“Amsterdam is booming: the economy is growing faster than the rest of the Netherlands” and “Growth of the Amsterdam region economy is reaching its limits”. Two news headlines on the same day (the first from AT5 and the second in AD). Which one do you prefer? Of course, that just depends on how you look at it. A) Are you the owner of a successful tech start-up and have you just bought a nice building in the city center that you can also rent out regularly via Airbnb, or B) are you a teacher in the Baarsjes and you can't actually imagine afford a home near your work so that you have to move to a place far outside the city.
The Hague and Berlin have already taken quite far-reaching measures: the municipality of The Hague will set income requirements in the private rental sector. People who earn less than twice the average are given priority for homes with a certain rent. This is the first time that a Dutch municipality has intervened in the private sector. What the municipality of The Hague wants to achieve with this is that certain professional groups with an average salary, such as police officers, teachers or nurses, do not have to flee the city. And Berlin also recently announced that rents in the private sector will be frozen for the next five years, a “rent cap” according to the Trouw newspaper.
Economic prosperity for one person can mean disaster for another. More and more cities are starting to experience this personally and are trying to find a structural solution, as in the example of The Hague. But this is not that simple and often takes longer than you think. And that is often the core of an issue, and of issue management; a structural approach to solve it for as many parties involved as possible.
Who struggles with this dilemma? And who can we help manage this social issue, which seems to be rapidly becoming unmanageable?
#amsterdam #utrecht #rotterdam #denhaag #issue management
