[manish_gill]

Amsterdam cultivated a reputation for its drug tourism. Why was that ever allowed to happen? It seems like you're angry about all the tourism - a problem a lot of other cities would love to have.

The sad answer is that everyone _left_ Amsterdam by choice - and allowed these tourism centric industries to grow. The money that it brought in was too good and eventually lead to the so called decline you seem to be complaining about.

As for property price rise - people have the same complaint against tech workers. So I guess I can no longer be a tourist and I can't work in tech because someone somewhere is definitely going to be angry that I make more money and the world isn't fair.

[jacquesm]

The reason why it was allowed to happen was because it is very hard to differentiate between those that have a problem and those that arrived without a problem but developed on while there.

Amsterdam's strategy would have worked very well indeed if it had been adopted all over Europe. But to be 'first mover' really hurt.