Breeding neighbourhoods in marginalised space : on the experiences and effects of creative breeding ground policy in Amsterdam's Bijlmer

Breeding Neighbourhoods

in Marginalised Space

On the Experiences and Effects of Creative Breeding Ground

Policy in Amsterdam’s Bijlmer

Darren Sierhuis, 10384014

Master Thesis Urban Sociology

Supervisor: dr. I. Tzaninis

Second reader: dr. O. A. Enigbokan

University of Amsterdam

10-07-2017

Word count: 22859

-Abstract-

This study sets out to understand the experiences of everyday lived space of the Bijlmer’s residents in relation to the peculiar implementation of ‘creative’-related policy, or more specifically, the existence of two so-called breeding places in the marginalized Bijlmer, which is still under reconstruction. Breeding places are a product of a shift in Amsterdam’s urban policy making paradigm during the early 2000s, now focusing on putting Amsterdam on the map as a creative hub whilst introducing new social policies aimed at improving neighbourhood cohesion. Since the literature explores mainly a macro-level socio-economic approach to urban restructuring and gentrification processes in marginalized space in the specific Dutch context, the building blocks of Henri Lefebvre’s work were used to argue space is a “living” thing that interacts dialectically with the daily routines of its residents. Using qualitative methods, such an approach uncovered common discourses on the Bijlmer refer to its problematized past at least to some extend, even if they acknowledge the Bijlmer changed over time and current experiences differ from initial expectations. Three parameters, the scale of implementation, location of creative-related policies and temporality of breeding place projects, determine the power these policies exert to change discourses on the image of place. Yet these parameters also prove to dictate different outcomes of breeding place projects and an analysis of the effects of these parameters demonstrates how breeding places can also disrupt the everyday routines of residents to different capacities.

-Acknowledgements-

Here it is, my master’s thesis. Hours spent hunched over a computer on the 6th

floor of Roeterseiland’s B-building and in the field in the Bijlmer. I have to say I underestimated the scale of writing a master’s thesis and the sheer effort that goes into such a project. Going into the field, speaking to a lot of different people and the intellectual process of connecting the dots was satisfying and inspiring nonetheless. And foremost I would like to thank all the respondents that helped me out so greatly, just by allowing me to interview them and some also by helping me to find other respondents. They are in this sense as much part of this study as I am and I hope I represented their narrative as well as I possibly could in this piece.

I owe a very special thanks to all my loved ones: my family and in particular my parents for the unprecedented support, no matter what I do -as it gives me a great deal of confidence knowing I can always rely on their help and advice- and my girlfriend, Dora, for supporting me through the high and low points, even when the thesis had a lot of priority sometimes, in practice or in my own mind. And finally, I would like to thank my friends from sociology, SEC and outside all of that simply for having a great deal of fun over the past five years of studying. Of course doing a Master is more than just writing a thesis and during this year I learned invaluable lessons, both in sociology but also in finding out what I want to do or who I want to be in the “afterlife” (or life after studying) as we students jokingly called it throughout the year. Sometimes doing this Master felt like the end, yet I know it is only a start and I am grateful I was able to have the opportunity to graduate. As my family comes from a working class background, I can see how different my life could have been and how not everyone has the opportunities I have at my hands right now. A new year also meant new people and I am grateful for meeting new friends this year and I would like to thank two in particular, Will and Elli, for all the interesting conversations on our theses and more importantly on life in general, while having fun over probably way too many small (and sometimes big) beers.

Although you guys will move back to England and Austria I am confident we will see each other again!

And last but most certainly not least, a special thanks to my second reader, dr. Enigbokan for taking the time reading and giving feedback on the proposal and this piece and of course my supervisor, Yannis Tzaninis, for hours of his time, admirable patience, great advices and interesting conversations on topics ranging from coffee consumption to magicians to capitalism. Yannis has the extraordinary capability of thinking with you, rather than parallel to you, if that makes sense, and I would like to emphasise how helpful these talks with him were for my own process in writing this thesis. I experienced our discussions as very inspiring and thought provoking.

-Contents-

2.2 HEESTERVELD CREATIVE COMMUNITY 43

2.3 WIJK7 COMMUNITY 56 -CONCLUSIONS- 69 -BIBLIOGRAPHY- 76 -APPENDIX- 82

-Introduction-

“Amsterdam is one of the most attractive and creative cities in the world. It is a monumental and a beautiful city, with a diverse population. Amsterdam has an unprecedented offer of art and culture, on a world- and national level, for every audience one can think of. […] The lines are short and contacts for creatives are everywhere. The city guarantees to be a place of encounter in the form of galleries, events and cafes.” (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2016c: p. 2).

Upon reading this introductory part to a policy report published by the municipality of Amsterdam in 2016 on Amsterdam’s creative breeding ground (CBG) policy, many people might nod and agree with the bold claims made in this homage to Amsterdam’s creative and artistic image, of course based on its historic value combined with its edgy diversity. Overall, one might describe Amsterdam as a gritty city, as the place to be, especially as an artist. Most certainly, one’s first thoughts do not go out to the architects and planning styles associated with the Congre`s International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), nor would one think, more practically, of an area on the edge of Amsterdam with its high-rises and reputation of being Amsterdam’s one and only ghetto (Aalbers, 2010; Jaffe, 2012). Yet the policy introduced in the quote above spawned multiple so-called creative breeding places in an area, which seems not at all associated with the proud words of Amsterdam’s municipality presented above: The Amsterdam Bijlmer.

Ever since I remember I cannot help but think of the Bijlmer as one of the most dangerous areas in Amsterdam. Growing up in Amsterdam, whether travelling by bike or by metro, it seemed there was always someone warning me not to cross the infamous Bijlmer. Especially people that grew up in Amsterdam during the 1980s would mention the notorious Kraaiennest or Hakfort high-rises. Even recently, talking to someone about the ideas for this work on a family birthday party, these were the first features of the Bijlmer mentioned by my collocutor. Granted, walking around the Bijlmer for one of my first visits in the preliminary stage of this project, on a sunny winter’s day

