Housing
The Netherlands Wants to Solve Its Middle-Class Housing Crisis With Smaller Apartments
But cities like Amsterdam are responding: What middle-class housing crisis?
Amsterdam has a middle-income housing problem, says the Dutch government, and the answer is smaller apartments.
Such is the thrust of a new plan recently announced by the Netherlands housing minister, proposing measures to push the construction of apartments of around 40 square meters (430 square feet) in the Amsterdam and Utrecht regions. Given that housing is in short supply in so many Western cities nowadays, the response of Amsterdam and Utrecht’s city governments to the plan is perhaps surprising. They think it stinks.