Special Residential Neighbourhoods – Dutch Woonschoolen in the Interwar and Post-War Era

In last week’s post, we looked at how public housing authorities in both Britain and the Netherlands dealt with tenants or potential tenants they judged unacceptable by reason of their behaviour or character. In Britain, the task was usually left to housing inspectors, often female, who forced tenants to behave acceptably or risk eviction. A similar regime existed in the Netherlands but the Dutch also adopted a far more rigorous approach in what were called woonschoolen – specially designed and discrete estates set aside specifically to train poor tenants to respectable living. In today’s post, we examine two important interwar examples in Amsterdam and the last and longest lasting such estate built in Maastricht in the 1950s. As Pearl Moshinsky wrote in a contemporary study, in Amsterdam, similarly to British practice: (1) each colony is in charge of a woman inspector who keeps close social contact with families in her care, and gives advice when necessary on all matters connected…