H.G.J. Kaal

A conceptual history of livability

The quest for livability is currently a key urban issue throughout the world. Judging from policy programs, political manifestos and business philosophies, maintaining or improving a citys degree of livability appears to be one of the main concerns of a variety of actors, ranging from the spheres of local and state government to civil society and business. Critical urban geographers have characterized livability as a ‘discursive frame that both enables and legitimates entrepreneurial policy initiatives’. Building on this critical interpretation of livability discourse this paper studies livability from the perspective of (urban) democracy. Through an investigation of the conceptual history of livability in the Netherlands, views on urban governance and citizenship are identified. The paper makes clear that over the past half a century, the concept of livability has played various roles in different contexts. In the late 1950s, livability emerged as a key concept in Dutch rural geography against the background of concerns over rural citizenship. In the 1960s and 1970s, livability was at the core of post-materialist values that rose to prominence in the urban arena. Urban social movements used the concept to contest the excesses of the prevailing growth-centered urban politics and the doctrine of modern functionalism. In the 1970s and 1980s livability was also used by urban government to promote a new kind of active citizenship, while in the 1990s livability was increasingly used by urban government and housing corporations to influence the social composition of urban neighborhoods.

From airfield to airport: an institutionalist-historical approach to the early development of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, 1916-1940

In this article, the development of Dutch airports during the antebellum period from military airfields to mixed-airfields and finally to a municipal airports is examined from an institutionalist-historical approach. Specific attention is given to the evolution of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol within a regional socioeconomic context and within a national context of local competition, particularly between the big cities in Randstad Holland. This article argues that the rise and development of Schiphol and its impact on the surrounding urban area (city and the region) can be characterized as a coevolutionary process involving different actors within various domains— economic, political, and institutional—and at different spatial levels. Airport development, therefore, has to be conceived as the result of a collective arrangement that has determined the spatial and economic development of the airport itself and the surrounding area.

Immigrants in the Polder. Rural-Rural Long Distance Migration in North-Western Europe: The Case of Watergraafsmeer

Long distance emigration of agriculture workers or farmers is usually associated with seasonal migration. Permanent migration of farmers on the other hand, is considered to be a non-European phenomenon and commonly linked to migration to the New World where capital costs were relatively low and institutional barriers limited. Interestingly, in the early modern period, in the wake of the mass migration from continental north-western Europe to the urban areas of the Dutch Republic, a contingent of German market gardeners and their descendants were slowly able to take over the production of farmed vegetable goods for the nations capital, Amsterdam. In the middle of one of Europes most densely populated areas, in a polder called Watergraafsmeer, a parish neighbouring, and subsequently part of, Amsterdam, Germans dominated the agricultural sector for over a century. This article will try to answer the question of how these German migrants were able to control a sector that is usually run by locally born producers, for such a long period of time.

Religion, Politics, and Modern Culture in Interwar Amsterdam

According to the statistics, the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, was becoming ever more secular during the interwar years (1918-1940). This article, however, argues that religion in Amsterdam continued to have a big impact on urban government and society. During the interwar years, social and political debates about modernization, and the emergence of mass entertainment in particular, were strongly influenced by religious ideas, norms, and values; Amsterdam’s public sphere was still charged with religion.