Willem R. Boterman

Gentrifiers Settling Down? Patterns and Trends of Residential Location of Middle-Class Families in Amsterdam

Based on data for Amsterdam, the Netherlands, this paper presents new evidence of a strong increase in the number of middle-class families in the city. By presenting the spatial patterns and trends of middle-class families in selected Amsterdam neighbourhoods, the paper shows that central neighbourhoods in particular attract middle-class families. In addition, new-build areas, both central and peripheral, offer a residential environment for middle-class families as a compromise between inner city and suburb. This paper links these patterns and trends with gentrification literature. Middle-class family neighbourhoods are classified in a typology that perceives neighbourhoods as fields that are accessed by means of capital, and operate as a stage for the accumulation of various forms of capital, which are associated with various habituses of the middle class.

Dealing with Diversity: Middle-class Family Households and the Issue of ‘Black’ and ‘White’ Schools in Amsterdam

The urban middle classes often celebrate the diversity of their neighbourhood. As soon as they have children, however, the desire to display symbolic capital may conflict with the need to reproduce cultural capital through the educational system. In the ethnically diverse Amsterdam schooling context, in which parents have free school choice and school access is not determined by fees, the socio-spatial strategies of school choice could be expected to differ from particularly the UK context. Based on in-depth interviews conducted with white middle-class parents in Amsterdam, this study argues that ethnic diversity is a major concern when they are seeing primary schools for their children, but that middle-class fractions have different socio-spatial strategies for managing it. It is argued that, despite differences in terms of housing market and school policies, the strategies of the Amsterdam middle classes are very similar to other contexts, suggesting homologies of class between national contexts.

Residential Mobility of Urban Middle Classes in the Field of Parenthood

There is common understanding that gentrifiers and new middle classes more generally share an urban orientation and may share a ‘metropolitan habitus’. The urban geography of Western metropolises and the formation and reproduction of specific middle-class groups are intrinsically connected. The specific urban habitus of these new middle classes, however, is challenged by events in the life course. When urban middle classes settle down and have children, many suburbanise. Using two waves of longitudinal data from a representative sample of middle-class couples expecting their first child, this study investigates the residential practices of middle classes that live in the central areas of Amsterdam when they become first-time parents. Building on prior work on urban middle classes, inspired by the theoretical concepts of Bourdieu, through a multilevel analysis, this study seeks to understand how various orientations of capital influence the decision whether to stay in the city or move to suburban areas. Controlling for a range of individual and neighbourhood variables, this study demonstrates that couples with high economic capital and relatively low cultural capital have a higher propensity to move out of the central city, whereas couples with high cultural capital and low economic capital have a smaller chance of suburbanising. Furthermore, this study confirms that the degree of social and economic connectedness through social networks and work in the city also play an important part in determining the propensity to move out of the city.

Intergenerational support shaping residential trajectories: Young people leaving home in a gentrifying city:

Parental support, in both financial and non-financial ways, is important in explaining the residential trajectories of young people leaving home. For instance, the influence of parental support on the ability to leave home or enter homeownership is well established. This study adds a dimension by investigating how inequalities in terms of parental background – particularly assets – are spatially articulated. More specifically, we study whether parental background influences the types of neighbourhoods young people leaving home move to. Drawing on the case of Amsterdam, we show that these ‘fledglings’, despite their generally very modest income, disproportionally move to gentrification neighbourhoods. Moreover, fledglings with wealthy parents are even more likely to move to both early gentrifying and expensive mature-gentrification neighbourhoods. Gentrification research should therefore also take into account the importance of middle class social reproduction strategies as well as the potential intergenerational transfer of (financial) resources – rather than merely personal financial situation – in shaping housing outcomes and spatial inequalities of young people leaving home. Drawing on parental support, young people may be able to outbid other households and hence exclude them from gentrifying neighbourhoods. Consequently, parental wealth and other resources can thus contribute to gentrification and exclusion.

Deconstructing coincidence: how middle-class households use various forms of capital to find a home

Abstract When asked to explain how they acquired a home middle-class households often forward a series of coincidences. This paper shows that what is experienced as sheer luck may actually be explicable by taking into account the various forms of capital people command. In this paper theories of Bourdieu and De Certeau are applied to the housing market and are used to explore the strategies and tactics people apply to acquire a home. For this study I draw on in-depth semi-structured interviews carried out in Copenhagen, Denmark and Amsterdam, the Netherlands among middle-class households. This paper shows that in order to explain access to housing it is necessary to investigate housing market practices and include other forms of capital than merely financial, such as for example social networks, embodied taste, and knowledge of the legal and institutional context. It is suggested that the way in which class is spatially produced tends to be working differently for various fractions of the middle class.

When the spell is broken: gentrification, urban tourism and privileged discontent in the Amsterdam canal district

Expansion of urban tourism in historic districts in European cities is putting increasing pressure on these areas as places to live. In Amsterdam, an ever-growing number of tourists visit the famous canal district, which also forms the home of a group of long-term, upper-middle-class residents. While such residents are generally depicted as instigators of urban transformation, in this case, they are on the receiving end. Bringing together the literature on the socio-spatial impact of tourism, belonging and the lived experience of place, this article explores the changing relationship between these established residents and their neighbourhood and provides insight into their growing sense of discontent and even powerlessness in the face of neighbourhood change.

Surveying the Fault Lines in Social Tectonics; Neighbourhood Boundaries in a Socially-mixed Renewal Area

Abstract In recent decades, neighbourhood regeneration has often involved social mixing strategies, often through comprehensive renewal. By deconcentrating poverty and giving opportunities for social interaction, remaining residents are believed to benefit from middle-class presence. This study looks at a post-war neighbourhood in Amsterdam which has undergone comprehensive renewal. By making use of survey data in combination with GIS techniques, this study shows that perceptions are structured by physical characteristics, activity patterns and symbolic boundaries. These perceptions are highly dependent on social position. While some residents in renewal areas display inclusionary attitudes, there is also evidence of middle-class and lower class disaffiliation. Interestingly, these translate into different mental maps for both groups. The paper ends with a methodological reflection on using GIS-based boundary drawing in neighbourhood surveys to gauge fragmentation and place-based displacement.

Carrying class and gender: Cargo bikes as symbolic markers of egalitarian gender roles of urban middle classes in Dutch inner cities

ABSTRACT In Dutch inner-cities, like Amsterdam, ‘cargo bikes’ have become a popular mode of transport for urban families. Remarkably, the cargo bike has become a highly contested object in both public space and public discourse. This paper uses the cargo bike as a lens to discuss the transformations of urban space from the perspective of class and gender. Based on a qualitative content analysis of national newspapers it argues that the cargo bike has become a symbol of the interdependence of specific residential, employment, consumption and mobility practices. Cargo-bike drivers are portrayed as ‘yuppies’ or ‘elitist’, related to their class position; and described in terms of specific gender roles: cargo-bike mothers are described as career-focused mothers who are assertive and self-confident, while cargo-bike dads are portrayed as ‘soft’ yet also emancipated. These labels attest to the different expectations and normativities around being a ‘good’ mother or father, particularly within the context of urban space. This paper concludes that the cargo bike is a symbol of the way in which middle-class mothers and fathers challenge and negotiate these dominant norms around parenthood, who are thereby remaking the city.

Beyond the urban–suburban dichotomy

Suburbanisation has been a prevalent process of post-war, capitalist urban growth, leading to the majority of citizens in many advanced capitalist economies currently living in the suburbs. We are also witnessing, however, the reverse movement of the increasing return to the inner-city. This contradiction raises questions regarding contemporary urban growth and the socio-spatial production of the suburbs. This paper draws on the case of new town Almere in the metropolitan region of Amsterdam to cast light upon the changing suburban–urban relationship, by investigating the mobility to and from Almere for two decades through socio-economic, demographic data between 1990 and 2013. We demonstrate that Almere has developed from a typically suburban family community to a receiver of both international unmarried newcomers and families; its population has also become relatively poorer, yet the levels of upwards income mobility have remained stable. These trends emphasise alternative types of mobilities emerging in concert to the more typical suburban migration. The town’s transformation challenges the urban–suburban dichotomy, pointing to alternative explanations of contemporary urban growth and metropolitan integration.

Molly Vollman Makris: Public housing and school choice in a gentrified city: youth experiences of uneven opportunity

This book addresses the important issue of how gentrification may positively affect the lives and opportunities of lower class residents that manage to stay in a gentrified area. There is a wide body of literature that demonstrates that the positive effects of gentrification on lower class long-term residents are limited at best, and detrimental at worst. Many studies show that meaningful interaction between lower class and middle class residents is scarce and relations are tectonic (Butler and Robson 2001): they may live close to each other but rarely truly interact because they have different everyday practices. One of the few locations where different classes, and for that matter different ethnicities, could potentially meet are day cares and schools. Schools may therefore both offer real potential for the transfer of resources from middle class children to lower class kids. On the other hand, exactly because schools are sites of encounter, they are at the forefront of middle class disaffiliation strategies. The book investigates the case of the city of Hoboken, close to New York City, which has become thoroughly gentrified. Hoboken, a majority upper middle class area, has an interesting demographic composition. As with most gentrifying and gentrified areas there are clear differences in age cohorts between new and old residents. Hoboken has a clear majority of college-educated residents, of whom most have no children or only very young kids. Among the school-aged kids of the area, however, a (slight) majority is non-white and a substantial part lives in poverty. This stark contrast is the backdrop of this study. By studying primarily the experiences of disadvantaged youth this book fits into a small but expanding literature that focuses on the ‘‘other side’’ of gentrification. Where most gentrification and school choice studies investigate the difficulties and dilemma’s op gentrifiers that have to deal with neighbourhood diversity (Boterman 2013), this book usefully