Abstract
This paper explores different explanations for the continuing presence of a large share of middle-class households in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the Netherlands, a seeming anomaly to middle-class residential practices of disaffiliation and elective belonging identified in the research literature. In-depth interviews with middle-class residents in urban restructuring neighbourhoods in Amsterdam and The Hague provide insight into the way in which these residents make sense of and engage with their residential surroundings. The study found that respondents downplay neighbourhood problems and validate living in an urban restructuring area through a value-for-money discourse. At the same time, they display subtle ways of disaffiliating from the neighbourhood through both discursive and socio-spatial practices in everyday life.
Introduction
In recent years, urban scholars have paid a great deal of attention to the ‘rediscovery’ of the city by middle-class households and the associated processes of gentrification. Atkinson (2008) argues, however, that the growing number of middle-class residents in cities has not resulted in more mixed neighbourhoods due to the socially selective nature of this embracing of the city: middle-class urbanites gravitate to places that support their lifestyle and social identities (Bridge, 2006; Savage et al., 2005; Watt, 2009) and avoid places that may form a source of ‘spoiled identity’ (Allen et al., 2007). As Savage et al. (2010, p. 132) explain: “What matters … is the sense that they live somewhere appropriate for ‘someone like me’”. Place, in other words, has become part of conspicuous consumption and a tool to distinguish and distance oneself from ‘others’.
This paper focuses on a seeming anomaly to these residential practices and preferences of the urban middle class—namely, the continuing presence of middle-class residents in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the Netherlands. Dutch middle-class households still form the largest group of residents in the 40 ‘worst’ neighbourhoods selected by the national government for urban restructuring (Wittebrood and Permentier, 2011). As Aalbers et al. (2011) have argued, these neighbourhoods are in many ways less deprived than their counterparts in other countries due to the social and political contexts in which they are embedded and physical and social disorder is not so severe. It can be hypothesised that middle-class residents may not feel the need to leave, because they do not experience these neighbourhoods as problematic in their everyday lives. Nevertheless, in the Dutch context, restructuring neighbourhoods represent the lowest tier of the housing market in Dutch cities (Permentier et al., 2009) and the stigma associated with these places potentially forms a source of ‘spoiled identity’ for middle-class residents (Allen et al., 2007). It is therefore unclear how their continuing presence relates to middle-class residential practices of disaffiliation and elective belonging identified in the research literature.
This paper explores how middle-class residents in restructuring neighbourhoods in Amsterdam and The Hague experience the potential problem of spoiled identity and how they subsequently engage with the neighbourhood. Understanding the ways in which these residents make sense of and relate to their residential surroundings is particularly relevant from the perspective of urban restructuring, which aims to attract (even more) middle-income residents with high expectations about what middle-class residents may bring to these disadvantaged neighbourhoods (Gent et al., 2009). Data come from a qualitative study amongst 59 middle-class residents in restructuring neighbourhoods in Amsterdam and The Hague. The study was commissioned by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research and the Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning.
The next section reviews the literature on middle-class residential practices and introduces three tentative explanations for the continuing presence of Dutch middle-class residents in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This is followed by a description of the research methodology. The findings are presented in three empirical sections on neighbourhood choice and place attachment, the way in which residents talk about their neighbourhood and the ways in which they engage with and negotiate their way around the neighbourhood in everyday life.
Residential Practices of the Urban Middle Class
In recent years, considerable attention has been paid to elective belonging and strategies of disaffiliation to describe residential practices of urban middle-class residents (Atkinson, 2006; Watt, 2009; Savage et al., 2010). Elective belonging and disaffiliation reflect two sides of the same coin: at the heart of this debate lies the notion that middle-class residents are able to choose whether they want to ‘attach’ themselves to places or not. Middle-class residents are thought to move into particular neighbourhoods for their symbolic value, providing residents with social status (Butler and Robson, 2003; Savage et al., 2005), and to guarantee access to high-quality services and institutions, such as schools, day care centres, shops and cafes, allowing residents to maintain and reproduce their class position (Bridge, 2006) and balance work, family, leisure and social obligations (Boterman et al., 2010). In addition, residential decisions are seen as a strategy of urban middle-class residents to avoid urban problems of social disorder and crime and distance themselves from dangerous ‘others’ (Atkinson, 2006).
Based on these ideas about motives for middle-class residential choice, one would expect middle-class residents in disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods to move out of these areas sooner rather than later in order to preserve their middle-class identity and way of life. This hypothesis, however, does not seem to hold for many middle-class households in Dutch cities, who still form a substantial share of all households in disadvantaged neighbourhoods (Wittebrood and Permentier, 2011). This raises the question of how we can interpret or understand the continuing presence of these middle-class residents in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The literature provides us with three possible explanations, focusing on alternative discourses about neighbourhood choice, processes of place attachment and more subtle forms of disaffiliation within the neighbourhood.
