Spending or blending?
Yuppies’ vs. yupps’ experiences in a commercially gentrifying Indische Buurt
Arne Lucas 11059338 Bachelor Thesis
Future Planet Studies, majoring in Human Geography University of Amsterdam
Thesis advisor: Dr. I. (Yannis) Tzaninis
Second reader: Dr. R.I.M. (Rowan) Arundel MSc August, 2019
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Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Yannis Tzaninis. His calmness and guidance made me leave every meeting with more confidence and less stress, even in times when I had hardly an idea of what I was doing. Future graduate students are in good hands with Yannis. I enjoyed exchanging our visions and concerns on contemporary developments, and our talks about Berlin, football and other important secondary issues in life. Thank you for helping me finish my studies, Yannis, I couldn’t have done it without you! Efharistó polí!
Secondly, I want to thank all the research participants for their time and openness. Participating in someone else’s thesis for free is an act of selflessness, and deserves a lot of respect and appreciation. Dear participants: thank you! Thank you and be kind to each other and be kind to the city that I hold so dear.
Thirdly, I want to thank my parents and my family. They have supported me in many respects throughout my life as a kid, as an adult and as a student. They have made it possible for me to finish my studies when the system, that is supposed to grant everyone access to the best possible education, failed. Thank you for granting me this privileged opportunity! Thank you, mom, dad, Saskia and sis, for everything!
There are many, many people that have contributed to this moment, too many to mention by name. Friends, family, colleagues... You name it, if you feel you are part of this, here is my thank-you to you!
Last but not definitely not least, I want to thank my amazing girlfriend, Mel! The last two years have been a rollercoaster of epic proportions and I loved riding it with you! The motivation for finishing my studies have been fuelled mainly by the notion that it would bring us back together in one city. Thank you for all your uplifting and encouraging calls, messages and hugs! I can’t wait to move to Berlin and enter this new chapter of our life together. Here’s to the future!
To compensate for the paper used during the process of writing this thesis, 3 trees have been planted in Brazil by the means of donating to Treevotion©.
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Abstract
The new wave of urbanization causes an influx of the new middle class into urban central districts resulting in commercial gentrification: the upgrading of the retailscape. Though this phenomenon traditionally has been ascribed to young urban professionals without children (yuppies), a new group is on the rise: young urban professional parents (yupps). The impact of raising children in a commercial gentrifying neighbourhood is seriously under-research. Does it dramatically change the way the yupp uses the neighbourhood compared to how the yuppie uses it? Do the characteristics of the yupp differ from those of the yuppie? This thesis compares the experiences of yuppies and yupps of commercial gentrification in the Indische Buurt, a mixed, (commercially) gentrifying neighbourhood near the city centre of Amsterdam, to answer these questions. Through conducting semi-structured interviews with these two groups it is argued that yuppies and yupps are virtually identical. However, raising a child influences how and when the character traits of the parents are manifested. It is the obligations, responsibilities and inhibitions of raising a child that change how a commercially gentrifying neighbourhood is experienced differently by yupps compared to the experience of yuppies. Furthermore, this thesis argues that both yuppies and yupps do not blend in with the original working-class residents. They use the diversity in the neighbourhood as a podium to play out their urban lifestyle. They value the balance between old and new retail not just for moral reasons, but also because it creates the perfect stage to express their cosmopolitan, consumption-oriented characteristics. The new, upscale and hip places facilitate the urge to distinguish themselves from others with their urban lifestyle, while they get to do this in a multicultural, colourful setting and reap the fruits of the old, cheap and exotic shops.
4 Table of content Introduction 5 Theoretical framework 6 Gentrification 6 Commercial gentrification 6 Yuppies 7 Yupps 8 Conceptual diagram 9
The Indische Buurt context 11
Location 11
A brief history of demographic changes 11
Methodology 12
Approach 12
Research population & data collection 12
Method of analysis 13
Analysis 14
Yupps vs. yuppies on (commercial) gentrification 14
Yupps vs. yuppies on diversity 17
Yupps vs. yuppies on mixing in with the neighbourhood 19
Conclusion 22
Discussion 23
Literature list 24
Appendix 27
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Introduction
Everyone who has been in the Indische Buurt 15 years ago would have trouble to recognize it as the same neighbourhood today. Streets have been redone, pavements have been widened, trees have been replaced, and the mixture of shops, restaurants and services has dramatically changed. Fifteen years ago, the majority of shops consisted of phone shops, toko’s and traditional retail businesses that represented the presence of migrants from Morocco, Turkey and Surinam who had arrived in the Indische Buurt in the 1960’s (Heijdra, 2013). Today, one would see that a lot of these places have been replaced by specialty coffee bars, upscale boutiques and hip restaurants (Stadsdeel Oost, 2018; Van de Beld, 2017).
These changes are due to the fact that gentrification took place in the Indische Buurt (Zijlema, 2012). Gentrification is a phenomenon that occurs in cities all over the world (Lees, Slater & Wyly, 2008). Multiple social and economic factors cause a new wave of urbanisation which leads to the influx of a new middle class into previously deteriorated urban central districts. This causes a change in the social composition of a neighbourhood (Glass, 1964; Lees et al., 2008). Members of this new middle class who prefer to life in risky and chaotic urban central districts over the safe and quiet suburbs are often referred to as yuppies, young urban professionals, and share very typical characteristics (Bridge & Dowling, 2001; Lees et al., 2008; McDowell, 1997; Zukin et al., 2009; Zukin, 1990). They are relatively educated and affluent, creative and/or entrepreneurial and live a cosmopolitan, consumption-oriented lifestyle (Brun & Fagnani, 1994; Karsten, 2003; Ley, 1996; Shaker Ardekani & Rath, 2017; Smith, 1987; Verwaaijen, 2013). The change of the social composition of the neighbourhood and the characteristics of the newcomers creates a gap between the original supply and the new demand (Ley, 1994). This gap is filled by commercial gentrification: the upgrading of the retailscape to better cater for the needs of the yuppie (Zukin et al., 2009, p.48).
Comprehensive research has been done on gentrification, commercial gentrification and yuppies (Bridge & Dowling, 2001; Zukin, 2009, 2010). However, a new group is becoming more and more visible in the central urban areas who are still seriously under-researched: yupps, young urban professional parents (Boterman, 2012; Karsten, 2003, 2014). Basically, these are just yuppies with children. However, it is exactly the daily combination of parenthood and maintaining a professional career that puts pressure on their time-budget (Boterman, 2012). Since this is a relatively new group, there are questions that need to be answered: What implications does the duality of parenthood and professionalism have? Does it dramatically change the way the yupp uses the neighbourhood compared to how the yuppie uses it? Do the characteristics of the yupp differ from those of the yuppie? How do yupps and yuppies perceive the diversity in the Indische Buurt? These questions will be answered in this thesis, to ultimately answer the main research question: How do yupps and yuppies experience commercial gentrification in the Indische Buurt? The answers to these questions are based on interviews that have been conducted with yuppies and yupps who live in the Indische Buurt in Amsterdam. This context has been chosen because the neighbourhood has seen a rapid change, from a homogeneous, deteriorated neighbourhood to a more heterogeneous, flourishing neighbourhood. This thesis has the following structure: First, the theoretical framework is presented. This is based on extensive research of literature from multiple scientific fields on all key concepts of this thesis. The links between these concepts are visualized in a conceptual diagram directly after. To better understand the context of this thesis a short outline of the history and recent developments of the Indische Buurt will be given. This is followed by a description of how the research was conducted, and why. Thereafter follows the analysis, in which the conducted interviews are discussed in detail and sub-conclusions are made. These sub-conclusions are then summarized in the following chapter, in which the main research question is answered.