the streets felt empty. Of course it was the middle of the day and probably most residents are at work, at school, or at least not home. There are barely eyes on the street at this hour, yet I did not feel the slightest discomfort strolling around on my own. There are some teenagers hanging around at the skate park located on a large patch of grass in the middle of the area and although some people may be intimidated because of the strong smell of cannabis surrounding them, they seem mostly concerned with their skating skills. You cannot help but find yourself in a quiet, in fact arguably boring, residential area, where teens grow up, skip on school and hang out while their parents leave for their day jobs. Thus, I was greatly surprised by my first walk through the Bijlmer area, since it seems that there is an ostensibly commonsensical belief of the Bijlmer being one of the few ghettos in the Netherlands, which still forms a plethora of concerns, both in policy and in common discourse (Aalbers, 2010; Jaffe, 2012). Unambiguous media coverage on stabbing incidents, high crime rates, high poverty rates and high new-born mortality rates due to drug problems throughout the years (e.g. De Volkskrant 1996; 2012; De Telegraaf, 2015; 2016) demonstrates this salient image of the Bijlmer as Amsterdam’s most problematic area. Of course, I do not want to understate the social issues that were and still are at hand in the Bijlmer area, as ever since the Bijlmer’s initial development finished the area suffered from relatively high rates of poverty, crime and unemployment compared to the rest of the city of Amsterdam (Helleman & Wassenberg, 2003) embedding such problems in the discourse on the area. In reaction to this specific evolution of the Bijlmer, the area has been problematized in multiple ways over time and it saw many different policy interventions over the years accordingly. Even to this date, policy reports on the Bijlmer seem to be very clear on at least one thing: Although the situation has improved and a general incline in social stability can be measured, the area is still not deemed on par with the rest of the city (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2016b; Gemeente Amsterdam 2016c). Many efforts were taken over the years to upgrade the area of the Bijlmer, yet one of the most peculiar initiatives are the creative policies introduced in the area, which

physically resulted in multiple creative breeding grounds (CBG) spawning throughout the area. These creative policies, which are widely implemented in Amsterdam, were greatly inspired by Richard Florida’s “paradigm making book” (Peck, 2012: 463) on the creative class theory and the importance of attracting such classes to urban sites (2002; 2003; 2005). Florida greatly shaped the municipality’s agenda considering urban intervention programmes with his work. The municipality was now gearing towards gentrifying by accommodating creative classes, which can range from highly educated white (art) students to settled and rugged painters or poets, to attempt at regaining Amsterdam’s image as creative settlement (Uitermark, 2003) and moreover hopefully initiating social mixes of residents with different socio-economic backgrounds (Peck, 2012; Uitermark, 2003).

Although it is evident such policies try to brand a city like Amsterdam, they also produce and alter spaces in the urban landscape, which ultimately has a direct influence on residents and their experiences of such space. Creative Breeding Ground (CBG) policy can be seen as one of the main policies opted by the city council to reinvent Amsterdam’s image as a creative hub (Ibid.), whilst spawning or altering physical structures. Implementation of CBG policy did not originate in the problematized Bijlmer however, but rather in the historic city centre. Initially incentivized by concerns of a declining cultural climate in Amsterdam, its city council decided on establishing breeding places all over the city, that offer creatives like artists, musicians or poets the opportunity to combine dwelling with publicly displaying their work. In 2008 the municipality of Amsterdam and housing corporation Ymere decided on turning what was previously known as Heesterveld Block 4 into a creative community. Only four years later, another breeding place -Wijk7- popped up in the central area of the Bijlmer, just after its previously mentioned urban revitalization project had stagnated due to the financial crisis (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2016b).

Urban Restructuring and Local Experiences

As Reese et. al (2010) demonstrate, attempts to de-concentrate poverty and upgrade what is often coined as “liveability” go hand in hand with processes of urban restructuring, expansion and gentrification. In these processes the implicated neighbourhoods deemed to be in decline are re-inscribed with new classes often through what Smith (2002: 88) calls “new revanchism”: a cleansing of specifically targeted neighbourhoods of disposables, often the homeless or very poor, who are seen as disrupting social stability in these neighbourhoods and thus may endanger gentrification processes. As is described by Smith (1996) in his case study on gentrification in New York, revanchist renewal programmes often lead to hard measures such as eviction or incarceration of these so-called disposables.

Whether urban renewal or gentrification serves to regain social control over certain areas or to invest in an area’s image, it is often done because space -and most notably the built environment- is a “geographically, complex and composite commodity” (Harvey, 1982: 233-234) of which a major factor that determines its exchange value is its geographical location. The Dutch context asks for a different conceptualization of such processes than the U.S. context -which is mostly covered in the literature- to some extent, since capital is channelled for a great deal through entities like municipalities and housing corporations that are state funded and thus not as prone to market forces or in pursuit of profit as much as privatized enterprises found in the U.S. (Uitermark et. al, 2007). Although municipalities and housing corporations in the Netherlands undoubtedly try to keep up land values to a certain mark or surpass it in some situations, one of their main concerns is to maintain social stability throughout the areas they govern (Ibid.). Thus their strategies are dedicated to re-establish social order to prevent civil unrest or to simplify their routine tasks within these neighbourhoods (Ibid: 127). Aalbers (2010: 1718) argues this does go hand in hand with phenomena close to what Smith (1996) describes as urban revanchism, yet he rightfully emphasises hard measures also exist next to softer measures. Moreover, usually relocation rather than eviction is opted in grand scale revitalization programmes that ask

for the complete restructuring of certain areas (Van Gent, 2012). What is evident however is that gentrification or revitalization processes in the Netherlands serve for middle-class formation, especially considering they exist in an urban policy making paradigm that focuses heavily on social mixing (Aalbers, 2010; Van Gent, 2012; Uitermark et. al, 2007). This creates and secures safe zones for profitable investment and entrepreneurialism and in this way works like a self-fulfilling prophecy in which capital follows the newly installed middle-class resulting in the arrival of more middle-class. Moreover, it normalizes a call for social order, which after luring in a new middle-class to less desired areas cannot be seen as “petit bourgeois sentiment” (Aalbers, 2010: 1719) anymore, because of the very re-inscription of such areas, which subsequently appear higher on the political agenda.

Although this brief discussion of the literature serves to contextualize Dutch cases of urban restructuring processes and their particularities, it demonstrates that they gloss over the experiences of actual residents of the space in which these processes play out. People live in space and space, I argue in line with the work of Henri Lefebvre (1991), is thus inherently a social and “moving” thing; not only because space is affected by external processes but also because people’s daily practices and routines are entwined with space and these external processes. The built environment -or in other words spaces and places- and human activity in it thus pose a dialectical relationship, which must be studied to understand how specific spatial settings create their own particularities. Hypothetically this means that a tension can arise between experiences of space and the intent of space as seen by authority figures.

