Waching daily Apr 28 2018

Amsterdam is auctioned off.

It's now also a place where only the rich can live.

I have the feeling the city is putting its soul up for sale.

The question is whether we want to create a Dutch metropolis.

With 5 or 6 million inhabitants.

This is Type B. One of the bigger types.

It's expensive, but the view remains. This is your view.

A little to the right, that is.

Will it be behind the tower, so there's no view?

Not a whole tower. There will be towers, but you can look past them.

They're placed such a way that you keep nice sightlines, like to the IJ.

The new Manhattan, right? - Hold that thought.

Do a lot of expats control the market right now?

Yes, it's a big demographic in Holland.

Many international companies are coming.

To all the cities in the West.

They bring a lot of employees, who usually have big budgets.

Because of limited supply, it gets harder for the local market...

...to buy or rent their own houses.

Is the market overstretched? - Yes. There is a housing shortage.

30 percent are houses for sale, half of which everyone wants to live in.

It's obvious that, with low mortgage interest and the demographics...

...it's one big Wild West situation.

This is Pier 2, that's sold out too. But they'll be building more, lovely flats...

The market is overstretched, prices are skyrocketing.

What can be done?

Just one thing, on a purely macro level.

Aligning supply and demand. That's basic economics.

We'll have to create more housing. Then the prices will stabilize.

They won't go down, but stabilize a little.

This craziness will end. This looks attractive for developers, but it isn't.

In the end, the prices rise to such a high level...

...that the target group you can serve becomes very narrow.

That's bad for everyone. For the city, for developers, for investors.

So building more houses would be the solution, eventually.

The cities are also becoming nicer.

A while ago, cities were seen as monsters.

All the houses were the same, there was a lot of traffic.

And now we're more accepting of tramlines, and we can afford them.

We cycle more too, we want to hang out on the street.

We drink gallons of coffee everywhere. A huge coziness has come about.

And I think that's very good. Because it makes it all...

The more dense the cities, the less you take away from the open spaces...

...the countryside, the agricultural areas or the woods.

Now that you're a richer city, you should facilitate this.

Do your best, Amsterdam. You're becoming one-sided.

All the experiments and a lot of energy are disappearing.

The energy is becoming very limited. You don't want that.

These towers could be higher.

In the past we were very proud of these ten beautiful towers.

But they could be made higher.

I've lived in this area for 35 years.

I know the streets through and through, I know almost everyone.

It's become a nice neighborhood. For 30 years, it was very different.

Not as tidy, not as beautiful.

I'm also glad a lot of young people are coming to live here.

There's a sidewalk café, there's another one, and another one.

It reminds me of Paris. It's only grown more beautiful.

I can easily sit here and have some coffee.

A lot has changed in the past five years.

Much of the housing is new, or has been renovated.

The rents are higher, so it attracts other people.

A different kind lives here now. With more purchasing power.

You now see many new businesses, new residents...

...who are prepared to pay a lot for a small house.

You can't put a lot in it, so you put in beautiful things.

That's where I come in.

I add a few nice tables, nice chairs and a nice couch, and then it's full.

So this is all very good for me.

The people I talk to also say that it's really wonderful right now.

But everyone's worried it will go too far.

Two years ago I told the district I could help existing businesses...

...to fit in better. I came to live here myself.

I experienced that very fast development that started in 2014.

I did my shopping in certain places, and saw what their potential was.

Something can look very hip and slick...

...but that doesn't mean they sell special things.

And many other shops do.

What I try to do is make the businessmen stronger...

...and strengthen the ties between the businesses and the residents.

We mainly tried to match the image with the quality that's there.

So far we've only changed the awning and the design.

This is to indicate there is a lot of diversity among greengrocers.

They carry the regular products that are used in the Turkish kitchen.

And this is a shelf with biological products.

5 euros 10, please.

This is one of the few shops here that focus on Pakistani-Indian cooking.

A different assortment than the other ones.

We started looking at what we should highlight.

There are unusual vegetables and many spices, but it takes a lot of work.

It's hard to persuade the target group to start cooking.

This is Pakistani street food. It's a big hit. It's all I sell.

The funny thing is, people tell me it's delicious.

I know it's good, but the customers say it's delicious. That's nice.

This is the first store I started on.

The main and most visible part was adapting the awning...

...and the fact it lists delicatessen as well.

It's what it is. Not a standard food store, they sell delicatessen.

It's interesting to mention many super foods are standard in some kitchens.

We branded them super foods and put them in hip packages.

And here you can get good quality for a very reasonable price.