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Theoretical framework
In this thesis, the focus will be on three key concepts: (1) yupps, (2) yuppies and (3) commercial gentrification and how the first two population groups experience the latter process. However, one must understand what gentrification is to understand what commercial gentrification is and what causes it.
Gentrification
Gentrification was first coined by British sociologist Ruth Glass (1964). She used it to describe the process she noticed in London. It was the process of urban renaissance and renovation, whereby older houses and neighbourhoods were retaken from the working-class by the middle-class: “Once this process of ‘gentrification’ starts in a district it goes on rapidly until all or most of the original working-class occupiers are displaced and the social character of the district is changed” (Glass, 1964, p. xviii). Lees et al. define gentrification as "the transformation of a working-class or vacant area of the central city to a middle class residential and/or commercial use" (p. xv, 2008). It is the process wherein deteriorated urban neighbourhoods are rehabilitated and experience the influx of more affluent, middle class residents. The mixing of class is called social mixing. In many European cities, and Amsterdam is no different, class and ethnicity tend to correlate (Blokland & Nast, 2014; Blokland & Van Eijk, 2010, p.314;). Social mixing policies can be introduced by public authorities to produce class-heterogeneous neighbourhoods instead of class-homogeneous neighbourhoods, which are often labelled as disadvantaged areas in which social problems accumulate (Ibid., 2014; Glazer, 2017). The mixing of class, some have argued, will improve the social capital of a community (Blokland, 2008). Social capital is deemed important in role-model theories, as it can help people forward who are in disadvantaged positions now (Briggs, 1997; Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, Klebanov & Sealand, 1993). On the other hand, there is growing doubt among scholars whether ethnic and social mixing in the neighbourhood leads to ethnic and socially mixed networks (Blokland & Van Eijk, 2010; Blokland, 2008; Butler, 2003; Lees, 2008; Slater, 2006). Especially the middle classes do not manage to create diverse, mixed networks, although they move in with an appreciation of diversity (Blokland & Van Eijk, 2010; Tissot, 2014). Even worse, with their demand for a safer and cleaner neighbourhood with a different retailscape, and their demand pushing up housing prices, they might be contributing to a feeling of exclusion experienced by the local working class (Blokland & Nast 2014).
Typical signs that give away the process of gentrification can be newly built owner-occupied apartments in working-class neighbourhoods, renovated working-working-class apartments whereby sometimes two apartments are contracted into one larger one (Karsten, 2003). Gentrification doesn’t end, nor does it solely start, with the upgrading of the residential properties. Usually, this is accompanied by investments in the public space, (public) transport infrastructure, and branding of the neighbourhood. The arrival of gentrifiers creates a consumer demand for consumption places in gentrifying neighbourhoods (Ley, 1996). By creating this demand, they shape the neighbourhood’s commercial scene. This is called ‘commercial gentrification’ and will be further elaborated on next. Commercial gentrification
As a result of gentrification, commercial gentrification can take place simultaneously, and drive further gentrification. The arrival of the new middle class creates a new field of demand for consumption spaces (Ley, 1994). Entrepreneurs jump at the chance to close this gap between demand and supply by either opening new spaces that cater to the new middle class’ needs, or adapt their already existing business to adjust for the changing clientele. According to Lees et al. (2008), this brings ‘the creation of affluent space’ and ‘neighbourhood upgrading’. One manifestation of commercial gentrification in the retailscape of shops is the emergence of urban boutiques in transitional spaces for middle-class consumption (Zukin et al., 2009, p. 48). Boutiques are small shops, focusing on clothing and interior design, and reflect the taste of the new middle-class customers, being hip, authentic and authentic and/or exotic (Ibid., 2009). They differentiate from traditional local stores such as ordinary bakeries, butchers and household appliances stores. The specialty retailing stores in gentrified areas, for example vintage stores, patisseries, health shops and wine stores represent the lifestyles and identities of the new middle class (Stegelin, 2002). In the hospitality branch exoticness and authenticity are the key themes (Zukin, 2008). Restaurants with cuisines from different countries, served in a well-thought-out atmosphere and cafes with different (foreign/exotic) themes connect to the cosmopolitan and world-exploring views of the consumption-oriented new
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middle class. This creates a diverse and cosmopolitan area, where there’s loads to choose from (Luckins, 2009, p.268). Furthermore, other leisure related supply, like gyms, cinemas, bookstores and other cultural facilities, are emerging as a result of the arrival of the new middle class (Bridge & Dowling, 2001, p.104; Ernst, 2011, p.21). This does not mean that the newcomers want the whole retailscape of the neighbourhood to change. Old offers, like original dive-bars and cheap greengrocers, are very much appreciated for the delivered added value in authenticity to the neighbourhood (Zukin, 2008, p. 730).
As described, commercial gentrification reflects the arrival of the newcomers. In light of the growing presence of yupps and their children, entrepreneurs can jump to the chance to fill the gap between demand and supply these parents and their children create. In retail, the arrival of boutiques that specialize in children’s clothing and toys is an obvious development. Another way to close the gap is to “reduce boundaries between eating, drinking and playing and by offering out-of-home pleasures in home-like environments for both parents and children” (Karsten, Kamphuis, & Remeijnse, p. 1, 2015). This entails for example creating little play areas or colouring pages on the placemats in restaurants to keep the children entertained while the parents can focus on their plate instead of on their children.
Commercial gentrification greatly affects neighbourhoods, as it can “enhance the image of a neighbourhood, increase the number of local retail stores, and enhance the residential environment” (Verwaaijen, p. 1, 2013). However, commercial gentrification can also have negative implications, like feelings of exclusion by old residents of the neighbourhood, when the new product supply or higher prices do not suit their taste or budget (Ibid., 2013). This can lead to greater polarisation within the community, and displacement (Bridge & Dowling, 2001; Douchet, 2009). The lower-income retail stores might get pushed away by the retail stores aiming at a more affluent consumer, because they can afford a higher rent. This could lead to the local resident having to leave his neighbourhood to find stores that suit his or her budget, and this uncomfortable feeling can create a different ‘sense of place’, which can add to further polarisation (Atkinson & Bridge, 2005; Zukin et al., 2009).
