The mayor of Rotterdam Aboutaleb made Carnisse a priority in 2020. Yet the vulnerable neighborhood still dangles at the bottom, according to the city’s indicator. “We haven’t surfaced yet. Then a year and a half isn’t enough for you.’
You can have a hotline to the city sanitation director to have any pile of bulky trash picked up right away. You can convince the Minister of the Interior to cut off buyers of houses. You can put all your energy into bringing residents and professionals together – but Ahmed Aboutaleb can’t break an iron with his hands either. This is evident in Carnisse, a vulnerable neighborhood with 11 thousand inhabitants in South Rotterdam.
Since June 2020, the mayor of Rotterdam has been there on Friday afternoons. He put a lot of time and energy into it, because Carnisse is at the bottom of the Neighborhood profile dangled. This biennial indicator of the port city looks at safety (eg violence, vandalism, nuisance), social aspects (such as self-reliance, bonding) and physical themes (public space, housing, environment). The scores consist half of objectively measurable figures and half of the judgment of 30,000 Rotterdam residents.
At Bakkerij Groen, in the Turkish mosque and the Polish supermarket, Aboutaleb introduced himself as ‘the new neighbour’. He met migrant workers who were caught between poorly paid temp jobs and high rents. Inspected basement boxes where homeless people sleep. Together with local police officers and the judiciary, he put pressure on rogue rental agents. Knocked on the door in The Hague for issues that cannot be solved locally.
He gathered a ‘leading group’ of active residents and hosted two corona-proof neighborhood parties. ‘I ask citizens never to be less critical,’ he said in July 2020. ‘I am interested in the big and the small. Also in the pebble in the shoes of the citizens.’ You would think that Carnisse would be in significantly better shape, published in Friday District profile 2022. But that’s disappointing. The neighborhood has the lowest score in the whole of Rotterdam on the Social Index. Insofar as the objective figures already show a cautious plus, the opinion of most residents remains negative.
The conclusions of the Neighborhood Profile must disappoint you.
Aboutaleb: ‘No, not really. If this is the water level’ (he raises right hand in the air) ‘and Carnisse is sitting here’ (holds left hand a lot lower) ‘then Carnisse goes up. But we haven’t surfaced yet. Then a year and a half is not enough. I have not put an end to the fact that people live in cramped houses and are exploited by pawnbrokers. But the purchase protection introduced by the previous cabinet will help. This national legislation is the result of the experiences in Carnisse. That will pay off in the long run.’
A commotion arose in Carnisse when it turned out that the municipality wanted to demolish blocks of houses in Fazantstraat. The residents felt abandoned.
‘It was often about trust in the government and that issue did not contribute to that. But the residents of the Pheasant Street have shown that they have power. They have taken action, they have spoken in the city council. There will be a new, joint plan. Democracy functions, I hope the residents see it that way too.’
As mayor, you are responsible for public order and safety. What lessons do you draw from Carnisse in that regard?
‘That the attention for safety is now being exaggerated in tourist areas, in the city centers. I was in Turin earlier this week, the mayor agreed. Especially in residential areas you have to pay attention to safety. This concerns social safety, such as street lighting, but also camera surveillance and police deployment.
‘We have installed 18 cameras in Carnisse. That paid off immediately. After a robbery, a local police officer studied the images intensively, he recognized the suspect by his walk. A snack bar that had already been robbed eight times has been made more resilient. Plainclothes officers patrolled there night after night.’
What has corona done to vulnerable neighbourhoods?
‘In neighborhoods like Carnisse you feel what the residents encounter. They are bothered by dirt on the street. They have a bit of month left at the end of their money. They have to do with exploitation or racism. You get it all presented. I call this accumulated vulnerabilities in the areas of housing, income, health and education.
And then corona came on top of it. That is just an extra weight for vulnerable neighborhoods that they cannot bear properly. Many residents work in sectors that have been hit hard. Children with learning disabilities were even more delayed. Hopefully this is a one-time photo, and we can breathe again soon when corona decreases in severity.’
What do you remember about all the conversations in the neighbourhood?
‘All meetings that you can explain as ombudsman work. Arranging shelter for someone in urgent need. Provide solutions for people who are afraid of lead pipes. Sometimes I also felt powerlessness. Like a Polish woman, mentally confused, whom I spoke to in church. We were able to pull her out of the sewer, but she was not open to help. That is deeply sad.’
Will they see you in the near future?
‘I want to have a hundred kitchen table conversations in Carnisse this year. Not about safety or income, but about how you live your life. What is positive and negative? And if the government can help you with that, what is that?’
This is the last episode of the ‘In Carnisse’ series, which appeared irregularly since July 2020.