Justice
Gawking Tourists Force Amsterdam to Reconsider the Red Light District
As travelers overwhelm De Wallen—the neighborhood known for its sex industry—the city considers changing its appearance or moving it altogether.
Amsterdam’s red light district in its current form may soon be a thing of the past.
In a recent interview with newspaper Het Parool, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema set forth various proposals for changing the city’s famous sex industry district, known locally as De Wallen. None of the proposals envisage any attempt to criminalize prostitution in Amsterdam, but all of them suggest a major overhaul of an area that has become increasingly unsatisfactory for pretty much everyone. Tellingly, much of this dissatisfaction doesn’t stem from the sex industry, but from a force that is increasingly being presented as Amsterdam’s Public Enemy Number One: tourism.