[jacquesm]

Tourists - fortunately - don't get to vote in the municipality elections. Not that Halsema would care because we don't vote for mayors in NL. But she got this one right. I'd be even happier if they jacked up the landing taxes for Schiphol to 10x of what they are today.

[intothemild]

I still think the solution lies in either curbing Airbnb, or banning it.

They tried before and failed, I hope they try again.

Having visited Amsterdam over the last 14 years semi-regularly for work, one of the things that struck me is after AirBnB took off, things quickly got worse there.. Even in off-peak seasons it's just a nightmare downtown.

[jacquesm]

Yes, it stopped being funny long ago. Lots of former rental properties have been converted to short stay hotels. And plenty of the owners are living abroad so Amsterdam is hollowed out from two directions at once like this (space wise and finance wise).

There is no affordable space in the inner city anymore. Nothing. When I grew up tourism wasn't a thing, now it looks as though the whole city has essentially been given over to it with everything else secondary. Really happy to see Halsema make some sensible moves to curb this. But it's lots too late and probably way too little.

[intothemild]

I agree it's bad. However. Two of her initiatives I disagree with.

Moving the red light district into a building isn't going to end well. Right now it's out in the open, it's easy to see and monitor... Putting it somewhere kind of out of sight isn't the way.. I do understand that the cops are stretched thin between lots of places. But there has to be a better way.

Closing the weed shops is also not going to end well.

Both these things, the sex tourism and the weed tourism have one thing in common. Tourism.

Limit that.

Also once your neighbouring countries legalize weed you'll find the tourism for that spreads out.

[jacquesm]

Yes, agreed on the RLD, not sure about the weed shops, that will at least break the connection with tourism though locally it will just go underground.

Weed shops always were legally grey for several reasons.

But I'd rather have them limit the tourism first, that would automatically reduce prostitution and drug sales to the point that those industries would likely shrink with some reduced crime as a side benefit.

[intothemild]

Potentially.

When there's a will there's a way. I think what will end up happening is that locals will just buy the drugs, and then sell to the tourists.

Pushing something underground or away, or making it illegal etc... It never works, it only makes it worse.

The war on drugs has lost, and if anything I hope that it's shown us that with both drugs and sex work, you can never stop it, so the goal should be harm reduction.

That said.. I do like the idea of taxing flights into Schiphol. Especially those from England.

Every single time I go, it feels like the English are just the worst offenders.