A first explanation for the presence of middle-class residents in disadvantaged neighbourhoods is that these residents may employ a different discourse about neighbourhood choice than the discourse of social distinction through place that has been described in the literature on elective belonging (Allen in Savage et al., 2010). Several studies have reported such alternative discourses. In a study of a suburban housing estate, Watt (2009) shows that middle-class residents use an alternative discourse of quality-for-money to validate their residential choice for a location close to a disreputable council housing estate, compromising the lower symbolic capital of the neighbourhood for a higher housing and area quality. In another study by Allen et al. (2007) in a suburban neighbourhood where social renters form elements of spoiled identities, middle-class residents use a similar discourse of value-for-money to explain their residential choice. They bought into an indistinctive neighbourhood, because they are more oriented towards inconspicuous consumption or what the authors call the ‘conformism of suburbia’. In speaking about their neighbourhood, these residents emphasise the ordinariness of the neighbourhood to negate its low social status. Both this tendency towards inconspicuous consumption and the quality-for-money discourse have been associated with more marginal middle-class positions.
A second explanation of why middle-class residents may choose to remain in disadvantaged neighbourhoods is that unfavourable neighbourhood attributes, such as neighbourhood stigma and neighbourhood disorder, are compensated or offset by other neighbourhood characteristics valued by residents. Residents over time develop different types of ties to the neighbourhood (Lee et al., 1994). The literature on neighbourhood attachment identifies an attitudinal or emotional dimension in terms of a sense of belonging and feeling at home (Blokland, 2003) and a behavioural dimension (Clark and Ledwith, 2006; Lewicka, 2010). This refers to residents’ social ties to the neighbourhood, such as relationships with neighbours and friends and relatives who might live in the area as well as economic ties in terms of employment or other business activities and ties to local institutions such as schools or religious institutions. So in contrast to the concept of elective belonging, the concept of neighbourhood attachment acknowledges that residents’ lives over time become intertwined with or embedded in their residential surroundings. Rather than voting with their feet, middle-class residents may therefore choose to stay and accept neighbourhood stigma or disorder, because they value other aspects of the neighbourhood and feel at home there.
Diametrically opposed to this explanation for the continuing presence of middle-class residents in Dutch restructuring neighbourhoods is the view that their presence may not be an anomaly to the literature on disaffiliation at all. A number of studies have shown that disaffiliation does not necessarily lead to spatial segregation between neighbourhoods, but also takes place at the micro scale. For example, in a recent study on selective belonging in an English suburb, Watt (2009) demonstrates how middle-class residents draw symbolic boundaries within the neighbourhood between their own private housing estate and the surrounding low-status areas of council housing, creating split images of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ in the neighbourhood and dis-identifying with the council housing estate. These middle-class residents thereby resolve the unpleasant association with the adjacent council housing estates through processes of othering and stigmatisation at neighbourhood level (Elias and Scotson, 1965; Southerton, 2002; Watt, 2006). Similar forms of identification with middle-class enclaves and disengagement from the rest of the neighbourhood were found by Kleinhans (2009) in a restructuring neighbourhood in Rotterdam.
In addition, middle-class residents may also disengage from the neighbourhood in their everyday lives (Watt, 2009), for example, by avoiding neighbourhood settings in the field of consumption and education or by avoiding interaction with ‘other’ neighbours. Van Beckhoven and van Kempen (2003) found that middle-class households in newly restructured neighbourhoods in Utrecht have few functional or social ties to the neighbourhood, although this may be explained by the fact that their middle-class respondents are mostly newcomers to the area. A study in an ethnically mixed and centrally located neighbourhood in Rotterdam (van Eijk, 2010) found that interaction between new middle-class residents and minority residents is very limited, despite the fact that these middle-class residents are ‘diversity seekers’ who value ethnic diversity in their neighbourhood as part of their urban lifestyle. Similarly, Veldboer (2010) describes a form of ‘silent solidarity’ of middle-class residents in two Dutch disadvantaged neighbourhoods with their less fortunate neighbours, which nevertheless rarely translates into concrete interactions. Note that in these studies, middle-class residents do identify with the neighbourhood and attach a symbolic value to it, but do not engage with the neighbourhood in everyday life. Vice versa, van Eijk (2012) has shown that some residents may dissociate from the neighbourhood discursively, through narratives of distancing and withdrawal, but still maintain good neighbour relations in everyday life. This indicates that Watt’s (2009) concept of selective belonging may take different forms.
Research Methodology
To explore these different explanations for the continuing presence of Dutch middle-class residents in disadvantaged neighbourhoods a qualitative study was undertaken on middle-class residential practices in restructuring neighbourhoods in the cities of Amsterdam and The Hague. These restructuring neighbourhoods are part of a national urban policy programme aimed at tackling social deprivation in terms of concentrations of low-income and minority residents, social and physical disorder in the neighbourhood and neighbourhood stigma (Gent et al., 2009). Urban restructuring involves the demolition of social housing units and the construction of private rental and owner-occupied housing to attract higher-income groups.
