Zoekresultaten

Future-proof retail innovation and inclusive placemaking in amsterdam north: a real challenge

When it comes to shopping and spending time in the city, much of the traditional offering has made place for something new, usually more expensive: coffee bars like Starbucks with a wide range of cafés and lattes; bakery stores with a big choice of luxury croissants, sourdough, gluten free or spelt bread; concept stores with a mix of special brands, vintage stores and again good coffee or glass of prosecco at 17.00. But a crafts shop, a furniture upholstery or a good butcher? Hard to find. One of the main reasons for this change is that newcomers generally bring more money to an area but also different lifestyles and tastes, going with the flow of the latest trends and ready to pay for special brands and exceptional or innovative concepts. In the meantime, prices are booming. The term we often use for this phenomenon is gentrification: in my view, it describes a process whereby the renovation of a particular city area attracts newcomers with a higher socio-economic status who in turn make the area more popular. The effect of this popularity is an increase in housing prices as well as leisure offerings, meaning (recreative) shops, bars and sport or cultural activities, which tend to push out the original residents of their own neighbourhood. In this article you can read about gentrification and its visible effects on three shopping areas that feature market places and leisure activities – Van der Pek street, Zonneplein and Purmerplein situated in Amsterdam North, a previously traditional area. I will share with you the outcomes of our research into the liveability of these shopping areas, and our placemaking suggestions, based on the key indicators of the placemaking movement (Madden, 2018).

Sociale cohesie in gentrificerende arbeiderswijken van Amsterdam-Noord

We analyze how ‘original’ residents in different gentrifying working class areas in Amsterdam North experience and evaluate the changes in their neighborhood in terms of social cohesion – in other words, whether they feel at home in their changing neighborhood and whether they feel connected to other residents. Policy interventions often focus on establishing connections between residents with different socioeconomic or cultural backgrounds, in order to stimulate mutual understanding. An underlying policy aim is to uplift vulnerable original residents through contact with higher income groups. Based on our empirical data, we critically assess the concept of ‘bridging capital’ (Putnam, 2000) that underpins several of the social activities that are organized in areas such as the ones in our study. Subsequently, we discuss the importance of ‘bonding capital’ or the sense of interconnectedness and strong ties amongst original residents. Our empirical data – based on both interviews and participatory observation – suggest that activities within the ‘own’ community contribute importantly to feelings of belonging in the neighborhood. In the final section of the article, we discuss how different types of local meeting places offer opportunities for ‘lighter’ forms of interactions without aiming directly at strong connections between differently positioned neighborhood residents.

Plot Work as an Artistic Praxis in Today’s Cityscapes

This is a print publication of the inaugural lecture of Research Professor (Lector) Patricia de Vries at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, in Amsterdam. In this lecture, she elaborated on the research area of her research group Art & Spatial Praxis. The research group Art & Spatial Praxis focuses on artistic practices that broaden our imaginations of alternative social orders and ways of living within capitalist city structures.The thematic focus of Art & Spatial Praxis builds on Sylvia Wynter’s rich notion of the plot. With her conception of the plot, Wynter connects the historical enclosures of the plantation to today’s cityscapes. The plot stands for other possibilities that are always present. It represents possibilities rooted in different values and different social orders. This is to say, cityscapes and public spaces are relational, contingent and always contested. The plot challenges the forces of domination, appropriation, exploitation, commodification, gentrification, segregation, digitization, and quantification.What if plot work is a praxis that is socially enacted, embodied, narrativised, and materialised in art practices? What could the plot as artistic praxis be(come)? What constitutes it? What conditions and sustains it? What kind of behaviour, ways of seeing, knowing, and relating does it encourage? In short: what does the plot mean as a spatial art praxis in today’s cityscapes? These are some of the questions the research group Art & Spatial Praxis engages with. These are also pressing questions in the increasingly regulated, privatized, surveilled, and diminished public spaces in ever-more neoliberal cities.Over the years, De Vries has written on a range of topics – be it on fungal co-existence or facial recognition technology: the relationship between society, art, design and research is always the connecting thread.

De stad biedt aanknopingspunten

In grote steden als Amsterdam ontstaan door gentrification en andere processen nieuwe concentraties van sociale uitsluiting. Dat stelt sociaal werkers voor bijzondere en lastige uitdagingen. Tegelijk biedt de stad hen ook aanknopingspunten, schrijft lector Stedelijk Sociaal Werken Lex Veldboer.

Pubs and restaurants in the Indische buurt: the living room door ajar: the effects of gentrification on the daily life of owners and visitors of pubs and restaurants

De zachte impact van stenen stapelen.