ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at local roots and the premises underlying the Digital City project within the broader new media culture that existed in Amsterdam in the early 1990s. It focuses on internal developments within De Digital Stand (DDS) in the late 1990s, since they exemplify the changes that occurred in the local media culture with the tremendous growth of the Internet. The chapter devotes an afterword to the most recent developments, and includes DDS's buyout and privatization, the determination of new owners to discontinue the public domain functions of the Digital City, and resistance that decision provoked among users, former DDS employees, and various concerned groups. Even though the DDS did not bridge the gap between politicians and the electorate, it soon grew to be Europe's largest and most famous public computer network, or free net. One of the very few policy decisions that the DDS management took was to retain Dutch as the official language of the Digital City.