To understand how middle-class residents in these neighbourhoods experience the potential problem of spoiled identity and subsequently engage with the neighbourhood, in-depth interviews were held with 59 middle-class residents, 46 of whom currently reside in restructuring neighbourhoods and 13 residents who had moved away in the past four years. The interviews were held in respondents’ homes and lasted on average one and a half hours. The interviews were semi-structured around interview items on respondents’ neighbourhood and housing choice, residential satisfaction, perceptions of neighbourhood and fellow residents, experiences of neighbourhood problems, everyday neighbourhood use and interactions with neighbours. Interviews were transcripted and then coded and analysed using Atlas.ti software.
Respondents were selected from a larger sample of respondents from the National Survey on Housing. For lack of a better selection variable in the dataset (such as education or job type), respondents were selected based on receiving a middle-income as defined by Netherlands Statistics (falling in the 40th–80th per centile group of the national distribution of household incomes). After selecting respondents on the basis of socioeconomic position, we used a stepwise method to approach respondents to ensure a variation in family background, ethnic background, housing situation (renter/owner) and neighbourhood type (pre-war or post-war). Table 1 provides an overview of the background characteristics of the respondents.
Respondents background characteristics and residential situation
Based on their employment situation, the respondents’ class position (Allen et al., 2007; Watt, 2009) can either be described as ‘middle’ middle class, working in intermediate white-collar jobs, such as executive secretary, nurse, assistant manager at a construction company, ICT helpdesk, elementary school teacher; or as ‘marginal’ middle class, working as supervisors in traditionally working-class sectors, such as construction, house painting businesses or as an owner of a small blue-collar firm. Only a small group of respondents have higher managerial or professional jobs which require a university degree rather than professional training and could be typified as ‘new middle class’ (Butler and Robson, 2003). As Table 1 shows, the educational background of the respondents also reflects these class positions, although 15 per cent of the respondents had not finished a degree apart from high school and had worked their way up through the labour market into marginal middle jobs, as well as higher-level white-collar jobs.
At the time of this research, the selected neighbourhoods were in different stages of demolition and rebuilding. However, the majority of respondents moved in before restructuring really got under way: the average length of residence is almost 10 years. This is also reflected in their housing situation: most respondents live in older housing in the neighbourhood, while only a small group of respondents live in new housing. These new residents are different from the other respondents in the sense that they are relatively young and just starting in their housing career, having recently finished their degree and started a job and/or bought their first apartment. However, most of these newly built apartments are part of more fine-grained demolition and are therefore located in the middle of the old neighbourhood rather than in newly constructed enclaves of middle-class housing.
Neighbourhood Choice and Place Attachment
Despite their diverse backgrounds and residential histories, respondents unanimously used a value-for-money argument to explain their decision to move into their respective neighbourhoods. As one respondent explained We wanted a newly built apartment and these apartments are affordable compared with the number of square metres. You get a lot for little. It’s a good price/quality ratio (administration employee at a wholesale company, 3 years in neighbourhood).
Interestingly, this price/quality argument is used not only by homeowners, but also by renters and refers both to the size of the apartment and to the relative location within the urban region. Respondents in more peripheral, post-war restructuring neighbourhoods referred to the favourable location to highways around the city and good accessibility for car transport. Respondents in more centrally located pre-war neighbourhoods emphasise the proximity to the city centre. At the same time, their value-for-money argument does not in any way refer to neighbourhood quality. Respondents appreciate the favourable relative location and housing prices in the area, while the neighbourhood setting itself was rarely mentioned as a factor that might play a role in moving decisions. This differs from Watt’s (2009) respondents who value the exclusivity of their middle-class enclave in a lower-status suburb and respondents in the study by Allen et al (2007) who value the ‘ordinariness’ of their marginal middle-class neighbourhoods.
In addition to the value-for-money motive for neighbourhood choice, some respondents also frame their residential choice as a ‘smart’ first step in their housing career. These new homeowners are in their late 20s or early 30s and often have a university education. They have recently started working in managerial or professional jobs, but do not have a family yet. In other words, they have only recently become part of the new urban middle class in terms of employment, but do not earn enough to buy into the more centrally located and gentrified neighbourhoods. These new residents see their house as a good investment in view of local restructuring First I looked at the popular neighbourhoods like the Jordaan or the Pijp. But they are too expensive if you are single and want to buy a house. I could get maybe 40 square metres. Then I prefer to live here, with more space for a good price. And it’s a good investment, because the neighbourhood is being improved (marketing employee, 3 years in neighbourhood).
Other long-term respondents are more critical about the construction of upscale rental and owner-occupied housing, because it changes the favourable price–location ratio of the neighbourhood. In their opinion, the housing prices of the newly constructed housing units are far too high compared with the neighbourhood quality. A respondent in Westtown explains why the new owner-occupied housing in his post-war neighbourhood is slow to sell It might be the economic crisis, but it is also the attractiveness of the area. If the idea is that is if I am going to invest my money, I would rather do it somewhere else (administrative employee municipal office, 10 years in neighbourhood).