In this specific study the goal then is to not only to understand in what ways creative-related policy making fits into larger processes of gentrification and urban restructuring, but to also to understand how in a neighbourhood like the Bijlmer the experiences of space of residents are affected by such policy. In doing so, I will use the building blocks of Henri Lefebvre’s (1991) work on the production of space and use his theoretical triad in which he analytically separates spatial practices, representations of space and

representational spaces. Although one could say I oversimplify Lefebvre’s complex work, this conceptual triad serves very well for the purpose of empirical analyses as it is done in this study, since this study seeks to understand the relationship between policy and residents’ perceptions of space. Or in other words: the tension between imposed policy initiatives and people’s daily existence and routines that play out in spaces on which these policies are imposed. Hence, the analysis of the different layers that are superimposed on space gives insight into the workings of the social world.

The first realm of spatial practices represents the manners in which its users “live” space. It is the way in which their daily routines and rituals play out in space and represents the way in which space is encountered and used through these daily practices (Lefebvre, 1991: 33). It is thus “a system resulting from articulation and connection of elements of activities” (Schmid, 2008: 34) that plays out spatially. Concretely, one could think about daily commuting or production and exchanges. The second realm, representations of space (Lefebvre, 1991: 33), then refers to the process of how space is to be established. It is the realm where the supposed meaning of (a) space is defined. It presents a “frame of reference” (Schmid, 2008: 37) to decode space and thus co-defines activities in space. It refers practically to the urban planner’s building models and the architect’s sketching table and more theoretically, to the way in which the construction of space is imposed on space. It is here where the aim of authoritarian figures is to oversimplify the complexities of the urban fabric by engineering space to conquer subjects and their environment (Scott, 1998: 2; 110) through utopian thoughts on the merit of urban planning to influence people’s daily routines (Soja, 1996). And then finally the third realm, representational spaces which refer to the realm where spatial practices and representations of space collide. It is where space is both something that is physical and something that is physically there to be used, altered and shaped by its users and thus experienced (Lefebvre, 1991: 33). It is the realm where space is both produced and reproduced through the contingencies of decoding and the subsequent utilization of space.

In this study thus I question what the two breeding grounds researched, Wijk7 and Heesterveld Creative Community (HCC), can add to an extensive body of literature on gentrification policies, precisely because of the peculiarity of implementing such policy in a space like the Bijlmer, which has quite a unique history in the Dutch context, as we will see. Yet more precisely and following from the previous brief discussion of Lefebvre’s work, I will argue that although both cases fall within a broad policy making paradigm that falls in an even wider process of gentrification and inter-urban competition -which is admittedly decisive in the production of space in many ways- they prove to have different outcomes, arguably even contrasting outcomes. Moreover, they do not necessarily agree with existing literature on gentrification. In short, I will seek to explain how these representations of space do not necessarily facilitate spatial practices and thus how decoding space and perceiving space is not a uniform process that can be captured by the oversimplifications in policy making. In doing so, I will make use of literature on both gentrification processes, the production of space and the Bijlmer specifically and four data sources: Media coverage to contextualize the Bijlmer’s reputation; (2) policy reports on the Bijlmer and CBG policy in particular; (3) observations done when visiting the neighbourhoods in question and finally (4) I will analyse in-depth interviews with residents of these neighbourhoods, both of CBGs and of the rest of the neighbourhood. This in order to answer my main research question:

How do residents of the Bijlmer -both of breeding places and the rest of the neighbourhood- experience their everyday lived space and what does this tell us about the effects of “creative”-related policy in a marginalized area?

-Methods and Data-

In this study I make use of four qualitative data sources. All four data sources were analysed using Atlas.Ti qualitative software. Atlas.TI mainly served as a tool to structure the data and order my thoughts. Triangulation of four data sources served to understand CBG policy in every capacity: from establishing a contextual framework on popular discourses on the Bijlmer through media coverage; to understanding the evolution and implications of CBGs from policy perspectives; to understanding the on-the ground-logic of creative policy and its relation to the experiences of actual people; to constantly taking field notes to understand and express what living in the Bijlmer is like for its residents, particularly for residents of both breeding places. Overall, the approach to the data was inductive, sharing many similarities with what Charmaz (2006) typifies as a Grounded Theory approach, mainly because I used line-to-line coding as “the bones to my analyses” (Charmaz, 2006: 45) and thus did not use any pre-conceived coding schemes or categories to analyse the data. This is not to say however that I went into this project as a tabula rasa, as the grounded theory approach is sometimes accused of. Especially not considering the fact that I started analysing the policy documents before going into the field, meaning I was well informed about creative breeding ground policy before speaking to respondents or observing what was happening around me. After the initial line-by-line coding, I used the most significant codes and grouped them in code families1 _{to generate an overview of important}

quotations. From here, the most important way of understanding and interpreting the data proved to be extensive writing of analytical memos (Saldaña, 2009) and their application to the different data sources and individual data excerpts2_{. As Saldaña (2009) demonstrates, writing analytical}

memos in which ideas, theories and thoughts are explored, serve to understand the data thoroughly and help to work towards a theoretical

1 _{Atlas.TI has a specific function to group codes into families, hence I use the term code families here.} 2 _{Atlas.TI Qualitative Software provides the opportunity to write memos, which can be attached to} specific quotations or codes. By memo writing I refer specifically to this functionality in Atlas.TI.

understanding of what the findings tell us. Indeed, memo writing on thoughts, theory and empirical findings in particular inspired my thinking process tremendously, especially in reconstructing and understanding residents’ narratives.

All data sources were Dutch, as all media coverage and policy reports were written in Dutch and all interviews were conducted in Dutch. Thus, I translated all quotes found in this study to English. Furthermore all names found in this study are pseudonyms in order to protect my respondents’ anonymity

Published data

First, Media coverage on the area provides a notion of how the Bijlmer was framed over the past decade or so within public discourse. Media coverage is used because of its broad scope and therefore far-reaching symbolic power (Bourdieu, 1979) to embed problematizing notions of the Bijlmer into this discourse. Media coverage of two widely available national newspapers: De Volkskrant and De Telegraaf were utilized to analyse these discourses, of which the former uses a more analytical approach to news coverage while the latter pursues a more easy to read style (Ruigrok & Van Atteveld, 2007). Both print most paid editions annually in their respective category3_{. Ten articles}

from each newspaper dating from 1996 to 2016 were used. Although the newspaper articles were arguably picked arbitrarily, they do represent a relatively large part of media coverage on the Bijlmer by these two newspapers to the extent in which they were available to me4 _{(the 20 articles}

chosen represent roughly 25% of all coverage on the Bijlmer between 1996 and 2016 available). Reading these documents iteratively provided

3 _See: https://www.svdj.nl/de-stand-van-de-nieuwsmedia/oplage-2-de-landelijke-krantenoplage-een-ongelijk-gedeeld-verlies/

4 _{18 out of 20 articles were obtained through the LexisNexis service, which did not provide any articles} older than 1996.

contextualization of the Bijlmer’s reputation and provided a framework for the following analyses.

