also show that although they are disconnected from the wider tourism generating activities (managed by Amsterdam Marketing) they are strongly connected (via the local municipality) to managing (via influencing policies and economic developments) the tourists that come as a result of those activities.

Theoretical framework

To answer my central question: “How the highly involved groups of local inhabitants relate to tourism as a case of change in their neighbourhood”, I will argue by joining the current debates surrounding participative marketing, against the empiricist marketing tradition (Simon Anholt 2007, Moilanen & Rainisto 2009) that considers residents consumers with no agency of the product that is the city developed by the city branding/marketing policies. I aim to show that residents do have agency and as a constitutive part of the city develop actions from below. I will do this by using the social worlds arena framework developed by Clarke and Star 2008 as a tool to understand construction of meaning and power dynamics on a social level.

According to Anholt (2007), national branding is a metaphor for how effectively countries compete with each other for favourable perception, be it with regard to exports, governance, tourism, investment and immigration, culture and heritage, or people. As further defined by Moilanen and Ranisto (2009), city brands/marketing are all about creating stories that make a place’s businesses and investment attractive, support its tourism and export industries, serve public diplomacy and provide its inhabitants with a sense of place identity and self-esteem. Thus, for city branding residents are one of the 3 main target groups next to business and tourists/visitors. In this view the residents are reduced to a role of “consumers” of the city, similar to other visitors/tourists and their agency to influence other processes is neglected.

The role of residents only as consumers has been challenged both in literature on urban governance (Zenker and Seigis 2012) as well as in place branding, in particular the emergent literature on residents as central participants (Karavatzis 2012, Braun, Katavatzis and Zenker 2013). Residents suffer the effects (like excessive tourism) of place branding initiatives so they should be engaged throughout the process and they should be seen as one of the many stakeholders that articulate and implement the marketing activities of the place (Karavatzis and Hatch 2013). Moreover in public governance, there are new theories that resonate with this approach. They argue that participatory and deliberative democracy has become means to promote political renewal (Barnes, Newman and Sullivan 2004). Place marketing is therefore becoming a political tool, and as such needs to gain democratic legitimacy. (Kalandides 2011b)

Including the residents in the participation process means treating them like citizens with rights to contribute to the marketing activities (Braun, Karavatzis, and Zenker 2013). In a democratic system residents chose their local officials, they have political power and participate in political decision making. This is both an obligation and a right (meaning that authorities need to create the structure for the

10 residents to exercise their right to participate in decision making). Braun, Karavatzis and Zenker (2013) argue that the process of city marketing/branding should not make an exception. Why this is not done, they argue, comes from the history of city branding theories. They have emerged from corporate branding where the inherent system structure demanded that there is an “authority” figure that determines the top-down direction to the organization of the corporate brand and the means to make that happen (through organizational culture). According to Braun, Karavatzis and Zenker (2013) cities are different from organizations in 2 vital aspects: “First, local authorities have to explain, justify and defend their place branding-related actions against several types of political control. Second (and perhaps uniquely in the case of place branding), the necessary coherency between the place brand, its values, its propositions and all measures that communicate the brand requires that local people support and assist in the process for place branding to be effectively developed.”

Hitting “the sweet spot” of what is the best participation strategy has proven difficult as places are very complex structures but the key to this dynamic as per Braun, Karavatzis and Zenker (2013) is in the relationship (and specifically how mutually influential it is) that place authority develops with the residents “Arguably, the significance attributed here to residents – and specifically the suggestion to consult them and listen to them at all stages of the branding process – challenges place authorities. It is a very demanding exercise in terms of political will and risk-taking because place authorities may find themselves outside of what Ind and Bjerke (2007) call the “zone of comfort”. A better understanding of the role of residents calls for a focal change from the communication-dominant approach to a participation-dominant approach. The investment needed for such an approach is not investment in communicating the place brand, but investment in its antecedents: it is an investment in sharing the meaning of the place brand, alongside its ownership and control.” Zenker and Erfgen (2014) echo this opinion, stating than when the participatory approach is entering place authorities, some of the power of decision making must be given up and this generates uncomfortable situations, this being one of the reason why participatory measures sometimes fail in implementation.

Various school of thought in sociology and anthropology argue against the perception that power is located within the state mechanism and people (in this case residents) have no agency to resist the top down decisions (in this case city marketing activities or their effects – like tourism). In symbolic interactionism that he defines as “a distinctive approach to study the human group life and human conduct” Blumer (1930), focuses on the interpretative process (people acting toward things based on the meaning the things have to them) as a means to recover human agency in theory: through this process

11 that individuals exercise volition and can be understood as active agents in the construction of the social, and not only as passive subjects of structural social forces or their own habitus (as per classic marketing theory).

Blumer’s symbolic interactionism resonates with similar cultural theories also approached in anthropology that developed after the classical social theoretical perspectives of Parsons and Durkheim, and more specifically with intersubjectivism. Intersubjectivism as defined by Reckwitz (2002) is a branch of cultural theory that according to Habermas, locates the social in interactions e.g. the use of ordinary language, claiming that sociality is just a constellation of symbolic interactions between agents. Some of the critics (e.g. Mouzelis, 1995) of symbolic interactionism and intersubjectivism refer to their inability to conceptualize power, since it is connected to a macro social structure that they do not conceptualize. In the symbolic interactionism concept, society results from a consensus achieved through interaction and through learning how to interact via socialization.

The social worlds framework is a way to address the limitations of symbolic interactionism and intersubjectivism – more precisely the emphasis on micro processes and the lack of analysis of macro processes (structure) and their influence on shaping social action. The social worlds framework is a theoretical and methodological extension of symbolic interactionism developed by Anselm Strauss (1991) and Howard Becker (1986). Clarke (2005) considers that the structures shaping social action are not external structures that configure the patterns of social behaviour, but rather actions are structured by the situations of actions, which is ultimately build by the practitioners involved in the action. This situation includes elements from macro and micro structures and configures a specific scenario for action to occur.

So the main difference between the social wolds framework and symbolic interactionism is that the study unit becomes the social group rather than the individual. According to Clarke and Star (2008 p.115) social worlds are “groups with shared commitments to certain activities, sharing resources of many kinds to achieve their goals and building shared ideologies about how to go about their business”. At the core of the framework of the social worlds are the interactions between the various social worlds that constitute the identification of the social worlds themselves. So, as mentioned also by Clarke and Star (2008) the framework focuses on meaning making amongst social groups – collectivities of various sorts – and on collective action –people “doing things together” and working with shared objects. This collective action as the meso level that elevates the individual analysis, provides also the basis to better understand the interaction between agency and structure. According to Mead what elevates an individual to the status of social being is their actions of commitment to the social worlds, actions through which they

12 constitute and become part of the discourse of that respective social world. According to Clarke and Star (2008) “social worlds generate shared perspectives than then form the basis for collective action while individual and collective identities are constituted through commitments to and participate in social worlds and arenas”. According to Clarke and Star (2008) the arena is the discursive site where different social worlds meet and where they can construct and transform their social “self”. In developing the arena concept, Clarke manages to successfully address one of the main criticism to symbolic interactionism which is the lack of a macro view and reflexivity on questions of power. Through her approach she gets Blumer and Foucault to talk to each other.

Clarke's thesis says, that when Foucault became interested in individual agency, he came closer to symbolic interactionists, as they "have a long tradition of attempting to see the world from the perspectives of all those in the situation, including the underdog(s)—those with less (but never no) power" (Clarke 2008, p.58). Foucault thinks that it is wrong to consider power as something that the institutions possess and use oppressively against individuals and groups. He defines power as not something that can be owned, but rather something that acts and manifests itself in a certain way; "Power must be analysed as something which circulates, or as something which only functions in the form of a chain . . . Power is employed and exercised through a netlike organization . . . Individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application”. So, in his view power is a network of relations encompassing the whole society rather than a relation between oppressed and oppressor. Moreover for him, individuals are not only the object of power but they are the origin where both power and resistance to it are exerted. (Foucault, 1980).

When evaluating the position of the residents when it comes to the place they reside in I am considering Warnaby and Medway’s (2013) definition - that places are not only geographical locations with physical attributes but settings for social relations, experiences and interpretations. The materiality as one part is manifested through built environment, topography and administrative boundaries and sense of place as another is what creates identification and attachment between the individual and the place. Materiality and sense of place are mutually supporting and both contribute to place identity (Warnaby and Medway 2013). Thus places are complex open systems of interactions between elements, people and processes (Karavatzis and Hatch 2013, Warnaby and Medway’s 2013).

This view on places illustrates identity as emergent fluid and changeable (Karavatzis and Hatch 2013) dependable of the interactions between the stakeholders. Place branding leaves impressions on residents, investors, tourists and businesses but it also mirrors their impressions and expectations

(Karavatzis and Hatch 2013). Thus, place branding consists of ongoing and sometimes contesting dialogues. (Warnaby and Medway 2013, Karavatzis and Hatch 2013).

Braun, Karavatzis and Zenker (2013) argue that by not treating the residents as citizens in the branding process these contesting dialogues can expand and produce a gap between the reality of the social life of the city and the projected image to the outside. Moreover this gap can impact in a negative way both tourists (that do not experience what they expect) and residents (that might leave the city). In this way an imbalance could be created that could potentially drive the residents away and transform the place into an “amusement park” occupied by tourists (Boissevain, 1996).

The emerging practice of responsible tourism also puts emphasis on re-considering the relevance of residents within the impact tourism has on the environment (social and geographic). Developed as a concept by Harold Goodwin (2002) responsible tourism is about making “better places for people to live, and better places for people to visit”. Applying sustainable tourism means that tourists can enjoy visiting a place while at the same time respecting the culture of residents and the environment. It emphasizes that all stakeholders (incl. residents) are responsible for the kind of tourism they develop or engage in. Whilst different groups will see responsibility in different ways, the shared understanding is that responsible tourism should entail an improvement in tourism. Tourism should become ‘better’ as a result of the responsible tourism approach. According to the Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism practicing responsible tourism implies “involving local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances”.

These could be points for future reflection on how residents having a higher involvement in tourism generating activities can be a way to naturally solve one of the current challenges surrounding city branding: managing the right balance between the number of tourists and the residents. These challenges reflect nowadays not only Barcelona’s case (where tourism rose from 1.7 million to 7.6 million in 20 years making the residents either to protest or flee the city center) but also other touristic European cities – like Paris, Rome and Amsterdam – contributing to the relevancy of the current investigation.

Methods and selection

I established myself (daily from 9-17) in the Nieuwmarkt, in the beginning in the Pinto Huis (a cultural community space on Sint Antoniesbreestraat) and then in Latei (a small café on the corner of the Nieuwmarkt square with Zedijk). This gave me a sense of belonging to the neighbourhood and made me more sensitive to its dynamics. In total, I formally interviewed between 50-60 people from the following groups (45 local inhabitants, 10 business people, 3 municipality employees, 3 people involved with Amsterdam Marketing, and 2 police officers). I also had 10 informal short interviews with tourists around the Nieuwmarkt. I did participant observation by volunteering for some neighbourhood organisations – like the neighbourhood watch. I attended community events like the open municipality meetings, the neighbourhood council, the movie night, the celebration of the Korte Konnigstraat Street re-opening, Aprilfeest. I did "deep hanging out" with the informants of my main group the “70s brigade”. I followed the local policeman around the neighbourhood. I analysed a number of documents coming from the municipality, the press and Amsterdam Marketing with statistics about the area and their strategic and marketing plans. I did multiple transient walks to observe the neighbourhood and the tourism traffic. I also applied discourse analysis to 2 documentaries about the 70s riots in the Nieuwmarkt and various articles written in Opnieuw (the neighbourhood magazine) about tourism and economic expansion.

As at the beginning I did not have a core group of residents to observe, I interviewed various groups in the neighbourhood. I settled in the middle of my fieldwork on the group I have called the “70s brigade”, as they best represented the interaction with tourism related activities. They showed the highest involvement in the neighbourhood and I also gained access to the complex network of activities and dynamics they use to oppose or influence tourism related activities.

As I used the social worlds theory and method package to approach my research question I began to map all the relevant social interactions in the area for the inhabitants of the “70s brigade”. Next to social interaction, I tried to explore through life history interviews how the relationship with the neighbourhood began and evolved and how tourism related to that. This is how I got involved in the neighbourhood council, the Zuiderkerk meetings and the neighbourhood walks (arenas for the interaction with the municipality and the business community). This is also why I got involved in community groups (like the movie night, Aprilfeest, the celebration of a new street opening) as I considered them important social worlds for my analysis. Social media was also an important element of my analysis - I gained access to 3 closed neighbourhood Facebook pages – as it was a way to observe a social world from a distance so that my presence had no impact on their interaction.

My contact with the Amsterdam Marketing team was mostly through interviews and document analysis. It was not possible to enter the organization and observe their interaction with either the business community or the residents, which was a limitation of my fieldwork. Other challenges I experienced had to do with the language and cultural barrier and with the short duration of my research in relation to my topic. I felt like gaining access and trust was a slower process than I had imagined, and the last month was the best in term of community engagement. The language barrier became a problem in community meetings and deep hanging outs. I struggled to understand everything but I relied on the help of some of my informants.

1. The Nieuwmarkt & its residents

This chapter is about the intensity and cultivation of place attachment of a specific group of people in the Nieuwmarkt which I have called the “70s brigade”. It is important to talk about place attachment in this context as it is the “engine”, the reason that propels and legitimises the “70s brigade” to actively get involved in the changes happening in their neighbourhood as a result of tourism. The intensity of their place attachment steers not only their actions but also impacts the type of relationship they have with the coordinating structure of the place (the municipality).

The political geographer John Agnew (2011) has outlined three fundamental aspects of a place: 1. Location (the fixed coordinates of a place in space). 2. Locale (meaning the material setting for social relations - the actual shape of place within which people conduct their lives as individuals) 3. Sense of place. (the subjective and emotional attachment individuals have to place). In marketing there is a similar view seeing place as not only a geographical location with physical attributes but also with settings for social relations, experiences and personal interpretations. Sense of place in this context is a “local structure of feeling” supported by material framework and social relations, experiences and interpretations. (Warnaby and Medway 2013)

Other disciplines define sense of place through the lens of their own practice – from psychology and philosophy where it has a correlation to personal identity with limited connection to physical space (Proshansky, Fabian and Kaminoff, 1983), on how having experiences create the perception on the physical space showing the power of agency over interpretation of physical space (Heidegger 1971), to sociology where the physical space is stage where social activities and communities are enacted (Gustafson 2002), to anthropology where it is connected to symbols of cultural belonging (Low 2000).

Coming back to geography, continuing John Agnew’s view and resonating also the interpretations of sense of place in social sciences, Cresswell further identifies intensity of sense of place with emotional attachment and connects it to the interaction of structure and agency (Cresswell, 2004) arguing that place “needs to be understood as an embodied relationship of people with the world” and a result of processes and practices. In this sense, we could say that structural and social factors – amongst which sense of community endangerment - can influence the intensity of place attachment (Relph 1976). What I will argue for in this chapter is that the 70s riots of the Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood are a pivotal moment for explaining the intensity of place attachment of the current residents, as the riots mark a change in the dynamic relationship between the residents and the existing structure (municipality).

By deciding to separate themselves from the municipality and create an administrative structure of their own, the residents have, for a short while, experienced living inside the place as creators, residents and administrators. This powerful experience both shaped their current engagement and strength as a community as well as redefined their relationship with the existing structure (municipality). It ultimately gave them a platform to influence and oppose the changes generated by tourism to their neighbourhood.

In order to explain the events that led to this, I will use Victor Turner’s concepts on liminality and social drama construction (Victor Turner, 1974, 1980). I will chronologically explain the events of the 70s from the perspective of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood while using the 4 stages of social drama construction - breach, crisis, redress, and reintegration. Through the lens of these stages I will look closely into the dynamics of the relationship between the residents and the municipality and how it impacted the roles and responsibilities of each side in regards to the neighbourhood. Then I will explain how the “70s brigade” of today “carry” the heritage of the 70s events in their role as caretakers of the neighbourhood and how they enact it in the current dynamics with the municipality. I will describe various arenas where they play out their role as the “voice” of the neighbourhood’s needs as well the “back office” activities needed for the preparation of this playing out. I will also describe various internal arenas where they solidify their role with the other members of the community.

1.1 From the outside looking in - the rebirth of a small street

“Once the first sight of the red sign with Rembrandhuis and the first social houses of Sint Antoniebreestraat catch my eye, I know I am in the Nieuwmarkt. I enter Sint Antoniebreestraat biking slowly (I still have 5 minutes until my meeting but still I check the clock tower to make sure) making mental notes of what I see passing by. Right after the bridge, entering the street, the 2 cafes are still open and a few people are on the outside terraces enjoying the weather. Here, on the left is the white archway that leads into the inner square that hosts Zuiderkerk and its tower – an old 400 y.o. church now transformed in a space for meetings and cultural events. This is the meeting point to share information and/or debate between the residents, the commercial businesses or the municipality. At the next intersecting street corner, on the right I see the newly opened Skylight café/bakery. In the evening light it seems quiet, white and friendly, revealing little of the turmoil its presence has created amongst the street inhabitants in the last months. I pass by it and several small shops scattered on the right and left of the street and I reach the square. As usual the square is bustling with life. The daily vegetable market is still open so are the various cafes facing each other and the Chinese supermarket. Dominating the square is De Waag, a historical building now converted in a café, restaurant & partial events space. I turn right on Koningsstraat and pass by several small restaurants. I reach Korte Koningstraat and accelerate, looking at the new pavement still under construction while I biked, trying to avoid the tourists and the cars. I turn left on Krom Boomssloot – a quiet small residential street only disturbed by the metal noise of the Airbnb luggage - and then right on Recht Boomssloot and I have arrived. I park my bike and hurry inside Buurtop, the local community center of the neighbourhood.

I enter the meeting room, greet the people and take a seat next to Marieke and Camiel – two of the most involved members in the activities of the neighbourhood especially the ones that have to deal with the municipality. The monthly neighbourhood council meeting is about to begin. It is a round table where ten people are seated– they are the ones that are responsible for the agenda points to be discussed today. There are also chairs in the back, where later in the meeting, I see Daan siting. Daan is also very much involved in the neighbourhood as he has been living here more than 40 years. At my left I see Marieke and Camiel and to my right Peter and Matias, the local policemen. In front of me is Ruud, the co- president of the council. Next to him is the other co-president, Lucia and close to her I see Dana, a resident of Sint Antoniesbreestrat and Mat, Camiel’s father and the oldest member of the council (who is almost 90). In front of me, on the table, is the agenda and the topics to be discussed today. Before the meeting can start, Camiel hands out an invitation to everybody for the following month to the opening of the

19 renovated Korte Koningstraat, a small street opening party sponsored by the municipality and organized by him and Marieke. They are both really excited as they are handing them out and Marieke tells me, “You should come, we have been fighting for this for ten years, and it is a great success.” I take the invitation, put it in my bag and look again at the agenda of today’s meeting that I have in front of me. Marieke looks at me again, “Look, she said, pointing at a small text at the bottom of the agenda that I was carefully reading through, can you understand what it says? I read it – “We want a city with neighbourhoods in which living playing working learning and shopping happens close by for young and old people together / Wij willen een stad met buurten waar wonen, spelen, werken, leren en winkelen vlakbij en door elklaar gebeurt voor jonge en oude mensen.” She continues laughing, not wanting me to take her seriously but at the same time looking at me with her piercing blue eyes, talking slowly, with a quiet solemnity, “… this was the slogan of the movement and this is what we are trying to preserve here with the neighbourhood council”. Next to the agenda, she has in front of her the strategic plan of the neighbourhood of the municipality for 2016 – this is one of the main topics of discussion for today. The document is filled with small handwritten notes and yellow highlighters. She resumes her reading of it, while Ruud opens the meeting with the first point on the agenda.”

It was the first time I got to attend a neighbourhood council meeting although I had been in the Nieuwmarkt for already two months , alternating my time between interviews, observations and quietly pacing the maze like streets surrounding the Nieuwmarkt square that make up what is called the Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood. During this time, I had been trying to observe how a specific group of inhabitants – which I had nicknamed the “70s brigade” - connect and cultivate their attachment to their neighbourhood and how they deal with the changes happening in the area as a result of increase in tourism.

I use the term 70’s to explain the engagement spirit of the group but not necessarily their involvement in the 70s events that shaped the Nieuwmarkt as it is now. During these events the neighbourhood organized itself to oppose the municipality plans to demolish the centre of the neighbourhood and build a metro and a four lane highway. This opposition culminated with the riots in 75’ that lead the municipality to reach an agreement with the neighbourhood, cancel the highway plans, and commit to exchange the already demolished houses with social housing.

At the beginning of my fieldwork I struggled to understand why place mattered to them and I questioned myself and my abilities after every interview, after every observation or transient walk. My eyes and ears were not (yet) trained to understand what I was experiencing, and my guides at the

20 beginning showed reluctance and even suspicion to “let me in”. I too was an outsider, someone to be observed until (partly) given a glimpse into their love for this neighbourhood, a neighbourhood which as one of my informants says “I would be sad to replace even for Heaven”. For some of them I was never legitimated enough to hear their stories and they kept their distance. For others it worked, maybe as they were more willing to see and approve of my genuine interest and my wish to give them a fair representation. Or maybe, it was clearer as time went by that I respected their attachment to the place they considered their own.

Marieke was one of the persons I met that I bonded with from the start, maybe because of our common love of cats. She has a beautiful big cat, Rudolf, that I called “the lion” because of the majestic way in which he lay everywhere, commanding attention. Marieke is a spunky lady, with a contagious laugh and a lot of energy, “a meddler that likes to stick her nose in everything”, as she describes herself, with an interest in history and traffic. She lives in a charming little apartment on the ground floor of a house on Korte Koningsstraat two minutes’ walk from Camiel’s house. She is “new” in the neighbourhood, in the sense that she came here over ten years ago, but she also considers herself new in comparison to Camiel, who has been living here his entire life (he lives in the same house of his childhood with his father and his own family) and has lived through the riots of the 70s as an active participant. Marieke is one of the most active members in the neighbourhood council, for now leading the traffic group (a group that aims to develop a proposition for the municipality that would relieve the traffic blocks in the neighbourhood), she is part of the neighbourhood walk (a group that patrols the neighbourhood on a regular basis and then reports the irregularities back to the municipality) and helps Camiel in the project to renovate the Korte Koningsstraat. “You see", she tells me while we are having tea in her apartment, pointing at the street outside the window, "this street has been a shame for the last ten years. The pavement was broken and it was really hard to move properly. When I came here almost ten years ago, Camiel asked for my help with understanding some documents as he wanted to ask the municipality for help to fix the street. And this is how it started. I started translating documents and then ended up involved with him in the petition. It’s very complicated but we were persistent. Every year we asked for it and talked to people about it. And every year there was another project on the agenda of the municipality more important than this one. Finally last year an accident happened – one of the residents fell and ended up in the hospital so they agreed to fix the street. Now that is done we have asked the municipality for funds to celebrate the street with the other residents before its open to the traffic and the tourists”.

“We are the champions - my friends/And we'll keep on fighting/Till the end/We are the champions/We are the champions/No time for losers/ Cause we are the champions of the world” It’s almost 5 o’clock in the afternoon and as the sun is setting, I watch Camiel removing the barriers to the Korte Koningsstraat street entrance, raising his arms in triumph and running back to us singing the lines above. His white hair is glistening in the last rays of sunshine while he is skipping and singing on the pavement back to us and for a moment I can see the young man he must have been almost 40 years ago. I look at him hugging and shaking the hands of his neighbors and their camaraderie moves me and I think it must be wonderful to have that kind of closeness with your neighbors. I remember a small talk I had with Zerline, one of his younger neighbors, earlier at the street opening party: “Yesterday I came home in the afternoon. The construction workers had left and a big pile of sand was left on the newly changed pavement. It has to settle between the stones of the pavement and they just left it there for this to naturally happen once the street traffic is resumed. Camiel was out of his house carefully pushing the sand between the stones and cleaning a small portion of the street. My daughter wanted to join him so I started to clean too although I found it a bit too much and unnecessary. Once I started he came to me telling me I was doing it wrong and showing me the proper way, his way.”

Biking home after the street opening event, I keep thinking about Camiel cleaning the street the night before, and also the intensity of his joy and bond with his friends but also the distance towards the others (including myself). He had been living there longer than many of his neighbors, had attended the 70s riots and felt legitimized through that to take over the responsibility of taking care of the street. Sharing part of this responsibility was the connecting point and the key to his heart as a neighbor. I could see it for example with Marieke, who had been actively involved in the plans to renovate the street. The more shared responsibility the more the relationship and the legitimacy grew and with it the camaraderie that I came to associate with this group of highly involved inhabitants that I called the “70s brigade”.

Their camaraderie to each other is easy to observe also when opposed to the barriers they show towards the “others” that are sharing their space and difficulty for the “new people” to be legitimized. In the case of Zerline and Camiel, she had been living on the street for three years already, and I could feel in her stories and tone of voice that she did not feel accepted yet. She was quick to tell me every time that it did not matter but I could see it bothered her. Even in her small attempts to integrate – like joining to clean the street – she felt rejected as she was not given legitimacy to clean the street in her way, she had to follow his example. In the street celebration party the distance between them was obvious – she was standing apart from Camiel’s celebratory group, with a younger neighbor, not sharing the joy of the (older)

22 group. The fences around the street entrance blocked it from both ends and made it, for the time being, inaccessible to outsiders, especially the groups of tourists that flood the street daily on their way to and from the Nieuwmarkt square. It was a decision Marieke and Camiel had made that I initially found strange – why not leave the party open? - but I came to understand it. Through the celebration of the new pavement I was witnessing the “rebirth” of the street in the presence of its “true” owners – its inhabitants. The municipality was the execution arm but the inhabitants were the “voice” of the street, its “translators”, responsible for drawing attention and ensuring that its needs are fulfilled. The division of rights and responsibilities over the street is not only between the municipality and the inhabitants but also between the inhabitants and the outsiders. By refusing to let the tourists pass even for a short while, it was a way for them to alleviate some of the frustration of watching daily their beloved street being taken over. It was also a way to enforce that the municipality is on their side, putting their interests above those of the tourists. The outsiders were not only the tourists, although they were the ones generating the most anguish, but also the new neighbors. In the discussion with Zerline it became clear to me the invisible line between the old and the new inhabitants. Although the fences blocking the street were 100 meters away I felt in that moment that the real fences were much closer and actually around the older group, blocking not only the tourists but also everybody else, including the newer neighbors, Zerline and myself.

I had a similar experience with Camiel. After the street celebration, I became interested in understanding more of his personal story in the neighborhood and what was behind the strong sense of ownership he showed with the street, his experience in the 70s events and the subsequent connection between the two. Although I saw him in the neighborhood council and every time I visited Marieke, I never had the chance to sit down and actually talk to him. I asked him for an interview, but he was very reluctant to talk to me and he directed me to other people that, as he expressed to me, had more stories about living in the neighborhood. At the beginning I thought it was the language barrier that he was uncomfortable with, but his reluctance persisted even when I offered to bring a translator and have the interview in Dutch.

This is one example of why my access to their community was hard to get. One of the reasons of why their tight group was so connected was the strong line they drew between them and the rest. Getting access meant them legitimizing you as a member of their group or giving you a “temporary visitor” pass. Legitimacy, like in Marieke’s case came with the shared ideological views on the relationship between inhabitants and authority but also with time, constant investment in activities caring for the neighborhood

23 that supported the shared ideological views. Caring for their neighborhood was a right and a responsibility primarily of those that participated in the 70s events – like Ruud, Camiel, Lucia and Daan. This is the core of the 70s brigade, a group that encompasses ten people. Extending the core to the second layer you get the people - like Marieke, Dana- that are granted legitimacy due to their shared ideology and time investment. I have observed seven people as part of this group. Their intense engagement with the neighborhood is what made me interested in understanding them better. Where did that passion come from? And how was it connected to the strong legitimacy they claimed over the neighborhood and how did it help them deal with the tourism-generated changes in the neighborhood?

1.2 A place of one’s own and the fight to keep it. The original Nieuwmarkt brigade

In order to better understand how the core group of the “70s brigade” came to look at the place as their own as well as claim right and responsibility for its upkeep, I have to go back in time approximately seventy years and tell the story of the birth, development and aftermath of the social movement responsible for what Nieuwmarkt is today.

This story is the story of the birth of a neighborhood and the “relationship crisis” that it generated between the municipality and its inhabitants. According to Victor Turner, social drama typically has four stages: (1) a breach of regular norm-governed social relations, (2) an escalation of the crisis,(3) redressive action aimed at limiting the spread of the crisis, and finally, (4) reintegration of the dissenting group or legitimization of irreparable schism between the contesting parties (Victor Turner, 1974: 38-41).

The aftermath of the Second World War set the tone for the social drama that would unfold itself in the 70s. The end of the Second World War had left Amsterdam, and particularly Nieuwmarkt – as it was a former Jewish community - in a poor state. There were many abandoned houses in the Nieuwmarkt whose decay was accelerated by the people coming in, taking away the wood and vandalizing to keep themselves warm. The municipality started thinking of a rehabilitation program in 53’, but little happened outside of paper for 20 years. As a result, the neighborhood continued to deteriorate. In expectation of the rehabilitation program, the municipality stopped all other renovation projects.

Max van den berg 3– Spatial planning, “When I started walking around there, in 1966, I saw a neighborhood that was deteriorated. And that demolishment showed itself through a lot of empty houses, there were houses that were declared uninhabitable, holes in the gables, buildings were demolished, and here and there lower parts of buildings were some small company was located. And it was a sad sight, especially in the middle of Nieuwmarkt, the borders of the area looked alright, but the center was really horrifying.”

The rehabilitation plan took so long to be developed since, together with it, the municipality planned to eradicate the deteriorated residential Nieuwmarkt and to use the space to allocate the traffic that was suffocating the center of Amsterdam. The new center, as they had envisioned it, had offices next to car roads, a big four lane highway and a subway line. The four lane highway was supposed to be a continuation of the “wibaut-as” which now stops at Antoniesluis.

3 Direct quote translated from the “Andere Tijden” television program of the NTR, episode “Slag om de Stad – de Nieuwmarkt”, aired in 2015.

Using Turner’s words that the social breach is a “disturbance of normal and the regular” involving “persons or groups within the same system of social relations” I understand this as the moment of the breach between the Nieuwmarkt residents and the municipality. The breach was started when the municipality both neglected the neighborhood and kept secret the plans for its future development. So, while these plans were being developed there was a “new movement” going through the neighborhood of people coming in, occupying the empty houses and renovating them by themselves. As a result of the breach, the Nieuwmarkt neighborhood created a new collective identity, taking over the social role previously held by the municipality. The Action Group Nieuwmarkt was developed, an association meant to coordinate the internal functions of the community and represent it to the outsiders.

Piet veiling4, action group Nieuwmarkt “In 1971 I started living in this area, and back then I had friends that were involved in ‘action group Nieuwmarkt’. Over time I joined them. It was a really strong action group. Really disciplined as well. Together renovate buildings, a lot of houses were empty that weren’t demolished. With a couple of people we started a cooperative trading group; ‘timmer tuinen’. For the action group members, that was a great time. There was so much energy and creativity, and we were in a ‘whirlpool of activism’ We had our own bar ‘t hoekje om’. We organized parties, street parties, and of course there was love. It was like an own village, we organized everything ourselves. It was detached. Here, we built a walking bridge, from one side to the other. We could, as action group, get into these buildings from those other buildings to defend them against the police. Well, yea, we actually never asked a permit for anything, we just did it. But of course we are responsible for the safety of public places.”

Pieter Boersma5, action group Nieuwmarkt: “There was a form of organization that you could compare to humanitarian communism. There were consultative establishments, per street, per house, and there was money collected, to create new facilities for them, all bound to agreements. We were also collecting money, trough newspaper delivery, and that was in good control, and used to pay for stuff.”

Ruud – current president of the neighborhood council, “I came here in ‘71. There was a lot of excitement around the neighborhood and we used to do everything ourselves. I built the telephone system that ran all across the neighborhood. We had wires across the top roofs, through the streets. And this is how we communicated with each other and we knew everything that was going on really fast...I still live in a house that I did a lot with my own hands – for example the bathroom I made myself.”

4 Direct quote translated from the “Geen buizen maar huizen”, documentary from the RVU, aired in 1997. 5 Ibid 4

The companionship experienced by the action group at this point was enhanced by the joint coordinating efforts to make the place their own, living like in an alternative society of their own creation. They established their own rules and ways of doing things. They built the houses and the subsequent structure by themselves. For some of them, with the cultivation of vegetable gardens and raising animals the place became self-sufficient for daily life. This pioneering spirit enforced their collective identity and excluded existing institutional structures of which they considered themselves detached. They had claimed sovereignty over their land and it would take an act of violence from the state to reclaim it and re-instate them in the (bigger) society frame that they had, by this stage, left. Moreover by building the houses and the surrounding structure themselves they were no longer just residents. They were creators, residents and administrators all in one. They were not reconstructing the old Nieuwmarkt from the destruction of the Second World War but they were creating a new neighborhood, a “ground zero” for everything that was to come. This creationist fever gave them the confidence to later face the municipality as equals.

While this grass root neighborhood reconstruction was going on the municipality had finally concluded the rehabilitation plan of the neighborhood and was eager to share it with the local community and start implementation. At this moment they did not seem aware that their state sovereignty over the land would be challenged. This was the moment when the situation moved into its second stage: crisis. In this stage the breach previously created by the perceived neglect by the municipality is widened by the disclosure of the plans to drastically change the neighborhood.

Gees de Cloe6/ political party PVDA Amsterdam, “I got orders from the city council to develop new plans for the Nieuwmarkt, with the intention of talking those plans through with the people living there. So we took those plans to a the blacksmith shop there, but every time there were not so many people, mainly the squatters, who by now developed a quite unique lifestyle inside the Nieuwmarkt, there were goats walking around, the pigeons...and then I hung the papers against the wall, and explained them what we did, and asked them what they thought of it. And then… They didn’t like it. And as long as the metro and road were projected, the plans weren’t good in their eyes. But I explained them, that there were political powers that were deciding on this, and as long as those political parties didn’t change their mind, the squatters would again and again see this map, with the road and the metro. Well the metro then became really definitive, but the road indeed was controversial and ended up for discussion.”

6 Direct quote translated from the “Andere Tijden” television program of the NTR, episode “Slag om de Stad – de Nieuwmarkt”, aired in 2015.

As Turner also mentions “Each public crisis has what I now call lamina characteristics, since it is a threshold (limen) between more or less stable phases of the social process, but it is not usually a sacred limen, hedged around by taboos and thrust away from the centers of public life. On the contrary it takes up its menacing stance in the forum itself, and, as it were, dares the representatives of order to grapple with it;” (Turner 1974:4). The crisis was in full view and some steps were taken into a redressive stage, meaning the municipality agreed to cancel the highway building plans.

Nevertheless, the planned metro line was still to be developed, which was something the Action Group Nieuwmarkt strongly opposed as more buildings were to be demolished. The redressive action that lead to the cancelling of the highway plans was not enough to reinstate the order in the relationship between the municipality and the neighborhood. The crisis mounted and the municipality was no longer willing to make additional concessions or continue the dialogue with the inhabitants. This was also because as they became aware of the extent of the breach between the residents and them, they were fearing a loss of sovereignty and they needed a strong action to re-claim it. So they continued with the demolition process.

Gees de Cloe7/ political party PVDA Amsterdam, “I always took them serious, the action group Nieuwmarkt, they had everything perfectly organized, in their neighborhood. But they just didn’t want to accept a democratic decision made by the city council.” That it wouldn’t be that easy, we knew. But we didn’t think that the first demolition would lead to such a burst of anger. Then we have talked about the issue for a long time, and then, and this I brought forth in the discussion, it is the question who is making the decision, in our democratic system. And that is, according to me, the city council, and not an action group, concentrated in a small area, where this metro-line had to go underneath. And how much people were putting up resistance, it shouldn’t mean that that would stop the creation of the oost-line (metro). And then we said, there is only one solution and that is; keep on going with the evictions (putting people out of their houses) and keep on going with the creation of the oost-line. And well.. that led to some dramatic ‘’field battles’’ in March, April of 75.”

What kept the crisis going was the perpetuation of the reason the breach happened in the first place - the municipality kept claiming the full power of deciding over the future of the neighborhood and trying to enforce a dominant position. At the same time the inhabitants were not accepting this dominant position and were trying to on one side to “negotiate” their way to a more balanced cooperation model.

7 Direct quote translated from the “Andere Tijden” television program of the NTR, episode “Slag om de Stad – de Nieuwmarkt”, aired in 2015.

On the other side, the inhabitants were also claiming power on deciding the future of the neighborhood as through the Action Group Nieuwmarkt they excluded the municipality from the social administration function and they took those functions solely on themselves.

Auke Bijlsma8, action group Nieuwmarkt: “It is not just about the metro, but the metro correlates to a lot of things, In some time, people don’t want to listen to arguments at all, they want 150.000 people out of the inner city, and want that they move to the ‘’sleep cities’’ like Purmerend, Almere, and Bijlmer- meer. The construction of hotels and offices continues. Everyone who has ever been in Amsterdam also sees that instead of houses, offices, universities and things like that have replaced them. And that for those things, more houses are being demolished as well. And we find that, when arguments no longer make a difference, what is your last solution? We did all the effort, all the way to the parliament, to show them our case. And they never showed any serious response, instead, they tried to ignoring it outright.”

The culmination of the crisis was the 70s riots. The residents fought back the demolition process with a strength the police had not anticipated. So in the first attempt to remove the squatters, the police were not successful and had to withdraw. Yet, there was a second attempt that proved successful.

Piet veiling9, action group Nieuwmarkt: “The city council told us beforehand that there would be a big clearing of buildings. So we started to barricade and seal the buildings with wooden planks. By laying bricks, using steel plates, and wood. We used all kind of measures to stop the police as long as possible, to give as big of a resistance against the removal of the buildings as we could. The buildings were very good barricaded, and I was standing on the roofs, when in the morning the police arrived.. With tear-gas, with water cannons, with the mobile police force. And then ‘hell broke loose’ ‘softly saying’.. Then the water cannon came in, and we had rocks and paint bombs, and we fought as long as we could, through the tear-gas.”

The fights allowed the two groups to move fully from the crisis stage to the regressive stage. The aim of this stage was via mediation and arbitration to solve the crisis and find resolution. Both the municipality and the inhabitants reinstated the collaborative way of taking care of the neighborhood. The municipality continued with the development of the metro line but they committed to keep the area

8 Direct quote translated from the “Geen buizen maar huizen”, documentary from the RVU, aired in 1997. 9 Direct quote translated from the “Andere Tijden” television program of the NTR, episode “Slag om de Stad – de Nieuwmarkt”, aired in 2015.

29 socially mixed and build new social houses replacing the ones demolished to make way for the construction of the metro.

Auke Bijlsma10, action group Nieuwmarkt: “The city council did withdraw their plans to make the Nieuwmarkt a street like Wibaut and Weesperstraat. And the neighborhood stayed a living-neighborhood. That’s not too spectacular, but there is an incredible amount of effort behind it between 1975 till now (1997) to rebuild that area. When I show this area to friends from abroad, telling them these buildings are social housing, right next to the city hall, in the center of the city, they just can’t imagine it. It really is a god’s sign. The Netherlands can be proud of that.”

After that the groups moved to the reintegration stage which is a stage where there was a recognition of the collaboration of the two parties in taking care of the neighborhood. What also happened is that each party recognized the other’s strength. The residents acknowledged their own power in protecting the neighborhood and acting as its representative in voicing out its needs but also their weakness in assuming full responsibility for the administration of the place. The municipality also acknowledged their weakness in assuming that they can make structural changes to the neighborhood and the enhanced role the residents need to play in the future for change to happen. The relationship was restored but on new foundations. As a consequence the action group Nieuwmarkt was dismantled and its constitutive institutions incorporated within existing institutions. They lived on in the form of the neighborhood council that aimed to act as the “voice” of the neighborhood and maintain the collaboration with the municipality in order to make sure that any future structural changes to the neighborhood would be agreed together.

10 Direct quote translated from the “Geen buizen maar huizen”, documentary from the RVU, aired in 1997.

1.3 The 70s brigade, the present “voice” of the Nieuwmarkt That brief moment in the 70s when the neighborhood took over the sovereignty from the state, developed a new community that managed themselves, and created a strong bond both between them and with the place they had defined as their own. They “took care” of the neighborhood together and they ultimately saved it from the planned transformation. It was “their” neighborhood because without them there would be no Nieuwmarkt. After the riots were concluded, they felt their ownership acknowledged and validated through the commitments that the municipality made to rebuild the neighborhood in a way that involved the community and no longer put the economic interests above their own.

So, what unites the group of today is not only their participation in Action Group Nieuwmarkt but their commitment to keep the legacy of what was won alive – the residents acting as “the voice” of the neighborhood and working together with the municipality as its caretakers, influencing together economic and social development. Through this caretaker role they cultivate this legitimacy as well as strengthen the bond they have with each other.

These objectives are reflected in the structure and focus of the neighborhood council, the main organization for the residents of the neighborhood. It is a monthly meeting held in the community center Buurtop by the “70s brigade”, where any member of the neighborhood can attend. They have two presidents – Ruud and Lucia - and various work groups that are in charge of various neighborhood topics that they want to monitor and address with the city council or the business community. They a have a wide social network in the neighborhood and they are connected both to the municipality and the business community that asks for their input in various projects they are working on. This is the main “back office” work where the inhabitants gather and exchange information about what is going on in the neighborhood (it is the space that enables them to act later on in the arenas as the “voice” of the neighborhood). Martin, local policeman “The difference between the Neighborhood Council members and the others? Hmm…They have the contacts, people know them… their circle is wider, bigger. And with every problem they are involved or they say I want to get involved – I want to get in the taxi group, in the traffic group…They are always connected to what is going on. If I have a problem in the neighborhood I go to them.”

Ruud, the co-president of the Neighborhood Council, has been in the neighborhood since the 70s and he was an active member in the Action Group Nieuwmarkt. Nowadays, he cannot work as he has a back injury, so he busies himself with community volunteer work. The co-presidency of the Neighborhood

31 council takes a lot of his time, as he takes it very seriously, although he mentions to me a lot of time that it is not an authoritative function but more an enabler for the group to come together and take decisions echoing the defunct structure of Action Group Nieuwmarkt: “It was quite a big organization (Action Group Nieuwmarkt) but it was not organized like this is the chief. Very often were open meetings where people could join. If there are things that need decision we do it with majority in the Bewonersraad [Neighborhood Council]. The rule is that the decisions are taken in the meeting itself. The Bewonersraad exists only when people get together.”

Participation of the municipality in the Neighborhood council is both a validation of the work that the inhabitants are doing as well as a commitment to work together as caretakers of the neighborhood. Moreover the meeting itself acts as an acknowledgement that although they care together (municipality and inhabitants) for the land, the “interpreters” of the needs of the land are the inhabitants. Ruud, “In other neighborhoods the municipality has their own meeting where they invite the inhabitants but not here. The only meeting is the Neighborhood Council. They need to come here. If they would try to set up their own meeting we would not come, I think. There is no need for that. We have the Neighborhood Council.”

