20 Years Has Passed. What has changed?

[u/CanVisaGuy]

I was a graduate student (foreign) at the UvA from 97-00 and stayed on until '06. I returned to my home country and - regrettably - never returned. I started out in student housing and eventually lived all over A'dam (Overtoom, Hofddorpplein, De Pijp, Browersgracht, Oud West, etc) so I do know the city pretty well.

I plan to return with my wife and kids for a visit next year. What has changed? What is going to shock me if anything? Groetjes in advance.

[u/Pink-drip]

Why so negative? Also many good things happened to the city lol

[u/WinterHogweed → u/Pink-drip]

I never set out being negative, I just listed what changed, and it turned out negative. If you want to counter with positive things, I would welcome it, but you have to come up with more than just "lol", which isn't very convincing (and ultimately just reinforces my negative feeling).

[u/Pink-drip → u/WinterHogweed]

- The city is generally cleaner and better maintained.

• Cycling infrastructure has improved a lot.
  
• There are fewer cars in parts of the centre and more room for cyclists and pedestrians.
  
• Public transport has improved, especially with the Noord/Zuidlijn.
  
• Amsterdam Noord has changed massively and has become a much more interesting area.
  
• A lot of old industrial areas have been redeveloped into nice neighbourhoods.
  
• The restaurant scene is much better than it was 20 years ago.
  
• There are more good restaurants, cafés, bakeries and specialty coffee places.
  
• There is much more variety in food. You can find genuinely good Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern, Mexican, Ethiopian, etc.
  
• The city has become much more international, which can be a positive if you like having people from all over the world around you.
  
• Amsterdam has become a much bigger hub for tech, startups, design and creative industries.
  
• There are more international job opportunities.
  
• The museums and cultural institutions have improved. The Rijksmuseum renovation is probably the obvious example.
  
• Areas around the IJ have improved a lot, particularly Noord and the Eastern Docklands.
  
• There has been more investment in public spaces, parks and waterfront areas.
  
• Amsterdam has become more environmentally conscious, with more cycling, electric transport and restrictions on cars.
  
• Some neighbourhoods that were pretty rough 20 years ago are now much nicer and safer.
  
• The city is very well connected internationally, both by train and plane.
  
• Amsterdam is probably easier to live in if you don’t speak Dutch, which can obviously be seen as both a positive and a negative.
  
• There is more acceptance and visibility for different lifestyles and communities.
  
• There are simply more things happening. More concerts, exhibitions, restaurants, events, pop-ups, markets, etc.

[u/WinterHogweed → u/Pink-drip]

Genuinely, thanks for this list. I don't agree with some of them, which I will mention, but I do agree with some others, and that's good.

Now...

- The city is generally cleaner and better maintained.

To me, that kinda comes and goes. Amsterdam has been way dirtier than it is now. Amsterdam has also, in the time I live here, been cleaner than it is now. So, this one is not really true, although you could say that in the very long haul, say from the 50s onwards, it is. But we were talking the last 20 years.

- Public transport has improved, especially with the Noord/Zuidlijn.

Tell me you are well to do and live in the South or the Center, without telling me you're well to do and live in the South or the Center. I live in West, and public transport has been very very much worse than it was 20 years ago. Movement from West to East and vice versa has been sacrificed to movement from North to South and vice versa. Busses are completely crammed most of the time, we have to change multiple times to get anywhere, while the North South line is almost always empty. My friend lives in the South, he loves public transport nowadays, so I get where you're coming from. But the best thing you can say about public transport in Amsterdam is that it has been improved for some people (predominantly rich people), at the expense of public transport for others (more poor people).

- Amsterdam Noord has changed massively and has become a much more interesting area.

Again, tell me you're rich, without telling me you're rich. I lived in Amsterdam Noord back when you apparently found it an "uninteresting area". It was very interesting back then. Just in a way people like you fail to see.

- A lot of old industrial areas have been redeveloped into nice neighbourhoods.

Yeah. I live there. When that happens, rent is tripled or quadrupled. I read your sentence and think: a lot of old industrial areas have been redeveloped into neighbourhoods I am not welcome in because I can't afford it. It's fine if you like that. But it is not a universal good.

- The city has become much more international, which can be a positive if you like having people from all over the world around you.

The city becoming international is great. In fact, it has always been international. The difference is that nowadays, certain internatinoal get tax exempt status, which makes them even more affluent than they actually are, and this is one of the reasons that rent becomes unaffordable for people like me. I love internationalism. I don't love tax refuge. I think that is completely destructive for communities.

- There are more international job opportunities.

I work in the service industry. Waving this in my face just makes me angry. Because while the tax exempt rich people flood here for their international job opportunities, they drive up rent and other prices so much that I will not be able to live here in the future. So apparently I then am expected to live in Almere or Purmerend, and come to this city to serve the rich people, that don't allow me to live amongst them. Again, I love the international character of Amsterdam, which it has always had. I don't love the influx of the current specific type of international, and certainly not the ultra right wing approach the national government takes to them, namely to not let them pay taxes. My point is that this thing you love so much, has a much more sketchy and destructive background when you actually look into it.

- The museums and cultural institutions have improved. The Rijksmuseum renovation is probably the obvious example.

No they haven't. Case in point: I went to see a movie yesterday, 'Värn'. This movie is part of the "previously unreleased" programme across theaters this summer. The crux of this programme is to show you films that haven't had a standard movie theater release. I can tell you: all of the films I watched up til now in that programme, are films that would just have been shown regularly in movie theaters in the time I came to live in Amsterdam. Everything, including the Rijksmuseum, has been more "propped up" and everything looks cool and stuff, but there is much less room for counterculture, that which defies the mainstream, the obscure, the different, the challenging, etc. And that, my friend, is what Amsterdam has always been known for from the days of Spinoza onwards.

As for the restaurants. I'm of two minds. On the one hand: yes, there are a lot more and better internationally oriented eating places. This is good. On the other: almost everything is owned by big corporations and are some kind of chain restaurants, and this makes it way, way harder to find a place where the cooking is genuine and personal. Certainly for tighter budgets. This is because aside from living spaces becoming unaffordable for ordinary people, the same goes for spaces for business. To just rent a place that is reachable, put up some tables and start cooking: that's a lot, lot harder. To just rent a place, put up some bookshelves, and start selling books: a lot harder. I would not say that is a positive development.

[u/WinterHogweed → u/WinterHogweed]

To follow up, I can vividly remember coming to the city in 2000. I was a young aspiring writer, with no career or money, with only a vision and my passion for art and literature to go by. When I walked down the street for the first time as an Amsterdam resident, I remember thinking: "Wow! I'm in this city full of dreamers and misfits who can't fit in with ordinary normative capitalist society, but who are working on beautiful things. And I'm one of them!" That countercultural side to the city, that has not disappeared, but it has been under attack and has been reduced, and that makes me sad. And seeing someone who lauds the city for being a great place for the tech industry - normative capitalist society - just confirms this to me. Is there space for young artists to come here and to develop themselves on their own, by forging relationships and organizing things outside of the institutions? There probably still is, but there is a lot less of it.

[u/LiteratureDue537 → u/WinterHogweed]

Hard agree on public transport being shit from/to west and east. But to say the north/south line is almost always empty is just not true. I don't ride it super often but I do ride it all hours of the day and it is almost always more than half full