Second, I analysed policy reports on CBG policy between the initial start of the CBG projects in 2000 in Amsterdam in general up until the present to gain a more detailed understanding of how the Bijlmer is framed within political discourse in regard to CBG policy. These policy documents were supplemented by policy reports on the entire area to develop a broader understanding of how the Bijlmer is framed from multiple policy perspectives. Powerful entities like local governments formulate social problems that may have already existed; yet their relevance becomes salient when they reach their agendas (Hancock & Mooney, 2012). Analysis on such documents thus sought to formulate what factors are discursively attributed to the Bijlmer that define it as a problematic area. Furthermore, analysis of policy uncovered how breeding places are contextualized in policy making and how their implementation is expected to provide solutions to defined social problems. Of course CBG policy does not exist on its own and is part of a larger political discourse on urban policy that has its own history, yet this is not the focus of analysis and a discussion of literature provided such contextualisation.

Empirical data

During the course of approximately two months I conducted extensive fieldwork in both neighbourhoods where the breeding places were located. I conducted multiple interviews with different respondents residing in both research sites and in addition I took field notes and I wrote all my observations, along with thoughts and feelings, in a log. I visited both sites equally as much and the season changing from winter to spring proved to influence the activities within each neighbourhood quite drastically. As the weather improved, the streetscapes and activities in and around both breeding places became more lively and interesting. Although my respondents were of course aware that I visited their neighbourhoods to conduct research,

most observations were not necessarily done in the presence of any respondents.

As a third data source, the interviews5 _{provided input on behalf of}

residents on the reputation of the neighbourhood they live in and the ways in which living in breeding places and the Bijlmer may alter their perception of this space. It proved to be important to take mobility patterns of residents into account, meaning special attention was given from where and why residents moved to the Bijlmer, and their experiences in it so far. Respondents were gathered largely through a snowball sample, where one respondent would usually help me to gain more respondents. In essence, there were certain “key” respondents that helped with finding multiple others. Although such samples may prove to be problematic because respondents are related and might have similar viewpoints, it also proved to be an effective way to gather respondents within the set time limit for this study. After analysing the data I moreover realized that especially respondents in the Heesterveld neighbourhoods were quite diverse, particularly in interpreting their lived space. In Wijk7 however, respondents’ viewpoints proved to be quite similar, yet this is not surprising since only 20 people live in a close community in this specific breeding place.

Eventually 10 respondents were interviewed over the course of roughly two months. Five of them –(1) a middle-aged man of Indian descent, (2) a filmmaker in her mid-20s, (3) a teacher in training in his early 30s, (4) an event manager in his mid-20s and (5) a psychology student in her early 20s- live in the Heesterveld neighbourhood and the latter two in the Heesterveld Creative Community specifically. Four respondents –(1) a female student in her early 30s, (2) a male artist and therapist in his late 30s, (3) a geography student in her early 20s and (4) a middle-aged female homeowner were interviewed in the D- and E- neighbourhoods in which Wijk7 is located6_{. The}

first two live in the Wijk7 community, while the latter two live in the

5 _{See appendix 1 for interview questions} 6 _{See page 16 for a map of the area}

surrounding area. Finally, one of the respondents was a policy maker involved in the breeding ground projects, yet mainly involved in the Heesterveld project specifically. He also happened to be a long-time resident of the Bijlmer however, albeit of a different part than relevant to my research.

Fourth and lastly, I made extensive field notes on every visit to the research sites and documented both my travel to them along with my interpretations of the different sites’ surroundings during different visits in order to fully describe the research sites. Additionally I made sure to -next to and with help from the interviews- thoroughly describe the two research sites, their organisation and the complexity of the social relationships within the neighbourhoods. I visited both sites five times, although I did not always visit the same locations as respondents wanted to meet at different places or as I wanted to experience spaces from different perspectives.

Although I did not necessarily set out to integrate observations as a data source or ethnography as a method, they proved to be very useful to describe how residents perceive their lived space and eventually it made sense to incorporate observations into this work, since ethnographic research is concerned with exploring, narrating and understanding lived experiences (Willis & Trontman, 2002). Admittedly, ethnography usually involves a deeper and more thorough understanding of a specific sight than I can offer within the time span available to produce this work, especially considering there was more data to analyse. This is not to say however that the observational work came as an afterthought to this project or that it is irrelevant; on the contrary, doing observations came as a natural thing to do, probably since the analysis of discursive aspects done in the analyses presented above already analysed certain symbolic practices, which were subsequently fascinating to observe. Thus, the observations serve to give a thorough and thick description of the sites in addition to the multiple other data sources.

-Part I-

1.1 Restructuring the Bijlmer

In a promotional clip7 _{from the early 1970s the Bijlmer was used as a prime}

example to exemplify the future of city dwelling, an advanced urban satellite that would change the way people experienced living in Amsterdam. The Bijlmer was not built without any hesitation however. Although not initially formulated in the 1938 Amsterdams Uitbreidingsplan [AUP, Amsterdam Expansion Plan], the rapid demographic growth of Amsterdam and subsequent housing shortage during the 1950s and -60s called for more rigorous expansion plans than foreseen (Aalbers, 2010). The South-East of Amsterdam was not designated for expansion as seen in Amsterdam-West or South, yet during the early 1960s the Bijlmer’s building plans were conceived rather abruptly, following the experimental high-modernist style of the Congres International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), aiming for their renown separation of four urban functions: dwelling, working, recreation and commuting (Holston, 2010). The beehive high-rises separated by large patches of green and surrounded by roads, connecting the Bijlmer to the nearest motorways, created an uncommon and unique site considering the urban planning paradigm within the Dutch context. The narrator in the promotional clip contrasts the spacious apartments and large patches of green grass to the oppressive feel of the 19th _{century neighbourhoods located}

around Amsterdam’s inner city: “The 19th _{century neighbourhoods are}

overwhelming and overfull” the narrator says determined. Large parks would serve for recreational purposes while enormous parking garages would enable residents to park their cars safely in front of their apartments, making commuting to work or elsewhere easy. Thus at the advent of the Bijlmer’s history, it was praised and promoted for its innovativeness and spaciousness as promoted by the CIAM architects.

