Cycling in Amsterdam is a great experience and a lot of fun. The whole city is honeycombed with wide cycle lanes, the scenery is beautiful, and as a cyclist you are on top of the mobility food chain. One of my favourite things about it is ringing tourists out of my way. Sometimes, they are scared because they were standing in the middle of the way, looking somewhere up or on the map. But often being scared is dashed with excitement and even joy. It seems that for many tourists, this encounter with Amterdam’s cyclists is just as much part of their experience of the city as going to the Red Light District or eating cheese. Personally, I am glad to cater this experience for them. However, what I only learned recently is that I am actually being exploited, doing free labour, simply by living my everyday life in the city.
(Adding) The Dream Value of City Life
The expectations of visitors, or the image of Amsterdam they have in mind upon arrival, are the sum of many influences through various channels. These can be popular media or stories from friends and relatives, but also intentional city marketing, which more and more advertises a specific experience of a place or sense of life—usually classifiable as illusory and tacky. Policies aim at making cities more attractive and creating positive associations and expectations. Urban landscape, with its soft location factors, is facilitated to attract the contemporary event society and possibly professionals who are expected to take the sense of urbanity into account when looking for places to live. The experience-driven society, with all physical needs covered, wants to have an added dream value when consuming goods—and also places. City centres are being refurbished to meet the needs of its visitors in order to generate income. History and cultural capital are being revamped for outsiders. Hence, places are turned into service centres catering economy, culture, tourism, consumption and entertainment. Scholars termed this process ‘disneyfication’ or ‘festivalisation’, two very emblematic terms. Tourists visit cities with a well-constructed image in mind, which has been communicated to them, and which they expect to find and experience. City dwellers plying their everyday lives are coerced into workers—doing free labour as extras, staging the picture-perfect urban atmosphere—decorating other people’s holidays, because tourists come to see the authentic culture and city life of a place that was sold to them, but is essentially the intrinsic urban social life.
Self-actualisation in and through the City
Outsiders want to experience the city-specific urbanity, and this means that not only are the assets of a city exploited, but also its inhabitants who, with their everyday lives, create this specific urban character. Investors shape the urban environment according to their needs and their urban imagery. In this case only one ideology, or imagery, of the city is supported with resources while all others are being neglected. Hence, the citizens become excluded from the potential right to shape and appropriate their city. But public space is a common good, which is essential to the civic sphere of a city and to the individual in terms of belonging and identification. However, this threatens the experience of urban life and undermines democratic virtues. Reducing the urban space to a commodity carries with it downsides for the civic society. The real value is not monetized and in a wider sense it is damaging true human flourishing and dignity, potentially undermining the capacity people have to pursue life projects or to be an equal citizen. Privatisation and exploitation of public space endangers the pluralistic reproduction of everyday life in the city.
Little Venice in Las Vegas (Photo: Adam Nowek)
It could be argued that this example is far-fetched. But I believe that many of you have had the feeling that they were being watched while pursuing ordinary activities. Sure, other cultures are interesting, and human activity is fascinating. In Amsterdam particularly, though, the mentioned refurbishment of the city centre, is severe. Being there can sometimes evoke a feeling of alienation—as beautiful as it is. Too much disneyfication may lead the extras to fail to appear on the scene. City marketing creates expectations and determines experiences. Of course, I am not doing actual work as in the capitalist sense when I am cycling through the city. It is important for my personal sense of life. The incidents with the tourists are a result from chance and of the unique set-up which is idiosyncratic to each city—those encounters should be genuine and the fun of cycling should not have a bitter aftertaste.
Title picture taken by Koko Bernell, Cycylists in Haarlemmerstraat, Amsterdam ©
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