Bijlmermeer: Defining Public Spaces

Researching Public Spaces: Streets, Pavement, Sidewalks & Parks



Our final morning lecture, given by Dr. Leon Deben, senior university lecturer and associate professor of sociology and anthropology at UvA and part of the research team "Urban Geographies and Social Interactions".



What is public space?



Public space is defined as "space that is not privately owned and cannot be claimed by one person, or group of persons, exclusively," according to Dr. Deben, it is "a reflection of how a society is organized." You do not need to obtain permission to enter this space, spend time there, conduct business, &c. Day or night, man or woman, you are free to use this space as you choose.



Semi-public spaces are just that, 'semi-public', they are do not afford the same freedoms as a truly public space, but they are certainly a part of the public domain. They are characterized by time restraints, membership requirements perhaps, tacit (or perhaps not) rules governing behavior and conduct. Shopping Malls, therefore, will forever remain semi-public.



Three Domains of Space



The private domain is the home; characterized by the intimate interactions of a specific group/individuals, a freedom of behavior, attitude and ideas not available elsewhere. Interaction with strangers is extremely limited.



The next step out is the parochial domain, or the neighborhood; a familiar community network of friends and family, the people you ride the tram with to work every morning, the baristas at the cafe on the corner. Interactions with the unfamiliar occurs, but there is some sense of ownership and pride in this space, you have some vague idea of who belongs or who doesn't.



Of course the public domain is a realm of strangers; while locations are largely familiar, the sea of faces endlessly shifts and changes.



Diversity and Freedom



“In a village, when you look out the window, you are looking in the mirror. In the city, when you look out the window, you see the world."



By forced meetings (in public spaces), tolerance becomes a part of everyday life, developed more and more each day. It is impossible to exist in a city environment, interacting (if only briefly and superficially) with individuals from every walk of life on a daily basis, and remain intolerant. It may not always be the most pleasant experience, but if you were to remain completely intolerant, you would either never leave your house or leave the city and move to a gated community where you never have to see anyone outside of your fixed social stratum and environment.



Theoretical Perspective: Erving Goffman



Dr. Erving Goffman: former president of the American Sociological Association and professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, University of California - Berkeley and University of Pennsylvania. He was awarded Doctor of Hebrew literature/language from the University of Chicago and Doctor of Laws from University of Manitoba, a Guggenheim Fellowship (1977-78), In Medias Res (International Communication Award, 1978) and the Mead-Cooley Award (social psychology life achievement award, 1983).



Dr. Goffman developed the idea of "symbolic interactionism" which focuses on the constructive, creative aspect of human behavior: not passive, but based on interpretations of the environment. He stresses the strategic, calculating aspects of social interaction. Sees the world as backstage (your language/vernacular) and main stage; in each situation there is a seen and unseen component. Backstage is the difference in behavior in public spaces versus private spaces; how you behave at home versus how you behave in Dam Square. Backstage is more informal and familiar; the 'true you' so to speak. You conduct yourself differently in the privacy of your own thoughts and home than you would in a shopping centre or public park. Dr. Goffman also notes the "anonymous privacy" afforded by public spaces and the concept of "civil-inattention and nonpersons", you don’t see the homeless or the crazy pigeon lady, you turn away. If you give everyone attention, you will not be able to walk through the city, or keep your sanity.



Territories of the self applied in research of the public area and domain

Used Space

The Turn

The Sheath - the skin that covers the body, the clothes that cover the skin

Possessional territory - purses, bags, umbrellas

Personal Space

The Stall - establishing your space. Setting a bag on the chair next to you on the tram to prevent intrusion of others into your perceived 'bubble'

Information Reserve - things that are always present, even in public, but are still unknown to others. The contents of your pockets, for example.

Conversational Reserve



Privatizing Public Spaces: Symbolic Transformations



According to Dr. Lyn Lofland, a student of Dr. Goffman and research professor of sociology at University of California - Davis, you cannot cope with thousands of strangers, you must develop strategies for existence and survival. By reducing the complexities of an anonymous life and by turning public spaces into a private place, so as to avoid this ‘world of strangers’. By knowing a city, by filling in our mental maps, we become more comfortable with the city/world around us. Privatizing public space is an individual act; a locational transformation to avoid the world of strangers.



