Reality, from the Netherlands to Torquay united
Loading...
Date
1987
Authors
Editors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Cliff Hague (blog)
Abstract
Sunday Amsterdam. I came here last Thursday for the inaugural congress of the Association of European Schools of Planning. It has rained non-stop. Having been born and bred in Manchester, swaddled in a sou'wester and plastic mac, I have a particular aversion to foreign rain. Not out of chauvinism; Amsterdam's rain matches Salford's best concoctions in intensity, variety and wetness. Quite simply, when I go abroad, I expect the sun to shine, even at this time of year. When it doesn’t, I feel cheated, not elated, by the realisation that others don't actually enjoy benefits denied to me. Still, even in the rain, Amsterdam, this year's European City of Culture, does have a certain something that cannot be found in Salford, and which will still be elusive in Glasgow when that city wears the European cultural crown for 1990. I have the morning free, so I head for Bijlmermeer. This public housing estate on the south-eastern edge of Amsterdam was built in the 1960s and early 1970s, housing about 25,000 people. The massive zig-zag of ten-storey slab blocks probably looked exciting on the drawing board, but Bijlmermeer quickly became a by-word for the problems of the outer estates in the Netherlands. I haven't seen it since 1973, but Amsterdam now has 60,000 unemployed, and I've seen plenty of depressed housing estates on the edge of British cities. The visual clues suggest that Bijlmermeer shares some of the characteristics of Britain's outer estates. Car ownership is low, in-comes are below average, people queue to use the public phones, there are signs of a high child population and there's graffiti, the residents are disproportionately black. But there isn't the sense of despair and isolation that you get in Britain. The public phones actually work. There is a substantial pedestrianised shopping centre with a wide range of big-name retailers. I can't see any boarded-up or burnt-out flats. Industrial units are still occupied. It takes me ten minutes to get back into town on the metro. I get off at Nieuwmarkt, where redevelopment for the metro was bitterly resisted by action groups in the 1970s. Their confrontations with the riot police are commemorated in a fragmented mural on the metro wall. Scenes from the struggle are depicted between tumbling bricks as the huge iron ball of the demolition men hits the wall. Is this Dutch tolerance, or a memento to heroic resistance, or a way of neutralising and incorporating urban protest, or all three? Completing the nostalgia I visit the Jordaan, on the tringe of the city centre. In the 1970s I had friends in action groups here. They were opposing redevelopment of this historic working-class district of tall canal houses with precipitous staircases. They won. There has been some infill, but the street markets are still there amid the fascinating lattice of tiny streets. Today the threat to community is less from planning than from market forces. On a brief visit in the rain the Jordaan does not look as gentrified as I'd feared it might have been. So, I head for Schipol and home, heady with the rediscovery of paths I had trodden so long ago. The broad-based community action in defence of place and class which Action Group Jordaan practised in the early 1970s still seems an exemplar for a planning practice that is participatory and redistributive. Planning should be about co-operative working to make places better for those who live there. Such planning should be educative to all those involved, and it should be fun. In the end the victories of Amsterdam's action groups were only partial, but victories are scarce and should be celebrated. I buy a bottle of jenever at the duty-free to prolong the reverie through the long winter nights.
Description
personal blog