Residential mobility and social segregation in Amsterdam 18901940

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Residential mobility and social segregation in
Amsterdam 1890-1940

• Henk Laloli
• NIWI-KNAW
• Amsterdam

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Aim of the study

• Relate individual residential mobility patterns
  to changes in social segregation

Questions

• Do we see a residential mobility pattern of
  moving out of the centre in the sample?
• Did these moves contribute to social
  segregation?
• What do residential mobility and segregation
  tell us about urban development?

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Sources and subjects

• City and neighbourhood level tax and housing rent
  data
• Sample of dockworkers or casual workers from the
  population register
• Who?
• The poorest people in the city with on and off
  jobs, high fertility, very low incomes

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Amsterdam development
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Residential mobility
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• Dockworkers distribution differs from city
  population
• Change does not keep pace with city population

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Residential mobility

• Two cohorts addresses starting round 1900 and
  after 1909 to 1930s
• Dockworkers move to new areas
• They keep living near the harbour
• Their distribution is very different from the
  general population overrepresented in old city
  and working-class districts

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How could they move to the new areas?

• The new areas generally have higher rents

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Regression analysis on low rent housing of
workers last adresses in 1930s

• New zones few low rents
• Working class areas high on
• low rents

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• Dockworkers live around the harbour in the old
  city
• Not in elite or middle class districts

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• Elite spreads from old centre to the south
• Dockworkers remain around harbour

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• Dockworkers live in low rent areas
• Concentrated in the old centre

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• They move to low rent areas, also in new areas

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Income segregation
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Impact of the crisis of the 1930s
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General conclusions

• Dockworkers live in the areas with low rent
  housing and lowest income segregated
• They continue to do so when they move
• They dont keep pace with general population in
  terms of distribution over new areas
• Work place and housing rent influence residential
  choice
• Dockworkers are able to move to low rent housing
  in new areas
• Municipality builts low rent housing in new areas
• They live in housing built by municipality?

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City development

• Social segregation
• Social classes are spatially segregated but
  economic development softens this until 1930
• Crisis of the 1930s increases segregation again
  (rents weigh higher on budget)
• Old city degradation?
• Loss of population elite, middle class diminish
• Still a mixed area inner core tends to CBD, part
  of elite remains
• After 1930 working-class districts decline
• Social differences between zones of development?
• Housing quality (rents) and health differ between
  old and new
• Income differences are spread inside the zones
• Working-class areas in old and new zones grow
  nearer in income level
• Spatial social segration
• Takes the form of an opposition between the south
  and rest
• Residential mobility pattern of working-class
• outward movement into newly built areas like
  other classes (but more restricted)