Canal palaces and damp basements: capitalism, housing inequality and living standards in early modern Amsterdam

Abstract

This article examines the impact of urban growth on housing inequality in early modern Amsterdam, a prime example of a ‘capitalist city’ shaped by private housing markets. A comprehensive dataset of Amsterdam’s housing distribution is used to track social differences in housing value, affordability, location and density. It is the first study of a pre-nineteenth-century city that systematically uncovers the compartmentalization of the housing stock into apartment-style dwellings. Urban growth and income inequality are revealed as its causes, while its consequences were ambivalent from a wellbeing perspective. Housing compartmentalization inhibited meaningful residential segregation but also worsened the disparity in living standards.