How Amsterdam Built A Dystopia

part of this video was sponsored by Squarespace this is the bmer it's a neighborhood in Amsterdam compared to the city's canals briak architecture and six-story tall buildings the belmer looks different its concrete buildings are arranged like Honeycombs there's lots of green space and even a raised Metro it looks strange but a few decades ago it looked even stranger this is not just any ordinary City neighborhood Once Upon a Time the belmer was the city of the future a City built in a park a Utopia in Amsterdam one day it was the country's largest housing project in history another day it became its largest demolished one in a time where the netherland's urban planning is borderline fetishized the belmer is considered by some its biggest urban planning failure what is the Balmer the Netherlands is not known for high-rise buildings its people are tall enough so there's not much need for compensation in the' 60s though there was an exception y high-rise Estates dominated the building in this era these years proed to be the time of peak housing production in the Netherlands and many other European countries after the second world war there weren't many homes but there were lots of people who needed them all across Europe new high-rise neighborhoods developed these neighborhoods became experiments in new types of living Architects and planners believe the time of organic bottomup cities was over it was now the time to build them top down artificially c. i. a.

m is a group of the world's most leading urban planners and Architects we have designed the cities of the future the population is too dense within the historic nuclei of cities structures built along Transportation routes and around their intersections are detrimental to habitation the ratio between the size of a population and the land area that it occupies can be entirely changed by the height of buildings high buildings set apart from one another must free the ground members of CM believe that the design of cities should divide living working Recreation and transportation this is the model we have created for a perfect City high-rise buildings give room for Green Space among large populations zoning separates housing work Recreation and travel efficient but separated Transportation connects the different zones of the city uniform and standardized buildings give equal access to sunlight large green spaces give equal access to clean air CM was influential but there were few places in the world that applied their principles precisely one of the few places that did was [Music] Amsterdam SP for amsterd for for and for [Music] amstd in the 60s Amsterdam had just finished the construction of four new neighborhoods slir star held and oorp these neighborhoods were supposed to increase the housing Supply but they weren't enough Amsterdam wanted more so the city picked a fight with the national government and a different municipality Amsterdam wanted the belir in its East but the municipality it belonged to disagreed the other municipality wanted to merge with two others to make an entirely new on-edge government that could hold the red Amsterdam at Bay the fear was that if Amsterdam grew too large the distance between the representatives and the represented would be too far this conflict led to the belmer question a multi- hour long debate at the national level on whether the belmer should go to Amsterdam in one reality Amsterdam lost the belmer remained in the hands of the original municipality and the city today would have looked quite different but in this reality Amsterdam won the bmer is the city of the future as opposed to those cramped polluting streets in the center we've built a city in a park residential homes are separated from industry but you can easily get to your work by using raised roads separated from pedestrian walkways all a working man needs to do is leave his apartment walk to the parking garage connected to his high-rise and get into his car he can do all of this without getting hit by a single drop of rain our traditional European cities are cramped messy and polluting we've designed a place that gives you all the benefits of density without the penalties all the positives of Rural Life without the negatives after that long fight with the national government the mayor of Amsterdam and the rest of the city council were almost in complete agreement the belmer was not just some buildings that would change Amsterdam it would change cities forever the's buildings Road networks bike paths bus lines and parking garages were all strictly set from above the goal was space green and light a key difference between bmer apartments and your traditional Amsterdam one is the amount of room our Apartments can have three bedrooms a living room storage and a kitchen Old City Center Apartments sometimes don't even have their own bathroom our apartments are an upgrade by using using concrete and steel we've been able to stack up large apartments for middle class families we have all the benefits of a dense wealthy neighborhood but with the empty space of a rural one from the start the belmer was meant to attract middleclass Dutch families it was supposed to unlock a new system of living spacious rooms with semi-public spaces and recreational facilities all without sacrificing nature on the grounds you could find running tracks many parks to run and play around in ideal for a [Music] family attention if you or a loved one was diagnosed with not having a personal website you may be entitled to the best website builder on the planet Squarespace hug in the 21st century everyone should have a personal website it's the best hub for presenting your skills literally the best place to show your work in public I now receive a decent amount of CVS from people looking to help with my videos they can be impressive but in all honesty they never leave as much of an impression as a personal website that directly shows what that person has worked on with squarespace's blogging tools flexible website templates and email campaigns it's never been easier to make your own personal website that stands out in the sea of boring CVS and check out squarespace. com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.