Metropolitan Problems Act News Today

Twelve directors at the National Liveability and Safety Program (NPLV) are asking politicians in The Hague to take "unorthodox measures" to prevent the accumulation of problems in disadvantaged neighborhoods. They made the appeal in an opinion piece published in AD, saying the effectiveness of their approach" is threatened by this accumulation.

A controversial law intended to protect vulnerable neighborhoods from further deterioration instead saddled them with a negative image and lower house prices. Home prices in affected neighborhoods dropped by 3 to 5 percent compared to the neighborhoods around them, Trouw reports based on a study by two professors at the VU University Amsterdam.