Readings from Understanding Amsterdam

I really enjoyed the essay about immigrant assimilation in Amsterdam and how it was compared to New York. Being a 2nd generation immigrant myself, I can relate to many of these issues described in the essay. The main contrast I took away was that the two cities differed in their socioeconomic policies provided for their immigrants. Amsterdam tended to be more egalitarian than New York, thus it provided more services (cheap housing, healthcare, etc.) for their immigrant population than did New York. However, preliminary studies have shown that a greater percentage of American immigrants were able to assimilate and move up the economic ladder than their Dutch counterparts despite being offered less governmental aid. My first question is – could the Dutch policies, which were meant to aid their immigrants, be harming their integration into the native population in Amsterdam?

Page 209 gives a nice list of statistics on the percentage of immigrants that received a college education (a particular measure of socioeconomic integration) by race. In general, the majority of these races get the same treatment from the native population, yet certain races have done better in assimilating than others. I admit I come from the “exception” mentioned in the book (read page 208-9), which gives me a biased view, but – could rates of assimilation of different races be dependent on the immigrants’ home culture and values they carry?

The essay about city planning was interesting in the sense that Amsterdam is literally divided by eras (see map on page 61). The heart of the city is historical whereas the outskirts tend to be more modernized with neighborhoods separated by planned parks yet connected with mass transit. My last question is – could all their planning and dividing their city into isolated neighborhoods be slowing the integration of the different cultures and people in Amsterdam?