Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Shops, Markets and the Urban Landscape in Sixteenth-Century Amsterdam
- 2 Changing Distribution Systems: Differentiation and Specialization in Early Modern Amsterdam
- 3 Shop Location Patterns in the age of the Great Urban Expansions
- 4 The Retail Landscape and the Consumer in the Seventeenth Century
- 5 The Location of Shops in Amsterdam in the Mid-Eighteenth Century
- 6 Stagnation and Modernization in Amsterdam’s Retail Sector, 1700–1850
- Conclusion: Continuity and Change in Amsterdam’s Retail Landscape
- Appendix: Sources for the Location of Shops in Amsterdam and Selection of Sectors
- List of Consulted Sources and Literature
- List of Tables
- Image Credits
- Topographical Index
5 - The Location of Shops in Amsterdam in the Mid-Eighteenth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Shops, Markets and the Urban Landscape in Sixteenth-Century Amsterdam
- 2 Changing Distribution Systems: Differentiation and Specialization in Early Modern Amsterdam
- 3 Shop Location Patterns in the age of the Great Urban Expansions
- 4 The Retail Landscape and the Consumer in the Seventeenth Century
- 5 The Location of Shops in Amsterdam in the Mid-Eighteenth Century
- 6 Stagnation and Modernization in Amsterdam’s Retail Sector, 1700–1850
- Conclusion: Continuity and Change in Amsterdam’s Retail Landscape
- Appendix: Sources for the Location of Shops in Amsterdam and Selection of Sectors
- List of Consulted Sources and Literature
- List of Tables
- Image Credits
- Topographical Index
Summary
Abstract
The availability of a detailed tax record for 1742 made it possible to establish, with more certainty than before, the location patterns of Amsterdam's early modern retail industry. This chapter also shows that we can usefully draw on location principles formulated in twentiethcentury liberal economies when analyzing and explaining early modern location patterns. The reason is that in early modern Amsterdam too, the use of property was subject to the rules of the ‘free market’. This does not rule out the influence of the local context. After all, the actual distribution of shops and the range of goods they sold were strongly determined by the urban and socio-spatial structure of the city as it had developed over the preceding centuries.
Keywords: location patterns, modern location theory, accessibility, daily necessities, consumer durables
During the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century, the period on which we shall focus in the coming chapters, the population of Amsterdam initially grew to between 230,000 and 240,000 inhabitants in 1730. After this, however, population growth stagnated, and in the decades around 1800, there was even a sharp decline in the population. The recovery was slow, and around the middle of the nineteenth century Amsterdam still had no more than 220,000 inhabitants. Throughout this period, the population could thus easily be accommodated in the city as it had developed during the major seventeenth-century expansions. The urban grid—and with it the accessibility of the streets, canals and squares—also remained unchanged. This stable spatial framework forms the background to our study of shops in the period between 1700 and 1850.
In this chapter, we shall focus on the location behaviour of retailers. For the period prior to the seventeenth century, there is only fragmentary source material available for this type of research, but for the year 1742, we have a source that covers a considerable part of Amsterdam's retail landscape. We first examine this source in more detail, after which we map out the distribution of shops. In doing so, it is possible to make a distinction between shops selling daily necessities and those selling durable goods. We then compare the location patterns in Amsterdam with the three forms of accessibility introduced in the first chapter: general, linear and special accessibility. Finally, we reflect on the influence of general location principles and local context on the location behaviour of Amsterdam's retailers and on the spatial patterns that emerged from this.
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- Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020