Public Policy in The Diamantbuurt

DIAMANTBUURT // FACILITIES 

 

The Diamantbuurt is mainly notorious for what the media calls ‘the terrorization of the neighborhood by youngsters of Moroccan descent’. Therefore, most policies are aimed at preventing this so called terrorism. However, different rapports show different results concerning the safety in the Diamantbuurt. The different facilities have the common goal of enhancing social cohesion, but whether this is necessary in the first place remains to be seen. Besides the municipality’s aims at promoting social cohesion we will also take a look at the facilities concerning transportation and accessibility. As will become clear, these two seem to be interconnected in a certain way.

The Diamantbuurt accomodates only two schools. One elementary school; the 9^th Montessori school the Scholekster and one high school; the Berlage Lyceum. Both of these schools are situated in the new Diamantbuurt. An interesting fact is that many residents of the neighborhood choose to put their children to school in other areas of Amsterdam

The main facilities in the Diamantbuurt are concentrated around the Diamantstraat, the epicenter of the neighborhood. The Cinetol building is host to a public library. The former Bathhouse is used as a location for musicians to rehearse and one can practice some sports at the local playground on the Henrick de Keijserplein.

Former Bathhouse

Other facilities reveal more about how the municipality approaches the Diamantbuurt. Let us take a closer look at culture cluster Asscher and multifunctional center the Edelsteen. The most active of these two is the Edelsteen, which is a center where activities are organized by and for the neighborhood residents. According to a rapport by the municipality: all residents should feel welcome, be able to meet one another, feel stimulated to participate or organize activities. By getting into contact with other residents of the neighborhood the social cohesion of the Diamantbuurt should increase and generate a feeling of safety. However, a rapport by the Amsterdam Office for Research and Statistics of 2012 shows a different perspective on the Edelsteen: The building is somewhat concealed and doesn’t look very welcoming. [..] besides there are not enough people working there. The neighbourhood activities by and for the local residents are setting off rather mediocre. The building does not look very accessible because of the taken safety measures. Safety is the main issue in the Diamantbuurt as I will show further on in this article. An example of a project to increase neighbourhood cohesion was hosted in community centre the Edelsteen. This project was named ‘Calling, this is how you do it’ [bellen doe je zo] in 2011. Here local youth would teach the elderly how to use mobile phones.

Since initiatives were unsuccessful in the community centre there will be a reorganisation. The rapport is quite clear about the unsuccessful plans: due to the understaffed, closed character and concealed location it is suggested to assign a different programming to the Edelsteen. Preference goes out to child day care, health and or sports. The current activities can be replaced too [...]

The rapport is quite clear about their own vision on the unsuccessfulness of the municipality in creating neighborhood solidarity and cohesion. Although the Amsterdam Office for Research and Statistics show that the residents of the Diamantbuurt are quite comfortable and satisfied with their neighbourhood, the media has made the Diamantbuurt their prime example of a ‘terrorised’ neighbourhood by youth of Moroccan descent. Further research needs to explore why there is such disparity between the resident’s feelings towards the neighbourhood and the way the media represents it.

DIAMANTBUURT// TRANSPORTATION

Now let us move on to the subject of transportation and accessibility of the Diamantbuurt. Similar to most places in The Netherlands, the neighborhood is quite bike-friendly even though most places do not have separate bicycle paths. By this I mean that the cyclist has to cycle on the same road where the cars are driving with no separation between them. The main big street, Van Woustraat, is a street where there are many cars just as there are many cyclists. On this road there is also no separate cycle path but the side for the cyclists is set off by a broken white line as is shown in the picture below. This line marks the area for the cyclists. Both drivers and cyclists know this and conform to this rule. 

 

Van Woustraat: Picture taken from Google maps

Another important factor regarding the Diamantbuurt’s infrastructure concerns the secluded small streets that converge in the center of the Diamantbuurt, the Smaragdplein. One cannot enter this part by car, which makes the square prone to the loitering of youngsters who potentially practice illegal activities. Cycling or walking across the square can feel rather threatening for the architectural outline does not provide the cyclist or pedestrian with much choice of ‘escape’ than the narrow arch illustrated below. Some residents might experience similar feelings of discomfort.