Home Territories are places where you are among your compatriots. A piece of public space that is taken over by people who want to maximize encounters with the personally-known. A “home away from home”, which makes the urban world safer and easier. Invites "host-like" behavior towards strangers.



1. Casual knowledge (customer)

2. Familiar knowledge (patron)

3. Intimate knowledge (residents)

4. Public Space knowledge (colonizers)



The customer has a casual knowledge of a place, looks at it as somewhere to meet friends, to see and be seen. The Patron has familiar knowledge based on a regular relationship; a privileged link with employees, which also contributes to the spatial segregation of strangers. Upperclassmen always know new students, and there is some discrimination based not on socio-economics, but sheerly on the amount of time you have spent in a space or set of spaces. Residents know everything via permanent relationship; can recognize strangers. An alteration which transforms a world of strangers into ‘home’.

Finally, colonizers turn public spaces into home; a ‘full-time job’ for seeking private purposes. An action which depends on the approval of other people and authorities; unlike the privatization of public space, which is an individual action, this is a group act.



Villages



The Urban Village is a personal world in urban anonymity, based on solidarity and/or security. The Concentrated Village (neighborhood) a mix of unity and autonomy which remains fictional. A way for inhabitants to avoid the adaptations to the ‘world of strangers’; an extreme example is a gated community. 10-15 million people in the United States live in gated communities, turning their backs on society; an anachronism in our cosmopolitan world.



Amsterdam is an important mix of all of these spaces and territories: there are 80-85,000 residents in the city itself, and on any given day between 80-100,000 people living and working in the 8 square km of the city.



Now, onto Bijlmer and a short history lesson...



Bijlmermeer



History:

1622 - Reclamation of Bijlmer lake

1672 - Marshy polder flooded

1678 - Drained again

1702 - Flooded during a storm

1825 - Drained again

1846 - Owned by Weesperkarspel

1960 - Cooperation with Amsterdam. To realize housing plans (to combat post WWII housing shortage), began discussions on building up Bijlmermeer.



Bijlmer was designed to be a "Functional Town": a town in which living, working, traffic and recreation are separated (like old German industrial town) The Bijlmer was designed by Le Corbusier and based on his "Voisin Plan" for Paris (1925). He founded CIAM, in 1928, and invited 28 European architects to join this international congress for the design of modern architecture. In 1934, they wrote the Charter of Athens (1942) which dictated the planning of new cities based on the proceedings of CIAM meetings from 1933-1941. While the Bijlmer project was conceived in the 1930s, it was not realized until the 1960s.



The Potential Plan

High-rise Apartment Blocks (8 floors/each)

18,000 apartment units, 13,000 in the High-rise

Deck access apartment blocks

Honeycomb Pattern

Large green spaces in between



The Effective Plan

Budget Cuts

Remained incomplete

The "covered street" or raised highway was set at 1st floor-height

Storage at the Ground Floor (a bad thing; must have watching eyes on street level to reduce crime)

Number of floors was increased (10/11 stories)

Number of lifts decreased

Galleries were too long

Cavernous spaces in car parks; from day one, they were not used properly because there was a fee. Residents removed the gates and parked for free, only to find their wheels missing the next morning.

Subway realized later; initially it was a bus system connecting Bijlmermeer to the city.



Reasons for failure

Too expensive; the idea was to build the Bijlmermeer, and then be able to renovate the 19th C girdle of the city. Never happened.

Unsafe carparks.

Insufficient shops/retail locations

A menacing atmosphere in the public area: because all of the highways were elevated, underneath them, these cavernous spaces were no-go areas at night and are the ultimate in sketch.

Nuisance in the Blocks

Rapid Turn Over

Faulty Social Structure; in a way, this became the place where, if you could not get a home in Amsterdam proper, you moved to Bijlmermeer.



Further problems caused by external forces

National policy created ‘overspill towns’

Slower population growth than anticipated,

Relatively high rent throughout the country,

Combined with this situation: negative residential climate around the Blocks, too many units left empty,

Fewer families living in the blocks (single parents, partners without children, individuals)



1975 Surinam (Dutch Guyana) gained its independence, and these immigrants like to live in the same communities, this filled the empty Bijlmermeer.



1992 El Al freighter crashed into one of the apartment blocks; unfortunately, there were so many illegals living in the area that the actual death toll is unknown. There is a memorial erected in Bijlmerpark to commemorate this tragedy.



Census of Resident Participation:

25% liked the High Rise Blocks

25% wanted to leave

25% wanted the Bijlmermeer to be renovated



Buildings have been torn down and rebuilt, others renovated, others still remain unchanged. The campaign for a new Biljmer: clean, whole and safe: restoring the quality of life.



Population:

Surinamese - 25,000

Antillians - 4,500

Turkish/Moroccan - 2,000

Non-Westerdn - 16,500

Dutch - 22,500

Western Origin - 6,500

-----

Total: 77,500



The Bijlmer Renewal Project



To be completed by 2010, the Bijlmer Renewal is hailed as the "Society of Tomorrow" and anticipated to increase the population in Amsterdam Zuidoost (southeast) from 77,500 to 90,000. They'll be removing the raised highways, renovating or rebuilding the remaining apartment blocks from the 1960s, and have renovated the extremely sketchy metro station (now a clean, aesthetically-pleasing, contemporary structure of glass and steel). They will also be constructing a new music dome and entertainment center with hotels, shopping, a discotech/club, and 3D/IMAX cineplex, in hopes of turning Bijlmer into Amsterdam's new center for the arts and entertainment.















Religion is extremely important to residents of Bijlmer; while there is no official church, all of the protestants (the majority of the inhabitants) attend services and whatnot in a shared building, where all communities peacefully coexist. Bijlmer, too, is the largest employment center in Amsterdam, filled with skyscrapers: the symbol of modern industry.



A few of us hung around Bijlmer for a few hours and explored the city center before returning to Amsterdam proper where a few of us went out for dinner and re-explored the city at dusk.

Let the games begin!

Our first formal meeting began at 09:30 this morning in the C building. The classroom space is very modern and clean-cut, a somewhat significant change from the rest of the city. Clifford and Jessica gave us a bit of an introduction and Mirjam Schieveld of the Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA) went over our schedule and provided a more formal orientation, including a lecture entitled "Introduction to the Netherlands"

After a few days of roaming around the city, I have several notes on Dutch culture. First, the Netherlands is an extremely densely populated country; this is noticably manifest in all of the sandwiched "townhouses" lining every street. While in the city itself, the street level is packed with retail shops, restaurants and cafes, the second through fifth or sixth stories are all apartments. Interestingly, while there is a housing shortage in the areas surrounding Amsterdam, most of these apartments remain empty; at present, the government is trying to find a way to defer the housing crisis by filling these apartments. It is interesting to note, too,that all of the houses and buildings lean in on each other because, like old Seattle, the city is built on a swamp buy pounding in wooden stakes (approximately similar to telephone poles) upon which the city stands.

The Dutch: liberal and tolerant or controlling?

Mirjam Schieveld, professor at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, developed this thesis: the Dutch regulate tolerance to exercise control.

The Dutch people are "pragmatic" (a term which they frequently use, and as Mirjam notes almost over-use, to describe themselves) which leads to forced tolerance, which in turn eventually leads to condonation. Cooperation is a necessity and the composition of the population requires a consensus (poldermodel). For centuries the Netherlands has been a mercantile country (remember the Dutch East India Company?) which historically empowers the merchants moreso than most other countries.

Sex, drugs and... gay marriage?:
Principle socio-cultural differences between the United States and the Netherlands (as a function of legislation)

The legality of sex work, soft drugs and gay marriage. Two main points to keep in mind: the Dutch pride themselves on their pragmatism but also the idea of compassion instead of punishment. While sex work is legal in the Netherlands, this does not mean that it has social/societal approval. Just because it is not criminalized as it is in the United States does not mean that it is a fully accepted practice or profession. The emphasis is on work, prostitution is seen as a necessity: the oldest profession in the world (another example of Dutch pragmatism). There are main concerns for the population (both for prostitution and soft drugs): abuse of minors and public nuisance. With such a densely populated country, most Dutch laws are to "keep the peace" and prevent/reduce any public disturbances.

Finally, while gay marriage is legal here (in the Netherlands), it is a purely secular practice. This, to me, is the fundamental issue in the United States: it seems to me that US citizens are unable to separate civil marriage from holy matrimony. I'm not about to dictate your religious practices or comment on your spirituality, and while I feel that same-sex couples should be granted the same legal rights as heterosexual couples, maybe that's just my pragmatism speaking. If gay couples are going to exist anyway, why discriminate against an unavoidable situation? By not legalizing gay marriage, we are not preventing homosexuality or preventing the formation of same-sex couples; not providing basic rights is not preventative, so how can you justify this type of legal discrimination?

