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Patterns of retail location and urban form in Amsterdam in the mid-eighteenth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2011

CLÉ LESGER
CLÉ LESGER*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Amsterdam, Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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Abstract:

In this article location theory is used to map and analyse the patterns of retail location in Amsterdam in the eighteenth century. In the city centre as well as along the main axes to markets and the city gates the retailing of shopping goods (textiles, consumer durables) was much more prominent than elsewhere in the city. In contrast, shops selling convenience goods (foodstuffs etc.) were scattered all over the city. The correspondence of empirical data and location theory suggests that the urban government and institutions did not interfere with the location preferences of shopkeepers. An analysis of local acts and guild regulations corroborated this assumption. What did affect the location patterns of shops was history. The morphological and socio-economic legacy of the past acted as an intermediary between general location principles and the implantation of shops in the urban landscape.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , May 2011 , pp. 24 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

1 A relatively good deal of attention is paid to patterns of location in Bruneel, C. and Delporte, L., ‘Approche socio-professionelle de la population bruxelloise en 1783’, Revue du Nord, 79 (1997), 463–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bruneel, C., ‘La localisation du commerce et de l'artisanat à Bruxelles au milieu du XVIIIe siècle’, in Guignet, P. (ed.), Le peuple des villes dans l'Europe du Nord-Ouest (fin du Moyen Âge – 1945) (Rijsel, 2000), 167–91Google Scholar; Lefebvre, W., ‘Het geografische inplantingspatroon van voedingswinkels in Leuven tijdens de tweede helft van de negentiende eeuw (1860–1908)’, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis, 33 (2003), 91–127Google Scholar, and in van Aert, L., ‘Leven of overleven? Winkelhouden in crisistijd: de Antwerpse meerseniers, ca.1648 – ca.1748’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Antwerp, 2007)Google Scholar.

2 See, for example, Jefferys, J.B., Retail Trading in Britain 1850–1950. A Study of Trends in Retailing with Special Reference to the Development of Co-operative, Multiple Shop and Department Store Methods of Trading (Cambridge, 1954)Google Scholar. Willan, T.S., The Inland Trade. Studies in English Internal Trade in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Manchester, 1976)Google Scholar, is one of the first studies that casts doubt on the myth that the retail industry was poorly developed in early modern cities. Also of great interest in this area is Mui, H.-C. and Mui, L.H., Shops and Shopkeeping in Eighteenth-Century England (London, 1989)Google Scholar. See Mui's introduction for citations from the older historiography. For more recent studies, see, amongst others, Stobart, J., ‘City centre retailing in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Stoke-on-Trent: structures and processes’, in Benson, J. and Ugolini, L. (eds.), A Nation of Shopkeepers. Five Centuries of British Retailing (London and New York, 2003), 155–78, 156Google Scholar.

3 See, for example, the city maps with shopping streets in Wild, M.T. and Shaw, G., ‘Trends in urban retailing: the British experience during the nineteenth century’, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 70 (1979), 35–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, figure 2, and in Blondé, B., Een economie met verschillende snelheden. Ongelijkheden in de opbouw en de ontwikkeling van het Brabantse stedelijke netwerk (ca.1750–ca.1790) (Brussels, 1999), figures 3.8 and 3.10Google Scholar.

4 Explanations of these concepts and the accompanying location theories can be found in virtually all economic-geographic reference books. Both concepts are developed in the framework of theories about the location of economic activities at regional and super-regional levels. Not until around 1960 did scholars apply these theories and concepts to research on the retail trade within cities (Kivell, P.T. and Shaw, G., ‘The study of retail location’, in Dawson, J.A. (ed.), Retail Geography (London, 1980), 95–155, 109Google Scholar. Good introductions to research into the location of shops can be found in Dawson (ed.), Retail Geography, and in Jones, K. and Simmons, J., The Retail Environment (London and New York, 1990)Google Scholar.

5 Normally, these concepts apply to goods and services, but in this study I will not consider the location of services.

6 For this reason, convenience goods retailers strive for a monopoly position in one (geographical) area of the market (see Nelson, R.L., The Selection of Retail Locations (New York, 1958), 54)Google Scholar.

