Amsterdam

Amsterdam faces a housing crisis in terms of quantity and affordability. With its 863,000 inhabitants, Amsterdam is not only the largest city of the Netherlands but has one of the fastest population growth rates among major Dutch cities. The Amsterdam Metropolitan Area is currently home to a population of 2.46 million. Projections forecast that Amsterdam will hit the 1 million mark by 2034. The Municipality of Amsterdam estimates that an expected 11,000 new inhabitants each year require the construction of 5,000 new homes annually to meet demand. Simultaneously, housing prices have skyrocketed. Prices of Amsterdam’s existing owner-occupied housing have risen almost 50% since 2010, there is a perpetual lack of affordable housing to middle-income groups, and average waiting times for social housing have reached over 15 years. Housing dominated the 2018 local elections and resulted in plans to build 70,000 homes by 2040, with 52,500 to be completed by 2025. This massive undertaking takes place in an increasingly complex governance context: changes at the national level strengthen the position of private-sector actors in urban development, new actors emerge on residential investment landscapes, and the traditional planning approach in which the Municipality of Amsterdam is in charge, is increasingly challenged.

Amsterdam researchers

Tuna Taşan-Kok, Sara Özogul, Andre Legarza, Nagwa Kady and Ebru Kurt Özman