In the 17^th century, when Amsterdam was at the apex of the Western world system acting as an entrepôt and a financial centre, the canal houses were home to (elite) merchants and bankers. One could even argue that the Amsterdam Canal Belt was the very cradle and, for a while, the centre of a globe-spanning merchant capitalism which would link faraway parts in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas through flows of goods, services, capital, people and information. The merchants combined living and working in their houses, presenting a function mix that is typical for the pre-industrial era.

Nowadays, the canal houses are again home to fine-grained combinations of functions. As before, people are living, working, and enjoying themselves in what the famous urbanist Lewis Mumford in The City in History (1961/1991: 504) called this “… miracle of spaciousness, compactness, intelligible order.” Also again, the economic activities taking place in the Canal Belt are very much part and parcel of the global economy. This time, however, the Canal Belt of Amsterdam is not so much an entrepôt of goods or a commanding global financial centre, but much more a place where high-end activities in producer services and cultural industries are located. As in the 17^th century, the Amsterdam Canal Belt with its compactness and proximity offers an urban milieu which fosters easy face-to-face exchanges while digital technologies and a modern transport infrastructure enables connecting with other parts of the world. We will analyse the current economic function of the Amsterdam canal belt and how they are related to their predecessors. We will also assess its importance at different levels of scale, namely the local Amsterdam economy, the Dutch economy, and the global economy. Why could this iconic part of Amsterdam regain a significant role not just in the urban economy, but even in the global economy? 

Robert Kloosterman & Ewald Engelen

Robert Kloosterman is Professor of Economic Geography and Planning at the Centre for Urban Studies. Ewald Engelen is Professor of Financial Geography. This blog entry is part of the Symposium 'Amsterdam’s Canal District in Global Perspective, Past and Present'.