7 After World War II when refrigerators and private cars became commonplace on a large scale in European households and supermarkets made huge inroads, the position of the traditional neighbourhood shop became threatened; over the last few decades, these shops have been vanishing rapidly from the urban landscape.

8 This greater turnover is, in part, a consequence of the fact that the concentration of shops in an area of limited size gives consumers the ability to buy a number of goods during a single excursion. On such a ‘multiple-purpose trip’, travel costs are spread over a number of products and more money remains to purchase goods.

9 Davies, R.L. and Bennison, D.J., ‘Retailing in the city centre: the characters of shopping streets’, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 69 (1978), 270–85, 271CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and also see Davies, R.L., ‘Structural models of retail distribution. Analogies with settlement and urban land-use theories’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 57 (1972), 59–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and his ‘complex model’ of retail shop locations on page 75.

10 In 1958 Nelson also observed that in addition to ‘accessibility to the resident population’, there are other forms of accessibility, and that these also generate specific patterns of location. Nelson, The Selection of Retail Locations, 45.

11 Ibid.

12 See for instance Balchin, P.N. and Kieve, J.L., Urban Land Economics (London and Basingstoke, 1977)Google Scholar, ch. 2. However, it should be added that simple bid rent models, in which real estate prices decline as the distance from the centre increases, are inadequate. In general, there is a dip, but the model does not take into account the fact that in cities advantageous locations – and related real estate prices – can vary dramatically over short distances. Carter, Compare H., The Study of Urban Geography (London, 1972), ch. 9Google Scholar.

13 For the importance of local circumstances, also see Stobart, ‘City centre retailing in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Stoke-on-Trent: structures and processes’, 174.

14 van den Berg, W., van Leeuwen, M.H.D. and Lesger, C., ‘Residentiële segregatie in Hollandse steden. Theorie, methodologie en empirische bevindingen voor Alkmaar en Amsterdam, 16e-19e eeuw’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 24 (1998), 402–36, 430–6Google Scholar. See also Diederiks, H., Een stad in verval. Amsterdam omstreeks 1800: demografisch, economisch, ruimtelijk, (Amsterdam, 1982), 336–58Google Scholar, and Levie, T. and Zantkuyl, H., Wonen in Amsterdam in de 17de en 18de eeuw (Purmerend, 1980), ch. 4Google Scholar.

15 This concentration was partly a consequence of the desire to remain near important facilities like synagogues. Amsterdam Jews were not required to live in the Jewish Quarter.

16 For the maps I used the oldest land registry map from roughly 1830. Apart from demolition, rebuilding and renovation of individual buildings between 1742 and 1830, no major changes took place in Amsterdam's municipal fabric.

17 In sketching the markets, I made use of the overview provided by Wagenaar, J., Amsterdam, in zyne opkomst, aanwas, geschiedenissen, voorregten, koophandel, gebouwen, kerkenstaat, schoolen, schutterye, gilden en regeeringe (Amsterdam, 1760–67)Google Scholar, fourth part, first book, ch. 1, and Kistemaker, R., ‘Functiekaarten en de analyse van de economische en sociale structuur van Amsterdam in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw’, in Jonker, M., Noordegraaf, L. and Wagenaar, M.l (eds.), Van stadskern tot stadsgewest. Stedebouwkundige geschiedenis van Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1984), 101–12, 110–11Google Scholar. The exact location of all markets is not known.

18 The levy is discussed at length in Oldewelt, W.F.H. (ed.), Kohier van de Personeele Quotisatie te Amsterdam over het jaar 1742 (Amsterdam, 1945Google Scholar).

19 Markets are reported in passing but their role in the supply of consumer goods falls outside the scope of this research. In Antwerp, shops had considerably strengthened their position vis-à-vis markets as early as the first half of the seventeenth century (Blondé, B. and Greefs, H., ‘Werk aan de winkel. De Antwerpse meerseniers: aspecten van de kleinhandel en het verbruik in de 17de en 18de eeuw’, Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis, 84 (2001), 207–29, 223Google Scholar, compare with Wild and Shaw, ‘Trends in urban retailing: the British experience during the nineteenth century’, 35).