You just have to know about it. - Had you ever heard of super foods?

What are super foods?

That's what they call certain food that's very good for you.

They call it super food.

For you.

Are you proud? Happy with your store?

Not yet. No, not yet.

I want to do more different things. More and more.

What do you think the street will look like in ten years?

What's the name of that famous street near Leidseplein?

You mean P.C. Hooftstraat? - Yes. It'll be like that.

In 1993, I fled Bosnia-Herzegovina with my parents.

There was a terrible civil war going on.

We fled to the Netherlands. We first went back when I was eleven.

Then I saw many cities that were destroyed.

All around you, you saw ruined buildings, with bullet holes.

This fascinated me.

I learned that cities don't just consist of cold stone and concrete...

...but of thousands of memories.

So people identify with these places because there are stories there...

...that have direct links with themselves.

You have to take all these stories into account.

That different people are able to identify with the city.

That is important.

That's why you have to create public spaces and houses...

...for various people with various budgets.

So they can identify with the city more, understand and read it better.

Then you take care of it better, and feel close to it.

But a city is also a place of contrasts.

Of various people who are able to live on a small piece of ground.

Tolerating each other, willing to interact.

And also willing to confront each other, while respecting each other.

But if you create a city for just one kind of person...

...then that confrontation will disappear.

Sharing diverse opinions and different knowledge will no longer exist.

It'll become very homogenized.

Gentrification is a process that sneaks up on you very slowly.

You hardly notice it. At first you think, there are some more nice bars.

Before you know it, the whole street is full of places...

...where you can get coffee and banana bread.

When these places appear, we should ask ourselves:

Do I love coffee and banana bread that much, and concept stores...

...or is someone else deciding that?

They're expensive. - No, they're 99 cents a sack.

You can't get cheaper than that.

Look. A few months, and it's also gone.

Incomprehensible. Every business that leaves, never comes back.

The rents are very high.

I pay 3000 a month for this. That's very high.

If the rent was 2000, I'd be able to afford it.

Maybe later, when I get more customers, I could pay the rent.

If not, I'll go bankrupt.

I think the street develops too fast for the residents of the area.

I was an example of this with Strong Food.

I looked at what was going on, and wanted to join that.

But the street said: Hang on, we're not nearly ready for this.

Go and do something else.

But how do you keep your identity?

It's just like all those phone shops.

You don't want them all to go, or the greengrocers.

We all have to realize what they contribute to this street.

We don't do that enough.

It has to do with the area's affordability.

If you can't afford it anymore, you get yuppies in exchange for this.

They can afford it. But the good cheer in the neighborhood suffers.

Yes, absolutely.

But I'm afraid you simply can't stop that development.

You see the iconic Pontsteiger and think: It's becoming a city.

The A'DAM Tower back there. This will be it.

Slowly but surely you see all these areas where new buildings will be.

You love looking at this area. - Great.

In our job, you have to be in love with the city.

You have to love your job, but also the city and the people who live in it.

What's bad for us is that the private market is determined by demand.

With a big demand, the price will go up.

But social housing is subject to policy.

It's available, but occupied by established Amsterdammers.

And they won't move.

You could say, as a party, there are too many subsidized houses.

But they're there. And those people live in nice houses.

Politics have to wonder if they dare to say:

You earn double the modal income, can you stay in that cheap house?

That's a political question we can't answer.

But there's certainly a discrepancy.

It's very hard to give up an 800 or 700-euro house in the old town.

If you've lived there 20 years, you don't just leave.

That's typical of Amsterdam. - You could say there's no alternative.

I think they mostly look at their wallet.

Houses that cost 2000 or 2400 are certainly available.

But they'll say that's too much money. - And it is.

But there are other options.

I do think the distance between 800 and 1400 is a pretty big step.

But in the area in between, with rents around 900, 1000 euros...

...you can see a real shortage of houses for rent.

We should ask: Is there enough circulation in that area?

Say you started out there. The law provides one reviewing moment.

You can rent a subsidized house for 500 and you can live there all your life.

We should ask: Is that right...

...or should he make room for the next teacher just starting out?

Should he move up to a more expensive house, for 1500 euros?

Of course you can't create places that are attractive to everyone.

But you can try to exclude as few groups as possible.

How do you do that? - By really taking into account...

...all these groups, when you're making plans for the city.

We should change things in the policy...

...to make it more attractive for developers and investors...

...to build houses for the middle segment.

Otherwise it won't happen.

It was uninhabitable here. The houses were just shells.

You don't see that here anymore.

If we renovate two houses, and make them look beautiful...

