Stedelijke regeneratie in Amsterdam-Noord: over de politiek van erfgoed en creativiteit

In the context of debates on the role of culture in the development of cities, I discuss how the emphasis on creativity and the ‘creative class’ in the regeneration of urban neighborhoods generates a dynamic of socio-cultural heritage formation. My analysis is based on ethnographic research in different former working-class neighborhoods in Amsterdam North, where the imagination of the industrial past and the lives of the workers has come to play an important role in the practices of regeneration. Government, welfare institutions and housing corporations have been focusing on the ‘social mixing’ of the ‘working class’ and the ‘creative middle class’ in recent years, in order to tackle different problems in the so-called disadvantaged neighborhoods. An important method was the use of creative professionals who tried to promote positive emotions and interactions between residents through artistic neighborhood projects that mobilized values like pride, authenticity and diversity on the basis of cultural characterizations of Northerners. During those projects, stereotypical images came about as well as apparent contradictions between ‘old North’ and ‘new North’ – the ‘working class’ versus the ‘middle class’, which contributed to practices and feelings of inclusion and exclusion.