20 In working out the verponding numbers, I made use of the renumbering registers available at the Amsterdam city archives. I would like to thank Mr Ernst (Amsterdam city archives) for making available a digital copy of renumbering register 1853 and the already completed section of renumbering files 1733–805.

21 Lesger, C., ‘Stagnatie en stabiliteit. De economie tussen 1730 en 1795’, in Frijhoff, W. and Prak, M. (eds.), Geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Zelfbewuste stadstaat 1650–1813, II-2 (Amsterdam, 2005), 219–65, 259Google Scholar, table 13.

22 Oldewelt (ed.), Kohier van de Personeele Quotisatie, part 1, 12, and Diederiks, Een stad in verval, 312. According to Wagenaar, Amsterdam, in zyne opkomst, fourth part, first book, 465, the bakers’ guild had over 400 members at the start of the eighteenth century. Bakers, however, did not earn huge amounts: according to the records of the Personele Quotisatie, over 65% earned no more than 800 guilders per year.

23 There is no indication that the number of bakers per 1,000 inhabitants was much greater or smaller in 1742 than it had been in other years. Confectioners are not included in the number of 451 bakers registered in the Personele Quotisatie and consequently they are not mapped in Figure 2.

24 I have used modern street names. Using eighteenth-century street names, these numbers would be slightly higher since a number of streets were not yet merged then.

25 I have been able to determine with sufficient certainty the location of 438 of the 451 bakeries.

26 A comparable distribution of bakers in New York in 1840 can be found in Pred, A.R., The Spatial Dynamics of U.S. Urban-Industrial Growth, 1800–1914. Interpretive and Theoretical Essays (Cambridge, MA, 1966), 206Google Scholar.

27 In total, Nieuwendijk had 265 properties, or, more precisely, 265 built properties recorded in the registers from the 1733 verponding (a general tax on real estate).

28 I calculated shop density by relating the number of shops to the number of verponding numbers per street for all streets with at least five shops. In determining the number, I benefited greatly from using the digital file of the 1733 verponding register which Mr Ernst (city archive Amsterdam) made available to me.

29 See Kistemaker, ‘Functiekaarten en de analyse van de economische en sociale structuur van Amsterdam in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw’, 108, and also Lesger, C., ‘Intraregional trade and the port system in Holland, 1400–1700’, in Davids, K. and Noordegraaf, L. (eds.), The Dutch Economy in the Golden Age (Amsterdam, 1993), 185–217Google Scholar.

30 Clothing accessories include French shops and shops selling fancy goods, thread and ribbon, gloves, hats, lace, buttons, wigs and fans.

31 van Nierop, L., ‘De handeldrijvende middenstand te Amsterdam in 1742’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum, 45 (1953), 193–230, 209–10Google Scholar. Nuremburg shops were also established on the Warmoesstraat in the seventeenth century.

32 Van Nierop counts 17 bookshops on the Kalverstraat, but I am assuming that the one book printer was also a shop (ibid., 214).

33 Compare van Damme, Ilja, Verleiden en verkopen. Antwerpse kleinhandelaars en hun klanten in tijden van crisis (ca. 1648 – ca. 1748) (Amsterdam, 2007), ch. 4Google Scholar.

34 For more on shopping as primarily a nineteenth-century phenomenon, see Furnée, J.H., ‘Bourgeois strategies of distinction. Leisure culture and the transformations of urban space: The Hague, 1850–1890’, in Gunn, S. and Morris, R. J. (eds.), Identities in space. Contested terrains in the western city since 1850, (Aldershot, 2001) 204–27Google Scholar; Furnée, J.H., ‘“Om te winkelen, zoo als het in de residentie heet”. Consumptiecultuur en stedelijke ruimte in Den Haag 1850–1890’, Jaarboek voor Vrouwenstudies, 22 (2002), 28–55Google Scholar.

35 Farret, J.P., Verster, A.G. and van Swinden, J.H., Rapport over de telling van het volk van Amsterdam. Overgegeven aan de representanten van hetzelve Volk op den 20sten October 1795 (Amsterdam, 1795)Google Scholar.

36 Schmal, H., ‘De overheid als verkeersregelaar. Ongelukken en opstoppingen’, in Heinemeijer, W.F. and Wagenaar, M.F. (eds.), Amsterdam in kaarten. Verandering van de stad in vier eeuwen cartografie (Antwerp, 1987), 56–9Google Scholar.