Another respondent states Those new rentals go for 800, maybe 900 euros … It’s mostly young double-incomes who move in, but they don’t stay very long. It doesn’t make sense to pay such high rents. That’s like throwing away your money. [when asked to explain] For that price you can rent in a better neighbourhood (music schoolteacher, 10 years in neighbourhood).
Despite these different expectations about restructuring, most respondents emphasise that the neighbourhood did not play an important role in their moving decision and that they do not feel particularly attached to the area. An often-heard response to the question of whether they felt ‘at home’ was, “I would feel at home anywhere” or “I am just not a neighbourhood person”. Respondents also make a distinction between belonging in an emotional sense and a more practical form of belonging. A resident, who moved from an old social rental apartment to a newly built apartment in the same neighbourhood, explained her decision, stating It simply seemed easiest. That’s basically it. From here we can continue to live our life and our life is in Amsterdam … And by ‘here’ I mean our apartment. Not the neighbourhood. So no … it’s not that I am attached to the neighbourhood. It’s just that I am familiar with this (trainer project management, 5 years in neighbourhood).
This sense of familiarity is not as strong as a sense of belonging. Respondents do not describe an emotional attachment to the neighbourhood, but rather a pragmatic attachment, which includes knowing the quickest routes from home to work or other places in the city or knowing where the nearest post office is. For several respondents such everyday routines form a reason to stay I guess this is where my roots are, even if they are very limited. It’s just that I am used to the neighbourhood … and somewhere else I would have to get to know the place all over again (supervisor food processing factory, 13 years in neighbourhood).
Respondents often describe the neighbourhood solely as a starting-point for their daily time–space trajectories that encompass the entire city. A 27-year-old respondent illustrated Not at home in the sense that I have lots of contact with neighbours, for example. It’s not like we constantly greet each other or visit for coffee. That’s what it’s like in my parents’ neighbourhood. But, yes, I feel at home in the sense that I like living downtown in a big city, in a lively area. But that’s much bigger than just the neighbourhood (computer programmer, 3 years in neighbourhood).
One resident gave a particularly concise description of her relationship with the neighbourhood, when she made the distinction between the Dutch words for wonen (to reside somewhere) and leven (to spend one’s life somewhere), stating, “I just ‘wonen’ here, I don’t live my life here” (physical therapist, 4 years in neighbourhood).
An exception to this lack of neighbourhood attachment can be found amongst a small group of long-term, often retired residents who have experienced firsthand the profound changes that have occurred in these neighbourhoods in the past 30 years. These residents describe how they have become estranged from their surroundings. Particularly in post-war neighbourhoods, they describe the loss of neighbours and friends as part of the general exodus of the first generation of residents, often native Dutch families with young children, and their replacement by families of minority background. An older, retired resident in an Amsterdam pre-war neighbourhood described how his relationship with his neighbourhood has changed.
The neighbourhood has gone downhill, especially the last 10 years. … I don’t know anyone anymore. Not like I used to. Everyone used to be white, now they are all brown, yellow, red … It’s not like I have a problem with that … it’s just that we don’t have anything to say to each other. People don’t even greet each other … I go shopping all the way over in Halfweg [a small town near Amsterdam], so I can at least understand what people say to me and I can read the signs. Here, it’s like I don’t count anymore, like I am excluded.
Nevertheless, the majority of the respondents do not experience this sensation of estrangement, but instead are satisfied with their residential situation while the neighbourhood simply does not matter either way. This is also supported by the fact that only five of the 46 current residents are considering moving and the stated reasons are not directly related to the neighbourhood.
Describing the Neighbourhood
Although residents describe the neighbourhood as a non-issue for them personally, they are nevertheless very aware that their neighbourhood has a negative reputation and describe how they are confronted with this territorial stigma on a regular basis. A respondent in The Hague described a common response when mentioning where he lives Colleagues of mine said: “Don’t you live in Westtown? That’s one of those problem areas, right? I’ve heard that it’s rough” (foreman at a warehouse, 28 years in neighbourhood).
Some respondents express discomfort with these outsider perceptions of the neighbourhood, as one respondent in Amsterdam described when a colleague came for a visit His first question was: “Is it okay to park my car here? Because I have heard some bad stories about X-town”. That’s what it’s like here. The name of this place haunts you … If you say that you live in the Newtown [the entire district], they go “oh you mean X-town” with a note of disapproval (salesperson, 7 years in neighbourhood).
Several respondents relate this territorial stigma to the fact that the neighbourhood has been appointed a restructuring area. They refer to different ‘labels’ that have passed to policy stage, from ‘problem neighbourhood’, to ‘aandachtswijk’ (freely translated as ‘focus neighbourhood’), ‘prachtwijk’ (freely translated as ‘beautiful neighbourhood’) and ‘krachtwijk’ (freely translated as ‘empowered’ or ‘vital’ neighbourhood). A respondent explained how his neighbourhood in The Hague was labelled on television Yeah, as ‘krachtwijk’. That minister thought she would just come in and give the neighbourhood a boost. So that’s what they called it. And sure, yeah, it might be a little more impoverished than other neighbourhoods, but they’ve really placed a stigma on the neighbourhood with that label, and that can’t be good (employee moving company, 15 years in neighbourhood).