The whole legal issue surrounding soft drugs originated in the 1970s and they certainly provide a health/medical issue. Drugs are seen as a reality: people are going to use them, so do not criminalize them. The original goal of this legislation was to separate the worlds of 'normal use' and criminality. A lot of people are able to use (soft) drugs without becoming addicted, and of course, coffeeshops pay specific taxes for operation. While it is legal for coffeeshops to have up to 500g of cannabis on the premises, and only able to sell 5g per customer, it is illegal to grow marijuana. While seven plantations are shut down every day, seven more are opened. If the local government wants to enforce the law, they can do so (the iron fist in the velvet glove), it looks liberal and tolerant, but is actually a highly controlled and regulated practice. This applies not only to the drug policies, but also policies concerning sexwork.

We watched this video from 2006, which is a song written by (and featuring) the may of Amsterdam, Gerd Leers (of the Christian [protestant] Democratic Party), about the Netherlands drug culture:


Heideroosjes feat. Gerd Leers "Da's Toch Dope Man!"

He sings: "A coffeeshop can sell, but where it comes from, no one knows. You can smoke it, but you can't grow it, that's odd, how can you distribute something that doesn't exist?" He also specifically says: "Legalisation to Control"

The Minister of Justice, Piet Hein Donner, also a Christian Democrat, responded to Gerd Leers clip with one of his own:


"De Don" Piet Hein Donner

While I'm terribly amused by these innovative forms of propaganda, I'm almost embarrassed on behalf of the Dutch Parliament. Who can take these public officials seriously if they are rapping on YouTube?

Netherlands Politics:
In the 1960s the Netherlands underwent a very sudden and very fast depillarization and secularization of the government. The current government is a pariliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy. This means that while the monarch (at present, Queen Beatrix) is head of state and has considerable constitutional power, this has mostly fallen into a ceremonial role. This is not to say Queen Bea has no control: she acts as the neutral party to determine the composition of the cabinet and to moderate between the parties. The major parliamentary players are: the CDA (Christian Democratic Party), the PvdA (Dutch Labour Party), the SP (Socialist Party) and the VVD (People's Party for Freedom and Democracy) which are centre/right liberals who advocate both private enterprise and public welfare. Hmm...

We closed out our lecture oriented portion of the day with a nice lunch, and a trip over to ARCAM: architectuurcentrum amsterdam, an independent architectural centre for the city of Amsterdam. We received an exceptional lecture on the history of Amsterdam and its architecture, from 1200CE to present. As you may know, the entire "province" of Holland is below sea level (which prompted Al Gore to predict in "An Inconvenient Truth" that the Netherlands will be completely underwater in 2015-2025) but what you may not know is that the Netherlands is composed of 12 provinces, of which Holland (technically a combination of two provinces: North and South Holland) holds the three most important cities: Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague. Amsterdam is the capitol and largest city (but, ironically, is not the capitol of North Holland), Rotterdam (the lowest point in the country at 7m below sea level) is the largest and most important European port (both historically and at present) and the Hague which is the parliamentary seat.

We spent the next few hours touring Amsterdam with Dick Weeda, our temporary tour guide. For more details, see my inaugural entry in the Amsterdam 2008 Daily Video Blog.

Questions From the Audience

I found both of Mieke Bal's articles Telling, Showing, Showing Off and "Tradition" from her book Traveling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide incredibly interesting. It is not often the museum is examined in and of itself, nor the catharsis that results from the embrace of tradition in cultures drowning in history.