37 For the construction of the canal ring and the Jordaan, see B. Bakker, ‘De zichtbare stad 1578–1813’, in W. Frijhoff and M. Prak (eds.), Geschiedenis van Amsterdam, 17–101.

38 In 1795 only 3.6% of the city's population lived in this area (calculations based on Farret, Verster and Van Swinden, Rapport over de telling van het volk van Amsterdam). Note the small number of bakeries in this neighbourhood indicated in Figure 2.

39 M.F. Wagenaar, ‘De Plantage. Wonen in een lustoord’, in Heinemeijer and Wagenaar (eds.), Amsterdam in kaarten, 132–5.

40 Komenijen were shops that sold fatty goods, like bacon, ham and butter, as well as beer, barley groats, beans and flour. The assortment of goods also included candles, scrubbing brushes, wrapping paper and other household products (J. van Lennep and J. ter Gouw, De uithangteekens, in verband met geschiedenis en volksleven beschouwd, deel 1 (n.p., 1868), 116–17).

41 For the situation in Brussels, see Bruneel and Delporte, ‘Approche socio-professionelle’, in particular illustration 4, and Bruneel, ‘La localisation du commerce’, 179.

42 See, for example, the lists of creditors in the Amsterdam city archive, archive number 5072 (Insolvency Chamber), inv.nrs. 3480 and 3949. The question of whether the Amsterdam elite also purchased consumption goods elsewhere (The Hague, Brussels, Paris?) falls outside the scope of this article and cannot be answered based on the source material studied here. Such shopping patterns have been noted for The Hague's elite, however (thanks to Mrs Wijsenbeek, University of Leiden, for this information).

43 A discussion of the principles operative in the selection of a retail site in Nelson, The Selection of Retail Locations, 52–5.

44 I am very grateful to Mr Abrahamse (Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed), who supplied me with this information.

45 Savary, Jacques, De volmaakte koopman, zynde een naaukeurige onderrechting van alles wat den Inlandschen en Uitlandschen koophandel betreft [enzovoort] in ‘t Nederduitsch gebracht door G. van Broekhuizen (Amsterdam, 1683), 283–4Google Scholar. This is a translation of Jacques Savary, Le parfait négociant, ou instruction générale pour ce qui regarde le commerce des marchandises de France & des pays étrangers first published in Paris in 1675. The French edition was republished throughout the eighteenth century and many copies have survived in Dutch libraries, indicating that it was probably widely known.

46 I have used the Dutch translation first published in 1683. In the French edition it says ‘car il y a aussi des endroits plus propres pour de certains négoces les uns que les autres. Enfin, il est certain que c'est une chose bien avantageuse à un Marchand que d'être bien placé’ (Savary, Jacques, Le parfait négociant, ou instruction générale pour ce qui regarde le commerce des marchandises de France & des pays étrangers (Geneva, 1752Google Scholar), book 4, ch. 3, 290).

47 See, for example Noordkerk, H. (ed.), Handvesten ofte privilegiën ende octroyen; mitsgaders willekeuren, costumen, ordonnantiën en handelingen der stad Amsterdam etc. (Amsterdam, 1748)Google Scholar, fifth part, fourth book, chs. 43 and 44.

48 See ibid., second part, ninth book, ch. 1, for the building codes, and third part, fourth book for the fire codes. The building codes are also extensively dealt with in Breen, J.C., ‘De verordeningen op het bouwen te Amsterdam vóór de negentiende eeuw’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum, 6 (1908), 107–48Google Scholar.

49 Wagenaar, Amsterdam, in zyne opkomst, third part, first book, 39–41.

50 Noordkerk (ed.), Handvesten ofte privilegiën, third part, first book, 771–5, item 5.

51 Wagenaar, Amsterdam, in zyne opkomst, third part, first book, 40–1.

52 Only chandlers, who also belonged to the retailers’ guild, had stricter rules and had to pay higher amounts (ibid., fourth part, first book, 437).

53 Amsterdam city archive, archive 366 (guilds), inv.nr. 564.

54 Although this article does not test it, the complex model discussed by Davies also seems to have historical relevance.