The role of the media in the reproduction of neighbourhood stigma is also mentioned often. A 26-year-old resident said about her Amsterdam neighbourhood Of course, this neighbourhood doesn’t have a very good name, but it’s generally a good place to live. The district administration has worked hard to improve that negative image, but anytime that this neighbourhood is in the news, they show the same surveillance cameras and the same drug-free zone signs on the square, even if the last incident was months and months ago (administrative employee legal firm, 12 years in neighbourhood).
Another central theme in these conversations about neighbourhood reputation is the way in which the label of ‘problem neighbourhood’ is associated with the influx of ethnic minority residents, at least by the outside world. A long-term resident explained I think that the presence of ethnic minorities … defines the neighbourhood for many people. … When we bought our house, we had some Surinamese and Turkish neighbours … and that didn’t matter. It was fine. To us it was all the same. But recently some of our relatives and even good friends started judging this: “It seems like the only ones moving in are ethnic minorities” [said with condescension]. That’s not a nice thing to hear (hairdresser, 30 years in neighbourhood).
Respondents describe how, over the years, conversations such as these with friends and relatives have increasingly made them feel uncomfortable with their neighbourhood. Respondents themselves, however, tend to adopt a more neutral position to the ethnically diverse population composition of the neighbourhood: they are neither bothered by it, nor do they particularly appreciate or value these neighbourhood characteristics. As one resident in Amsterdam Greentown stated Look, if you move into a neighbourhood such as this, where there are a lot of ethnics … well, the neighbourhood attracts the type of people that won’t complain about it or don’t have a problem with it (probation officer, 4 years in neighbourhood).
An exception to this attitude of indifference can be found amongst some of the previously mentioned long-term residents, who are explicitly negative about the influx of residents of ethnic minority background.
Respondents deal with the sense of discomfort about outsiders’ views of their neighbourhood by downplaying problems in the neighbourhood in different ways. First, many respondents emphasise the discrepancy between perceptions about the neighbourhood and how residents themselves experience living there. A resident in North-Amsterdam states From a distance, policy-makers don’t really know what it is like to live here. They don’t realise that people with little money don’t have a lot of options, and that this place is then paradise to them … It might be a really bad neighbourhood if you look at all those statistics, but you have to experience it to know how it really is. … It’s actually a good place to live (social worker, 3 years in neighbourhood).
One of the reasons that respondents experience a discrepancy between reputation and reality is that some of them hardly come into contact with the problems of social and physical disorder that contributed to the neighbourhood’s reputation and its designation as a restructuring area. Restructuring neighbourhoods are relatively large areas that often include middle-class enclaves physically separated from the rest of the neighbourhood by waterways, green spaces or wide roads. A small number of current residents live in such an enclave and some others live on ‘golden edges’ of the neighbourhoods with views of a park or canal. These respondents make a clear distinction between their direct surroundings and the larger neighbourhood, describing it as a ‘neighbourhood within a neighbourhood’.
Nevertheless, many more respondents state that they live ‘on the sidelines’ of the ‘real’ problem area, away from problem hotspots in the neighbourhood. They make distinctions between ‘here’ and ‘there’, but at a much lower spatial scale. For example, a resident in Westtown, The Hague, compared her own apartment building at the edge of the neighbourhood with apartment buildings a few streets over These apartments were more pricy, not the cheapest of the cheapest. So you don’t see tokkies [Dutch slang for White trash] here, if I may use that term. You know, people who don’t care about anyone else, who walk around cursing and yelling or threaten to cut your head off … you don’t see that here (receptionist accountancy firm, 12 years in neighbourhood).
Another respondent from a pre-war neighbourhood in The Hague made a similar distinction between her apartment and the apartment building at the other side of the canal This is the edge of Colortown. The real Colortown [said with emphasis] well, we never come there (public administration employee, 18 years in neighbourhood).
The drawing of such boundaries between ‘better’ and ‘bad’ places in the neighbourhood therefore takes place at a very micro level, on the basis of spatial distinctions that are invisible to most outsiders, but that clearly carry a weight of meaning for the respondents themselves.
These spatial boundaries between ‘here’ and ‘there’ overlap with social distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’. In the interviews, the ‘other’ is often first described in ethnic terms. Forms of physical disorder, such as trash put out on the wrong days, outdoor laundry lines and carelessness about keeping shared spaces clean, are interpreted as signs of social decay related to the influx of new and ‘other’ residents, often of minority background. Regarding newcomers of Turkish and Moroccan origin, one resident said You can see exactly see where that bunch is living. Their balconies are full of rugs and laundry and other shit. Or their gardens … they are not gardens but used as storage for washing machines, scooters, old furniture. It looks like a mess (retired and long-term resident of 45 years in Westtown, The Hague).