Narrow Arch: Picture taken from Google maps

Picture taken from Google maps

Despite these narrow streets and alleys the residents of the Diamantbuurt have an excellent public transport connection to practically everywhere in Amsterdam, and beyond. Tram 3 on the Ceintuurbaan goes all the way from east to west Amsterdam, tram 4 brings its passengers from RAI station to Central Station and the Victorieplein is also a public transport hub. All these places are accessible by foot in less than 20 min from anywhere in the Diamantbuurt. If someone prefers the Amstelstation over the Central Station they would be glad that this station is even closer and shares many of the possibilities with the Amsterdam Central Station.

DIAMANTBUURT // POLICIES

As we have mentioned before, media often depicts the migrant youngsters as the evildoers of the neighbourhood. A story that illustrates this well is a couple named “Bert and Marja” that popped up in 2004 in the widely read national newspaper the Volkskrant. Bert and Marja were residents of the Diamanbuurt where they lived with their two young kids in a small but comfortable flat. However, outside their home they were being threatened, bullied and spit at on a daily basis by what seem to be second or third generation migrant youth from Moroccan descent. This escalated to the point that the couple desperately approached the newspaper to get them to report the incidents and highlight the issues at stake. Despite the reporting the couple ultimately was forced to move to a different part of town. This ‘failure’ formed the departure point of years of conflict coverage in the Diamantbuurt, expanding from the Volkskrant to the local newspapers such as the Parool. Responding to the media reports, policymaking regarding the Diamantbuurt began to revolve around the two key words: safety versus criminality (source: Amsterdam Office for Research and Statistics).

Nipping criminal activity among youth in the bud thus became the first focal point regarding taking preventive measures. It soon became clear that a gang of roughly twenty to fifty youngsters was operating within the block causing overall disturbance and anxiety among the residents. Local authority responded to this pressing issue by introducing a policy of camera surveillance which was in use for the periods of 2007-2008 and from 2011 onwards. Research shows that this intervention was indeed effective for incidents occurred less whilst the cameras were in use. However, local newspaper the Parool mentioned in July 2011 that despite the cameras level of contentment and feeling of safety among the residents kept dropping. A contradiction therefore seems to be at work here. The municipality furthermore stresses a ‘bottom-up’ approach, which entails intensive supervision of twelve year olds and under by so called street coaches. These patrol the neighbourhood and address youngsters who play outside late at night without attendance. They also pay visits to parents after reports of incidents. However, identifying who is responsible turns out to be rather challenging: parents are often not open to correction, which causes insecurity in the street coaches’ attitudes. Engaging youngsters with the elderly is a third measurement encouraged by the local authority. This is put into practice through projects such as Jong Helpt Oud, which entails teenagers doing chores for the elderly such as grocery shopping. This seems to be in line with the 2012 resolution to appoint schools to find ways to connect the youngsters to their neighbourhood.

However, an important footnote that needs to be placed here is that media coverage in the case of the Diamantbuurt has been the main catalyst for conducting certain policies. Urban planner and sociologist Anouk de Koning wrote a critical essay on this phenomenon describing the way the Diamantbuurt has become the ‘national symbol’ for Dutch discord (source: Het Lezen van de Stad, de Organisatie van Improvisatie). This we believe has a strong reifying effect, which we will elaborate on in next week’s blog post. 

SOURCES 

Huivesting van Maatschappelijke voorzieningen in stadsdeel zuid, gemeente Amsterdam 30 juni 2011.

A History of the Diamantbuurt in Amsterdam

Exploring the Diamantbuurt

Reading about the Diamantbuurt gives the feeling that this is a ghettoish place where you have to be careful while walking around; with criminal groups and ‘hangjongeren’/youngsters hanging around who are making trouble. Actually going to the place shows a peaceful area with interesting architecture, nice shops, calm people and historic buildings such as the Asscher Diamond Factory and the bathhouse.
    The Diamantbuurt is a two-faced place, clearly expressed by the people living in the neighborhood. On the one hand you have people who do not want to be associated with this neighborhood and who say: “No, this is not the Diamantbuurt, it is over there. This is just ‘de Pijp’.” On the other hand you have people who are proud of it and who do not see any danger in this area. A women explained: “I live here five years now and I always let my daughter play on the streets, nothing happens.”

