Strange

Red light district to change colours as brothel owner sells out.

by ryan | September 20, 2007 at 09:05 am

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Amsterdam is famous for many things; its red light district one of many attractions. The sale of a large portion of the red light district to a real estate development company the brothels are set to become condos. Shrinking

About a third of Amsterdam's red-lit windows for prostitutes will disappear from the city centre as one of the main brothel owners is set to sell his empire to a real estate company. A housing company is to buy 18 premises, currently featuring 51 windows, for about 25 million euros ($35 million), Amsterdam city council said.

City officials though are not blind to the attraction and not to worry will preserve parts of the neighbourhood.

Tourist authorities acknowledge the 700-year-old red-light district – a maze of narrow alleys and canals lined with sex shops, prostitutes behind windows and marijuana-selling "coffee shops" – is as much of a draw as other attractions such as the Van Gogh museum or the Anne Frank House.
Mayor Job Cohen said he had no plans to rid Amsterdam of prostitution but the concentration of sex in the city centre was too high

The fundamental issue however still lingers in the background. Does legalized prostitution benefit women who find them selves in the sex trade by creating rules and standards which govern the industry or does it encourage more women to get involved in, what I believe, is an emotionally harmful business...?

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Jordan Yerman

at 09:11 on September 20th, 2007

I suspect that stadsvernieuwing ("urban renewal", i.e. gentrification) will probably hurt tourism... and this is all about money. Prostitution is legal in Netherlands, as you mention: it's a business like any other, with rules, regulations, and neighborhoods in which to thrive or fail (you don't sethose red striplights in the Jordaan, for example). In this case, it's probably a similar case to downtown New York City, where expensive new buildings cleaned up the area, sure, but also turned it into a strip mall.