Image 1 Aerial picture of the Bijlmer in 1974, just after its construction had finished. This picture

effectively illustrates the typical CIAM-style initial planning of the Bijlmer (Source: https://tinyurl.com/y9tm5sfj) Even when cycling through the Bijlmer nowadays, its early history and high-modernist planning structure are very apparent. This still poses interesting contradictions to the rest of the city of Amsterdam, which is renowned for its historic architectural merits, narrow cycling lanes and overall gritty image. If cycling in Amsterdam’s inner city feels like an event of near misses, cycling in the Bijlmer feels like a way to let your mind drift off, precisely because cycling traffic received its own infrastructure due to the high-modernist planning style. When I crossed the Bijlmer on my way to respondents and when I tried to find my way (sometimes the infrastructure can feel like a maze), what caught my eye was the signposts, which read letters rather than names: E-neighbourhood; G-neighbourhood etc. When entering such a neighbourhood, it appears all of the remainder of the original built, which are mostly high-rises, carry names of which the first letter correlates with the neighbourhood’s assigned letter. It struck me that the lettering of neighbourhoods can be seen as a very distinct residual of high modernist city planning, since its ideology relied so heavily on rendering the complex phenomena of urban life as if it could be engineered on a drawing table (Scott, 1998). The Bijlmer’s creation, which came out of nowhere and was sketched out on a drawing table in months, is no exception and the lettering of neighbourhoods is still symbolic

for this specific era in urban planning, as it is still used, mainly in a political sense. As we learn today, the Bijlmer’s history proved to be a complicated one and moreover one that saw many urban intervention programmes executed to redeem its portrayed status of Amsterdam’s ghetto, a portrayal that eventually dictated the public’s understanding of the Bijlmer (Jaffe, 2012). It was precisely the Bijlmer’s high-modernist planning that proved insufficient because of the lack of infrastructure connecting it to the rest of the city, sparse economic activity and general lacking liveability of the area resulting from its particular planning (Aalbers, 2010). Its aim for efficiency and minimalism did not serve the Dutch middle-class well, as they preferred suburbia like Almere in a time of suburbanisation (ibid.). It became clear that the presupposed efficiency that comes from separating urban functions hardly allows residents to attach in any way to their homely environment, since the needs that come

Figure 1 The Bijlmer split up in different neighbourhoods. Today, a lot of these still carry

with such an environment can hardly be reduced to the criteria of efficiency (Scott, 1998).

The large amount of vacancies and subsequent high costs resulting from the initial failure of the Bijlmer project, together with difficulties considering basic maintenance of the high-rise buildings in particular made “[…] the area of the Bijlmer spiral down quickly during the late 1970s and -80s” (Projectbureau Vernieuwing Bijlmermeer, 2014: 2). As Aalbers (2010) illustrates, the Bijlmer became a refuge for marginal groups, primarily existing of immigrants from Suriname. Suriname’s independence in 1975 caused a migration spike in the Netherlands, mainly because many Surinamese feared economic and social instability in their own country due to its upcoming independence (Van Niekerk, 2000). Migration from Suriname to The Netherlands was not uncommon before the mid 1970s, but it was mostly motivated by the search for proper education or job opportunities (Bayer, 1965). Surinamese immigrants were never before so diverse in class and ethnicity as during the mid 1970s however. During a dramatic exodus between 1974-1975, approximately 50.000 Surinamese left their country in pursuit of a more sustainable future in The Netherlands (Van Niekerk, 2000). Because of the relatively high-quality, highly subsidized social housing and high vacancy rates, the Bijlmer proved to be their final destination, colouring the area and in a broader sense the city of Amsterdam8_.

The high rate of immigrants now populating the Bijlmer and high levels of external migration of Amsterdam’s white middle-class households to suburbia like Amstelveen, Almere or Purmerend (Gemeente Amsterdam, 1975) together with the remaining relatively high levels of vacancy in the area caused the Bijlmer to become notorious and largely known as Amsterdam’s ghetto (Jaffe, 2012). The Bijlmer became a place associated with severe street crimes and drug dealing and newspaper headings that emphasised “illegal

8 _{Over a period of 10 years approximately 300.000 Surinamese moved to The Netherlands (Bovenkerk,} 1983). Exact numbers are hard to find however, because of the rapid migration rates and the fact many Surinamese kept there Dutch citizenship.

practices” (De Telegraaf, 2002) in the Bijlmer were increasingly common. Urban interventions deployed by institutions like housing corporations or the municipality of Amsterdam during the 1980s made use of relatively soft measures, of which most notably the establishment of one major housing corporation made responsible for the area: New Amsterdam (Helleman & Wassenberg, 2002). Measures taken were limited to preventing the area from decaying even further, yet this was not enough to prevent crime-rates from sky-rocketing (Aalbers, 2010) 9_{. As a policy maker, John -active for a long time}

in urban policy making specifically- who also happened to be a resident of the Bijlmer since the 1980’s, mentioned in our conversation:

“When I moved here from Maastricht during the mid 1980s both for job opportunities and because I wanted to leave the South, the Bijlmer was the place where obtaining a house was easy. I ended up in a spacious flat, and yes…it was the Bijlmer. I remember when I applied for the flat, on paper it was so new and modern, so I reckoned it should be nice, yet it was already in decay and basic maintenance was barely done. I knew of the Bijlmer’s reputation and to be honest, a lot of it was actually true; it was completely different back then. So if you’re talking about urban renewal, the Bijlmer would ultimately be a prime example of this, although this took a long time. Its case in the end shows what you could do with a neighbourhood that was basically doomed from the start.”

What this quote exemplifies is that the reputation of the Bijlmer is something that reminisces of the past and its eventual change is emphasised. But more interestingly, it shows how it apparently took time to actually do something about it, since “ultimately” the Bijlmer redeemed itself. John refers to urban revitalization plans that were executed during the 1990s. These plans eventually meant re-building the Bijlmer from the ground up. Again, reflecting on the past of the Bijlmer, I would argue no real answer could initially be given

9 _{Note that crime-rates in the entire city of Amsterdam were at a relative high-point during the mid} 1980’ (Peck, 2012; Musterds & Salet, 2003)

to the situation of the Bijlmer during the 1980s because of the severe over-determination (Sennett, 2010) of high-modernist planning in a policy making era with a tendency for “roll-back” measures, in which free market rule and government retreat became the standard (Peck & Tickell, 2002). By over-determination I mean that the separation of urban functions that CIAM planning held so dearly also froze the Bijlmer in place. As Sennett (2010: 3) argues:

“The result of over-determination is another paradox, namely that these frozen cities decay much more quickly than urban fabric inherited from the past. As uses change, buildings have to be replaced, since fixed form-function relations make them so difficult to adapt.”

Yet it was not only physical structures decaying; the social end of the urban fabric may have suffered even more. This era, where urban intervention did not reach its ultimate goals of upgrading the Bijlmer, has arguably been key in the formation of its reputation. Precisely because its over-determination eliminated urban life as it was seen elsewhere in Amsterdam for instance; it eliminated the intricacies of an urban fabric in which voluntary and unconscious systems curb and restrain yet enable urban life and especially life on the streets (Jacobs, 1961). Or in other words: if an area serves solely to accommodate dwelling, there is no need for residents to be out or to take a walk, there are thus no eyes on the streets (Ibid.) And even more practically this also meant ever growing vacancies, since the people that sought refuge in the Bijlmer initially, became very aware of the reputation of their neighbourhood and were eventually victimized because of this reputation, with exit remaining as the only option (Aalbers, 2010). This is also mentioned by John:

“Many Surinamese…well at some point the reputation of the Bijlmer became so bad and this was very much associated with black people. So many Surinamese basically fled the Bijlmer; because being black and living in the Bijlmer meant you were in trouble.”

As Wacquant et. al (2007) argue, tearing of social structures in neighbourhoods like the Bijlmer is very much the result of growing urban marginality and eventually the sum of lacking answers to the Bijlmers past and the taint that stuck with the Bijlmer as a result of the “stain of poverty, subaltern ethnicity, degrading housing, imputed immorality and street crime” (ibid.: 1273). Eventually opting complete renewal and complete erasure of the past presents itself as the only option to redeem a space like the Bijlmer from its initial reputation. Tragically, the 1992 Bijlmer disaster, where a Boeing 747 crashed into one of the populous high-rises in the Bijlmer area also heralded a new era of urban revitalization in the Bijlmer. Primarily because the many social problems in the Bijlmer received much publicity because of the disaster playing the Bijlmer into the public picture (Aalbers, 2012) and –from a more practical perspective- because the destruction of a rather large area also meant this area had to be rebuilt. The municipality together with multiple housing corporations decided on greatly restructuring the area. This urban revitalization plan for the Bijlmer would include the demolishment and substitution of most high-rises with low-rise buildings. Figures 2 and 3 on page 22 are schematic representations of this revitalization process10_{. These}

schematic layouts of the Bijlmer illustrate the massive scale of the revitalization project, even when ignoring changes to the infrastructure. The main goal of the revitalization project was to: 10 _{see Projectbureau Vernieuwing Bijlmermeer, 2014 for the original schematics}

“[C]reate a liveable district that is safe, which attracts people for positive reasons. Residents in a vulnerable social position will be given the opportunity to improve their position, while residents in a stronger social position will be offered the opportunity for a wider range of choices in their own neighbourhood.” (Projectbureau Vernieuwing Bijlmermeer, 2014)

In doing so, the municipality decided on demolishing almost three-thirds of the high-rise structures in the Bijlmer and replaced them with at least 40% owner occupied low-rise family dwellings (Aalbers, 2010). This major urban revitalization project was expected to change social structures, as illustrated by the previous quote, which makes specific use of concepts like liveability and safety. This is ironic, since the CIAM ideology was precisely this: using urban planning to alter social structures and hierarchies by oversimplifying and reducing urban structures and fabrics to utmost efficiency (Hoslton, 2010). Yet the revitalization plans main return should have been, as exemplified in the quote above, improvement of opportunities for residents within different social-economic positions. The assumption here is that urban revitalization attracts new residents presumably from a higher social class -considering that 40% of newly built dwellings are owner occupied- that will give new impulses to neighbourhoods defined as problematic. This policy strategy, known as social mixing, took hold of Dutch urban policy making during the 1990s (Van Gent, 2012). It has been contested however, considering its (often dissatisfying) effects on residents and social cohesion (Uitermark, 2003; Dekker, 2007; Dekker & Van Kempen, 2008), since social cohesion is usually a product of social capital and neighbourhood attachment (Dekker, 2007) that is not simply gained by imposing social mixes of classes on neighbourhood. Later in this study I will elaborate on the role of creative policies in the process of social mixing, yet first I will analyse the overall thoughts residents expressed when asked about the Bijlmer’s reputation and their motives to live in the Bijlmer to further elaborate on the processes discussed in this section.

Figure 2 The Bijlmer in 1992 (red is planned for demolishment) Figure 3 Constructed between 1992-2013 (red)

1.2 The Bijlmer and its reputation in the present

“The results of the past years on topics like liveability, youth2 and safety are encouraging, yet the Bijlmer remains a porous area. Attention without prejudice should be given. Problems behind people’s front door are not easy to solve, yet it is key to find durable and good solutions for such problems to prevent problems on the streets.” (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2016b: 3).

“[N]uisance, on the street, loud noises all the time. It’s somewhat less now, there used to be this time when the police visited the neighbourhood often. Everything to do with nuisance was the problem basically. I lived in the North and didn’t have these problems. But you know, if you think about the Bijlmer, it has a reputation and although it might be 20 years old, it will keep that, at least for some time.” (Interview with a resident of Heesterveld, The Bijlmer)

“The PVDA Politician11 _{[Elsivira Sweet] returned earlier from her holiday for} an emergency consultation with the police and the justice department. “The violence has to stop” she writes on her weblog. A total of 20 ‘shooting incidents’ took place in the Bijlmer the past year, with a peak in the last month, counting three of such incidents in total.” (De Volkskrant, 2009).

Although the names of the Bijlmer’s neighbourhoods remained largely the same, as is seen in figure 1, the Bijlmer rigorously changed. Yet, as the above quotes illustrate the notion of the Bijlmer being a dangerous and deprived area has ingrained itself in media, policy and residents’ discourses, even nowadays while statistics show a general incline in social stability (Wassenberg, 2011; Gemeente Amsterdam, 2016b). As Goffman (1963:12) argued such discourses imply deeply ingrained marks of disgrace and thus inherently discredit -or in other words stigmatize- individuals, people or space. Yet attributes like insecurity or criminality are not unambiguously true or experienced in the same way, but rather formed through and within

discursive networks that are multi-faceted and exist out of media-, political-, residents’-, neighbours’- etc. discourses (Goffman, 1963: 12-13). This is not to say that certain problems like high crime rates or lacking infrastructures do not have any real influence on the perceived liveability of space. It must be clear that these issues should not be overlooked, and they must certainly be addressed. However, as Foucault argues (1983), it is precisely the question how different phenomena and people are taken together and problematized as unified entities and how policy initiatives thus respond to a reality defined by classifying a polity’s aimed population through specific frames. This is where the problem lies, because from this perspective, individual people within space become unified entities within policy paradigms. When space is marginalized it is hence the product of discursively problematizing space, and the people in such space, through rendering the existence of for instance safety issues or deprivation, whether or not these notions are unambiguously true, as one unified problem.