Telling, Showing, Showing Off:

In this article, Bal discusses the 'metamuseum', this concept that not only are museums preserves for whatever topic upon which they focus, but also act to preserve the museum itself; museums also exist to preserve themselves. She goes on to discuss not only the construction of the museum, but the motivation for the creation of the museum: the difference between 19th century colonialism and the 20th century focus on education. In this she notes that Donna Haraway has already criticized the way in which museums have obtained their relics and notes that she, too, will be discussing Akeley Hall of the elusive Second Floor of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). The following struck me, for some reason: "There is a tension here, perhaps a paradox, inherent in the museum as a whole, between common and strange." (Bal, 562) Bal goes on to say, "[This discourse] claims the truth to which the viewer is asked to submit, endorsing the willing suspension of disbelief that rules the power of fiction.[. . .] this is the equivalent of the 'once upon a time' formula, the discourse of realism setting the terms of the contract between viewer or reader and museum or storyteller." (Bal, 563,564) I was further intrigued by the way in which she addressed how the museum deals with the "transition from this cultured "nature" to culture as nature - from mammals to peoples" (Bal, 564) She exemplifies this transition in the Queen Maya Exhibit and it is here I went from piqued to enthralled. She comments that the Queen Maya Giving Birth to the Buddha from her Side exhibit, a small black-box exhibit between the Indian rhinoceros and the water buffalo, has a "specific transitional function" (Bal, 566) What does that mean? How can a small statue of Queen Maya, placed between two quadrupeds, serve as the transition between animalia and human?

How does the Queen Maya relic serve as and/or exemplify this difficult transition? How does the accompanying text indicate this role? How does this minor exhibit fulfill its role as diplomat? Is this intended as a conscious or unconscious transition? Is it effective?

"Tradition" from Traveling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide:

In this chapter, Bal discusses how traditions have shaped society and further, where they have come from and, now that their (sometimes unpleasant) origins have been uncovered, what do we do? Do we allow the traditions to continue uninhibited? Do we try and change them? How do we respond to the newly formed darkness that surrounds some of our most cherished traditions?

Why allow the tradition to continue? After noting the pain and confusion it inflicts, why perpetuate these acts? To what end?

Happy Birthday, Karl Marx

[...and a rollickin' 'Viva Cinco de Mayo!' to all the rest of you. There is this common misconception that Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's Independence Day (Grito de Dolores), it's not. (Grito de Dolores is actually 16 September, and the most important patriotic holiday in Mexico) Cinco de Mayo in fact celebrates the initial Mexican victory, led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín, over French forces in 1862 at the Battle of Puebla.]

In any case, the Frankfurt School: Marx and Freud contributed to this gestalt of the Frankfurt School, leading to a focus on both [alternatives to] capitalism and fantasy, as a means to understand culture. Why do I? Walter Benjamin studied here, and he is our lovely subject of discussion (read, lecture) today.

"There is something quintessentially modern," says JB, "about Paris." Introducing the concept of the Flaneur: acting as a man of the crowd - not readily extinguishable; acting in a public urban space to observe the world as culture. The Flaneur is not immersed in the environment which he is observing, he does not participate. The Flaneur does not have a destination; he is an idler. "He consumes the city, visually," noted JB, "You have no connection to society. Flaneurs don't have families. Where they get their clothes? Doesn't come up." "The crowd is his domain," says Baudelaire, "...his passion and his profession is to merge with the crowd." There is still detachment: he is 'of' the crowd, but not 'in' it.

How is a metropolis different from a large town? What is the 'urban experience'? Crowds, street life."You are experiencing things at every level of the body sensorium," (JB) Textual fragments, unexpected juxtapositions: the important commentary provided by Benjamin. "The [visual] fragmentation of the text," notes JB, "is a metaphorical rhyme... These textual fragments rhyme with the fragmentation of the [Parisian] arcades."

God Made The World, But The Dutch Made Holland

"Historians are storytellers, as far as I'm concerned," Professor Ran Hennes remarked, by way of introduction and, perhaps, even persuasion to listen to his lecture on the history of Amsterdam and the Netherlands. For those of us who are geographically challenged, he smiled and provided a semi-topographical map of the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. With a wink, he explained: "This green, waterlogged place in Northeastern Europe, that's Holland." 

"You see," he began, "1/4 of the country is below sea level, 1/4 is at sea level, and most of the citizens live in the West where they are face to face with the lapping waters of the North Sea." No wonder they wear wooden shoes - at least they would slog through the marsh and float through the wetlands... right? He goes on to describe the Dutch as "Merchants, pure and simple, no one mistook them for philosophers, these were hard-headed business men!" Throughout their colonial phase, the Dutch territories were not colonized to amass land or unite citizens, these lands were collected, invaded and occupied for profit. "At one time, the Dutch not only had the Netherlands but also what is now Belgium and Luxembourg. The Benaluxe states? Now you know!"