Sign-up links for all off-sites will be sent by email to conference registrants only in late September. Advanced registration required. Capacity: 25.Together with Marijke Storm you will visit the Nieuwmarkt area. Together with formal activist Hans van Os you will follow the path of the subway line underneath the area, learn about the protests following the subway's arrival in the 1970s, as well as the neighborhood's current battles.
In the 1970s, two ideas of urbanism were at war in Nieumarkt: Jane Jacobs versus Robert Moses. The official policy was to open up the city center with freeways, offices, hotels and commerce, and to move inhabitants out to suburbs and new towns. When houses in the medieval Jewish quarter were demolished for the construction of the underground line. The young postwar generation fought for a human scale city, with a mix of inhabitants and vibrant street life, and changed the popular vision of an urban lifestyle.
Later, new houses were constructed above the metro line and the old street patterns restored. Socially motivated architects united with inhabitants to consturct subsidized housing for families, elderly people, and artists, and the Nieuwmarkt area became a lively and socially mixed neighborhood. Alas, nowadays the inhabitants have to fight again to maintain that mix. Commercial enterprises, tourism, speculation, high rents, and AirBnB are taking over, alienating and driving away existing inhabitants.
Then or now, the key questions remain the same: Who owns the city? What kind of city do we want to be?
Meetingpoint: Metro Exit Nieuwe Herengracht.
When you missed people at the meeting point you can ring the doorbel from 11.50 at:
Kantoor De Halve Wereld
Nieuwe Amstelstraat 14.
Or call Marijke Storm: +316 20834489