...number three will feel it and go along, even if it's not yours.

So cleaning up has an effect.

What you see here is growing uniformity.

And it focuses mainly on the tourists that bring things here.

Much is taken away from this street.

What we want is streets that both bring and take away.

Bring it for the city, we do it all together.

And take it to make a living.

But now there's mostly taking. There are good businesses here, of course.

But if there's an imbalance, a bigger focus on uniformity...

...you won't go there anymore as an Amsterdam resident.

There'll be uniformity in the street too.

It becomes a cycling passage, with obstacles.

But we won't have ties with it anymore. While we're the King's neighbors.

That's pretty strange.

I think we should live above the stores again.

Without residents, no supervision. This focuses on the once-only consumer.

To describe him like that.

Can the city keep up with the changes?

You mean economic changes. No, you can't always follow them quickly.

Because that's enterprise.

But you can think about what you do want, and what you can't do.

Nowadays the economy is developing so fast...

...and a lot of money can be made so quickly, you're overtaken by events.

It's very strange. An area yuppifies or falls to a certain class.

It's a kind of art to do achieve diversification on the smallest scale.

But that could prevent...

...those overly homogenized, ghetto-like neighborhoods.

You mean lower-class ghettos? Or are they in gated communities too?

Those are ghettos too.

This will also be an exciting part of the city.

It would be great to turn the Southern Axis into an area for strolling around.

Something that overshadows La Défense.

But isn't the Southern Axis a monoculture of banks and lawyers?

Yes, that's dramatic. Public space is dominated by blue suits.

It's interesting to see who lives here. - No social housing here?

I don't know the details, but I don't think so.

Look at this.

This is the wall towards the street, these are the terraces.

Look, and here it is.

How the building presents itself to the Southern Axis, to the A10.

The gardener will be essential to this building.

She'll be very cool. It's a woman.

She's been hired? - We're looking.

We want to keep this up meticulously.

People can add their own plants, like pot.

But there'll be basic plants we'll manage together.

To make sure it'll be really sumptuous...

...and will be well maintained.

And yes, some trees will die, you get that in any kind of garden.

It's not really a building, it's an Alpine landscape in Amsterdam.

Meanwhile, a new bubble is developing in the city.

How do you control it?

If the growth is one-sided...

...and if it will be supported by the real estate sector...

...that will be wrong.

Amsterdam is getting more global, so real estate prices are rising.

It has to compete with Paris, Frankfurt and London.

This has pros and cons.

The advantage is you have room to work on the quality.

The revenues can be used for public spaces, subways and infrastructure.

And also for social housing...

...for areas where you have to supplement the budget.

But the economic risk is, if you concentrate on that exclusively...

...it does become a bubble.

nice and cozy, dead yuppie bubble

These are real luxury flats, right?

Yes. Here is The Iron Suite, 190 square meters, 20.1 meters outside space.

It's all been filled in, you can already see how comfortably you can live here.

And this is what the whole area will look like.

The spot where we are now, STATE Amsterdam, is over there.

Bottom right is the former Bijlmer Prison.

That will also become a new residential area.

With houses for sale and for rent, in a higher rent segment.

Prisoners used to live here. At one point, they were moved out.

About 600 authorized asylum seekers could live here.

At the same time the area is put up for sale...

...by the state real estate agency that owns the land.

So a buyer has to be found, but the value of the land also has to go up.

It has to be attractive, so the creative class is brought on board.

A hotbed will be created, affordable space will be made available.

To liven things up and turn it into pleasant surroundings.

Outside the ring way? - Yes, we're going to jump the ring.

With the first housing here.

Ring jump? - Outside the ring.

This was anticipated in the past...

...but many people in Amsterdam don't experience it like that yet.

A city outside the ring.

How can you make this attractive? Build those villas?

A varied mix would be nice. It's already starting behind you.

With some temporary pavilions, used by some hipster lures.

Hipster lures? - Yes, those are hipper initiatives.

Used temporarily to lure other investors.

Can we drive over to that spot?

I don't know exactly how.

That's typical of these areas. They're hard to get to.

So they're fun but you can't get there? That's tricky in this case.

This is going wrong.

We'll try this again.

It looks cheerful.

BICYCLES - EXIT - BAR

Who initiates this? The city, the hipsters?

It's in the air. It's happening in a lot of cities.

In Bordeaux, Paris. Also in Seoul, and other Asian cities.

To make it more humane. It's done from below and above at the same time.

It's very good that the city tries to handle this in this way.

Many people said, don't go to Sloterdijk.

It's dangerous, it's boring, it's no fun.

And we've made the difference here.

We've really tried to bring back the human scale.

Sloterdijk is about big infrastructure, big office buildings.

But here we've gone back to a small scale...

...where people belong and feel at home.

We're allowed to lease this from the city for ten years.

Then you'll have to leave? - Right.

We hope not, of course.

That's ambivalent, isn't it? - Certainly.

As it's temporary you can experiment, and show things with your story.

If we'd wanted something permanent, we couldn't have rented the land.

It would have gone to the classic developer who builds a lot and sells it.

That changes the dynamic. We chose a spot with a temporary purpose.

We can also dismantle this building and take it somewhere else.

Take a grinding disc, uncouple things, and we can put it in East Groningen

Or some other location that cries out for a new dynamic.

Look around you, see how close the airport is.

You see all that traffic. People walking or cycling, meeting each other.

And that this is all close together is very special.

What matters is more ambition and daring to think big.

To think on a global scale, not the Dutch scale.

And then facilitating growth while maintaining quality.

If you look at special aspects: The best museums in the world attract crowds.

Control the crowds better.

Don't say: It's great but it's getting crowded. Of course it is.

The world is supposed to enjoy a great city like Amsterdam.

It'll be busier. Let's facilitate that, we owe it to the world.

Will that also force up the prices?

Prices will go up because people realize how special this city is.

And this urbanization, wanting to be on the happening spot...

...means prices will be forced up.

I know people here often thought: It's so expensive here.

It's not, compared to many other cities.

And for many people, smaller houses are okay.

We talk about micro flats, 40 square meters.

In New York that's wonderful.

Not just for starters, for those who like living there.

The price is a factor, but the bonus is you can live in a wonderful city.

This is our common living room.

And yes, a huge TV. We bought this for Game of Thrones.

We all watch that together.

This is where Guus is staying. That's his bedroom.

For Amsterdam, the bedrooms are fairly roomy.

One of the bathrooms.

This is another housemate's room, Isa's, but she's also still asleep.

This is a little cramped.

Very nice, with the sun coming up.

This is the situation in Amsterdam.

But looking around, I see most people our age, we're 26...

...are still sharing a house.

Houses are unaffordable, so it's becoming normal.

I'm doing just fine here for the moment.

Maybe if I can get a good, steady job next year...

...I might look for a house to buy.

But we may need your parents' help again.

Because you have your student loan. So it all keeps building up.

I don't know. I wonder if it will ever really happen.

Maybe we'll still be here when we're 35.

But this is not all that expensive, for what you get.

What do you pay? - 570 euros.

In all, we pay 2000, including gas, water, electricity, TV and internet.

Compared to my parents' mortgage in Limburg, that's really absurd.

But we do live in the Dutch capital. It's our own choice.

We could live just outside of Amsterdam and have a lot more room.

But we don't want all that.

We're going to move to Leidschendam.

Amsterdam is very expensive. We looked for months in Wageningen...

...we've found a house, but we're sad to leave.

You could rent this to a dual-income couple, and ask 1750 for it.

Someone will take it. A single or dual-income couple, but not a family.

They simply can't afford it.

Nowadays, leaving is the trend.

The housing corporation that owns it sells it to the highest bidder.

There'll be luxury flats, a restaurant. Amsterdam is auctioned off.

Everything has to make way for money, for new restaurants.

And it's become a place where only the rich can live.

If you can't find a house in Amsterdam anymore...

...because you can't afford the rent, and can't afford to buy...

...you're simply stuck.

Yes, yes. But outside, you can see: This is the city.

It's very small. One of the world's nicest places.

With the best museums. Maybe you should look at it a different way.

Almere is basically a suburb of Amsterdam.

It would be great if Almere's mayor said:

Make me an alderman in big Amsterdam.

Then you'd have a place in Amsterdam where you can live very well.

It would be a wonderful spot for expats, ten minutes from Amsterdam Center.

At a recent presentation in Arnhem, I was really thinking:

Nice to be in an Amsterdam suburb. That's how it feels.

An hour's drive, lots of greenery. Draw big companies over there.

Use Holland and Amsterdam as a good brand.

You can live marvelously there, close to the airport.

The question is whether we want to create a Dutch metropolis.

With 5 or 6 million inhabitants. To be a global player.

So Amsterdam can still grow a lot? - If we think bigger, we'll grow more.

If you think big, you can make the decisions to facilitate that.

The main question is: How ambitious, how big, do we want to be?

We shouldn't start building a global fleet, but a metropolis.