Skip to main content
Home

Main navigation

  • Top stories
  • Health
  • Crime
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Tech
  • Culture
  • Sports
  • Weird
  • 1-1-2
Image
Amsterdam city center
Amsterdam city center - Credit: Photo: Stevthethief / Wikimedia Commons
Business
Amsterdam
housing market
United Nations
Barcelona
New York
London
Paris
Berlin
Montreal
Montevideo
Laurens Ivens
Tuesday, 17 July 2018 - 08:55
Share this:
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • linkedin
  • whatsapp
  • reddit

Amsterdam asks UN's help on housing market problems

Amsterdam and seven other popular cities are asking the United Nations for help in dealing with the problems of overcrowded city centers and overheating housing markets. The cities hope the UN will put pressure on national governments to intervene, NOS reports.

"We demand morel legal and fiscal power to regulate the real estate market in order to fight against speculation and to guarantee the social function of the city", the mayors of Amsterdam, Barcelona, London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Montreal and Montevideo wrote in a letter to the UN. Ada Colau, mayor of Barcelona, presented the letter to the Forum for Local and Regional Authorities at the UN headquarters in New York on Monday.

A major problem, according to Amsterdam, is investors buying houses to sell with a substantial profit, thereby raising housing prices even further. "If you invest in a car, that's great, but people have to live in a home", a spokesperson for housing alderman Laurens Ivens (SP) said to NOS. According to him, this practice makes it more difficult for particularly less-wealthy people to find a home. "Certain groups are expelled from the city in this way."

Exactly what Amsterdam expects the UN to do, is not entirely clear. But through cooperation with the other cities, Amsterdam hopes that the national government will realize that the housing market problems are not just local. "The Hague says: 'This is an Amsterdam problem.' But speculators are an international phenomenon that we have our arm our residents against. We want as much influence as possible to be exerted on national governments and for this to get attention on every possible stage", the spokesperson said.

Follow us:

Latest stories

  • Cabinet ready to shorten duration of municipal debt relief down to 1.5 years
  • Two killed in fatal Arnhem fire are women aged 46 and 51
  • Lynxes might settle in Netherlands again; A "dilemma," Minister says
  • Leak of Dutch PM's row with Finance Minister is "Gossip and backstabbing;" Rutte apologized
  • Dutch police take down Exclu encrypted chat service with 42 arrests, €4 million seized
  • One worker killed, four hurt in Zeeland Refinery accident

Top stories

  • Dutch police take down Exclu encrypted chat service with 42 arrests, €4 million seized
  • Signal failure briefly halts train traffic around A'dam; NS warns of significant delays
  • Matching medicine dosage to patient's DNA can cut side effects 30%: LUMC
  • Dutch airports' traveler numbers not yet back to pre-pandemic levels in 2022
  • Dutch parliamentarians support €57 rent reduction for low-income households
  • European office to gather proof of war crimes in Ukraine will set up in The Hague

© 2012-2023, NL Times, All rights reserved.

Footer menu

  • Privacy
  • Contact
  • Partner content