However, this distinction between minority and native Dutch is often corrected by respondents after the initial complaints. Another resident in Westtown explains that there is a difference between her neighbours of minority background and other minority residents The difference is …. these houses are not the cheapest. The rentals are like 400 euros, but these houses sell for four grant. … So the ethnics who live here are hard-working people with a mortgage, just like us (receptionist accountancy firm, 12 years in neighbourhood).
So on reflection, respondents describe the difference as one between decent or respectable people (Watt, 2006) and people who are inconsiderate towards other residents and display improper behaviour, ranging from letting their children play outside too late and talking too loudly, to harassment or criminal activities. A resident in an apartment building in pre-war Greentown in Amsterdam explained it by saying In this apartment complex we have Surinamese and Iranian neighbours, but they don’t bother us. We say hello in the elevator, smile … it’s those others out there that ruin the neighbourhood (employee in a convalescent home, 8 years in neighbourhood).
These reflections suggest that the more fundamental distinctions made by middle-class respondents between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are based on how people interact with others and use the neighbourhood in everyday life and are related to class differences rather than ethnic differences, which dominate the perceptions of these neighbourhoods in the media and policy debates. Related to this, respondents expect the planned demolition of social housing and construction of owner-occupied housing in the neighbourhood to improve the neighbourhood, because it will bring in more-affluent residents who will take better care of the neighbourhood. For this reason, a resident of Turkish origin is happy with his neighbours in the new row houses across the street It looks great. People sweep the sidewalk, put out flowerpots, they organise things together. We don’t have that here. The people there, they have a different background. They are … how do I put it … office people. People with a job who invest in their houses and gardens (supervisor of cleaning crew, 13 years in neighbourhood).
Such social distinctions overlap with spatial distinctions and are used by the middle-class respondents to emphasise the fact that living in these neighbourhoods is not that bad, because they live in the ‘good’ part of the neighbourhood.
Another way in which respondents downplay the problematic nature and low social status of their own residential surroundings and thereby justify their residential choice is by comparing their own neighbourhood with a handful of ‘real’ problem areas in the two cities. One respondent in The Hague illustrates this when talking about why she accepted her social rental apartment This neighbourhood is not as bad as others. Some neighbourhoods I excluded from my search list, because I used to live in Marketville, so I know how low you can go. Anywhere else was a step up (ICT-support courier company, 4 years in neighbourhood).
Another respondent, who sometimes works in that ‘other’ neighbourhood, remarks Some people just throw the trash from the balcony onto the streets. You really don’t want to be found dead in that place (employee of removal company, 15 years in neighbourhood).
Most respondents, however, do not base their descriptions of these ‘other’ neighbourhoods on personal experience, but on the same media items and hearsay they have criticised with respect to the stigmatisation of their own neighbourhood, thereby reproducing the stigma of these ‘other’ places.
A final way in which residents downplay the problems in their neighbourhood is by describing how problems in the neighbourhood are not necessarily problems of the neighbourhood. Social and physical disorder are seen as part of city life that might be encountered anywhere. As a respondent in a pre-war neighbourhood in Amsterdam explained Every neighbourhood has something. But if you live somewhere, you get used to your surroundings and the things going on there. Every neighbourhood has a good side and a downside (assistant-manager in a restaurant, 10 years in neighbourhood).
Another resident in the same neighbourhood said It’s not the best neighbourhood to live … but you know, it’s all relative. I mean, I’ve never had any trouble. My car window was smashed, but that can happen in the best neighbourhoods. And at least I get to live close to the centre. Those better neighbourhoods … that’s the next step, maybe. When I earn a better salary (graphic designer, 3 years in neighbourhood).
Several respondents point out that nuisance in the street and burglaries are not necessarily committed by locals, but by outsiders who come to make trouble and that these problems are also part of a hardening of society that is experienced everywhere. They therefore tend to describe their neighbourhood as ordinary, similar to the respondents of Allen et al. (2007), although ‘ordinary’ is described in specifically urban terms (that is, in cities, one has to accept a certain degree of social and physical disorder) rather than suburban terms.
Encountering the Neighbourhood
In short, in talking about their neighbourhood, the different respondents emphasise that these neighbourhoods, or at least the part where they live, are not so bad. Most respondents, in fact, conclude that they like living where they do “just fine”. As discussed previously, this is related to the fact that most respondents spend hardly any time in the neighbourhood I work a lot, so I am not home much. So do I spend a lot of time in the neighbourhood? Not really … I live here [laughs] but that’s about it (assistant manager of a construction company, 4 years in neighbourhood).
Most residents indicate that the neighbourhood plays a marginal role in their free time. Their friends live elsewhere, they often shop elsewhere and they go into town for dinner. However, this detachment from the neighbourhood in daily life is not merely a side effect of their daily activity pattern or the lack of adequate services and shops in the area, an issue which is discussed extensively by many. Their detachment is actively maintained through concrete practices.