    In order to see where those different views come from, we will look at the history of the Diamantbuurt; where do those buildings, architecture and environmental planning come from and who were the people that lived here?

History

The diamantbuurt gained its name because it housed the Asscher Diamond Factory which was the main building for the Royal Asscher Diamond Company. The factory was famous for the quality it produces and the streets which were built around it gained the name of precious stones. For the most part the neighbourhood was built in the 1930's and the buildings are in the Amsterdam School style, which is characterized by the red brick and ornaments on the building fronts using either brick or carved stone. The diamond factory is the main monument of the neighbourhood is was designed by Gerrit van Arkel who used a toned-down version of Jugendstil.

Former Nieuwer Amstel City Hall and Municipal Archive

The land which became the diamantbuurt belonged to a small municipality that was namedNieuwer Amstel and, for so far as it is still the same, we now know as Amstelveen. The small municipality feared annexation and tried to fend it of as long as possible. This political battle was fought through buildings and there are still traces of this fight in the current neighbourhood. Most prominently, Nieuwer Amstel built their city hall at the edge of the city in 1892, it is a beautiful Neo-gothic building on the Amstel. After the annexation, it served as the city archive from 1914 to 2007. It was a clear sign of resistance to build it so close to their growing neighbour.

    Similarly, the decision to commission the new, prestigious diamond factory at the edge of the city was also a political manoeuvre on the part of Amsterdam. The owners of company at the time Joseph and Abraham Asscher were of Jewish descent and the factory attracted many other Jewish families to the neighbourhood. In 1937 a synagoge was built opposite the factory, this was the synagoge that Anne Frank and her family came to worship. Before the World War Two, the factory building also served as place where Zionist youth group gathered every Saturday.

Asscher Diamond Factory

    During the war, it housed meetings for the Jewish Council which was headed by Abraham Asscher. The council mediated the occupation's government demands to the Jewish community, in short Abraham Asscher help the organisation of the deportations of Jews to concentration camps. In 1943 the Abraham Asscher, the rest of his family, most members of the Jewish Council and most of the diamond polishers were deported to concentration camps. The Asscher brothers survived Bergen-Belsen, but only fifteen of the five hundred polishers did.

    After the war there was no more company to come back to and for Abraham Asscher also no community. He was accused of collaboration and hated by the Jewish community. He was only exonerated after his death in 1950. His two sons, Joop and Lodewijk Asscher declined an offer to put their skills to use in the New York diamond industry and opted to rebuild the company in Amsterdam. The factory building still houses there business headquarters although it is no longer a factory.

After the Second World War, the neighborhood, which had been predominantly Jewish working class changed dramatically, nowadays the majority of the houses are part of social housing. Social housing in the Netherlands means that these houses are only available for people with a low income (Stadsdeel Zuid: De staat van de buurten in Zuid 2012, folder).

The population of the district was influenced by the large flow of immigrants from the 1960s onwards by the booming economy and the need for cheap labor. Mainly Moroccan and Turkish ‘guest workers’ moved to the Netherlands. Their immigration became permanent and their wives and children joined them. In the 80s the economy went down and the first measures were taken to put a hold to the immigration. The socioeconomic status of non-Western immigrants is overall poorer than the ‘Dutch’ level, so a large group got to live in social housing projects.

Around 2004 a sort of media hype emerged around the ‘Moroccan problem’ in the Diamantbuurt. Moroccan youngsters were ‘terrorizing’ the neighborhood and a few families were bullied out of the area. Anouk de Koning (2012: 56-71) argues that the Diamantbuurt has become literally a symbol for ethnic tension. Since 2004 stories about the district mainly about youth criminality regularly made it to the news. These problems and the commotion around the Diamantbuurt reflect the national discourse of fear of Islamic immigrants. In different European countries a fear of ‘difference’ was growing. The Diamantbuurt became a vivid symbol for the discomfort of the Dutch population with the Islamic immigrants.

How is the Diamantbuurt being remembered? After speaking to several long term residents it got quite clear that the unpleasant events from a few years ago are still fresh. We started our research at the side of the van Woustraat that’s been ‘added’ to the Diamantbuurt in 2005. The residents we spoke to of this part of the neighborhood were convinced that this part was not the Diamantbuurt. We could notice a strong division between the two sides of the Van Woustraat, and that the neighborhood around the Diamond Company still had to deal with a bad image. The residents argued that you could notice the difference in sphere as the boys hanging out at the squares or play yards were all ‘buitenlanders’, the Dutch word for foreigners which in most cases means Moroccan or other Islamic immigrant groups, which would be really threatening. The use of the public space by these ‘buitenlanders’ changed the neighborhood’s image. After crossing the Van Woustraat we spoke to a lot more positive residents. They argue things have changed in the neighborhood and that they do not understand why the area still has a bad image.

Rest of the environment

Note on the Fence informing the viewer there is a temporary monument here

As said, the municipal is situated next to the Asscher Diamond Factory, but this building was just one of the nine municipal buidings. Nowadays, there is a big empty field at the place where those other buildings were situated, with a doubtful note attached to the fence.

Since the municipal archive  moved to the Vijzelgracht, the eight buildings were demolished and there appeared a space for new ideas, called Archiefterrein/Archive terrain. The redevelopment of this terrain, that will start in the second half of 2013, is seen as a new opportunity for the Diamantbuurt to get a better image and make it a place full of art, culture, living and recreation.

Archive Terrain

           The bad reputation of the Diamantbuurt is not due to the environment; in fact, the planning and architecture has a great potential to be an eminent neighborhood. To bring in the theory of urban theorist Jane Jacobs the Diamantbuurt has all the four factors to create liveliness in an urban place, as Jacobs describes it (Doedée 2012: 14).

           In the first place, the Diamantbuurt has several users functions, such as living, working, shopping and recreation. For example, the Van Woustraat has many shops where people are always moving around. Secondly, the neighborhood has small building blocks that should improve social contact and a wider dissemination of people, which increases the social control and safety. Thirdly, the Diamantbuurt contains old buildings that are cheap and therefore attractive to small and new companies which creates more possibilities for the first factor that is mentioned here. Finally, the neighborhood is very diverse as well; for instance, 36% of the population consists of non-Western immigrants (Stadsdeel Zuid, De staat van de buurten in Zuid 2012: 3). This diversity would, according to Jacobs, create a better social cohesion and economic situation (ibid.: 14-16).

           All those factors should create a well-bounded environment in which the people are very much connected to the surroundings and to each other, which makes it nice and safe to live in. Although, in reality it is not necessarily true for the Diamantbuurt, since it had to deal with the misbehave of young people that gave it a bad connotation. Because of this, in October 2011 there are several cameras placed in the neighborhood. They are placed at the corner of Carillonstraat and the Van Woustraat, at the small gate to Smaragdplein en Smaragdplein itself.# Those are or were apparently the most problematic areas but are, possibly due to this extra security changes, improving in the last few years.

Sources

Doedée, M.P.E.
    2012    Masterthesis Kunstbeleid en -Management. Utrecht: Universiteit Utrecht.    

http://www.zuid.amsterdam.nl/wonen_en/bouwprojecten/archiefterrein/http://www.zuid.amsterdam.nl/wonen_en/buurten-zuid/diamantbuurt
http://www.joodsamsterdam.nl/strdiamantbuurt.htm 

http://www.jhm.nl/cultuur-en-geschiedenis/personen/a/asscher,+abraham                  

Uitgave: Stadsdeel Zuid, versie 24-4-2012

Tekst en figuren: Bureau Onderzoek en Statistiek / Stadsdeel Zuid