Said the owner of an Amsterdam restaurant, quoted in "In Empty Amsterdam, Reconsidering Tourism/Before Covid-19, the city was packed with visitors. Now efforts to rein in the expected post-pandemic crowds are ramping up, but not without controversy" (NYT).
In 2019, a record-breaking 21.7 million people visited Amsterdam, a city with a population of about 870,000.... On a typical Saturday night before the pandemic, the district, known as De Wallen, would have been heaving with young men going from bar to bar — perhaps stepping into sex shops or coffee shops or eyeing scantily clad prostitutes posing in their windows.
Several Amsterdammers interviewed for this story said that they would never consider visiting the neighborhood at such a time because of the rowdy, crowded scene. “The public space is dominated by facilities that are almost all redolent of sex, drugs and drink,” Ms. Halsema wrote of the historic city center in an official letter to the city council in July 2019....
[One proposed solution is] the relocation of sex workers to a “prostitution hotel” elsewhere in the city... Another headline-grabbing proposal... would make it illegal for visitors to buy cannabis in Amsterdam’s coffee shops, which are concentrated in the Red Light District and which have long been popular with tourists...
A tourism “monoculture” has [pushed out] residents... Businesses and services that used to cater to locals — high-quality bakeries, butcher shops, and the like — have been replaced by trinket shops, ice-cream parlors and “Nutella shops,” which serve takeaway waffles and other treats smeared in the hazelnut spread, mainly to tourists. Meanwhile, rising housing prices — due, in part, to the rise of Airbnb and other vacation rental platforms — have made the city center unaffordable for many locals.
I went to Amsterdam, solo, in 1993. I was interested in the art, and I had my pen and notebook. I never set foot in a marijuana coffee shop, and I tried to move quickly past the sleazier things, but I did stop to record some of the sleaziness:
The fabulous aesthetic pleasures of the historical city with its grand museums was undermined by some awful, ugly junk even back then, nearly 30 years ago, so it is hard for me to imagine what the residents are complaining about today, which is the crowds and worsening conditions of the last few years.
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Every major city has a tourist district where residents don’t venture unless they’re playing tour guide to out-of-town friends and family. It’s fairly small and doesn’t have anything that interests you as a local so it’s no great shakes to avoid it while it brings lots of cash into your local economy. So stop complaining.
Amsterdam itself is fairly small, and the area that tourists fill up is a beautiful historical place with centuries-old architecture and canals. Yeah, you could just avoid it like New Yorkers avoid Times Square, but it's the best part of your city.
Skip Amsterdam, go to Ghent.
I live around Washington DC, and I get tired of tourists too, but I recognize that what's beautiful and desirable about the city does not actually belong just to us locals. And of course the money that tourists spend here is immensely important to our own well-being.
Everything the author says is true, but the city created this environment with its emphasis on hedonism as a tourist draw. What is Amsterdam generally known for other than marijuana and sex shops, at least among the younger crowd of dope and sex tourists? We intended to stay there for three days at the end of a Baltic cruise in 2018 but left after one day because of the trash and sleeze. Other Dutch cities are not like that. Amsterdam's problems are entirely self created and it's good the citizens are starting to lean on the government to clean it up.
Ann Althouse said...you could just avoid it like New Yorkers avoid Times Square, but it's the best part of your city.
I've never been to Amsterdam, so I can't say that's wrong, but it hasn't been true of any tourist city, big or small, that I've visited. When visiting a city for vacation, my wife and always take a day to rent bicycles and just ride around. You may not see the big ticket items--the Sagrada Familia or the Louvre--but what we do see is usually just as lovely and enjoyable in its own quieter way as any of that. And the lines are shorter, the food is better, and the tchotchkes are cheaper.
Miami Beach has learned a hard lesson about knucklehead and thug tourism. Just saw the MB mayor on the news saying South Beach doesn't need 173 licensed establishments serving liquor all night.
The local NAACP is screaming RACISM.
I went a couple decades before you. There’s plenty of very old Amsterdam architecture to see without going into the red light district. After the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum, it’s time to move to another city to see more sights, anyway.
Yes, as stated, Amsterdam seemed to have made a conscious decision to be known as a 'free zone' for the world. They pushed the limits and marketed it- or allowed it to be marketed as such. And humans being humans, will go to cities for museums, restaurants, beautiful architecture and canals, and SEX! Plus, sex can be an attraction multiple times per visit. Museums- maybe once or twice, and then you need to go get some coffee. Maybe a drink or a bit of hashish. Then...more sex.