This can be illustrated by the story of a hospital administrative employee of Hindustani-Surinamese origin. At the start of the interview, she described her relationship with her neighbourhood, where she has lived for 8 years, as neutral Well, I’ll tell you honestly … I am more of an indoor person. I work, I come home, I don’t need to be best friends with my neighbours. I am just a homebody. I like to relax at home after a long day of work. And it’s a nice house. So, I mean, about the neighbourhood … I don’t have much to say about it either way.
However, throughout the interview, her ambivalence towards the neighbourhood gradually became clearer. She described being scared in the street, her husband being intimidated near the ATM machine and her teenage son being harassed by local youths of Moroccan and Turkish origin. She also described how her son runs home as soon as he gets off the tram because he is scared of those youths, and how she has changed her way of walking through the neighbourhood, assuming a ‘don’t mess with me’ attitude.
Although this might be a somewhat extreme example as this woman lives in one of those ‘real’ problem neighbourhoods, other respondents similarly present themselves as being indifferent from the neighbourhood, while at the same time recounting a variety of strategies to avoid coming into contact with the less savoury side of local social life. Various respondents describe how they try to avoid being out in the street for long. As a female resident in Newtown, Amsterdam explained When I was thinking of buying a house here, I first checked out how far I would have to walk to the bus stop by myself. It’s just over there [points to the bus stop 5 metres from her front door] and so when I get out of the bus, I am in the door right away.
This factor played an important role in her decision to move to this neighbourhood two years ago, because as a nurse she often works evening and night shifts and therefore has to walk through the neighbourhood after dark. Other avoidance strategies of residents relate to car use. Several respondents describe that they park just across the street so that they only have a short distance to walk or that they drive straight into the car park of their apartment building.
Some respondents explicitly describe their apartment buildings as fortresses. A single female resident in a newly constructed high-rise apartment building in pre-war Greentown in Amsterdam explains You know, we’re up high, it’s not like they can break in. I am safe here. This apartment is burglarproof and I don’t let anyone in. So I feel safe, even if the neighbourhood is not safe (engineering consultant, 3 years in neighbourhood).
Another resident describes the motivation behind his decision to buy his first apartment on one of the top floors of a newly constructed apartment building in what he calls a ‘problematic’ neighbourhood If the apartment had been on the ground floor or one of the lower floors I would not have bought it … But the view here is amazing. I can look out over the whole city, and it’s a beautiful city. Here, you don’t see those [neighbourhood] problems … I don’t see the street or the square around the corner, where there is trouble all the time. This building is my neighbourhood, not the street (freelance computer programmer, 2 years in neighbourhood).
When they do have to cross the neighbourhood, respondents have developed strategies for avoiding conflict. One respondent, who recently moved away from a post-war restructuring neighbourhood in Amsterdam, explained that she did not mind the fact that the neighbourhood is largely minority, but stated It was just a little troublesome in the evening, when I am home alone. It didn’t matter if they [men of Muslim background] were 6 or 60, every time someone bothered me. So I started wearing a headscarf, and they would leave me alone. My boyfriend got very angry about that, but it helped, so who cares? I just put it on when I got off the tram and took it off when I got home (city official, 6 years in neighbourhood).
Other respondents describe that walking a dog helped them to feel safe. A resident of Greentown in Amsterdam states The last few years things have really gone downhill. I didn’t feel at ease anymore, especially in the evenings. … those kids hanging around on the benches in front of our house. Drinking and smoking up. But if I took the dog, it was fine … they would leave me alone, because they are scared of dogs. They [referring to ethnic minorities] all are (hospital employee, 4 years in neighbourhood).
Current residents describe such coping strategies as being streetwise (Anderson, 1990). A resident of Westtown, The Hague, demonstrated how he changes his posture on the streets Further down there’s often a group of kids … or maybe I should say men … if you pass them, you just have to hold your head up. Don’t act scared, because that’s like an invitation to get harassed (IT consultant, 14 years in neighbourhood).
Many respondents also refer to a process of ‘getting used’ to how things work in the neighbourhood and of navigating through the neighbourhood accordingly. In this respect, the interviews with former residents were particularly interesting because they describe this process of habituation most explicitly. A former resident from Watertown in Amsterdam explained The crazy thing is that you get used to it. At some point, you look up, see a police helicopter circling, and think “Let’s put the television on to see which store has been robbed this time” As if it’s nothing. It’s ridiculous (unemployed, 19 years in neighbourhood).
The contrast between their previous restructuring neighbourhood and their current neighbourhood has made a lot of movers reconsider their perceptions of their old neighbourhood. It was ‘fine’ when they lived there, but they realise now how much they had adapted to their surroundings. As one former resident explained West End is getting more and more deprived. If I come there now, to visit a friend … it’s horrible. I think to myself, how did we manage to stay for so long? (psychologist, 36 years in neighbourhood).
Discussion
This paper has explored the question of how middle-class residents in Dutch restructuring neighbourhoods experience and make sense of the potential problem of ‘spoiled identity’ (Allen et al., 2007; Watt, 2009) and how they subsequently engage with the neighbourhood. A review of the research literature suggested that we might understand their continuing presence in these neighbourhoods in different ways: as a reflection of an alternative middle-class discourse about the meaning of housing and neighbourhood, as an expression of residential attachment or as more fine-grained forms of disaffiliation in place.
