ABSTRACT
My research among residents of urban renewal areas, urban nomads, squatters, houseboat and caravan dwellers, and the homeless in Amsterdam began over thirty years ago. It was the end of the sixties, the era of grandiose plans for city-making and radical solutions to traffic problems. The city center was going to be opened up to provide space for shops and offices; living there was passé. The notion that society was something of our own making was at its height. There were no homeless people. And if there were, the director of the shelter knew them from the vagrancy list, and we didn’t see them lying around in the streets. The directors of the shelters kept simple lists of names and met regularly to compare them and exchange information.
