Blog -- Yuppieland: Coffee in the City

In Amsterdam today, specialty coffee bars are mushrooming. Does this mean that Amsterdammers have become coffee gluttons from one day to the next? Fact is that the spread of specialty coffee bars is not confined to Amsterdam, but a phenomenon that can be observed in almost every world city, be it Vancouver, Istanbul, or Kunming. It is obvious that structural factors apply such as, firstly, the transformation of the manufacturing economy to what Alan J. Scott would label the cognitive-creative economy; secondly, the concomitant concentration in urban centers of high-skilled and on life-style and connections oriented individuals; and thirdly, the proliferation of new forms of urbanism. But how does this work in practice? Here, we examine what is actually happening in these specialty coffee bars.

Click here for the full blog in www.theprotocity.com.

See also interview on pp. 26-27 in Folia (Dutch only).