It became a mecca for various types of sex for an international and diverse crowd of looks and tastes. That sort of place always gets applauded. Strange that the Amsterdamers miss their city and only now are rediscovering it. They made it what it is and invited the world in to enjoy it.
Gosh golly, it's almost as if hedonism is ultimately soulless and destructive.
Amsterdam is the 32 year old woman who woke up one morning and saw The Wall speeding towards her. She'll be feeding her cats while wondering where all the good men have gone.
Miami Beach has learned a hard lesson about knucklehead and thug tourism. Just saw the MB mayor on the news saying South Beach doesn't need 173 licensed establishments serving liquor all night.
>>
But I'm raking in so much money from the AirBnB'd out condo I have in Miami Beach.
Paying for the year's worth of HOA and taxes.
We walked through prostitute street and found the beautiful Catholic cathedral on one side of the street and high end hookers on the other side of the street. Both sides beautiful but unseemly. What concerned me were the bicycles. Saw one guy looking at his phone, smoking a joint riding no handed. The city was beyond saturated with them.
With the Dems in charge, all big American cities will become Amsterdam or Pottersville without the museums. Soul killing.
There is positive and negative to nearly every action/decision/situation.
Nearly every coin has two sides...
I spent a large chunk of my childhood in the Netherlands, although I haven't been back there probably since around the time you visited. I know a child's awareness of such things is probably narrower, but I have plenty of memories of Amsterdam without marijuana shops and prostitutes- and at least when it comes to the red light district, I was aware of it, even at 10 years old. It just didn't seem to creep over into the rest of the city. What you describe reminds me of the way Bourbon Street sort of infects the rest of the French Quarter and New Orleans, despite being a pretty small area.
My first trip to New Orleans was business, and they put us up at the Royal Sonesta, the very heart of Bourbon Street.
Two nights, a very nice experience for me, never having experienced NOLA. But after two nights I had enough.
" a city that so caters to the interests of men"
So that they give their money to women?
And women there don't go to "coffee" shops?
I lived and worked in New Orleans for a few years, so I understand the complicated feelings about tourists. Although they have a tendency to be in the way when you just need to get somewhere, I never had a lot of animosity for them. The economy in New Orleans absolutely relies on tourists, so you just kind of deal with them. At least where I lived in Uptown/Garden District they were far fewer than in the Quarter. I lived there during/after Katrina so it was easy to see how the lack of tourists affected the city's ability to recover.
Except during Mardi Gras. By the time Mardi Gras rolled around I was sick of the tourists, and usually just the left the city for the week.
Thank you for visiting the NYT. We now know how valuable your time really is.
I was in Amsterdam 35 years ago as a 20 year old, and even then in my youth I found the hoards of tourists revolting. There was graffiti on old stone buildings. I hated it for the tourist scum aspect.
I doubt that tourists were the ones putting graffiti on buildings. More likely it was the local "diversity."
Blogger Mr Wibble said...
I doubt that tourists were the ones putting graffiti on buildings. More likely it was the local "diversity."
You are quite correct about that. I wasn't clear.
Iman said...
"We now know how valuable your time really is."
That was unnecessarily nasty.
The only reason I'd like to go to the Olympics in Tokyo this year would be to avoid all the tourists.
We could have secured tickets for the event in 2020 but didn't want to deal with the idiot foreigners.
We'll visit next year this time for the cherry blossoms.
The locals aren’t missing the tourists, they’re missing the tourists money.
The locals aren’t missing the tourists, they’re missing the tourists money.
Visited once while on a River Cruise. Enjoyed walking from the Museums back to the boat. Good pastry, great Belgium Fries, served with mayo.
So all those small shops can survive without the tourists. Maybe all the Muslims can take up the slack.
Do you suppose any of them will ever think "all those times we insulted "American prudishness" and here we are saying the same thing. Maybe they were right and what we misperceived as prudish was a more mature understanding of reality".
There are only ~2.5 million residents in the Amsterdam metro area, so I'm going with zero.
I first visited Amsterdam in 1976 on a business trip but I had a few days of downtime. The redlight district was there then; again in 1999 on another business trip--same red light district same gawkers. The visit was over several days and a weekend--went to London for the weekend and then back to Amsterdam to finish business. My last visit was as a tourist with my wife in the spring of 2019.
Yes there's a red light district--but geography wise it hasn't expanded in 45 years. Yes the bicyclists are unnrerving--you have to be ready to play a little dodgeball with them. It's crowded--but then so is every city. The restaurants are nice, If you go out to the near suburban parts of Amsterdam it's no more crowded (and not much more interesting) than any mid sized city.
In any city you can find what you're looking for. On the last trip I went to the zoo--and my wife had a second day in the Rijksmuseum.
Bob Smith said...
The locals aren’t missing the tourists, they’re missing the tourists money.
They're not even missing the tourist money. What they're really missing is the hordes of young British men who used to take cheap flights over to A-dam to go whoring, drinking, and doping on the weekends.
You don't have to put on the red light
Those days are over
You don't have to sell your body to the night
This is the third New York Times article with locals complaining about tourists in as many days: "When There's One Covid Rule Book for Locals, and Another for Tourists," "Empty Amsterdam, Reconsidering Tourism," and "Hawaii Residents Worry About Returning Tourists." I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
Yeah, you could just avoid it like New Yorkers avoid Times Square, but it's the best part of your city.
Times Square? I know you didn't just say that's the best part of our city, but had to read it twice because it reminded me of my late teens French cousin coming to NYC and just falling in love with Times Square. Only time I've ever seen that happen. This was late Giuliani era, before 9/11 but after Disneyfication. In fact that trip was the last time I ever set foot in WTC. Thanks to some foreign family, I am far more intimately acquainted with NYC's tourist traps than most locals. I've even toured the harbor on the Beast.
I got hit by bikes a few times in Amsterdam trying to navigate away and then back to the central train station. The bicyclists there truly don't give a fuck: if you're in their lane, you're taking the L.
Locals really appreciate visitors who take time to learn and respect prevailing manners and customs. In New York, for instance, savvy travelers quickly understand the proper way of asking for directions always leaves the local an 'out'. As in: "Sir, would you tell me how to find the Brooklyn Bridge or should I just go fuck myself?"
Amsterdam contains strange juxtapositions indeed, the seediness and the charming old buildings. As a Paul Verhoeven fan, including his Dutch films which include period pieces featuring prostitutes, the historic and historically seedy were already harmonizing for me.
Living in lower Manhattan for a few years, I helped many a baffled tourist navigate the non-grid section of our fair city. And I accidentally sent a few wandering still further afield. That part of the city grid looks like fucking Amsterdam minus the canals, which were long ago filled in.
"Times Square? I know you didn't just say that's the best part of our city..."
When we visited our son after he moved to Manhattan, he chastised us for getting a hotel in midtown.
Even as a transplant he knew it was the shit part of the city.
But it was convenient and had a nice Marriott.
Yes, look left and right for bikes, especially outside of Centrum. Bikes are treated like cars and riders don't take kindly to pedestrians walking into their path.
Centrum is the party part of town but outside of that small area Amsterdam–like most European cities–is boring. Except if you accidentally stroll into a majority Muslim neighborhood. Then your vacation can go south quickly.
Great Indonesian food, though.
I used to love the European house hunters show, and I couldn't believe how tiny Amsterdam and other Netherlands homes were. In general European urban dwellings are smaller than even a lot of NYers are accustomed to, but the Dutch seem to revel in, to take pride in stuffing their tall selves into the tiniest possible spaces with the quirkiest stairs and roofs.
#Judgment #Labels #Irony
Mr Wibble said...I doubt that tourists were the ones putting graffiti on buildings. More likely it was the local "diversity."
Could have been Chinese teenagers.
"would have been heaving with young men going from bar to bar"
Heaving? WTF!
would have been vomiting with young men.
A rewrite.
Took my family on a business trip to Amsterdam in the late 1990's. We spent our free time at the art museums, Anne Frank museum, and viewing the nearly empty beautiful cathedrals that serve as evidence of the culture's decline to secular standards with new lows of hedonism. Great Indonesian food and my wife loved seeing the jewelry district and shops. After business, we ventured south to Aachen, Charlemagne's favorite city and the home to a museum and a great cathedral including his legendary chair.
Interestingly, had a lecture from a local Amsterdam businessman seated next to us at an outdoor restaurant about how it was the Americans who were responsible for the sex industry and the Dutch had a "mature" view of it by keeping it concentrated into one district of the city. My wife pulled me away when I got into a debate with the guy over the declining morals of the Dutch as a leading indicator of an unfortunate trend in America.
Since WWII, Europeans always seem to see everything as related to a bad influence from America, much like the Democrat/Media/Academy industry viewed President Trump. It's a way of avoiding one's own deficiencies.
I had decidedly mixed feelings about Amsterdam, but locals on bikes weren't part of it. If you don't want to get hit by a bike, just stay off the bike paths. Easy as that.
Labeling is everything. Call the illegal border crossers what they are. Tourists that don’t respect the native culture.
It's not "prostitution". It's models with "benefits". Tres urbane.
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