Re-making a Landscape of Prostitution: the Amsterdam Red Light District

Abstract

Introduction Manuel B. Aalbers and Magdalena Sabat, guest editorsThe Amsterdam Red Light District is locally and internationally significant as one of the oldest venues for visible and legal urban prostitution. Internationally it is perceived as a free-for-all zone of entertainment, a kind of 'theme park' for adult fun. Locally the Red Light District is a controversial place that stirs debates on Dutch 'progressive' policies, the impact of cultural globalization and importantly, whether or not prostitution should be allowed to exist in this kind of visible format in Amsterdam's center. Recent urban planning changes in the area, instigated by City authorities, show the Red Light District is directly implicated in municipal gentrifying efforts, efforts that put at risk historic margins like the Red Light District. The paper introduces themes that will be discussed in depth by the special feature contributors: the red light district as a 'moral region', historical and legislative perspectives, political understanding and enactment of 'liberal' policies and municipal use of these concepts to self-brand, commercial and aesthetic character of the zone in view of the global sex industry, and the role of artists as cultural producers and marginal gentrifiers. This introductory paper to the special feature on the Red Light District of Amsterdam offers an overview of key perspectives on red light zones and specifically addresses how the Amsterdam Red Light District both fits, and is an exception to visible urban zones of prostitution.

From Landscape to Mindscape: Spatial Narration of Touristic Amsterdam

“…Although this area used to be actively promoted as such to enhance the global image of Amsterdam as a progressive city, it is now seen as an obstacle to the desired city image that is rendered in current marketing campaigns [21]. Its evoked image and its association with soft drug use and prostitution hinders the current city marketing efforts, which primarily focus on attracting upper-scale cultural tourists [22,23]. This is a typical example to explain how the activities taking place in a certain urban area can correlate to the non-positive dimensions of a city's image.…”

Afterword: exiting Amsterdam's red light district

“…As Aalbers and Sabat (2012) note in their introduction, this area has long been acknowledged as the city's tolerance zone, an immoral counterpoint to the respectability assumed to exist elsewhere. Regulation has explicitly figured the red light district-in Amsterdam as elsewhere-as a 'safety valve' or 'fuse zone', a space of containment that participants in sexual commerce have entered on the understanding that when they do so, it was an acknowledgment of their own immorality.…”

Governmentality in Amsterdam's Red Light District

“…Throughout this paper, in speaking of the Red Light District, I am referring to this main Red Light District in the city centre. The area containing the centre of the city's sex industry has contributed to Amsterdam's image as a liberal and tolerant city, situated in the historical city centre (see Aalbers and Sabat, 2012). The spaces express the careful juxtaposition of the city's historical and contemporary cultural identities through the context of the world-renowned canals that are lined with tightly packed canal houses, narrow, uneven and winding streets, neon signs, a variety of cafés, pubs, coffee shops, novelty shops and of course brothels with floor to ceiling windows surrounded by glowing red lights.…”