ABSTRACT
Amsterdam is officially the capital of The Netherlands, but the seat of the Dutch government is The Hague. The economy of Amsterdam and its city-region have become extremely service-oriented, with a leading role of knowledge-intensive services like finance, real estate and law firms, next to the emergence of significant ICT and creative industries clusters. Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (AMA) is an informal network of thirty-six municipalities in the Amsterdam region, the provinces of North-Holland and Flevoland, and Stadsregio Amsterdam. In recent years, the population in the AMA has increased more rapidly than the population of its core city Amsterdam. The Regionaal Orgaan Amsterdam (ROA) was founded in the 1990s, actually in anticipation of the planned introduction of the city-province. The housing market of Amsterdam is predominantly a rental market, and within that rental sector, social housing is still very dominant. The economic policy document HERMEZ, also touched upon topics relevant for the development of the creative knowledge city.
