The urban movement in Amsterdam

In Amsterdam, there was little social housing policy after World War II. On the other hand, there were far-reaching plans by the authorities for office and motorway projects in the city center. As a result, houses were emptied pending demolition. As the legal housing market was closed, there was not much choice for young people other than occupying empty houses illegally, which also began to happen on a large scale in the mid-sixties.

In 1968, the authorities announced all their intentions in a single plan, which also made clear the effort to deport large sections of the inner city’s inhabitants. As a result, the residents organized. There were three components to the organization.
The first was the young people in the occupied houses. Thanks to their collective cohesion, they became the core of the resistance. They made sure to constantly occupy new houses as they became empty, to prevent the authorities from demolishing them. The creativity of these young people was great, and they were good at visualizing what a city life without cars and offices could mean.

The other was the residents, who were more than happy to see the young people take care of the empty houses to prevent further destruction. They were drawn to a not insignificant extent into the youth culture.

The third was the cultural elite of the upper middle class, who saw Amsterdam’s large sixteenth-century city center as a unique world heritage site that could not be destroyed.

Gradually, a fourth component was added that gave the victory to the city movement. These were large parts of the welfare alliance between the labour movement and the social bureaucracy, gathered in the Social Democratic Party. They could not understand how to evacuate people without there being somewhere for them to move. In 1978, that fly took over the party majority and the demolition plans were scrapped.

Reading
Hans Pruijt: The impact of citizens' protest on city planning in Amsterdam, paper, The future of the historic city of Amsterdam, 2002.