Yuppies
Without the influx of the new middle-class, there would be no gentrification. When this middle-class actually moves into the gentrifying neighbourhood, they are called gentrifiers, and are often identified as yuppies: young urban professionals (Short, 1996). Yuppies are widely researched and described, ever since the term was coined in or around 1983. It refers to singles and couples without children, that are part of the new socioeconomic middle-class (Karsten, 2003; Ley, 1996). Ley (1996, p. 4, as cited in Verwaaijen, 2013) defines them as “educated, middle-class professionals, primarily under 40 years of age, and disproportionately employed in the public or non-profit sectors such as teachers, professors, social workers, architects or lawyers”. Although the first part of this definition holds true in general, in Amsterdam, nowadays, the work field is usually more towards the information technology, the cultural or the creative sector, based on knowledge and human capital, rather than property (Karsten, 2003; Shaker Ardekani & Rath, 2017). It is challenging to identify a yuppie in terms of measurable statistics and definitions, as it is more of a lifestyle (Howell, 1991; Shaker Ardekani & Rath, 2017). Therefore, ‘young’ is a relative term, as Ley (1996) recognized by using ‘primarily’ in his definition to describe the age boundaries. They prefer to live in the city for multiple reasons. First of all, they feel a strong need to live in close proximity to their workplace, or their work field, which are primarily located in the city and asks for mobility throughout the city (Castells, 1993). By staying in, or moving into the city, they cancel out commuting to their city-based jobs, which saves a lot of time, especially in the congested surrounding of Amsterdam (Brun & Fagnani, 1994). Secondly, staying connected to the city is important for the yuppie, because of their extrovert urban lifestyle. They not only have a sentimental attachment to the city, they are also socially very active, and value a great cultural capital. They take advantage of the (multi-)cultural offerings that can be found in the city (Ibid., 1994). Their lifestyle encompasses a cosmopolitan view of the world, which is reflected in “the development of polymorphous public culture organized around the consumption of a range of goods and services such as yoga, artisanal beer, olive oil, tea, ice cream, bread and coffee” (Shaker Ardekani & Rath, 2017, p.1).
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Living in a culturally and socially diverse neighbourhood is another expression of their cosmopolitan views. By living in the presence of working-class residents and ethnic minorities, yuppies provide themselves the opportunity to observe other cultures and expanding their cultural capital (Blokland & Van Eijk, 2010). The neighbourhood remains a setting, “a colourful backdrop against which to play out a new urban lifestyle” (May, 1996, p. 197), which makes these residential groups ‘little more than the object of [...] an ‘‘exotic gaze’’’ (May 1996, p. 208). The social mix the gentrifiers say they like, does not always lead to social or ethnic mixing (Butler & Robson, 2001, p. 2150).
Furthermore, the yuppie has a specific consumption-oriented lifestyle (Verwaaijen, 2013; Ley, 1996; Smith, 1987). This, rather new, resource-intensive lifestyle, is practised by spending relatively more in hospitality services as specialty coffee shops and exotic restaurants, through which they perform their social position (Shaker Ardekani & Rath, 2017). Shaker Ardekani and Rath (2017, p.5) describe the new urban middle class as coffee people, and explain their practices vividly:
“Coffee people seek to practice their sense of class and to differentiate themselves from the dullness of mass culture by consuming quality products. In other words, sipping coffee is not only about drinking coffee but also about navigating through countless tastes, flavours and smells of coffee, selecting a specific coffee bean coming from a specific country and farm, derived from a distinct process, brewed and cupped by a skilled, professional barista, using a certain type of machine and equipment, enriched by adding a specific type and amount of sugar, syrup and milk.”
For this thesis, yuppies are defined as childless, fairly young (mid-twenties - mid forties), mid- to highly educated, engaged in occupations that require significant levels of human capital, such as creativity and entrepreneurism. They have a large social network in the city, and an income that allows them to live comfortably, go on holidays every year and spend on leisure and eating out. They are interested in the world and its cultures, and implement this knowledge in their daily life by cooking different world foods or trying new cuisines when eating out. By choosing to live in the city they choose a ‘risky’ heterogeneous environment with diverse cultural and social groups over the ‘boring’ homogeneous environment of the suburbs.
As described, yuppies are singles and couples without children. But of course, with time, the singles can become couples and couples can enter a new stage in their lives and become parents.
Yupps
Traditionally, since the 1960s, suburbanization was common when couples become parents, and for those who could afford it. The green, child-friendly suburban residential environments were favoured over the stony urban jungle (Karsten, 2007; 2019). A fairly new phenomenon is more and more visible in the inner-city areas: young parents crossing the city with their kids in cargo bikes, prams and strollers are parked in coffee shops, and parents attend playgrounds with their kids while working on their laptops or calling on the phone. Yuppies who become parents and decide to stay in, or move into, the urban areas are referred to as yupps: young urban professional parents (Karsten, 2003). They are part of the well-educated middle-class, and have the resources to access the expensive market of urban family houses. Yuppies and yupps share their devotion to their personal career, their relative wealth, and their attachment to the city that grants them access to a strong social and (multi-)cultural capital. In their new role as parents, however, they differ greatly from their childless counterparts, and are seriously under-researched (Boterman, 2012; Karsten, 2014). They combine their daily parental obligations with the professional careers of both parents, which lays a heavy burden on their time-spatial budget. Choosing to stay in the inner-city areas, and thereby minimizing the distance between home and work, is one strategy to cope with this busy lifestyle (Brun & Fagani, 1994).
The city also offers options in a process called ‘concerted cultivation’: bringing up children in a purposeful way, e.g. pass on the right life skills, clothes, food and friends (Karsten, 2014). Education of the children does not only take place in the home, but has also been commodified in the neighbourhood, and the increased presence of children in
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the neighbourhood can change the consumption infrastructure of the neighbourhood (Ibid., 2014). Passing on the cultural values from the parents to the children is part of this education and a driver for the choice to live in the culturally diverse inner-city areas. Butler criticises in his article about gentrifiers in North London, that while gentrifiers uphold the diverse population in the neighbourhood, “they separate themselves from other residential groups by taking their children to schools elsewhere, thus ‘perpetuating social divisions across the generations’” (Butler, 2003, p. 2483).
While living in the city offers some benefits to the young urban professional parents, it comes with great obstacles for parents’ and children’s everyday life (Karsten, 2003). After finding a place in a childcare centre, the logistics of dropping-off and picking-up is just one of the few struggles parents have to deal with. When the children grow older, and start to play outside or visit a leisure activity, they’ll have to be escorted and supervised by their parents, as the distances are usually long and the traffic is risky (Ibid., 2003).
To save time and energy, they integrate the pursuit of gaining and maintaining their social and cultural capital with the upbringing of kids. Yupps, especially the ones with younger children, are looking for places that are mixed-age spaces. These are places that have changed from traditionally being adult-only or child-only to intergenerational spaces. Since the 70’s, parents have been more concerned about the safety of their children, and are therefore accompanying and supervising their children in the urban public space. The adult-only places, like pubs, coffee houses and restaurants, were traditionally closed for underaged children. Some of these places have been changing to family places that welcome children and families. Menus in some restaurants started to include children options, and coffee places started offering ‘babyccinos’. Typical children-only places, like playgrounds, have been making a reverse development. Playgrounds have become more open to parents, by including benches from where parents can supervise their children, drinking their take-away coffee that can be bought at a nearby coffee place (Ibid., 2019). The definition of the yupps is similar to that of the yuppies, with the adjustment that the yupps do have at least one child.
