City Nomads: Changing Residence as a Coping Strategy, Amsterdam, 1890-1940

The article analyzes residential mobility patterns of the Amsterdam poor from the perspective of their coping strategies. In periods when cheap houses were available, casual and unskilled laborers tended to move very often from house to house. Generally, they remained in the immediate vicinity, thus preserving their social networks. After the First World War, the typical proletarian mobility was less conspicuous, due to the housing shortage and improvements in the welfare system.