Stigmatizing discourses are themselves parts of symbolic productions that constitute symbolic systems, used to grapple the meaning of social life and in return reinforce and produce knowledge (Bourdieu, 1979). Bourdieu argued that institutions that exert symbolic power try to impose their visions on interpreting social reality. Since stigmatizing discourses are often mobilized by the media and the state to explicate social problems within spaces to subsequently promote state-led urban interventions to resolve these supposed social issues (Sakizlioglu & Uitermark, 2014), the media and the state can be seen as wielders of the symbolic power to integrate notions of insecurity and deprivation of space into symbolic systems. And although reasoning on issues of stigmatization may differ between the media, the state or residents –or even throughout discourses within these groups- the ostensible uniformity, legitimacy and large scope of entities like the state or the media enlarges the magnitude of their symbolic power opposed to the voices of residents who are usually unorganized and hard to mobilize (Ibid; Wacquant et. al: 2014). Thus, the problematic area defined as the Bijlmer has become part of commonly accepted and used discourses.

As the quotes that introduced this section demonstrate; discourses on the Bijlmer remain relatively negative and also show some resemblance across different spheres. The emphasis of various newspaper articles from both De Telegraaf and De Volkskrant focus on severe street crime and portray the Bijlmer as a furnace for (youth) crime. This is mostly apparent in the fact that almost half of all the selected articles contain the words “guns” “shooting incident” or “bullets” in them. Street crime is thus portrayed as the main issue, yet De Volkskrant seems to be more nuanced and moreover seems to seek more structural causes for these specific incidences in the articles themselves, relating them to severe poverty for instance: “The high rates of unemployement and overcrowding of the highrises left the Bijlmer’s residents in precarious situations and open to commit or fall victim to street crimes ranging from robbery to shooting incidents” (De Volkskrant, 2006) It is noteworthy to mention that both newspapers seem to observe a general incline in social stability in the Bijlmer however, since articles reporting on these incidents after roughly 2005 seem to acknowledge the Bijlmer’s crime rates were dropping compared to the 1990s. Yet especially De Telegraaf, a newspaper commonly producing shorter articles, seems to be less convinced that this incline in social stability will clime any further:

“The Bijlmer has an infrastructure and it is easy for drug dealers to switch housing. Moreover, they have a whole network to deal drugs with, all product of the Bijlmer and hard to get rid off. Amsterdam’s police are desperate to dismantle this network.” (De Telegraaf, 2007)

In terms of policy documents and policy makers, it is clear they still see the area of the Bijlmer as porous and problematic. Often these problems are simply summarized in policy reports, as if they are part of one overlapping problem:

Important facts and statistics for 201512

■ Bijlmermeer has 23.171 residents.

■ Bijlmermeer is ethnically the most diverse area in Amsterdam: 83% of its residents have a migrant background of which 74% non-Western. The largest group are Dutch-Surinami (33%), Dutch-Ghanian (30%) and Antillian-Dutch (6%)

■ A large portion of residents of the Bijlmermeer has no paid job (18,1%) ■ The average spendable income is 25% lower relative to the rest of Amsterdam.

■ The portion 18+ residents that makes use of debt-counseling is relatively high (5.6% relative to 2.4% in the rest of Amsterdam).

■ 19% of residents in Bijlmermeer experiences severe loneliness.

■ The portion of residents aged 18 to 22 that leaves the educational system without any credentials is 9% and on par with the city’s average. There are huge differences between neighbourhoods however; in the H- and F-neighbourhoods this average is higher, whilst the average is lower in the D-neighbourhood.

■ The youth unemployment rate is 14% relative to 13% for the rest of Amsterdam.

■ Of 10-year-olds from the Bijlmermeer a larger portion that average is obese (31% versus 24%).

Statistics are instrumental for governments to exercise power and to define and demarcate specific areas (LaTour, 1987; Uitermark, 2017), which is evident in this excerpt as statistics are used for very specific areas in specific situations. Moreover such numbers contribute to a discourse of “what is normal and what is deviant” (Uitermark, et. al: 2017: 62), claiming that specific issues are at hand in the specific neighbourhoods of the Bijlmer. They categorize residents into categories that are subsequently generalized to be seen as problematic. Furthermore they provide a language to tackle issues

that reached the policy agenda, without providing a very specific problem definition, which is rooted in more knowledge than just the quantitative data. This is seen in the fact that these statistics are compared to statistics on the municipal area of Amsterdam, which of course contrast the Bijlmer, thus the comparison seems superfluous. It is also seen in an incline in the use of measurement instruments like “liveability” or “safety” indexes that are widely used to measure the state of a demarcated area. In the specific excerpt above, the Bijlmer is briefly represented in numbers, which point out specific social issues, while at the same time actual residents might not necessarily experience these problems in their daily lives. It is presented as proof for specific policy decisions and widens the opportunities for the municipality to act.

The municipality of Amsterdam opts for solutions that fix not only problems outside, but also problems inside private situations. Their aim is to “help residents that are not in good socio-economic positions participate in society by, helping them to find employment and facilitate enough events and space for them to meet peers” (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2016d: 5). Although housing corporations, which own a vast majority of the Bijlmer’s dwellings, seem to also aim to socially mix residents to improve neighbourhood dynamics, they express less focus on problems behind residents’ doorsteps, as they often opt for relocation and spreading residents with “multi-problems”. John elaborates during our conversation on the tools used by housing corporations:

“Relocation is a tool to change people’s behaviour and make sure they will not cause nuisance because certain facilities, like open space, are less likely to be claimed. It can really change the neighbourhood dynamics here [in Heesterveld] or elsewhere. This resulted in the neighbourhood receiving a better grade from its residents.”

Relocation and the introduction of new residents thus become means to change neighbourhood dynamics, and changing dynamics may resolve the

social issues these housing corporations define. This seems rather logical however, since relocating problems logically results in a neighbourhood with less “multi-problem” residents. Again, the use of statistics –or at least the use of language that referrers to the numbers- comes into play here, as the numbers are a way to indicate change, yet the actual neighbourhood dynamics might not necessarily change through the relocation of few specific residents. The alleged lack of participation as it is measured and presented in the excerpt presented on page 26, combined with the views of the municipality and housing corporations, fit with the general policy discourses in the Netherlands on participation and the so-called “participation society”, in which participating has become a key word in establishing neighbourhood cohesion (Tonkens & De Wilde, 2013). At the same time the idea of participation and its returns have been widely contested and as Tonkens and De Wilde (2013) demonstrate in their book, there is a plethora of reasons for residents to not participate. Their personal situations for example, which in neighbourhoods with a relatively high concentration of poverty are often particularly cumbersome, might prohibit them from participating while policy measures demands this from them. Moreover Tonkens and De Wilde (2013), amongst others (Uitermark et al, 2007; Davidson, 2010; Dekker, 2007) demonstrate that social mixing policies seem to do little for participation rates, especially in deprived areas, since the social distance between new gentries and established residents is often too vast to overcome and moreover, proximity does not spontaneously indulge society (Davidson, 2010: 541). Marco, who is an artist living in the Bijlmer commented on this specifically:

“It is simply…I guess that it is hard to match with the neighbourhood, since we [creatives] are progressive and white and a lot of residents are fairly conservative, have a migrant background and very much part of their own community”

In this quote Marco explicates how rather than unifying residents with different socio-economic backgrounds, social mixing policy –and in this specific case CBG policy, which is focussed on this unification, as we shall see in part II- seems to make residents aware of the diversity and differences between them, thus leaving little room for daily encounters.

The discrepancy between expectation and experience

Then if we look at the feelings towards the neighbourhood of residents of the Bijlmer, we see that they are very aware of its reputation, since they all referred to it, even when simply asked what they think of the area they are currently living in:

“The first time I was here was at night funnily enough and I thought to myself: well this is the Ghetto, I should be cautious. Yet after living here for three weeks that picture completely changed. It is actually a really quiet neighbourhood and I would even say it is very boring. But it is also very diverse. Of course there are people hanging around and stuff, but I think that is also part of their culture. They’re just there, but don’t really do anything.”

The term “ghetto” was recurring term and as respondents often posed: “A term in the back of your mind”. They seemed very aware of the past reputation of the Bijlmer. I say “past” because what all respondents seemed to share is the fact that their experience of the Bijlmer is different from what they expected it to be. They see what one could typify as flaws however, just like the municipality does. These are often associated with littering and the different ideas of residents on their garbage disposable, as many residents complained about a lot of litter lying around on the streets: “Well, if there’s one thing that still goes wrong here and that I would ask my fellow residents, it is the means of getting rid of your garbage, because people seem to just dump it on the streets”

Litter lying around was a problem defined by five out of nine respondents, as all thought it destroyed the streetscape. It was thus more of an eyesore than anything else, although one respondent mentioned seeing rats crawling around litter just outside her doorstep fairly often. It is more interesting however, that the respondents that moved to the Bijlmer no longer than 8 years ago, which were all creatives in my sample, speak about their experience of the Bijlmer as contrasting to their expectations. More specifically, they seem to identify seemingly problematic or unsafe situations as different to their expectations of such situations:

“Well, it’s a lot more relaxed here than I initially though, for instance, there is this group of men hanging here in front of the entrance. At first I felt a bit unpleasant as a woman, them sitting there and me being alone. Yet after some time I realized they are very nice and helpful and they call themselves the “male collective” and actually they really liked making contact, and not in like…as in a sexual way or something. I thought they were just drinking and sitting there, but they are just without a job and really like seeing each other.”

As this quote of Eva, a 24-year-old filmmaker, exemplifies, we see the discrepancy between issues defined as problematic from a policy standpoint and the actual experience of residents. Where the municipality or housing corporations might argue this situation is problematic by default, for instance because these men are unemployed and out on the streets drinking beer, which may result in street crime or, less dramatic, in an unpleasant atmosphere on the streets, this respondent finds that the situation is more complicated that she thought at face value. So ultimately, this plays out in a tension between the imposition of certain policies or policy thoughts on space and its specific functions, and activities in space that revolve around exactly that what is deemed as problematic from a policy perspective; for instance drinking beer and being unemployed.

Moving to the Bijlmer

If the Bijlmer is eventually deemed less problematic than (creative) residents initially thought, one might wonder what brought them to the Bijlmer in the first place, since this statement implies they were expecting to find the Bijlmer in a worse state than they did. The long-time residents I interviewed lived in the Bijlmer mostly because Amsterdam offered them job opportunities and moreover, the Bijlmer was a cheap place to stay, as mr. Sandal, a middle-aged man from an Indian heritage elaborates:

“I moved to the Netherlands to find work something like 25 years ago and ended up in Groningen initially. There was no work for me there so my family and me decided to move to Amsterdam and the Bijlmer was the only place we could afford. Back then it was horrible and so much has changed by now. There was always police around and incidents and the streets were full of garbage.”

Mr. Sandal thus ended up in the Bijlmer more or less forced by his personal situation. Interestingly, this applies to both the migrant long-term residents I spoke to and a long-term resident with a Dutch background, John, who moved to the Bijlmer after finishing his studies, in search for a job in law in Amsterdam. John never left the area, yet for different reasons than the migrant long-term residents I spoke to, since in mr. Sandal’s case for instance his personal situation still forces them to live relatively cheap. This is not to say he is dissatisfied however, he also notices tremendous change in the Bijlmer as is seen in the aforementioned quote.

Both the creatives I spoke to and John seem to enact a “value-for-money” discourse (Pinkster, 2012: 812). On the one hand, this may suggest they are also in the Bijlmer because of their personal situation, on the other hand many of these respondents moved from more expensive locations such as Amsterdam’s canal district or the Pijp, indicating the issue is not necessarily money. They all seem to acknowledge the Bijlmer is not necessarily the place they though it would be, and they seem to have certain values that they

consider an important pull-factor for living in the Bijlmer, which are for instance low rent rates:

“We wanted a place where we could simply do what we want, in terms of exploring our artistry and stuff. The Bijlmer proved to be a good place to do this, against a very good price.”

The same proved true for homeowners, of which I spoke two. Both bought housing that was the product of the revitalization process and thus relatively new, against what they considered “next to nothing at the time”. Yet they expect prices to go up because of the improving reputation of the Bijlmer and the arrival of more and more consumption spaces that represent a certain lifestyle, as John, who happens to be a home-owner as well elaborates:

“The Bijlmer slowely also becomes a hip place, and it seems that a lot of restaurants and coffee bars can play a key role in this.”

Since many respondents enact in the value-for-money discourse, it may not surprise that many ties for these residents lay outside the neighbourhood. When Marco, who lives in Wijk7 was asked if he would think of himself as living in the neighbourhood or living in Amsterdam he responded:

“I live in Amsterdam because my friends and family do, scattered all over the city. I visit them a lot there and my children for instance, they go to school on IJburg. When people come here they usually just visit me at home and sometimes we go to some coffee place or something.”

As this quote exemplifies, many of the respondents’ activities lay outside of the neighbourhood, including everyday practices as work and bringing the children to school. It is interesting however to see how consumption practices, as drinking coffee or doing groceries pose the few reasons to visit the rest neighbourhood. Creative residents are thus drawn to the Bijlmer not necessarily because they think of it as a their neighbourhood or a place to stay