Conceptual diagram
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Figure 1 Conceptual diagram (A. Lucas, 2019)
In the diagram above, the links within the theoretical framework are visualized for better understanding. It all starts with gentrification process in the Indische Buurt (top centre). This causes an influx of the new middle class into the neighbourhood. This new middle class are referred to as yuppies (top left), when they are single or a couple without children, or yupps (top right), when they are single parents or a couple with children. The influx of these new residents with the characteristics as described earlier in the theoretical framework, drives the commercial gentrification. This is visualized by the relation-arrow from yuppies/yupps to the process-arrow in the bottom centre. This process-arrow, that shows the process of commercial gentrification, shows that retail changes from old to new under the pressure of commercial gentrification. At the same time as driving the commercial gentrification, both yuppies and yupps want to retain some balance in the neighbourhood, represented by the dotted box around the commercial gentrification-arrow. From the two boxes that represent the old and new retail relation-arrows are drawn to the yuppies and the yupps. Note that there are three different types of relation-arrows, which meaning are explained in the legend underneath the diagram. In the explanatory boxes the exact meaning of the relation-arrows is explained. The relation-relation-arrows represent what the old and new retail are expected to have to offer to the
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yuppies and the yupps. The strength of the relation relates to how strong the benefits are expected to be perceived by the yuppies and the yupps compared to each other. After investigating the literature, it is expected that, because of the tighter time-budget, the yupps use the retail in the Indische Buurt less often as the yuppies do. Therefore, the ‘mean’ arrow between the retail and the yuppie is stronger than the ‘mean’ arrow to the yupp. Because of this time-budget, it is expected that the yupp get their groceries more often from the big supermarkets, and less from the small greengrocers (old retail), which results in the weak relation-arrow. On the other side, it is expected that the new retail focuses more on the childless yuppies, because they have more time to shop and for leisure activities. This is represented by the strong relation-arrow.
The original residents can be found on the bottom, mainly to show what the impact on them could be if the balance would be lost in favour of the new retail. The original resident is expected to rely mainly on the old retail places, and would experience feelings of exclusion if these places would disappear.
The Indische Buurt context Location
The Indische Buurt is located on the east side of Amsterdam and is part of the district council Oost. It is bordered by the Zeeburgerdijk in the north, the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal (Amsterdam-Rhine Canal) in the east, the Valentijnkade in the south and the Celebesstraat in the west. The neighbourhood is crossed by two main streets: the Insulindeweg, crossing west to east, and the Molukkenstraat crossing north to south. This creates four quadrants in the Indische Buurt, all named after the main square in these parts. The north-western quadrant is called the Timorpleinbuurt, the north-eastern quadrant is called Makassarpleinbuurt, the south-eastern quadrant is called the Sumatraplantsoenbuurt and the south-western quadrant is called the Ambonpleinbuurt.
The Timorpleinbuurt was built starting in 1900, the three other parts were built in the 1920s and 1930s. By then, the Indische Buurt was located at the very edge of the city. Due to the construction of IJburg and the developments of the Oostelijk Havengebied at the end of the 20th century, the neighbourhood has a much more central location in the city (Stadsdeel Oost, 2016).
A brief history of demographic changes
The Indische Buurt was built to create housing options for the working class, who moved to the big city from the rural areas throughout the Netherlands. This domestic working class remained the majority in the neighbourhood Figure 2: The location of the Indische Buurt in Amsterdam
(Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek Amsterdam, 2012).
Figure 3: The red line shows the boundary of the Indische Buurt, the yellow line shows the location of the main shopping street of the neighbourhood, the Javastraat (Google Maps, 2019. Adjusted by A. Lucas, 2019)
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till the 1960s, when Antilleans, Surinamese, Moroccan and Turkish immigrants arrived and settled in the Indische Buurt. Because integration policies failed, the neighbourhood starts to deteriorate between the 70s and 2000 (“Indische Buurt.nl,” n.d.). Drug-related criminality, shootings and violence increased, and newspaper articles about the Indische Buurt from around 2000 are rarely positive (Smit, 2017, p. 143). In 2007, the neighbourhood received the label ‘Vogelaarwijk’. Districts with this label (named after Ella Vogelaar, Minister of Integration and Housing at the time) were all districts which were deteriorated. The household income for all these districts was 8000 euro less than the Dutch mean household income (respectively 22.000 euro against 30.000 euro), the maximum percentage of the inhabitants with a job was 53% or less (Dutch mean: 64%), there had to be a lot of troubles and there were low quality houses (Ibid., 2017, p. 142). This label meant that the national government made money available to improve the Indische Buurt: 1,65 million euros for 2008 and 2009. At the same time, housing corporations invested 2 million euros to buy out shady companies in the Javastraat. The municipality and housing corporations choose the offence, by diversifying the housing stock. Small rental apartments were contracted into larger owner-occupied apartments with the goal to attract more affluent people and change the social composition of the neighbourhood (Glazer, 2017; “Indische Buurt.nl,” n.d.). What consequences this can have, is elaborated on in the theoretical framework.
Methodology Approach
To examine the differences in experiences of yuppies and yupps on commercial gentrification in the Indische Buurt a qualitative comparative case study research method was used (Bryman, 2016). The cases of this thesis are the experiences of yuppies and yupps in the context of commercial gentrification in the Indische Buurt. By using a comparative case study, the differences in the experiences of these two groups can be described (Baxter & Jacks, 2008, p. 544). Because the research question is a ‘how’-question, the behaviour of the yuppies and yupps can’t be manipulated and the contextual conditions (the Indische Buurt) is relevant to the phenomenon (experiences of commercial gentrification) a case study design is a valid approach (Yinn, 2017).
Research population & data collection
The research population consists of two groups: yuppies and yupps who live in the Indische Buurt. Both groups are defined in the theoretical framework paragraphs. The research population was approached in diverse ways, to increase the chances of finding different kinds of yupps and yuppies. A social media post resulted in a list of 20 names, which were all approached to do an interview with. Unfortunately, after checking their characteristics only 9 potential candidates remained. Due to diverse circumstances, 4 more candidates couldn’t be interviewed. 5 Candidates remained and were all interviewed. Through the supervisor of this thesis, and family, friends and colleagues of the author, 12 more candidates were approached, of which 4 responded positively. One outlier has been interviewed. She fell out of the research population because of her age and a lifestyle that did not match with the described characteristics of the research population. From her interview, only the data was used that described the history of the Indische Buurt. Most interviewees live in the north-western quadrant of the Indische Buurt. This part is called the Timorpleinbuurt. This is the area of the Indische Buurt that has seen the biggest change in the last couple of years (Stadsdeel Oost, 2018). Also, it is the area where the busiest part of the Javastraat lies. All the interviewees and their main characteristics are listed in the table below.
Yuppie/Yupp Gender Age Occupation Age of children
Yuppie Female 30 Scheduler N/A
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medical consultancy
Yuppie Male 32 Hospitality
entrepreneur N/A
Yuppie Female 31 Owner fashion label
and conceptual stylist
N/A
Yuppie Male 37 Community nurse N/A
Yupp Female 45 Assistant professor
anthropology 16 & 19
Yupp Male 36 Assistant professor
sociology 1 & 5
Yupp Male 47 Architect and talent
development program manager
9 & 12
Outlier Female 50 Legal secretary 8 & 10
To collect the data used in the analysis, one-time semi-structured interviews were conducted with yupps and yuppies. By using this approach, the interviews could be steered towards the items that needed to be covered, whilst leaving enough room for the interviewee to bring up his or her own experiences, insights and opinions. An item list (see Appendix I) was used to make sure all the necessary items were covered. This item list was composed based on literature research on the topics of yuppies, yupps, (commercial) gentrification, parenthood, cultural capital and (sub-)urbanisation, and has been adapted during the research phase of this thesis, by adding new items or splitting up items, when this was deemed necessary as a result of previously conducted interviews.
The duration of all interviews was approximately 1 hour. The interviews have been anonymised because it is irrelevant to mention their names, and it gave the respondents more freedom to say what they wanted about sensitive issues.
For background information, sense of history and as an orientation for the interviews, documents such as newspaper articles and (policy) documents from the municipality of Amsterdam were studied.
Method of analysis
The conducted interviews were transcribed and coded in Google Docs. The segments of the transcriptions were coded with key words, like ‘changes in neighbourhood’, ‘(functional/demographic) diversity’, ‘connectedness to the neighbourhood’, ‘contact asset’ etc. All these segments were then divided between a document of all yuppies and a document of all yupps.
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Analyses
Yupps vs. yuppies on (commercial) gentrification
All of the respondents have acknowledged that they have seen changes that can be linked to (commercial) gentrification in the Indische Buurt. The most frequently mentioned changes they describe include the people on the street, safety, housing prices, the overall look of the Javastraat, and the retailscape and hospitality establishments. It is apparent that, the longer the respondent lived in the neighbourhood or have known the neighbourhood, the more changes they could mention, and the better they could describe the timeline in which these changes took place. One of the respondents, a 47-year-old architect, male, with two children of 9 and 12 years old, who has been living in the Indische Buurt for 15 years, so long term, describes how he has experienced the changes in the Indische Buurt:
“I would describe it as growth, like a child. In different growth phases, and with growth pains. The trees were replaced, the street was redone, I think the shops have been replaced three times. And suddenly it was all different… The shops... That was the program in which the municipality gave out loans to entrepreneurs to improve the baseboard (plinths) of the street. Newly paved... It’s totally different. The only thing that remains is the multicultural status.”
Another long-time resident, a 50-year-old female legal secretary, with two children of 8 and 10 years old, who has been living in the Indische Buurt for 20 years, acknowledges these massive changes:
“I’ve been living here for 20 years, since 1999, so I’ve seen this neighbourhood change massively. When I came here, it was very much all phone shops (...) and greengrocers. Luckily, the best have stayed. This street [Javastraat] has changed so much in the last couple of years. The cafes, there’s a bookstore now, that’s fantastic. (...) A lot of hip shops opened up. Mainly horeca and hip stores, clothing shops. It’s been upgraded, with owner-occupied properties, no more boarded up buildings, shops of which you couldn’t believe they would ever land here: very expensive clothing shops, very expensive barbers, hip coffee shops...”
These observations are shared by a respondent with a time of residence of only 3 years. She, a 31-year-old owner of a fashion label and conceptual stylist without children, knew the Indische Buurt from the time when she was still studying at the fashion academy, about 10 years ago:
“I came here pretty often with a friend from the fashion academy to get inspired for projects, and I would almost say it was ‘grimy’. No hip places or restaurants. Almost everyone in the street was a person of colour. But we came here for Surinamese food, Indonesian toko’s, Turkish grocers. And for the crazy Moroccan shops with their weird knick-knacks as inspiration. And luckily, those places are still here, although fewer than there used to be.”
These remarks during the interviews paint a faithful picture of what the neighbourhood looked like, confirm the fact that the neighbourhood has undergone gentrification processes over the last couple of years, and that the results of that process have been substantial, especially in the field of retail and horeca in the neighbourhood. Overall, these changes are seen as something positive, by both yupps and yuppies. However, all respondents underline that they don’t want the unique character of the neighbourhood to change, and therefore hope that this process of change halts roughly where it is right now. The unique character is strongly connected to the multicultural status of the neighbourhood, mentioned before by the architect (47).
The balance between the ‘old’ shops and the new, more upscale places is something that was mentioned very often during the interviews, and was regarded as very valuable by all, yupp and yuppie alike. The fashion designer and stylist (31, no kids):
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“Yeah, I also really think the retailscape, which ‘makes’ the Javastraat to what it is. That’s what I think is dangerous about the Javastraat, it has a big pull-factor because there are amazing Turkish supermarkets, but also very cool and hip restaurants and other new places. I’m nervous about what will happen to the street, because that balance needs to stay.”
And another respondent, an assistant professor in anthropology (45, single-parent of 2 children):
“I definitely see a lot of change, but I’m glad that it hasn’t gone further than it has. I think that there is at this moment, a nice mixture of different kinds of stores and different kinds of people. If it stays like this, I would be happy. If it continuous to gentrify, I would like it less.”
From this, it can be concluded that both research groups are happy with the balance that exists in the neighbourhood. They also suggest that there is a fear among them that the process of gentrification might continue and disrupt this balance.
Although the arrival of new and a bit more upscale bars and restaurants, and the side effects of this, is appreciated by all, it is apparent that the yupps tend to spend less time in the hospitality facilities than the yuppies do. The interviewed childless yuppies went out for dinner at least once, and up to twice or thrice a week, could name a few bars where they would regularly go and went out for lunch or a coffee a couple of times a week. Their parenting counterparts did that far less. Although the yupps do go out pretty often for a quick coffee, they responded with ‘occasionally’ or ‘on special occasions’ when asked how often they went to eat out, an activity that takes much more time than just a coffee. Reasons for this vary from one yupp-respondent to another. Someone’s time-budget is an important factor, although in some cases time is the limiting factor, and in other cases it is the compelling factor. When children are younger, time is more often seen in the limiting sense that parents, when they come home from work, want to spend time with their children before the children are going to bed. In this short period of time, parents want to spend time with their children, without being distracted by the busy urban setting outside of their homes. The architect (47), with two sons of 9 and 12 years old:
“Eating together is an important social moment. It’s not an urban moment, but a family moment, so it is important to be at home. When you go out for dinner you’re also focused on what is happening around you, you look at other people and their behaviour. You don’t have that at home.”
But, eating out can also be a timesaver. The assistant professor in anthropology (45, two daughters of 16 and 18 years old):
“It’s not that we eat out every week. But when my daughters and I eat out, it’s because we feel like it or because I’ve been at work too long. And then we need something fast and we do it right there in the neighbourhood.”
When parents take their (younger) children to a coffee place or a restaurant, they look for a place that is child friendly, and where their kids won’t bother other customers. A 36-year-old male assistant professor in sociology, father of two (1 and 5 years old), describes his preferences in detail:
“And then, the Coffee Company is a place where we go to, as we often do because that’s where we get our coffee... or get our coffee beans, to make at home! But it’s also a place where you can just hang out and nobody minds if you bring your kids in there and they make a lot of noise. And that’s also what made Bedford-Stuyvesant attractive, the coffee place that has closed, because they had a play corner in the back. And I mean, they were pretty clear like: “This is not a playground. It just happens to have a play corner for your kids. But kind of keep your kids in check.” But you know, that’s in everybody’s interest. So as long as you watched your kids, and they stayed in the corner, that was good. Actually, the same with La Fucina, the Italian restaurant, they also have a little play corner. And the funny thing is, when you go there at Dutch dinner time, the place is relatively empty. Cause a lot of Italians go there and they don’t have dinner that early. And it’s the same with Drover’s Dog, the Australian place, which has a playground next to it, which makes it attractive. And it’s close to his basisschool, so sometimes when I pick up my son, we go to that
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playground, and then at some point, I steer him to that cafe. So, I can get some coffee and he can go to the toilet there. And they don’t have a play corner per se, but the owner is very kid friendly and they do have some toys laying around. Yeah small things like that do make a difference.”
Despite the places this person just brought up as being child friendly, he doesn’t see that the commercial gentrification process is aimed at (young) parents per se:
“Well, like I said, one of the places that we went to a fair amount, Bedford-Stuyvesant (where they went with their kids), has been replaced by a salad bar I or something, and definitely a place that invites you to sit and let your kids play. And more things like that. No, I don’t think that it makes my life as a parent easier.” And he describes something that can be heard throughout the interviews with the yupps, that is that the commercial gentrification is more aimed at a younger, childless crowd:
“I think something happened, which is that, you know, we were kind of cool New Yorkers when we moved here with a small child. So, we were still living more ‘yuppyish’-lifestyle, I guess. When we were living in New York and I was a grad student, I was going to coffee shops every day to read and work.”
Then he gets interrupted by his daughter pulling him towards the slide in the playground because she needs help getting up there.
“As you can see that has changed, hahaha. And then at the same time, the neighbourhood around us is becoming more catering to that (yuppie-)lifestyle, that we are moving away from. I guess maybe that’s what’s happening, that’s why I’m not excited about it. Maybe if you’d asked me ten years ago, I would’ve been way more excited about, you know, having more craft beer options and different kinds of coffee roasters whose coffee is being made in ever more expensive espresso machines and so on. That would have definitely excited me. But yeah, maybe I’m not in the place anymore.”
Another clear difference between yupps and yuppies can be seen when it comes to safety of the neighbourhood. Compared to the interviews with the childless yuppies, the young urban professional parents brought up the subject of safety up by themselves early in the interviews, and had a clear opinion about it, whereas the yuppies mentioned it rather blandly and more as a by-product or a logical outcome of the gentrification of the neighbourhood. The architect (yupp, 47), father of 2, about safety in the Indische Buurt 15 years ago:
“When we moved in, there was a bit of a drug issue in this neighbourhood, and petty crimes, and it really affected us as well. Stolen bicycles, car windows that were knocked out, stolen motors from the garage, those things. I even got refused by an insurance company because I had so many claims. And that has improved. One of the things we thought about back then was that, when the children turn 10, that we had to move because our children wouldn’t be able to play outside. But now the neighbourhood has improved so fast, that we don’t see that problem anymore.”
The assistant professor anthropology (yupp, 45) is aware that the area was perceived unsafe when she moved in: “Well, I know a little bit about how the neighbourhood was perceived before and also right when I moved in. Because I remember I was thinking about buying a place and I wondered: maybe I should ask my students, they live in Amsterdam. And at that time a lot of my students had quite a negative perception of the neighbourhood. They were like: oh, I don’t know if you want your daughters living there.”
However, she didn’t share her student’s opinion when she moved in, and she recognizes the effort the city put into the neighbourhood to change this perception of unsafety:
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“I remember cycling through the Javastraat at night-time for the first time, and it’s probably the most well-lit street in the entire city. I felt like I was cycling down an airport landing strip, I mean, the lights there are just intense. Almost too much. But obviously, that was an initiative of the city. (...) There’s very few places where I would feel unsafe at night by myself, and that’s obviously in typical places like someplace where it might be dark… But you can see that the city also has paid a lot of attention to that, because all the places that have coverages you have to walk under, are super well-lit and super well kept up. That’s also city initiative to basically make people feel safe and keep crime away. And that’s all good.”
It needs little imagination that parents, especially when the children are still relatively young, need to pay more attention to the safety of their neighbourhood than their more resilient counterparts have to, and the interviews support this. Although safety of the neighbourhood is important to all who look for a place to live, having a child brings this issue to the forefront (Karsten, 2003). With every step in the life of the child, and therefore the parent, new evaluations about safety are made (Ibid., 2007). For a new-born, safety might relate to noise nuisance or air pollution. When the kid starts attending primary school, the safety of the school and its surroundings are assessed. When the child is old enough to play outside unattended by the parent, the traffic, other children and social controls within the neighbourhood are looked at through a magnifying glass.
Yupps vs. yuppies on diversity
Diversity was one of the main topics that came to the forefront in every interview. The interviewees were very aware that they lived in a neighbourhood with a high diversity. All respondents said they admire the Indische Buurt for its diversity. This corresponds with the cosmopolitan world views. Diversity, however, can be split up into functional and demographic diversity. Functional diversity can be described as the diversity of shops and hospitality services in the neighbourhood. Demographic diversity is the diversity along demographic lines, such as culture, ethnicity or socioeconomic. The architect (yupp, 47) on the demographic diversity in the Indische Buurt:
“We picked the Indische Buurt, because it was still in the calm, and we lived in the Schilderswijk in The Hague, a sort of super Moroccan cultural mix of everything, which we liked. So then… I don’t know if you knew the Indische Buurt of 15 years ago… it was totally different from now. We had a friend visiting from the east of the Netherlands, who thought it looked like Tunisia. We liked that.”
Also, the assistant professor anthropology (female, 45, two kids) has a penchant for demographic diversity, although she links it to the functional diversity of the neighbourhood, which she also really appreciates:
“It’s not just the different kinds of stores, it’s mostly the different kind of people that are there. I think that’s more important to me. But they’re connected. I can’t separate the people who live in the neighbourhood, the people who work in the neighbourhood, the people who shop in the neighbourhood. It’s quite diverse. On any given day, the number of different languages I can hear spoken on the street… off course, regularly Dutch, Turkish, Arabic, English, but also other languages. Those are the four you hear most often, but you also hear all kinds of stuff. There’re all kinds of tourists around, for one, not too many, but there’s a StayOkay right around the corner. And everyone comes to IJsje van Oost, and that’s right under my house, so I always hear everybody there. And I like that. I like that I live around all different kinds of people, I find it interesting, I find it a valuable thing in the world. And whether we want to define them by their language, by their background, by their socioeconomic class… My guess is… I don’t know how much of our street is still rental property, but I think there’s still a fair amount in the broader neighbourhood, which means you have different kinds of socioeconomic levels as well, and I just think that that’s in principle a good thing, and also personally I enjoy that kind of contact with all kinds of people.”
Yuppies, on the other hand, tend to pay more attention to the functional diversity in the neighbourhood. A simple glance out of one of the windows of a respondent’s (male, 34, project manager at medical consultancy, yuppie) house is exemplary for how this multiculturality is reflected in the Javastraat:
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“I couldn’t name another neighbourhood with a diversity like this, and that really appeals to me. When you look out the window here, you see Mosha, a barber shop with I think roots somewhere in Africa, next to that is Derya, a shoarma-/grillroom, next to the Scandinavian fish restaurant, Bilal travels, Burger ‘n Shake, yeah it’s very diverse. It’s a patchwork of all different kinds of places. I think the neighbourhood thrives with a diverse offering in shops.”
Both the yuppies and the yupps recognize both types of diversity, and can link them to each other. The way they talk about the matter is different however. The yuppies describe that the functional diversity attracts and sustains a demographic diversity in the neighbourhood, as the old shops and some horeca still cater to a (socially and culturally) diverse public. The yupps describe it different, as the functional diversity being a product of the demographic diversity.
There are plenty of shops and hospitality places in the Indische Buurt were the respondents don’t go, for various reasons. Either it doesn’t fit their lifestyle, like a shop that sells headscarves or a Turkish coffee house, or they simply didn’t need anything from what they sell, like a rug shop. Despite the fact that the respondents don’t use the offered services of those places, they feel like they are part of the fabric that makes the Indische Buurt, the Indische Buurt, so they do not want to see those places disappear. One female respondent (yuppie, 30):
“If the shops that we don’t visit, disappear, I would miss them. They make the street scene.”
And the fashion designer and stylist (yuppie, 31), about what she thinks of a non-visited shop like an old curtain shop:
“Yes, amazing! I don’t buy anything there, but I really like that they are here. (...) They are independent entrepreneurs, and they attract a different crowd, and they have to stay in this neighbourhood.”
A third yuppie (male, 32, co-owner of a craft beer bar/restaurant) explains why he doesn’t visit the Turkish coffee houses in the neighbourhood:
“I think it has partly to do with perception. If I now think about who sits there, those are people of 50-60 years old. I don’t run into people I know there. And maybe it feels a bit like a closed off community. It’s not something you think off when looking for a place to sit.”
But when asked if he’d mind if those places would disappear, he is very clear:
“YES! Yes, I would mind that a lot! Because I like the atmosphere that comes with it. The give a vibrant feeling to the street. And that’s what I like about the neighbourhood, that it’s so mixed, blended. And that you come across so many cultures in one neighbourhood.”
All of the respondents shared this vision on the neighbourhood. Although some mentioned that they would mind some places to disappear, because they felt there was an abundance of them, like telephone shops.
In Butler’s research on gentrifiers in North London (2003), he states that gentrifiers take their children to ‘white’ schools, even though they uphold the (socially and culturally) diverse population in the neighbourhood, and thereby reproducing social divisions across generations. To see if the yupps had this same strategy, they were asked about the school choice they had made for their children.
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“We basically could have sent our firstborn [5 years old] to Basisschool Oostelijke Eilanden [B.O.E.], near Funenpark, and it’s a very nice school, I mean there’s a lot of other ones, but it basically came down to that one or here, the Indische Buurt School. And there were very strong reasons to prefer the B.O.E., because it has a big playground, it’s next to the Funenpark, so you have a bit more outdoor space. That would’ve been reasons to prefer that, but a lot of the kids that go there, they go there because their parents own their apartment in the Funenpark and they are all like €400.000, - and up. So, it’s very homogeneous, socially speaking, it’s very white. So that made us choose the school here on the Balistraat instead. So, in that sense we valued diversity.”
The architect (yupp, 47) made somewhat the same considerations:
“Literally in our street there is a black school, so we thought that is ideal. But that was a school where young boys don’t want to shake hands with their female teacher, because ‘that is filthy’, and it’s forbidden by Islam. So, we didn’t like the atmosphere, we don’t want our children to be brought up like that. So, we went and looked for a school in the Watergraafsmeer (...) which is super white. But during visits we noticed that coloured families were advised to find another school. So, they were too white for us, we found that disgusting. So, we picked a school, that was labelled as weak and coloured back then, because we had a good feeling about it. What we saw was better than how it was labelled in reports. So, we consciously picked a school that was mixed. (...) Because the world doesn’t only consist of white or Islamic people.”
When asked whether he thinks the school is a reflection of the neighbourhood, he replies:
“I think it’s changing. When my oldest son started there, he was one of 2 blond kids in his class. I think now it’s more 50/50 or maybe even a bit more white. Why that is, I don’t know. Well, I think I do know. That school was labelled as weak before, and white parents don’t send their children to a weak school. But the year after my son started there, the school was labelled as excellent. And that is also what we had seen before: “this school is good, and has the baggage of being a culturally mixed school.””
The yupps from this thesis made the conscious choice to send their children to a school where they would come into contact with the other social and cultural groups that are present in the Indische Buurt. This also affects how the parents are mixing in with the neighbourhood, and adds new linkages to the other residents of the neighbourhood, and increases the change of deeper social networks between different social and cultural groups. This will be elaborated on in the next paragraph.
Yupps vs. yuppies on mixing in with the neighbourhood
Social mixing has been one of the goals in the Indische Buurt by the municipality of Amsterdam (Glazer, 2017). This goal has been achieved when you look at the demography of the neighbourhood (Ibid., 2017). From the interviews, however, it can be concluded that social mixing in the sense of building strong inter-social-class networks has been fairly limited. The strongest newly built local ‘networks’ that could be discovered in the interviews are the networks of parents, but the interactions within these networks consisted of small talk at the school playground and when picking up their kids from one another. None of the interviewees made stronger connections, like friends, in the neighbourhood. The assistant professor sociology (yupp, 36) on how his children created a network for him in the neighbourhood:
“It’s absolutely true that kids change your relationship to your neighbourhood. Especially with the ‘basisschool’ [primary school]. Ever since he [son, 5 years old] goes there, we know everyone in our street, because everybody is the parent of somebody, the grandmother of somebody, that goes to his basisschool.” Later on in the interview:
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“And besides that, it’s mostly people that I know through school, and now through the play group. Yeah, a lot of kids-driven activities, I would say. [...] But yeah, it’s just, the kids make a lot of friends.”
Making contact with other parents can also change decisions concerning where to go when eating out, as the following quote from the same assistant professor shows:
“For example, there’s an Indian place called Mirchi. And they’re co-owned, or at least one of the chefs is the father of a child in our son’s class. So, this is where your relationship changes once you form new relationships through your kids. So, I think that the place wouldn’t have necessarily appealed to us, because I tend to feel that Indian food in Amsterdam is terrible. But then we gave it a shot because we recognized this guy and he’s super nice, and he always gives us mango lassie when we go in there. So that’s one place, a newer place that we visit.”
Not only children can be contact assets. The fashion designer (yuppie, 31) and her boyfriend have a cat at home, which brought them into contact with their neighbour:
“We have a cat, and we asked our neighbour to watch our cat during holidays, so we made contact through that. Something that is at home, like kids or a pet, I think that connects.”
But this contact with their neighbours stayed limited to this, shown by the answer to the question whether this connection with their neighbours has ever resulted in asking them over for coffee for instance:
“Hmmm, no, seldom.”
It seems that most interviewed yupps and yuppies made some sort of connection with their neighbours, but that these connections remained fairly shallow. Most of the interviewees’ connections to other residents of the neighbourhood were limited to recognizing familiar faces and greeting those. These people were most often part of the regularly visited shops in the neighbourhood. The project manager at a medical consultancy (yuppie, 34), after he told that he didn’t make new friends in the neighbourhood:
“What I do like, and I’m not talking ‘friends’ now, is that you start to recognize people from the neighbourhood, like this morning, I saw the man from Tigris & Eufraat, who was about to open his shop, or the barber… “
The assistant professor sociology (yupp, 37) expressed these same feelings of public familiarity:
“And of course, the person who sells you your groceries, his name is Mustafa, I know him, kind of. And I have my barbers, they know me, they recognize me when I’m in the neighbourhood. That’s always funny. And that’s when you have a bit of small talk.”
The fashion designer (yuppie, 31), when asked if she was mixing in with the diversity of the neighbourhood: “Hmmm... Well, I know the Turk[ish supermarket-owner], I come there almost on a daily basis.”
From these answers we can derive that the new middle class isn’t creating strong intersocial networks in the neighbourhood. The connections are limited to neighbours, parents from other children and shop-owners of regularly visited places. Basically, the connections are made with people that they run into on a daily or at least a regular basis, but they remain very shallow. Despite not making new friends or otherwise strong emotional connections to other people, none of the interviewees said that they didn’t feel unwelcome or disconnected from the neighbourhood. On the contrary, they felt like the neighbourhood was their ‘home’:
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“Yeah, when we decide to go out for dinner, we primarily think about what is in this neighbourhood. And we like to discover more in our neighbourhood, and would pick something here over something just outside, like the Eerste van Swindenstraat. That lies outside our ‘mental map’”
The co-owner of a bar/restaurant (yuppie, 32):
“I felt at home. I come from a village, and that feeling came straight back. Like, you have your butcher, and your cafe. That community feeling, is way more prevalent here than what I experienced in Amsterdam-West.”
Fashion designer (yuppie, 31):
“And here, I feel most at home in Amsterdam, in the Indische Buurt.” Community nurse (yuppie, 37):
“Yes, for sure, I cycle to work every day in Bos en Lommer, but this feels as coming home, I really like it here.”
It is clear that making strong intersocial networks in the neighbourhood is not one of the goals of the new middle class when moving into the Indische Buurt, since they didn’t make these connections or put effort in doing so, but knowing your neighbours, greeting local shopkeepers and running into familiar faces in the public space, even without developing further social ties or even speaking to one another, helps people feel at home (Blokland, 2003, p. 324; Blokland & Van Eijk, 2010).
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Conclusions
The aim of this thesis was to investigate the experiences of yupps and yuppies in a commercially gentrified Indische Buurt and to find the differences and similarities between them. In a nutshell, it can be said that more similarities than differences have been found. This isn’t very surprising, since they are both part of the new middle class and therefore share many characteristics. The few differences however, can have large implications.
First of all, it can be concluded that both, overall, yupps and yuppies are content with the way the Indische Buurt has developed over the last decade. Both groups recognize that the neighbourhood has undergone a change from a previously more homogeneous, deteriorated neighbourhood to a more heterogeneous, flourishing neighbourhood, without losing its unique character that makes the Indische Buurt so attractive. This unique character is described by both yupps and yuppies by two words: balance, and diversity.
The balance that the yupps and yuppies refer to is the balance between old, authentic shops and services, and the new, more hip and upscale ones. Both groups point out that the original shops and services define the history and multiculturality of the neighbourhood. They defined these places as being the backbone of the neighbourhood, and places that were highly valued by the original residents of the neighbourhood. The original shops are regularly visited by the yupp and yuppie, especially the Turkish and Moroccan greengrocers, as they are cheap and sell fresh and high-quality produce. Zukin (2008) has already argued that this is true for early stage gentrifiers, like artists and musicians, but in this thesis, it is argued that this is also true for the more affluent middle-class that is part of the gentrification process in the Indische Buurt. But perhaps more importantly, they are perfect for widening the cosmopolitan views and curiosity that is part of the character of the yupp and yuppie. On the other hand, the newer places bring in more upscale specialty goods and services that fit the urban lifestyle of the new middle-class, such as specialty coffee houses, barbers specialized at beards, and designer stores (Shaker Ardekani & Rath, 2017).
When the interviewees talk about diversity of the Indische Buurt, there is a deviation in how the two groups explain the latter. The yuppies tend to describe this more often as functional diversity, whereas yupps tend to point at the demographic diversity. This can be explained by the time spent in the neighbourhood. Throughout the interviews it was confirmed what was expected beforehand: yupps have a tighter time-budget because they are responsible for the daily care for their children. Blokland & Van Eijk (2010) argue that people who spend more time within the borders of their neighbourhood, tend to do more of their shopping in the neighbourhood, and thus prefer the neighbourhood more for its functional diversity rather than its demographic diversity. Although the time spent in the neighbourhood and shopping routines are effectively the same among yupps and yuppies in this thesis, it is clear that yuppies spend much more leisure time outside of their homes and within the borders of the neighbourhood. The yuppie spends more time making use of hospitality services, discovering what’s new and who sells what, and roaming the streets just for fun. In this thesis, it is therefore argued that the argument Blokland & Van Eijk make, should be expanded with neighbourhood use during spare time to explain the focus on functional diversity rather than demographic diversity.
Over the last decade, the Indische Buurt has seen an increase in social mixing in the neighbourhood in the sense that there has been an influx of more affluent middle-class residents into a neighbourhood that was predominantly inhabited by the working class. In this sense, the social mixing that the public authorities had envisioned has succeeded (Glazer, 2017). However, the strengthening of social capital of the Indische Buurt in the sense that local residents would make strong intersocial networks has not occurred. None of the interviewees, although all proclaimed to prefer diversity, made any strong connections with residents that are part of another class or ethnicity. Overall, it seems that strong connections aren’t made because of the coincidental presence in the neighbourhood, but through other factors that lie outside of the bounds of this thesis. Every interviewee had some weak ties in the neighbourhood, often created by regular visits to the same shops or services. However, having a child has a big influence on the strength of these ties. All yupps in this thesis stated that they know a lot of other parents through child-related activities (school, playgroup, sports). When combined with the fact that all yupps deliberately chose a mixed school for their children, a lot of opportunities arise where connections that transcend ethnicity and social class. These connections however, remain very superficial. Thereby, this thesis confirms the doubts that were already expressed among other scholars (Blokland, 2008; Blokland & Van Eijk, 2010; Lees, 2008; Butler & Robson,