The sensitive balance of power over the land between the inhabitants and the municipality rests on the unspoken agreement that the inhabitants are legitimized to “voice” the needs of the neighborhood and the municipality will listen and take their opinion to heart when developing the plans for the neighborhood. This implies a certain level of trust and giving legitimacy on both levels. On one side the municipality legitimizes the inhabitants as the “voice” of the neighborhood and on the other side the inhabitants trust that the municipality will use the data provided properly and develop good plans. The various work groups initiated by the members of the neighborhood council are a reflection of the way they strive to maintain this balance as well as enabling them to act as the voice of the neighborhood. The groups are the “back office” work to the arenas (like the neighborhood council and various municipality forums) where the relationship with the municipality is played out and the balance of legitimacy is kept.

Marieke is part of the traffic group, a group that “is thinking about the circulation in the area and how we can improve it. The municipality did not start it. We did. At the beginning they were not happy to have a plan at all as they thought this is not making them flexible enough. In the traffic groups we consist of components. We work on a plan, we take it to the municipality and they work with us. They are not against us. That’s good because that is not so long ago, everything that was coming out of the residents was not good. We were not experts. Oh no, of course we are, we live here. And we hadn’t the right ideas

32 and the oversight…anyway, the municipality saw that they did not come much further with that attitude and that provoqued a lot of resistance. And I have to pride them for that, they changed their attitude.”

Similar to Ruud, Marieke insists on the cooperation of the municipality with the inhabitants as the key to a good future for the neighborhood and one of the main reasons for preventing the resurgence of the events in the 70s. –“then [in the 70s] the government did not listen, it was very hierarchic. It was not generally known what the plans were. So you had to worm yourself into the procedures of the town hall and it was not easy. What we now have, the dialogue between city hall and the residents is more regulated now. There are fixed procedures now that were not back then. So it was violence or nothing. The rage that we weren’t heard made the community tight. What do we have to do to be heard?”

Collateral to the traffic group are two more activities: the Nieuwmarkt square watch activity, an activity both Dan and Marieke are part of and the “orphan bikes” group that Daan created. I asked Daan to tell me more about it: “Well I started a project with some other guys from here about left bicycles. Other neighborhoods have it too. We call them orphan bicycles – they don’t have parents anymore. We are doing it for a couple of years already and it got a lot better. We go with some people and walk around the neighborhood and every bicycle that seems abandoned gets a green sticker and the owner is warned and of you don’t use it gets a red sticker and after two weeks the municipality comes and takes them away. It’s a great system, works well and everybody is happy.” The square watch group is a group that watches the traffic on in the square. Daan stands up, goes to his kitchen window overlooking the square and makes a gesture pointing towards the traffic “Because you see, people want to do things on the square. Like the businesses put table chairs, the taxi drivers think is a nice place to park their taxi. And we try to keep it empty. The place it’s at its most beautiful when it’s empty. And before you know it is full of many activities. We are now talking about the stands. They have to go at another part of the square. We are talking about no longer cars in front of Albert Heijn or before seven in the evening and also what to do with the parked bikes.”

One of the arenas where the result of the work of these groups is played out is the municipality meeting to agree on the common neighborhood plan for 2016. I met Marieke and Daan there almost one month after our initial discussion. The municipality had invited all the inhabitants to Zuiderkerk in a four hr. meeting combined with a workshop meant to build up common directions for the most important topics – the traffic around the Nieuwmarkt square being one of them. The meeting started with Jana, the coordinator of neighborhood from the municipality presenting the preliminary results of the 2015 plan –

33 the Korte Koningsstraat renovation was one of them - and the main challenges for 2016. Then we were all divided into four groups (out of which one is traffic which I attended) and the workshops started.

I was sitting next to Marieke and Daan in the traffic group. We were about seven people around the table looking into a detailed technical plan of the Nieuwmarkt square. Jana was sitting in front of Marieke. They were discussing a proposal which came out of the traffic group led by Marieke. Jana mentioned it several time during the discussion, as a way to make clear the involvement of the neighborhood. The proposal has to do with a reorganization of the Nieuwmarkt square that would alleviate the traffic in the area. Jana explained to the rest of the group the details: so there will be no traffic allowed on the square, the taxis will only be allowed to stay here – she showed on the map – and only to wait for previously booked orders. They are not allowed anymore to circle the square looking for customers. Then she went on pointing to other changes that they planned to do mentioning also several times that the project is a three month pilot and that they need to monitor together (municipality and residents) if it works. What followed was a fifteen minute discussion over the traffic direction of a small street and the positioning of the benches. Marieke was quiet and only listened, leaving it to Jana to discuss with the other inhabitants. At the end they all agreed on the plan as well as on the need to monitor together the pilot.

What interested me in the discussion was the deep involvement of the residents with the plans – they spent 15 minutes just discussing the traffic of a small street – as well as the collaborative dynamic with the municipality. The collaborative spirit was visible from both sides and I could not help but think in that moment that everybody was acting out a carefully detailed script that had been developed in the backstage for longer time. From the residents’ side this was the culmination of months of discussions, work and influence to choose precisely those topics to be addressed by those specific plans. Similar to the Korte Koningsstraat renovation that had taken years of discussion to finally be put on the plan and executed, the traffic group led by Marieke had spent a lot of time in making the topic a priority and in designing a possible solution. Marieke was silent at the workshop, as for her that was not the time to put things in motion. That was the culmination of all the work they had already done – although it appeared, in the carefully enacted moment – that the traffic problem was resolved, then and there under our eyes by those seven people and the municipality. Both the enactment and the conclusion enforced and strengthened their common legitimacy over the neighborhood.

Another arena where the same enactment is taking place is the neighborhood walk, a key group where the neighborhood council, the municipality and the housing corporations come together and

“patrol” the neighborhood on a regular basis in order to observe irregularities as a group but also to strengthen the communication between them. I first heard of the neighborhood watch from Daan, but later Matias – the local policeman – also mentioned it as one of the best initiatives in the neighborhood so I decided to join.

The neighborhood walk that I joined was at 7 am on a Monday. The meeting point was the old police station next to the Nieuwmarkt square. I hurry to arrive on time and Matias, the local policeman greets me and introduces me to the other members of the team. Daan was not present for that walk but there was another inhabitant that had been living in Waterlooplein for thirty years and another one from de Wallen. There was also a member from the city council and another one from one of the housing corporations. I remember Daan telling me in our first meeting that “you go every time with two other inhabitants and someone from the police, municipality and the housing corporations and you walk a route and you have a small electronic thing and a camera and you can notify what you see and how severe it is about criminals, noise, and dirt. We just started in the summer from March until October and then we do it thirty times here Nieuwmarkt oost, south Wallen, oost and south. There are four regions and every region is visited ten times. There is a group of about twenty-five people so you do it….from the thirty times I do six and there are other people that do the rest.”

We started the tour walking slowly in the quiet morning light. I was surprised by how quiet and intimate the area seemed at that hour. I was walking next to Mat, one of the inhabitants. He was very focused on looking everywhere. He had a digital machine in his hand and the map of the area we were visiting. The others were in front chatting and carefully looking around. After ten minutes he stopped in a small courtyard and showed me some remnants of soft drugs – “Look there have been some tourists here or young people smoking weed”. He quickly called for the others to see and then made a note in his notebook. When I asked him why he called the others he jokingly told me, “This is the main purpose of the walk. That we all agree together that we are seeing the same thing. In the past there were a lot of mixed reports from all sides. That’s why we started the neighborhood walk so that we see everything together at the same time.”

The neighborhood walk is another arena where the enactment of the caretaker role between the inhabitants and the municipality takes place. I could see in the dynamics of the group that the inhabitants show a sense of embodiment of the neighborhood, enacting their position as the “voice” of the neighborhood. In his almost reverent way of engaging with every element of the street and taking charge

35 when he saw something he assumed to be wrong like the remnants of the soft drugs, Mat reminded me of Camiel, cleaning the Korte Koningsstraat street.

We moved forward walking around the canal. Mat and Matias were looking everywhere very carefully. The member of the municipality chatted with the member of the housing corporation following Mat and Matias. We passed by two deserted boats and I saw Matias frown, stop and call everybody. They looked at the boats and then he tells me “See, these are the boats I was telling you about. They did not remove them. We have to ask again”. They had discovered those boats at the last watch and they were supposed to be gone by now. I remember his words from one week before “At the last watch there were a few boats in the water, old abandoned boats half on the water. Furniture dirt. One boat was half sunk. I make a picture and I sent it to Jana from the municipality and she sent it to the water police. Now we have to wait. At the next meeting we check again. We build pressure and it works. You have to be always vigilant.”

During the walk I also heard various stories of problems that they noted and that are now solved, from bigger things like drug consumption in public courtyards to smaller things like a dead tree that needs to be cut and removed, messed up trashcans or street graffiti. As Matias mentioned, “This works because also people from the city council are walking. When someone from the city sees it and writes it down it changes. We have a problem we do something as police. When we see garbage they call the cleaning organization and next day is gone. This is how it works.”

What makes the neighborhood watch successful is that it seems to surpass the complicated framework of interaction between inhabitants, public and private sector humanizing the contact between them and between them and the neighborhood. In walking side by side in the morning, celebrating small victories, like a graffiti that has been cleared and making notes or things to do – like removing the tree, they cultivate and strengthen their responsibility and legitimacy over the land as well as the comradery and common sense of purpose.

I tried to show in this chapter why and how the “70s brigade”, from a deep sense of ownership and commitment, act as the “voice” of the neighborhood steering together with the municipality the administration of the day to day life. In their view, they are the neighborhood and they put many hours at the service of “feeling the pulse” of the neighborhood and making sure the various projects are optimized and serve its needs. As I have already showed before, the relationship works as both sides (municipality and residents) recognize each other’s role to play and in the constant dynamic of

36 renegotiating the “new” they keep the neighborhood on a common agreed trajectory. In the next chapter I will expand this dynamic by including the business environment and more specifically the hotel, restaurant and bar industry.

2. The second fight for the Nieuwmarkt: residents vs. tourism

In the 70s, the business environment (more specifically the plan to transform the residential area into a business one) was the context that ignited the fight between the residents and the municipality. I will show how today, the business environment, in order to be successful needs to integrate itself in the life of the neighborhood as the “3rd cog” in the process of renegotiating the “new” together with the residents and the municipality. The “new” in this case will be represented by the tourism industry that has been growing exponentially year by year and that normally puts the residents and the business environment in opposite corners. I will show, how, by having to adapt and include the residents in their development plans, the business environment ultimately contributes to the development of a more harmonious neighborhood. I will also show what happens when they do not manage to adapt and find a common goal.

In understanding the complex relationship between the residents and the tourism industry I will use James C. Scott concept of “every day resistance”. In the context of power dynamics between unequal social classes, he argues that there has been too much attention focused on larger scale organized resistance (like revolutions and rebellions) and too little on practices of “everyday resistance”. Using the example of peasants dealing with increase in class inequality as a result of capitalism he defines “everyday resistance” as “the prosaic but constant struggle between the peasantry and those who seek to extract labor, food, taxes, rents, and interest from them. Most of the forms this struggle takes stop well short of collective outright defiance. Here I have in mind the ordinary weapons of relatively powerless groups: foot dragging, dissimulation, false-compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, sabotage, and so forth. These Brechtian forms of class struggle have certain features in common. They require little or no co-ordination or planning; they often represent a form of individual self-help; and they typically avoid any direct symbolic confrontation with authority or with elite norms. To understand these commonplace forms of resistance is to understand what much of the peasantry does 'between revolts' to defend its interests as best it can.” (James C. Scott, 1985: pg.29)

By using the concept of “everyday resistance” I would like to explain some tactics that the “70s brigade” use to deal with opposing tourism. Some members of the group that have more political legitimacy (like the groups Marieke, Camiel and Daan are part of) use them less as they have a strong relationship with the municipality and they use that as a primary means to influence policies or economic development targeting tourism. Still, I can point out to a few examples where they also apply everyday resistance: like Camiel, at the opening at the Korte Koningstraat blocking the street and not allowing the

38 tourists in until the celebration is over, or like Daan labeling the “orphan bikes” many of them abandoned by tourists. There are several members of the “70's brigade” that make use more of the “everyday resistance” (like the groups Dana and Chris are part of). They do that as their political influence and network with the municipality is lower. This also creates a division between them and the first group and prevents them from reaching a consensus on projects (I will detail more on this within the chapter).

Social media (like Facebook) is one of the main ways in which they apply resistance. There is a dedicated Facebook page (Groepen uit Amsterdam) that aims to capture the groups of tourists and their impact on the center of the city. Dana, Chris and other residents from the Nieuwmarkt are active contributors. It shows groups in various contexts representative of the main complaints11 the residents have towards the tourists like overcrowding, high noise levels, litter and dangerous traffic situations. The residents take pictures of these situations, post them on the group and comment them together. They use this information as leverage with the municipality to complain about specific situations or projects. It is a way both to monitor the touristic pressure on the neighborhood as well as make fun and through sarcasm alleviate the frustration of the increasingly difficult maintenance of a normal day to day life.

In the next chapter I will detail these two ways in which the “70's brigade” deal with economic developments related to tourism and how they use the relationship with the municipality as a springboard to protect their interests. I will show how the sub group that has more political legitimacy influences policies and economic development in the area. I will also show how the subgroup with less political legitimacy uses “every day resistance” and at times openly challenge the municipality through petitions and other group actions. Their combined efforts lead to positive results because the “day to day resistance” is being complemented by a strong relationship and influence with the municipality and their way of working. It also works because their actions are enacted within a system that recognizes that the residents have similar rights as the business environment and the role of the municipality to act as an intermediary between them.

11 Municipality neighborhood survey 2015

2.1 Long Stay, No way. The No SoHo group and the hotel ban

There are more than 25,000 hotel rooms in the city center of Amsterdam, and with the increase in tourism they are only projected to increase in the following years. A dedicated Facebook page, a twitter account, a YouTube channel, multiple demonstrations, media campaigns and a petition signed by more than 1,000 residents of the Nieuwmarkt; through all of this the neighborhood rallied two years ago (2013) and got the municipality to reject the SoHo hotel project aimed to come to the Nieuwmarkt (Ramgracht) in 2015. Although there was a similar group in New York protesting the opening of the SoHo House, the Nieuwmarkt group was the only successful one. Moreover, as the municipality also confirmed12, "SOHO House is the last hotel in the Nieuwmarktbuurt that had been given a chance; says councilor Boudewijn Orange (D66), "now there is a hotel stop in the Nieuwmarkt.”

Originally from London, The SoHo House is an international exclusive club based on membership. It has eleven offices in seven popular cities around the world, among which include: Chicago, Istanbul, Berlin, Hollywood and New York. The SoHo House had planned for a long time a location in Amsterdam and thought to have finally found it through the real estate businessman Paul Geertman. Geertman had purchased the “Schelter-church” a beautiful historical building on Ramgracht and thought it to be the best location to rent for the Soho House. Well, that is until he came face to face with the local residents.

SoHo House has indicated that they want to reside in the city center of Amsterdam after an invitation from Carolien Gehrels (Councilor ‘Culture central city’, PvdA). Gehrels saw the SOHO House in New York, noticed the economic importance of the exclusive club for the city and invited them to come to Amsterdam. Some political representatives from the beginning were positive about the plans to let the SoHo House reside on the Raamgracht. "The revenues from high-quality tourism contribute to the economic prosperity of the city. There is the money. We want to be in the top 5 most important creative cities of Europe, a creative image attracts visitors with money," says councilor Boudewijn Orange (D66)13.

Returning to the SoHo house project, Geertman claims he had tried several times to enter a discussion with the neighborhood. "Other big cities tend to have several important centers. Amsterdam does not, this is the cultural heart of the city," says Geertman14, "We have sought the dialog with the neighborhood to compensate for the objections. We tried to explain that SoHo House adapts to the

12 Direct quote translated from the article “Baby Boomer vs Soho House” from the neighborhood magazine Opnieuw (Issue 1, 2014, pg. 5). See direct link for reference: http://issuu.com/opnieuw/docs/opnieuw_2014.01a 13 Ibid 12 14 Ibid 12

40 environment. That there are large differences between the different establishments across the world. We have contacted the representatives [of the neighborhood] several times for a call. But after a first call in October, in which we informed them that the initiative was coming, they were not interested in consultation. Apparently they had already drawn their own conclusions since day one."

Roos Lubbers, one of the residents and the main force behind action task NOSOHO, sees it differently15: "For the inner-city there is a hotel restriction, unless a hotel offers a unique concept that contributes to the environment. Local residents would not even have been able to enter the club, but would have been suffering under the nuisance. We have had consultations with Geertman. He came to create a foundation for cooperation, but he knew everything better and did not want to listen to us. It was a bad plan for the neighborhood. This is one of the last silent parts of the Nieuwmarkt. The hip creative party-goers would have caused nuisance on the streets, and think of the extra traffic because of all taxis and suppliers, who would have had to be driving along these small canals”.

Geertman and the residents had come together to discuss the coming of the Soho hotel at The Zuidekerk on Sint Antoniesbreestrat. This is the location normally used for larger scale interactions between the business environment and the residents or between the municipality and the residents. This is where I witnessed the development of the 2016 year plan for the neighborhood between the residents and the municipality and the traffic project on the Nieuwmarkt square. However, far from being a collaborative meeting, this encounter served to seal the irreparable differences between the residents’ objectives and the commercial plan. Patrick van Gerwen16 notes: “There is an ‘activist atmosphere’. It is the same generation that, in the seventies, prevented the destruction of the old neighborhood and replacement by offices by the city-council. Now they come together not with home-made telephone systems but via the internet, which results in a high attendance tonight. And although there are no people throwing stones, the feelings are strong and they are yelling and screaming. Banners with SOHOdemieter and NOSOHO are being distributed. Geertman is being ‘boo-ed’ away. He is trying, with a tired, irritated look to bring some rest to the room.”

It is difficult to find a win-win situation as the hotel project is hitting right at the core of the residents concern that it will stimulate more floods of tourists and accelerate the transformation of the

15 Direct quote translated from the article “Baby Boomer vs Soho House” from the neighborhood magazine Opnieuw (Issue 1, 2014, pg. 5). See direct link for reference: http://issuu.com/opnieuw/docs/opnieuw_2014.01a 16 Ibid 15

41 neighborhood into “an amusement park”. New hotels, no matter the concept, are a “no-go” for the residents as they see it as a sure way to only accelerate the number of tourists.

Lubbers17 echoes this point: We are not against SOHO House, we are against SOHO House here. The Nieuwmarkt is ‘flooded’. Let them go to the North, that place is super in favor to these kinds of initiatives. Imagine that SOHO House would not have caused any nuisance and I doubt that, since the plan was that it would be a huge club that had to make money by getting as many visitors as possible, then still it is risky to grant a hotel-permit. What would have happened with that hotel-permit when SOHO House would be gone, what would be in their place to come? The tourism takes over the cities, everything is thus the same, neighborhoods lose their character and the people who live there need to make room for visitors.”

Despite the not so positive results of trying to make sense with the neighborhood residents Geertman, tried extensively to convince the municipality to approve the SoHo project especially since it was aligned to the municipality’s objective to move away from mass tourism and encourage more high quality tourism. Orange18: "SoHo House would only come to Amsterdam, if they would be able to be in the City-center. If not, then they depart to a different city. That would be a financial setback for Amsterdam. We try to attract a different type of tourism to this area. A public that wants the ‘Rijksmuseum’, not an Argentine steakhouse”

Geertman19 recognizes the resident’s frustration towards the high influx of tourism but he argues that the Soho House would not have done that. Lubbers in turn directs to media information of the SoHo House protests in other countries that contradict Geert man’s claims. In the end the municipality ruled in favor of the residents and Geertman claims this had partly to do with the elections.

"I have had positive discussions with all parties in the district. But, apparently, some parties still changed their minds after those conversations. That the district council ultimately was against it, has –in my opinion- to do with the election campaign. The parties knew very well that SoHo House would not have caused increased tourist-traffic, they did not make their decision based on facts, but based on emotions of residents. SoHo House is the victim of a group of eighty campaigners who reacted to feelings of discontent about the huge influx of tourists. SoHo House would not even have been responsible for the

17Direct quote translated from the article “Baby Boomer vs Soho House” from the neighborhood magazine Opnieuw (Issue 1, 2014, pg. 5). See direct link for reference: http://issuu.com/opnieuw/docs/opnieuw_2014.01a 18Ibid 17 19 Ibid 17

42 increase in the area. The activists have twisted the facts and consistently displayed a wrong image in the media of what SoHo House would do. This way, only a few people determine the town agenda by using improper arguments, and that is bad for Amsterdam.” Because the restriction of the sale was that the district would agree with a license for SoHo House, the deal was called off. Except for the ‘VVD’ [political party] which is split up, all parties were against the arrival of the SoHo house. "We can now start all over again." says Geertman.

Lubbens20 concludes: "That the district council has listened to the inhabitants of the Nieuwmarkt, is its democratic duty. Politicians are there to represent us, the voters, not international society clubs like SoHo House. Previously we stopped the arrival of the DROOG Design hotel with society club in the old GGD-building. It is, in our view, enough with the commercialization of this neighborhood.”

Once again the residents of the Nieuwmarkt have made their voices known and that combined with the strong relationship they have with the municipality (and the timing of the new elections) helped them make a success out of this case. Still their influence stops at the border of Ramgracht. There are signs21 indicating that the Soho House will be coming to the center of Amsterdam in 2017 on the Spuistraat, in the neighbor district of the Nieuwmarkt, brought by the same development agency that Nieuwmarkt managed to fight back against. This initiative combined with others like the W hotel in the Kasbak building or the new hotel on J.P. Heijestraat/Borgerstraat means that more than three hundred hotel rooms are planned in the near future in the neighbor district of Nieuwmarkt. The residents there are gathering forces to oppose it – there is an action group called “Long Stay- No Way” 22 that has already gathered seven hundred signatures, and is very active on social media in a similar way as the No SoHo group. The Nieuwmarkt residents are also supporting it, although not from a front seat. The future has yet to see whether they will meet with the same success as the No SoHo initiative did, but it makes clear that the dissatisfaction with tourism expansion and the drive to protect their own is not just happening in the Nieuwmarkt neighborhood.

If when it comes to hotel building the residents have a common voice in opposing it, the development of new terraces and restaurants is not so clear cut. If it’s clear that a new hotel can only

20 Direct quote translated from the article “Baby Boomer vs Soho House” from the neighborhood magazine Opnieuw (Issue 1, 2014, pg. 5). See direct link for reference: http://issuu.com/opnieuw/docs/opnieuw_2014.01a 21 See article for reference: http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/140213/soho_house_na_protest_naar_bungehuis_op_spuistraat 22 See Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/longstaynoway?fref=ts

43 benefit the ever increasing tourism and bring only nuisance to the residents, a new terrace, bar or event could have a dual purpose of benefiting the residents while at the same time catering to the tourists. By focusing on the Nieuwmarkt square and its future – the traditional commercial heart of the neighborhood for residents and tourists – the next sub chapter aims to show that is possible for the residents to agree to and contribute to commercial development when this is done in a manner respectful of their role as citizens.

2.2 The Nieuwmarkt square and its terraces. United in a common goal

The Nieuwmarkt square, neighboring Zeedijk and the Red light district, has always been the commercial heart of the Nieuwmarkt neighborhood. The square was created when the canals around the Waag were filled in 1614, and was used historically as a marketplace. Today, the square is dominated by a large building called de Waag, originally a gate in the medieval city walls but converted into a weighing house after the walls were demolished in the 17th century; at the present time it has a restaurant on the ground floor and a few office spaces on the top two floors. The square is mostly a pedestrian space except for the Saturday organic food market and the Sunday flea market. It is surrounded by approximately twenty cafes and coffee shops populated with an equal mix of tourists and inhabitants.

Tom, the owner of the Yellow cafe says: “There is little movement with the commercial spaces here and we like it this way. People that come here, they stay. And because of the round shape of the square we are all confronted with each other every day I have been here with my café for twenty one years and I know everybody. Of course once in a while we get new people but I can usually tell the ones that will leave from the ones that will stay. You need to have patience, stay small and not run after the fast money. This area does not change. And we like it that way.”

Tom is also the president of the square business organization (Ondernemerverenigingen), an organization that gathers together all the businesses in the square. He does not live in the Nieuwmarkt but his daughters and his aunt did. Listening to him talk about running a business in the Nieuwmarkt it’s clear that he both cares for the square and is aware of the importance of being legitimized by the residents and having them on board when starting initiatives.

From a purely commercial point of view, the square could be exploited in multiple ways with many events to drive traffic from the Red Light District and Central Station. Nevertheless, the main event on the square today (next to the traditional Christmas & New Year’s) is the April Fest. This is a commercial festival organized by a Nieuwmarkt resident and which aims to bring together residents and tourists alike in a spring celebration. In applying for an event on the square every business has to follow a procedure that allows the residents the framework to oppose it if they don’t like it. As s one member of the municipality responsible for events tells me, “according to the municipality policy all applications for permits with over 100 visitors are published on the website of the municipality so that any stakeholder (especially the residents) can give his/her view on the application.” Little happens in the square without the residents knowing about it as in addition to the official structure the residents have developed structures of their own.

Through the square watching group and neighborhood walk (of which both Daan and Marieke are part of) the residents watch the square and report to the municipality any irregularities (e.g. noise after a certain hour, belligerent tourist groups, illegal bikes or cars on the square). Through the various Facebook groups23 the residents also draw attention to each other through pictures or comments on things that they disapprove of. Through the traffic group (of which I talked more extensively in the previous chapter) Marieke and Daan managed to influence the municipality and the business community to start a three month pilot program to stop the car traffic on the square. The objective of the pilot is to clean up the square and make it more livable. Although it has its downsides (especially when it comes to lack of taxis and loading and unloading supplies which will be restricted to the morning) the project met also with the approval of the businesses around the square because of the improved foot traffic and the long term possibility of getting more space for tables. This is one of the projects where the residents and the business community were united in a common goal – to make their living & business conditions in the neighborhood better.

Reaching a common goal is instrumental to the success of a new business endeavor. With their strong involvement in the neighborhood life, there is little chance of anything happening in the square without the residents knowing about it. Their encouragement or disapproval is the cornerstone for the success or failure of that business. Tom, who is planning to open a fish market soon, knows this very well, “We are now planning for some time to organize a fish market here in the square. Is nothing new, we just want to revive an old tradition – here in the 1930’s every Friday was a fish market. We will do market tasting, entertainment and information on sustainable fish catching. It’s all about informing people about sustainable fish catching. We did it already in 2011 as a pilot, one day only, and people liked it. We are 15 entrepreneurs in the plan. We also took 2-3 people from the neighborhood council in a little committee. They were enthusiastic about the idea, and we told them come and participate so you can have your say about what we are doing. This is the way to do it with the city hall, once the residents are ok. And we got a subsidy from them and we are starting the fish market in May”.

Tom approached the development of the fish market initiative including residents from the 70s brigade (like Ruud and Daan) in the development plans but also building it as an event targeting the residents and reviving an old tradition of the square. In this way the residents felt included and their status in the neighborhood legitimated. They saw it as an honest business endeavor that benefited their lives

23 Like: Groepen uit Amsterdam, Nieuwmarktbuurt Bewoners, Nieuwmarkt Buurt, I love Nieuwmarktbuurt, Je komt uit de Nieuwmarktbuurt als...

46 and the square and was not there just to attract tourists. As Daan lives right at the corner of the square and is part of most of the groups concerning the square he is well aware of Tom’s plans with the fish market. When I talk to him about it he shows just a mild concern with respect to the potential traffic to the square that the fish market might generate, which is an overarching concern of the residents. Other than that he seems not to oppose it. Tom also acknowledges that being part of the community himself and his history with the residents helped build the trust climate necessary to support his business ideas. “This experience [the fish market] has a certain authenticity for me as I am also living here. If I would be an events coordinator who is coming from the outside…this is really from the inside, this is how it works. You try to organize stuff and then you bring other people interested with the knowledge to make it happen. It has power because I am here. I work here. The other people are outsiders. And I put time and effort and go to meetings that sometimes are boring and boring…I go there for 1 hr. or 2 hr...it cannot always be rock and roll. Sometimes, you have to sit there, get the papers with you do some emailing and that’s it. It shows them that you are there with them that you are one of them.”

In Tom’s view, getting validated and accepted as one of them or sharing common objectives is the way to move commercial plans further to be accepted by the municipality and making them a reality. In order to get this validation he is investing time and effort, “The key to success is not to be too greedy. Keep the balance. It’s a city village, let’s keep it like that. We have all kinds of people coming here and I don’t make a distinction between them. The residents, the tourists, they all enjoy the square. Tourists come from the red light district and they can breathe here because of the empty square. If you give people more space they can relax. But also because of the terraces, people also feel looked at, feel observed – that’s why is not sex drugs and rock & roll.”

When he talks about greediness and patience and the reason why new entrepreneurs fail in the square Tom refers to keeping the sensitive dynamic between being seen as an entrepreneur but also as part of the local community. It takes time to build relationships with the residents and to understand their role in how the square and its opportunities are managed. Once this is understood, it needs to also sink in that in looking at them not only as customers but also as partners, you as an entrepreneur build a more sustainable business long term. It seems like an easy thing to achieve but it took Tom twenty one years of doing business in the neighborhood to build up that connection.

2.3 Sint Antoniesbreestraat and the Skylight café. The future is prosperous

The 21 years knowledge that Tom has built is what Petra, Ana and Ben, the owners of the newly opened Skylight café in Sint Antoniesbreestraat are starting to learn. Sint Antoniesbreestraat is a long and narrow residential street connecting the Nieuwmarkt Square to Waterlooplein. This street, the way we see it today, is a child of the 70's that took the brunt of the fight for the neighborhood. In order for the metro line to be built, almost all of the houses on Sint Antoniesbreetraat (with the exception of the Pinto Huis and a small archway from the 15th century) were demolished, the people that squatted some of them thrown out and the official residents reallocated to other neighborhoods.

Today, like all Nieuwmarkt, Sint Antoniesbreetraat is going through a process of gentrification and business development. The business community, the housing corporations and the municipality are aiming to develop it into a commercial corridor that should guide the visitors from the Nieuwmarkt square and Zeedijk to Waterlooplein. This is part of a wider municipality effort to alleviate the touristic pressure from the city center and distribute them more evenly throughout the city. Nevertheless, the street is still far away from these ambitions. It is still mostly a residential area made up of the social houses and a few shops – some with tourist souvenirs, others with clothes, records – and one restaurant.

Peter has a similar function as Tom – he is the manager of the business community on Sint Antoniesbreestraat. He has two shops in the street – selling records – and believes the commercial future of the street lies in developing more shops that can target both tourists and residents and connecting it to the commercial corridor between the Nieuwmarkt square and the Rembrandt Huis. Similar to Tom, he has been here a long time and understands the role of the residents as well as tries to balance that with the tourism potential, “This part of the street, drug business, and souvenir shops we don’t like it. People don’t come for shopping here. Damrak is full of horeca24 and souvenir shops but Amsterdammers don’t come there, it’s only for tourists. And we don’t want to be a neighborhood only for tourists. We want to have mixed functions, shops for people out of the neighborhood. We don’t mind tourists. More than half of the revenues are from tourists. “

Nevertheless, while being open to the residents and having a good relationship with them, he also recognizes that Sint Antoniesbreestraat has a special situation due to the social houses and this at times can conflict with new commercial development and the direction the street is taking. “When I opened the

24 an abbreviation used in Scandinavia, Benelux and France for the sector of the food industry that consists of establishments which prepare and serve food and beverages (food service). The term is a syllabic abbreviation of the words Hotel/Restaurant/Café

48 shop I invited the neighbors over and they liked it because they said it is not about drugs or souvenirs so they think it’s good for the neighborhood as it is attracting the right people. They were positive. We have some struggles because they live in the middle of the city but they want to live very quiet. They have a problem they live here for a long time in the social housing, they have very restricting means - low salary or social benefits. They see the rent is growing but they have nowhere to go in the city but they don’t want to go outside because it’s their neighborhood. They have their friends. But there is a conflict between the people that want to grow their business and the residents. You can’t live with the neighborhood anymore with the price points. And the tourists can help compensate that. There is a lot of potential to develop the street. The tourists come here and they get surprised. The only thing they see is that this part of the street is not shopping street but if you go a bit in front there is a shopping street. Sint Antoniesbreetraat is a missing link. So they go around the street – they come from the dam and go to the Rembrandt huis. They don’t use this street as it is not attractive as it looks like a residential area.”

When Petra, Ana and Ben, three young entrepreneurs decided to take over the former bakery that had gone bankrupt and opened the Skylight café, they did not know much about what makes Nieuwmarkt and more specifically Sint Antoniesbreestraat special. They came with the idea that it was a great opportunity for a business since both the municipality and the business community wanted to transform the residential street in a commercial space and the Skylight cafe was a good contribution to that.

I first met Petra when I started my fieldwork. I spent a lot of time in the Pinto Huis observing people and organizing my schedule and the Skylight café was where I used to buy my daily lunch from. It is a nice (albeit expensive) cozy store that has a bit of everything: food – on the spot and on the go (salads, sandwiches and bakery goods), t-shirts and bags, coffee, jam and tea.

We are sitting at one of the five tables in the store. Petra says: “The center is controlled by few and it lacks opportunity. We just thought the spot is good. The municipality wants to elevate the tourists and the businesses here so they support us and find important that the tourists walk to Artis [the Amsterdam Zoo]. The building belongs to the housing corporation Woonzorg and it was a bakery before that went bankrupt. So the destination of the building was a shop. We rent it from them and the business organization of the street said in 2011 we are going to see if we can make the street more alive. In 2013 we came and we said can we put a bit more tables and turn it into a cafe and then they supported us to ask for a horeca license from the municipality. When you get a horeca license you get automatically the outside permit as well and we can function as a terrace which today is not possible.”

Today the Skylight café functions as a mixed store, small restaurant and event space. They do a bit of everything, trying to find their way. Their customers are mainly tourists, occasionally students and local people when they organize events like birthdays, book signings. With the bar license they hope to do more events. Their plans seem to be in development and the purpose of the place is not yet clearly laid out, which is somewhat understanding as they are young entrepreneurs making experiments and trying to see what sells better in this location. After half a year in the neighborhood functioning as a shop and limited contact to the residents, they decided to apply for the bar license and communicate it to the residents.

Dana, one of the members of the “70's brigade” says, “The last baker wasn't too good, not surprising he went bankrupt. We all hoped that another baker would take his place. Instead this Skylight appeared. Personally, the first months I had no idea what it was, and I never felt like walking in. The opening party was hell for the people who live in the narrow Snoekjessteeg, I heard. A very noisy party, doors and windows wide open, without any warning or any previous information. In November the owners came with new plans, presenting them in such a clumsy way, that every neighbor had a different scary story to tell. After weeks of confusion the owners finally distributed a letter presenting their plans that confirmed most of what had been going around. They were applying for a bar license. This means more noise and tourists in our already crowded street.”

I first met Dana at the Neighborhood council meeting that was aimed to discuss the 2016 plans of the municipality for the neighborhood. She lives right above the Skylight café in one of the social houses and has been one of the people more involved in opposing the project. Dana was trying to gather support in the neighborhood council with the petition that the neighborhood started in order to oppose the license allocation. She is supported by a small and determined group of people mostly residents of Sint Antoniesbreestraat. Petra tell me several times that she does not understand the source of their opposition: “Honestly I don’t understand them. Why they are so angry. They live in this beautiful neighborhood and they are so angry. We are just young people working our ass off trying to make a living.”

It was not until I met Matias, another one of the neighbors of the Skylight café, that I understood better why part of the neighborhood had become so distrustful of the little café and its three owners. In the crowded café where we met Matias makes a vague sign pointing in the direction of the Sint Antoniesbreetraat, “Look, here was a bakery before. They were here for 20 years and then one day they went bankrupt. I liked the guy although I did not buy the bread from him, honestly it was not very good. But I liked him so I remember hiding my bread every time I passed by the bakery to go up to my apartment.

I did not want the guy to feel bad. This new guy [Ben, one of the owners of the Skylight cafe], at the beginning I liked him, I wanted to give him a chance, they are young people trying to make a living, I thought. But then, I see him lying to us and behaving as if the street was all his. Every day he brings his car to the Skylight café entrance – although he should not park there - and he pretends the car is broken and he opens the hood to check it out and if anyone asks he says it is broken. Every day. Sometimes I take pictures just to amuse myself. And in the municipality meeting he stands and claps in agreement when they propose to take the parking spots out of the street to make room for space for the inhabitants. He thinks we are stupid and do not see it but we do. One of the neighbors went there and asked him about his plans with the bakery pretending she did not know anything (but in reality I had showed her the night before their business plan to apply for a horeca license) and he told her, no we are just planning to put a few tables in the front, there is no horeca license. So then I went to him and I said we are done. I don’t trust you.”

Matias lives right above the Skylight café, also in a social house. He has been living there for twenty five years and he feels attached to the street as well as its fellow inhabitants. With the Skylight café – and mainly its owner – he feels that his validity and rights as an inhabitant are not being respected. “He says – with Skylight, we are going to bring safety to the neighborhood. Yeah, who are you to give safety to us? We survived everything – well is not a war zone – here, so is very arrogant for him to say this.”

This is an example of the “day to day resistance” that this group had been developing against the Skylight cafe (monitoring their daily activity, engaging in conversation as a way to unmask bad faith practices). I have also observed myself as a member of the “Groupen uit Amsterdam” Facebook page, several members posting pictures from the café as well as keeping each other in the know of the status of the procedures to get the license. This resistance is generated by both distrust in the owners as well as in the municipality (as this particular group does not have the same strong connections to the municipality as the ones Marieke and Daan are part of).

Matias makes it clear that he distrusts the owners and their ability to respect and live in peace with the neighbors. “It’s frustrating you know, because you want to have a neighbor that you trust and you go by his shop and buy a cake and a cup of coffee, and with them is not possible”. He trusts the power of the neighbors to show their validity and fight off what they consider injustice “He [the owner] underestimates us and now he has a big problem. There was another café just like that, they got the

51 license and then the neighbors started complaining about noise and other nuisances. At the end they had to leave.”

Chris, another member of the group opposing the Skylight café lives in one of the many social houses on Sint Antoniesbreetraat and invests a lot of his personal time in taking care of the street and protecting it from the tourists and from the further development of horeca which he feels are detrimental to the inhabitants living in the social houses. Although he did not take part in the riots, he feels a strong solidarity with the values of the fight and the need to keep the street mixed. During the time he has been living in the neighborhood his status has not changed but he feels the neighborhood has, with more gentrified houses and horeca happening in his street and less attention from the municipality and the corporations to the inhabitants of the social houses and their needs. He feels slowly being pushed out of his own neighborhood and denied his rights by people that seek money and profit, which is a strong opposition to the agreement made after the riots. He sees himself as a representative for the people living in the social houses on the street, taking initiative (like the petition against the Skylight cafe) even when he is not directly affected (like the people living above the café – for example Matias and Dana).

Chris references the past many times as an ideal state in comparison to the present state of the Sint Antoniesbreetraat by voicing his frustration of not managing to get more support behind the action from both the other members of the community as well as the municipality. “They [the municipality] are too much interested only in money. They support the Skylight café and the housing organization because they care more about money than us. Only when we protest they pay attention. Like in the 70's” He is also indirectly criticizing the way Marieke and the other similar residents deal with taking care of the neighborhood “the difference …between 20 years ago, that this is of course a luxury area now. It used to be only squats 20 years ago…30 years I have to say actually. So you get spoilt people that have to do actions and this is always so difficult…” but at the same time he shows faith in the residents and their ability to rally against outsiders, “so the action [the protest against the licensing of the Skylight cafe] is moving slow. But I think that at the same time, the resistance is so big that the council is doubting the owner and how to move forward. They feel that there is more tension than they had hoped for and they are not happy with the situation.”

Unlike the opposing of the Soho hotel which gathered the support of the entire neighborhood the Skylight café seems to be more polarized. Except for Dana and the core group of opposing neighbors, the rest of the neighborhood seems to be either in agreement or not really having a position for the little café. When I ask Marieke and Daan they shrug their shoulders: “Yes I heard about them trying to get the license

52 and I think is not bad. They seem like nice young people and Sint Antoniesbreestraat needs more stores that don’t sell only tourist souvenirs. It’s a small café like the many we have in the Nieuwmarkt square. It will not draw “the hoards” of tourists like a hotel does. ” Although she is not directly saying it, part of Marieke’s` uninvolvment with the action has to do with the direct manner in which it is opposing the municipality as most of the neighborhood projects she is part of try to influence the municipality in a more subtle way.

Chris was the one that gave me the news that the Skylight café after a few months of back and forth between the residents and the municipality managed to finally get the license. The municipality says they have reached a good compromise with the neighborhood by limiting the opening time until 7pm and limiting the license to the current contract so that the housing corporation that leased the place to the Skylight café cannot pass the license to any future owners.

Ana, member of the center district board, says “Normally we cannot do this with such a contract but we agreed with the housing company that they would do it in the renting contract with the Skylight cafe. But of course the neighborhood was afraid and some of them still are that it will bring noise. But what they ask us…people think that when do they not like that we can stop anything but we cannot. And the neighborhood is not only the people that are living behind Sint Antoniesbreestrat the street is a cross, there are a lot of tourists walking there and for them it’s an interesting place. But of course it’s better when the neighborhood people sit there too. I am not so sure whether the Skylight is a company that is not targeting the neighborhood. Because you are right, supposing that when people are not interested in the neighborhood but just in their profit it will not work. Like a café that says it’s difficult enough to run a café, because a lot of people in horeca think when we send 100 beers in a minute I will get rich….so the first thing they are not doing anymore is having no contact with the neighborhood. And when you are a company that is there making noise and taking room you do that when you are prepared to have a good relationship with the surrounding. And I think that these people they want that. And that’s why they are not a good example of a company you should fight. And I can imagine the neighborhood is afraid but I am sure in one year it will be fine.”

The trust the municipality and Marieke and Daan’s group has placed in the owners of the small café is not yet reflected with Dana and her group. Although the license is out, they have not given up as both Chris and Matias said they are monitoring the Skylight café in the hope of holding them accountable for any breach in the agreement that they have signed. When the first tables were put outside, only hours

53 away they put pictures of them on the Facebook page of the neighborhood and commented on the space they occupied and the mess and noise they would bring.

As Scott also mentions, the importance of “everyday resistance” is that it “narrows the policy options available” influencing the decision making process. It did not lead to Skylight being denied license but it did lead to the municipality restricting their opening times and the license to this particular group of owners. It also leads to the influence of the long term development of the café as the owners know (or will eventually know) that they are being constantly watched by the residents and this social pressure will influence their own decision making process.

I have shown in this chapter on one side how the residents split themselves in two different groups when dealing with economic development depending on the type of relationship they have with the municipality. I have also shown various ways in which they oppose or influence economic developments and also the critical role of the municipality as an enabler of these actions. The municipality offers the platform as well as enables the dialogue or debate between the residents and the business environment and this is instrumental to this process.

Former politician Merry explains it further: “I said when I was a politician I don’t want the people with money and big mouth to be in charge. This is a very busy city. It has a narrow footpath. It is not built for the 21st century but still everybody loves it, everybody wants its place here. Everybody is fighting each other for the place. My task as a politician is that nobody loses. That everybody…must keep fighting …but if one wins, if business wins you lose the soul of the city but if business loses you also lose something. And sometimes you think, in this administration, the business is more powerful or they think too easy that business is in the center. Especially the horeca always wants more space, more hours, and easier business. They are the one who are really difficult for the residents to live with. Them and the hotels. The noise in the streets, the terraces…the hotels. The administration after me said let them find a solution together but it did not work. And I am not surprised because there are so much money involved and the residents want to sleep and the business wants to make money. So you need an administration that restricts the horeca because the interests are so big. One table at a terrace with four chairs is 35.000 euros a year. So how can you say I don’t want you to have this table because I want to sleep? So you need the administration to restrict it.”

Merry understands this dynamic as she has been both a politician working for the municipality, as well as an active resident from the Nieuwmarkt (she came here in the 70s and raised her family here). She

54 echoes from a different angle the same conclusions Marieke and the other members of the 70's brigade told me in the aftermath of the 70's riots. Only through participation and constant negotiation between the residents-businesses-municipality can the neighborhood accommodate tourism while at the same time keeping its social frame intact and avoid being pushed out. In these negotiations, given the importance the municipality gives them, the residents have a strong position which puts them on a more equal ground with the business community.

Chapter 3. Amsterdam Marketing – the tourist whisperer

I have shown in the first two chapters how the residents in the Nieuwmarkt deal with the changes happening in their neighborhood as a result of an increase in tourism. By using the relationship they have built with the municipality they manage to actively influence economic processes triggered by tourism and “protect” the residential space of the neighborhood. As a result, they are not merely a receptacle for accommodating tourism related activities, rather, they have an active power in influencing the nature of those activities.

In this last chapter I will analyze the marketing mechanism responsible for the generation of tourism- Amsterdam Marketing. By applying Braun’s (2013) definition on the role of residents in participative marketing processes I will show how in the strategy of Amsterdam Marketing the residents, like tourists, are seen as consumers of the city, while businesses are seen as strategic partners to collaborate with. In this sense, there is a distance between the way Amsterdam Marketing sees residents and what I have observed in the Nieuwmarkt. I will argue that this distance perpetuates not only the perceived tourism imbalance but also the credibility of Amsterdam Marketing in front of one of their target groups: residents.

3.1. Amsterdam Marketing and the residents as national visitors

“Who brings the tourists to the Nieuwmarkt? Well, Amsterdam Marketing. And they are doing too much of a good job. They need to stop. We don’t need more tourists, the city center is full of them.” I have heard Chris’s comment also from other residents during my three months in the Nieuwmarkt. I have seen it written in magazines (like the neighborhood magazine Opnieuw or various Amsterdam newspapers like Het Parool). I have even heard it, albeit in a different way from the marketing director of Amsterdam Marketing, Mrs. Geerte Udo herself: “It’s a huge thing in Amsterdam - that there are too many tourists. They ask us now to demarket the city. They are right. That is our biggest challenge at the moment.”

I remember the first time I came to the office of Amsterdam Marketing “I get out of the elevator and right in front of me is the reception area. It is a neutral space, painted in grey and white. What draws my eyes is the big stand of magazines that highlights some of their most important products: the magazines A-mag, Uitkrant and AMS Business Magazine. They each represent one of the company’s main target groups: tourists, inhabitants and businesses. The reception area is quiet. I tell the receptionist about my arrival as I wait next to her desk, for my appointment with Mrs. Udo – the marketing director of Amsterdam Marketing. While I wait I go again through the list of questions I have about the organization and their connection to my research. I am very excited, as I have been trying to reach Mrs. Udo for quite some time, and I have finally managed two months into my fieldwork, with the help of one of the UvA marketing professors who is also part of the Advisory Board currently supporting Amsterdam Marketing. I hope she will be able to help me make sense of how they service residents, tourists and businesses and how different this dynamic is versus what I have observed so far in the Nieuwmarkt.”

From the beginning of my master thesis I had tried to get in contact with Amsterdam Marketing – the marketing department of the municipality of Amsterdam responsible for driving tourism to Amsterdam – and especially the team that is responsible for residents. Considering all the negative press surrounding the tourism pressure on residents, I thought that Amsterdam Marketing would be interested in diving deeper into how residents relate to tourism. I thought it could help them in their search for a solution to the tourism-residents imbalance. At the beginning my aim was to work together and have a stronger applied angle to my research, but after several attempts to discuss this with them it became clear that it would not happen so I tried to gain access to their administration to understand how they work with residents, and especially those in the Nieuwmarkt.

After several emails and follow ups I received an answer from one of the members of the team that is responsible for programs targeting residents. “One of the goals of Amsterdam Marketing is to spread visitors more over the different neighborhoods in Amsterdam (because the pressure on the city center is already really high). Besides that we also want to involve inhabitants of Amsterdam more with their own neighborhood or the other neighborhoods of Amsterdam. For the inhabitants of Amsterdam we started in 2013 with the “24h events” (24h Noord, Oost, South, and West). During the 24h events museums, hotels, shops, libraries, restaurants, theatres etc. organize special activities. We are continuing these events in 2015.” Furthermore I learned that they do not have activities specifically in the center (where Nieuwmarkt is classified) as they want to incentivize “consumption” of other less trafficked neighborhoods (like Noord, Oost, South and West). So by means of the “24h events” they want to incentivize the Nieuwmarkt residents to be “tourists” in their own city and “discover” other neighborhoods.

Peter, one of residents of Sint Antoniesbreestraat reacts in an almost offended way when I ask him about his consumption of cultural events and what he thinks of the 24h events. “Yes I heard of the 24h events. It’s one more event for the tourists I think. And we have plenty of those in Amsterdam. Mm… when I want to visit something in the city I normally find out from a friend or Facebook or the newspaper or...I don’t know…I find it funny that they say they are making us consume more city culture. How do they know I don’t consume culture on my own? It’s silly really. Like we are kids that don’t know what to do with our time. They should spend the tax money on something more useful.” He feels he is treated as a tourist and not a resident. It reminds me of the distrustful attitude of Matias towards the owners of the Skylight café claiming that the café would protect them and the street would be less dangerous. I asked several of my informants whether they have joined the 24h events and none of them gave me a positive answer (and with some of them not even knowing of their existence). There seems to be a unanimous opinion amongst the people that I have talked to that Amsterdam Marketing is an organization that incentivizes international tourism and has no connection to residents. (Nor should it have – according to the residents – as they don’t need an organization to treat them like tourists, tell them what to see or what to do in their own city.)

In their performance indicators they have to show to their board, Amsterdam Marketing equals residents to tourists as the residents are considered (next to the local visitors from other Dutch cities) as “national visitors” and Amsterdam Marketing’s actions towards them are mirroring the actions towards

“international visitors” – visits of cultural events, increase in likeability and awareness of the city brand IAmsterdam.

The way they communicate to residents also enforces this position. The channels that they normally use to communicate to tourists – like Social Media (Facebook, Twitter) and print media (magazines) – are duplicated in Dutch for the national visitors. There is a separate (Dutch) name/platform (Uit in Amsterdam), magazine with cultural events (Uitkrant) and social media platform (Facebook, Twitter) where Amsterdam Marketing communicates directly to the national visitors (incl. residents).

Equaling a resident with a consumer of the place is one of the main critiques of classical marketing theory that is seen to diminish the role the residents play in the marketing decisions of the city. In arguing for more inclusion of the residents in the city marketing practices and a switch to participative marketing, Braun, Karavatzis and Zenker (2013) define three distinct roles (citizens, ambassadors and part of the city) that residents should have in relation to the city marketing as opposed to the one role (as consumers) that they have in classic city marketing theory. The first, most critical one and usually most underrepresented is residents as citizens. In this capacity the residents have the right, just like in any other democratic process to be involved, judge and influence the marketing decision making process. Also in this capacity they are one of the stakeholders that the marketing office should respond to with their performance indicators as they actually “finance” most of the efforts and expenses involved in city marketing. As Braun, Karavatzis and Zenker (2013) further warn, not treating residents as citizens carries the risk of alienating them from the marketing efforts and not having their support as communicators and ambassadors of the city to the tourists. In their view, both the second and third role of the residents depend on the success of the first. In their role as part of the city the residents are part of the interaction the tourists have with the space, are the communicators/translators of the city to the tourists. In their role as ambassadors they enforce, deny or contradict the expectations built by city marketing efforts with the tourists. So, if the residents are treated as citizens with rights in the development and implementation of the city marketing activities their interaction with tourism is resonating in the same direction as the marketing plans.

Amsterdam Marketing struggles with responding to the residents in their capacity as citizens when it comes to the imbalance generated by tourism also because there is not a clear structure set in place for them to communicate to the neighborhoods of Amsterdam and to evaluate impact of the activities that they do. The lack of structure also prevents specific information reaching them from the city – like the feedback on the 24h events. The distance between the marketing office and the

59 neighborhood is also confirmed by Ana, the member of the center district board in the Nieuwmarkt. “Amsterdam Marketing? Ha, they have no idea how Amsterdam is living. I have to deal with them now because I am the site holder of the UNESCO site, the canals. But we have been UNESCO heritage for five years and people don’t know about it. The problem is that in five years Amsterdam Marketing never came to us to work together how to market this heritage plan. So now we are working on an awareness plan to get people to know about it. And we gave this job to make the plan to Amsterdam Marketing. And now they were trying and trying and in the first two months I heard from my people that it’s not easy to talk to them because they had no idea. And then I was here talking to two young guys [ from the Amsterdam Marketing team] and they were honestly saying they have learned so much about Amsterdam in the last two months. They did not know what made us heritage site. It’s so bad that an organization that has to sell the city does not know. I think they don’t work with us and I think it was great to give them the job to make the plan. I see the first thing they are reaching is that they understand what their job is about. But it’s a process, and in the next month they are working it out. But I realized in this meeting the disconnection. And at the beginning when we gave the plan I thought it was smart but I did not realize how smart it really was.”

The disconnection from the structure of the neighborhoods is also making it difficult for Amsterdam Marketing to deal effectively with the complaints against increase in tourism. They recognize it to be a problem that they are struggling to find a solution to as they believe that the number of tourists coming to Amsterdam would increase anyway independent of their marketing activities as it is fueled by increase in purchasing power and lower cost to travel. Mrs. Geerte Udo “We believe together with the city and the corporate companies that if you want to have the city alive, it is important to live and work here and to not only have tourists. That’s what happened with Venice, it lost the soul. So right now if we closed the doors tomorrow more tourists will come. You see the trend worldwide that a lot of people have more money to travel and the cost of travelling is going down because of the big competition and sharing economy. And these two trends are making that there is a mass of people traveling.”

They try different tactics to alleviate the tourism pressure on the residents, for example by directing the tourism outside city center (although this has the secondary effect of making unhappy the residents from the outskirts) or to the wider metropolitan area or even farther away, like to the beach front. Mrs. Geerte Udo: “For us is moving the image to showcase the people that Amsterdam is more than just the icons – canals and Rijksmuseum – but also Amsterdam Noord and West. Now the Hallen (a food market) used to be an old stationary for the tram. They rebuilt it and opened up and said it’s good

60 for business. And a lot of tourists go there and the residents say – go away you tourists this is my small neighborhood. So on one hand we say we have to spread tourism but the people that live in the smaller areas don’t like it. And we cannot push them away or block them. We cannot put a fence and say please go away. So what we already started doing is trying to move the image from the canals to Amsterdam beach and gardens. We promote it as the same area. We are also talking to areas outside the city to see how they can be more attractive so that when the tourists come we can spread them in space.” They also hope that by promoting cultural activities they will change the type of tourism that comes to Amsterdam and in this way reduce the perceived nuisance of the residents. “And we also try to influence the sorts of people because the perception of tension in the city has to do with numbers but also with noise. We have a lot of tourists that are 50y.o. go to museums and restaurants and walk in the park and have a coffee. Most of the people don’t care that much. We started targeting the high end tourists because the bachelor tourists make noise but don’t pay money. We see that the reason for visiting Amsterdam is changing to more culture. We can also see that the hotels overnights have grown outside the city center. But we don’t know if it’s enough.”

Amsterdam Marketing’s struggle to find a solution to the tourism/residents imbalance lies in the structural disconnection they have to the residents. If there would be a structure to provide visibility to their actions and allow communication between neighborhoods and the team they might work together on solutions to alleviate the touristic pressure. (similar collaborative model as the traffic project in the Nieuwmarkt). But for this to happen there also needs to be a recognition of the role of the residents as citizens and not just as consumers of the city. As a result of this recognition Amsterdam Marketing would need to partly give away their power and allow the residents to influence marketing activities. (again similar to what happened in the Nieuwmarkt in the aftermath of the riots).

3.2. History of Amsterdam Marketing

The structural disconnection between the residents and Amsterdam Marketing lies in the history of their structure and its development to serve primarily economic interests. Before Amsterdam Marketing, there was Amsterdam Partners, a city marketing agency that was developed in 2004 to work together with the municipality, the tourism agencies and the business community to solve three challenges of the city:

The first challenge was Amsterdam’s perceived decline in competitiveness versus other European cities in various rankings (e.g. in the DATAR lists of European cities in 1989 Amsterdam was still 5th in art gallery visits and 10th in international congresses but did not appear in the European top 10 for international organizations, headquarters of international companies, cultural performances, or foreign visitor nights).

The second was that they city wanted to change one of the main elements of its international image associated with the liberal attitude towards drugs and prostitution which was seen as inappropriate as it overshadowed other more desirable aspects like business, culture and creativity. Mrs. Udo. “Amsterdam is world famous but the reason why we are famous for is not the side we want to be. And we never fought the sex industry and the drugs, we say it’s part of Amsterdam it’s part of Holland, it is part of our freedom of spirit. But it’s not the USP [unique selling proposition] that will attract rich tourists, business people, and big European headquarters.”

The last one was that the marketing activities developed around Amsterdam did not have a common thread as different public agencies had used over the recent years multiple distinct messages for their own purposes. Mrs. Udo: “Amsterdam was the capital of everything. Sports, tourism, culture, you name it we were the capital of everything. By starting this campaign we forced the politicians to make a choice on what differentiates Amsterdam from Berlin and Barcelona”.

In order to solve this challenges the city council developed the ‘I Amsterdam’ brand in 2004, together with various policies that were aimed to enforce the decided image of the brand. The Amsterdam Partners was supposed to coordinate the brand as well as facilitate the work of the various organizations using the brand. It was a private organization funded 50% by the government and 50% by the business sector. It was run by an Advisory Board, of which the chairman was the city’s mayor, and by a Management Board. The partners in this organization included seven departments of the municipality, representatives from several large private companies (such as, ABN AMRO bank, Heineken, ING, KLM, Phillips and the

Schiphol Airport Authority), organizations concerned with travel and tourism (such as Amsterdam Uitburo, Amsterdam Tourism and Convention Board, AMS Cruiseport, Amports, Topsport AMS) and representatives from the seven neighboring municipalities.

The output organization and way of working lacked a structure to support residents participation and was highly reflective of classic top down city marketing approaches where “[...] new brand identities were determined in a top-down manner by local government authorities. In reaching strategic brand identity decisions a local authority would consult extensively, systemically, and formally with business interests and owners of property in the area. Conversely, consultations with existing residents were irregular and usually ad hoc.” (Bennett and Savani (2003, p. 81)

Nine years later, in 2013, The Amsterdam Partners merged with two of its original partner organizations, ATCB (Amsterdam Tourist and Convention Board) and AUB (Amsterdam Uitburo) and it took the name of its original brand slogan IAMsterdam. It did that as they realized they needed more synergy between the various organizations doing city marketing. Mrs. Geerte Udo: “Five years ago we realized that the tourism industry and the cultural board and the economic investment board they used the brand I Amsterdam only the identity was falling apart because all of them had their own strategy and vision and the only thing that all had in common was that all of them used the logo. So then we merged so now we can make one strategy with all the crossovers.”

The organization remained dually funded (municipality and private sector) but with a slight increase in the percentage dedicated to the private sector (40/60 as opposed to 50/50). They have a supervisory board (led by the mayor) and nine advisory councils (covering the social and business sectors) with which they meet regularly and that seem to regulate the content of their activities. Today the objective25 of the IAMsterdam marketing office is to “execute the city marketing for the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area as an integrated activity, whereby we focus on national and international residents, businesses, visitors and influential figures. City marketing is an essential step in strengthening the economic position of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. This not only has a positive influence on the city’s public image internationally but also for local residents, boosting their sense of civic pride and appreciation. To achieve this, we work together with public and private organizations, cultural institutions and universities.”

25 As stated on their corporate section of the website. See link: http://www.iamsterdam.com/en/amsterdam-marketing/about-amsterdam-marketing/who-we-are

They have a marketing department that has as main objective the design of activities to attract local and international tourism to the Amsterdam area by spreading them outside the city center, to incentivize the local residents to visit cultural objectives and international businesses to set shop in Amsterdam. They also have a relations department that deal with activities related to hospitality (like managing tourism offices, agencies, etc.) and a relations department that maintains the contact with the existing partners and encourages potential partners to join marketing activities in a paid form or via barter.

Their structure is set to capture both the implementation of the objectives as well as their three target groups (residents, tourists, and business). Yet, there is a clear focus on the business community which is also the main stakeholder that invest in them and that they have to respond to.

3.3 Amsterdam Marketing and the business sector

The strong relationship of Amsterdam Marketing with the business sector is reminiscent for me of the relationship the residents have developed with the municipality in the Nieuwmarkt. It is reminiscent in the sense that it has a structure in place to work together (Amsterdam Marketing and the business community). They have common plans that they agree on and develop together with accountability as well as transparency. They influence each other’s activities and they are ultimately a reflection of each other.

When Amsterdam Marketing coordinates activities (organizing conventions, business trips abroad, or specific activities) it is always in close cooperation with the partner business organizations in order to generate positive image, attract tourism and business opportunities. They decide together on the activities plan and they follow up with specific metrics (like number of businesses attracted or number of tourists spread around the city). In this sense the relationship shows a strong participative character and is an example of stakeholder engagement throughout the entire process of the marketing activities (from the development of common objectives through marketing execution).

Mrs. Geerte Udo: “We are a public private foundation –60% comes from the cities around Amsterdam and private partners. We need to make them happy. What we do, we have a big business club and our big partners are united there. What we do is organize with them meetings and the last one was in the Rijksmuseum. Twice a year we inform them what we are doing and how we are improving the business side. And if they believe in the direction they are going to invest. We say this is our dashboard – these are the number of companies that we are attracting. And investing means not only money but also skills. Like for example if we want to attract talents and are thinking about New York we think which companies have offices there and how can we do that. So we cooperate a lot. Of course we have all these platforms: website, magazines. But we don’t do it all ourselves.”

The participative model with the businesses is enhanced by barter and exchange of services in this sense their images are inherently linked (the Marketing team exchanges brand visibility for commercial value association). One of the interns in the Amsterdam Marketing team: “The type of marketing here is different. It is really low budget. And over here we offer something and we get something in return but it’s not money, it is more partnership.” Mrs. Geerte Udo26: “It is like doing business

26 Direct quote from a presentation on city marketing at the Hogeschool INHolland in Amsterdam (2005), the Netherlands; Geerte Udo, Manager City Marketing at Amsterdam Partners. Complete presentation at the link below: https://vimeo.com/16763619

65 for each other and this is why I like city marketing. It is like they did business four hundred years ago, there was no money, and you just had to do a favor for each other only from a business perspective. We did a successful cooperation with Amstel light in the US. They decided we want to get back to our roots and do the real Amsterdam Dutch brewed beer. And they called us and they said can we do a couple of cooperations. They took a shot of our letters and they put it in a commercial and that goes around the US for one year at primetime. For us that’s unpayable free publicity. What it cost us we had to ask for a permit to block the Amsterdam avenue in NY - because a beer company cannot ask for a permit as it is a business and they say if you are just a foundation of Amsterdam they say ok.”

The moments when the barter does not work are when the projects do not reflect according to Amsterdam Marketing the uniqueness and single values of the city versus other European cities. Mrs. Geerte Udo: “We do the stories of the city. The Economic Board makes sure that the product [the city innovation projects] is developed. They invest in the product of Amsterdam. And sometimes they have “pearls” [projects] that are interesting for us to present to the outside world. But sometimes it is just plans and we don’t communicate that. At the beginning they asked for us to market their plans but we are not doing it. The only product that they have that I can market is the smart city projects. We are unique here versus other cities. Sometimes they have projects like sustainability that is great for the city but will never be advertised because it has nothing to do with creativity and spirit of commerce plus other cities do sustainability better.”

The bartering nature of the relationship between Amsterdam Marketing and its partners was partly born out of necessity (they have a small budget and they need to find other creative ways to reach their international audience) but also out of their financial model - the business community finances 60% of their income so their activities need to be closely linked. This association reflects completely the participative relationship with this particular stakeholder.

I aimed to show in this chapter how Amsterdam Marketing, and more particularly their activities are a strong reflection of the economic interests of the business community. The residents are treated more from a position of local tourists instead of as citizens of the city. By developing a structure that doesn’t fully offer the platform for the residents to exercise their role as citizens, Amsterdam Marketing develops activities that only enhance the gap between them and the residents and does not allow the citizens to help in finding solutions to calibrate the touristic pressure on the neighborhood.

Conclusion

I began this thesis with the question “How do the highly involved group of residents deal with tourism as a case of change in their neighborhood?” I argue against the empiricist marketing tradition (Simon Anholt 2007, Moilanen & Rainisto 2009) that considers residents consumers with no agency of the product that is the city developed by the city branding/marketing policies. I tried to show that residents in the Nieuwmarkt do have agency, and as a constitutive part of the city develop actions from below, influencing economic processes triggered by increase in tourism and aiming to change the structure of their neighbourhood.

The agency of the highly involved group of residents in the Nieuwmarkt has been captured in this thesis by showing the three way dynamic between the residents-municipality-business. It was in the interactions between them (like the remodeling of the Korte Koningstraat, the Skylight café, the traffic group, the SoHo Hotel) and the structure that supported those interactions (like the neighborhood council, the neighborhood walk, the neighborhood groups, the Zuiderkerk forum) that power was exerted, negotiations took place and residents influenced economic processes (like expansion of bars and restaurants, opening of hotels) aimed to reduce the residential function of the neighborhood and accommodate tourism. I interpreted their interactions through the social worlds framework developed by Clarke and Star (2008) as it focuses on meaning making amongst groups. I have seen in the Nieuwmarkt the social worlds of the “70s brigade”, the business community and the municipality and how through their interaction they constructed meaning and steered collective action. This interaction and the meaning making that happened inside it in the various arenas where they met (like the Zuiderkerk forum or neighborhood council) allowed me to see what Clarke calls “interaction between agency and structure” and prove the agency of the residents, also through Foucault’s position on power that “Individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application”.

Depending on the nature of the relationship developed with the municipality, the highly involved group of residents in the Nieuwmarkt deal with tourism in different ways. Nevertheless the basis for all actions is the participative model of collaboration between the municipality and the residents, as by exercising their agency (as explained above), they act and are treated as citizens of the neighborhood. There are some people (such as Marieke, Ruud and Dan) that use a more “subtle” approach when it comes to dealing with the municipality and the business environment (e.g. the traffic group, the fish market). They use the relationship they have with the municipality as well as the wide network of information gathering that they have set in place (e.g. neighborhood walk, traffic group) to influence policy and

67 business development. The key to their success is that they manage to not openly challenge the legitimacy of either business or municipality but actually collaborate on an equal power position. Others (such as Dana and Chris) adopt a more “combative” approach – through protests, petitions – and “everyday resistance” (e.g. discretization of the Skylight cafe). Although they challenge the business environment (and sometimes the municipality) their resistance is important as it narrows the policy options available, amplifying – in the cases where their interests converge - the more “subtle” work Marieke, Ruud and Daan are doing, thus leading to stronger effects (like the hotel ban with the SoHo project). By these actions the residents actively influence the tourism related commercial transformation of the area. They are steering the neighborhood into developments (like the closing of the square traffic, the fish market, the ban on more hotels) that maintain the residential function of the area as well as promote commerce that caters to the needs of inhabitants and actively oppose activities that do not (like the Soho Hotel or the Skylight cafe).

If the residents act as citizens on the neighbourhood basis influencing tourism related processes this is not the same case at the point of origin of tourism related activities which is Amsterdam Marketing. Various critiques of classic marketing tradition argue against looking at residents as consumers and more of citizens in an attempt to replicate the participative democratic processes within city marketing processes. As I have shown with Amsterdam Marketing, their structure and way of operating does not give the platform for the residents to act as citizens – in the same way as the neighbourhood structure does. Amsterdam Marketing does have a participative model but with the business community which ultimately shapes the marketing activities as a reflection of the city’s economic interests but also develops a gap between their actions and the residents, a gap that has a contribution to the current tourist imbalances.

Hitting “the sweet spot” of what is the best participation strategy is not only difficult when it comes to marketing activities but also in the day to day life of the neighbourhood, as Braun, Karavatzis and Zenker (2013) mention “It is a very demanding exercise in terms of political will and risk-taking because place authorities may find themselves outside of what Ind and Bjerke (2007) call the “zone of comfort”. The difficulty relies in the fact that some of the decision making power must be given up when participatory approaches enter place authorities systems, and this does not happen easily. In the Nieuwmarkt the current participation strategy is a reflection of the result of the 70's riots (that in some way was generated by the city looking at residents as consumers and reducing their role as citizens) and the acknowledgment of both municipality and residents that they need a stronger participation model.

As I showed in my third chapter, this acknowledgement has not happened in the marketing structure that coordinates the tourism related activities in Amsterdam. Through the story of Amsterdam Marketing and their current actions I show how they treat the residents as local tourists (by incentivising them to visit other parts of the city and “consume culture”) and do not have a structure in place to interact with them in the same participative way they do with businesses. The lack of structure prevents the residents to exercise direct agency over their activities (the way they do in the Nieuwmarkt) although they do show resistance through sarcasm and non-participation to their resident directed activities (like the 24h campaigns).

In arguing for a more participative approach to marketing activities I have three main points.

First, residents suffer the effects (like excessive tourism) of place branding initiatives so they should be engaged throughout the process and they should be seen as one of the many stakeholders that articulate and implement the marketing activities of the place (Karavatzis and Hatch 2013, Hatch and Schultz, 2009).

Second, not treating the residents as citizens has long term negative impact on the marketing activity itself as the residents are part of the city and not including them in the marketing process creates a gap of perception for tourists between what they are told by marketing activities and what they experience when visiting the place. This gap happens as the residents are a constitutive part of the place and not merely local tourists. Places are not only geographical locations with physical attributes but settings for social relations, experiences and interpretations (Warnaby and Medway’s (2013), complex open systems of interactions between elements, people and processes (Karavatzis and Hatch, Warnaby and Medway’s 2013). If not enough attention is given to the role of residents as citizens the economic transformation of the place that happens as a result of increase in tourism is not contained and places run the risk of driving the residents away and transforming the place into an “amusement park “occupied by tourists (Boissevain, 1996, Burgers, 1999). I argue that this containment can happen when the residents are treated as residents and given the platform to influence economic processes the way I have shown it is done in the Nieuwmarkt.

Third, tourism should be practiced in a responsible manner (Goodwin 2002) that recognises and prevents/corrects its potential damage on the community. By giving a stronger platform to the residents of the place, their social environment can be protected from the results of applying only economic logic.

In this way the power balance between the economic and the social can be kept thus regulating the quantity of tourism that a place can absorb in a sustainable manner.

Coming back to Amsterdam Marketing and their current challenge of solving the tourism imbalance in the city center, I argue that this imbalance is a result of their economic driven structure that does not permit the residents to exercise their rights as citizens. By developing a structure that doesn’t fully offer the platform for the residents to exercise their role as citizens they develop activities that only enhance the gap between them and the residents and does not allow the citizens to help in finding solutions to calibrate the touristic pressure on the neighborhood.

Current literature on city marketing (Karavatzis 2012, Braun, Katavatzis and Zenker 2013) also highlights the difficulty to include the residents in participative marketing processes. They suggest, as part of the solution, to use various ethnographic tools such as surveys and workshop formats to capture the opinions of the residents in the various stages of the development of marketing activities. What I argue is that these suggestions are a small step in solving the problem of resident participation, as it still looks at them through the lens of consumers and not citizens. I argue that, in order for participation to happen, a stronger structure needs to be developed that allows not only visibility for the residents into the marketing activities developed but also allows influencing them from below. Nevertheless, the successful development of this structure lies in accepting (like in the case of Nieuwmarkt) the power of the residents to apply their agency to the activities and decisions. It also lies in reducing some of the power Amsterdam Marketing gives now to the business partners and including the residents in a three way dialogue (again like in the case of the Nieuwmarkt). By connecting together, they can thus negotiate a common point of comfort with tourism and its effects.

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