Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures, Tables and Box
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Theorising Infrastructure: a Politics of Spaces and Edges
- 2 The Cultural Politics of infrastructure: the case of Louis Botha Avenue in Johannesburg, South Africa
- 3 Spatial Dimensions of the Marginalisation of Cycling – Marginalisation Through Rationalisation?
- 4 Mental Barriers in Planning for Cycling
- 5 Safety, Risk and Road Traffic Danger: Towards a Transformational Approach to the Dominant Ideology
- 6 What constructs a cycle city? A comparison of policy narratives in Newcastle and Bremen
- 7 Hard Work in Paradise. The Contested Making of Amsterdam as a Cycling City
- 8 Conflictual Politics of Sustainability: Cycling Organisations and the Øresund Crossing
- 9 Vélomobility in Copenhagen – a Perfect World?
- 10 Navigating Cycling Infrastructure in Sofia, Bulgaria
- 11 Cycling Advocacy in São Paulo: Influence and Effects in Politics
- Conclusion
- Index
7 - Hard Work in Paradise. The Contested Making of Amsterdam as a Cycling City
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 March 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures, Tables and Box
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Theorising Infrastructure: a Politics of Spaces and Edges
- 2 The Cultural Politics of infrastructure: the case of Louis Botha Avenue in Johannesburg, South Africa
- 3 Spatial Dimensions of the Marginalisation of Cycling – Marginalisation Through Rationalisation?
- 4 Mental Barriers in Planning for Cycling
- 5 Safety, Risk and Road Traffic Danger: Towards a Transformational Approach to the Dominant Ideology
- 6 What constructs a cycle city? A comparison of policy narratives in Newcastle and Bremen
- 7 Hard Work in Paradise. The Contested Making of Amsterdam as a Cycling City
- 8 Conflictual Politics of Sustainability: Cycling Organisations and the Øresund Crossing
- 9 Vélomobility in Copenhagen – a Perfect World?
- 10 Navigating Cycling Infrastructure in Sofia, Bulgaria
- 11 Cycling Advocacy in São Paulo: Influence and Effects in Politics
- Conclusion
- Index
Summary
Introduction
In 1900, there were approximately 200 motorcars in the Netherlands; today it is close to 8.5 million, or one car for every two people. Amsterdam alone has over 250,000 cars. These numbers indicate that the Netherlands has followed the general mobilisation trend in the Western world, reaching an even higher car density than most countries in terms of vehicles per square kilometre (www.nationmaster. com). Yet in one significant aspect, it has taken an exceptional course in mobility patterns, only comparable to parts of Denmark and a handful of other urban areas across the globe (Pucher and Buehler, 2012). Despite being fully motorised, it has maintained and fostered a vital mainstream practice of cycling and bicycle infrastructure, especially in larger and midsized cities such as Utrecht, Zwolle and Groningen (Harms et al, 2016). Amsterdam is the most prominent and internationally best-known example of this phenomenon. Some say that in the Netherlands everybody cycles. It is indeed true that almost everybody cycles at least once a week, and the diversity of cyclists is a unique and often acknowledged feature. The fact that cycling levels are as high, if not higher, for women than for men is an especially radical difference from most other cycling contexts. The same goes for the remarkably high cycling levels among both teenagers and the elderly (Harms et al, 2014). There are, however, continuous concerns about especially non-Western migrant populations that, although they cycle more than similar populations in other countries, cycle less overall than the non-migrant population (although this varies according to gender and degree of urbanisation, see Van der Kloof, 2015). This correlation is further blurred by spatial variables that relate to the neighbourhoods in which migrant populations are represented. In addition, cycling and the bicycles used in Amsterdam are recently changing from a ‘national habitus’ of conspicuous non-consumption (Kuipers, 2013) to a symbol of cosmopolitan distinction, especially of the upper middle class (Boterman, 2018).
Outsiders often present Amsterdam as little less than a cycling paradise (for example, Pucher and Buehler, 2008). Indeed, although in other Dutch cities cyclists are more appreciative of cycling conditions, and those cities often boast higher cycling levels (Harms et al, 2014), Amsterdam is a more pleasant and safer place to ride than most cities around the globe.
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- Information
- The Politics of Cycling InfrastructureSpaces and (In)Equality, pp. 133 - 156Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2020