The findings indicate that middle-class residents of restructuring areas in Amsterdam and The Hague indeed use a particular discourse to explain their residential choice, which deviates from the discourse of distinction associated with gentrification and centrally located middle-class neighbourhoods (Butler and Robson, 2003; Savage et al., 2005). Many respondents formulate their decisions about residential location through a value-for-money discourse, although this refers solely to the housing and not to the neighbourhood, in contrast to Watt’s study (2009). A number of other residents, specifically young urban professionals, describe their current residential situation as a temporary first step in their housing careers whereby the choice of their low-status neighbourhood is seen as an investment which, in a few years, may help them along in their housing careers. In other words, these residents hope to benefit from urban restructuring programmes by buying into neighbourhoods that are expected to improve and cashing in a few years later to move into another neighbourhood. However, the respondents in this study did not discuss local ethnic diversity as something that is valued (van Eijk, 2010), nor did they exhibit forms of ‘light’ solidarity with residents of lower class positions (Veldboer, 2010). This may be related to the fact that the majority of respondents are not part of the so-called new urban middle class, but can instead be described as ‘middle’ middle class or ‘marginal’ middle class for whom these neighbourhood characteristics do not form a similar source of distinction (Savage et al., 2005). Rather, these respondents consume the favourable housing prices in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and their convenient location and otherwise claim indifference to the neighbourhood.
Nevertheless, their lack of attachment is not just a given, but actively maintained through their descriptions of and encounters with the neighbourhood. First, respondents talk about their neighbourhood as ‘not as bad as it seems’, while at the same time discursively distancing themselves from the sources of spoiled identity in their neighbourhood. On the one hand, respondents emphasise that the negative reputation of the neighbourhood is unjustified and problems of disorder are overstated both in the media and in public policy and/or not nearly as problematic as other ‘real’ problem neighbourhoods. On the other hand, they explicitly distinguish between their direct surroundings as a ‘good’ place to live, and the rest of the neighbourhood as problematic. Although some respondents are sheltered from hotspots of social or physical disorder because they live in clearly demarcated enclaves or along ‘golden edges’ of the neighbourhood, similar practices of drawing boundaries between ‘here’ and ‘there’ are used at the micro scale by residents who live in the middle of these hotspots (Southerton, 2002). These findings are intriguing because, although respondents may not personally attach much importance to the neighbourhood, they are clearly aware of how the outside world views their residential situation and that it may erode their social status. Nevertheless, the symbolic value (or disvalue) of the neighbourhood does not outweigh the economic and practical value as an affordable location providing access to the rest of the city.
Another way that respondents disaffiliate from the neighbourhood is through what Watt (2006) has called exclusionary spatial strategies: they strategically avoid public spaces in the neighbourhood. This explains why respondents say they are unaffected by local problems of social and physical disorder and why they are quite satisfied with their residential situation. Their lack of behavioural attachment, however, is not simply a given but is actively maintained through day-to-day socio-spatial practices of avoidance. In other words, respondents are satisfied with their residential situation because they have developed a fortress mentality and rarely have to encounter the neighbourhood. Moreover, when they do have to move around their neighbourhood, they develop different coping strategies to navigate safely through the neighbourhoods and to avoid getting into trouble. This indicates that, despite respondents’ tendency to nuance local social and physical disorder, these nonetheless have real consequences for residents’ everyday practices.
These findings support two of the hypothesised explanations for the continuing presence of middle-class residents in poor neighbourhoods. First, most respondents use an alternative discourse about the meaning of housing and neighbourhood, in which housing value-for-money is more important than neighbourhood quality or status. This makes disadvantaged neighbourhoods an attractive residential location compared with more affluent neighbourhoods in the city. Secondly, the respondents in this study manage this source of spoiled identity by disaffiliating from the neighbourhood both practically and discursively. This suggests that, for this particular group of middle-class residents, the different interpretations of middle-class residential practices in disadvantaged neighbourhoods are not competing explanations, but in fact complement each other. The middle-class respondents in this study seem to have adopted a strategy of non-belonging: they neither identify with a particular segment of the neighbourhood, as Watt (2009) found in his study on selective belonging, nor do they actively try to reclaim the neighbourhood for themselves, as was found in some of the gentrification literature (August and Walks, 2011). Nevertheless, they are generally satisfied with their residential situation. Moreover, for relatively recent residents, this strategy of non-belonging was anticipated when they moved in: they never intended to develop meaningful ties to the area. This study therefore contributes to the growing body of literature that raises questions about the benefits of social-mix policies in many European cities that are aimed at attracting affluent residents to disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the hope that they will invest in these neighbourhoods.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Willem Boterman, Matthieu Permentier, Karin Wittebrood, and the referees for their useful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
Funding
The study was commissioned by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research and the Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning.