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83 4 Waterfront Rise Urban Casino Space and Boundary Construction in the Netherlands s y t z e f. k i n g m a Modern casinos confine gambling activities to the casino premises and typically present and organize gambling as an entertainment product. In many cases singular establishments are part of major commercial enterprises, which together make up a global gambling industry. The strong commoditized nature of contemporary casinos implies that gambling opportunities are offered in a carefully designed context of intense service and close surveillance, segregated from the wider society and demarcated from the immediate environment.1 By the same token, however, this implies that casino companies increasingly have the ability to choose locations to their liking, and even to influence and shape consumption environments that offer favorable conditions for economic exploitation. For their part, local governments are seriously interested in casinos as tools for urban redevelopment . This logic applies to the urban environments of the twelve Holland Casinos that were built in the Netherlands during the 1990s.2 The encompassing urban casino space precedes, and, at the same time, interacts with, the construction of casinos. Urban space has to be symbolically , normatively, and materially defined as receptive to casinos, before one can even think of building one. Operators, regulators, and consumers (and academics) tend to take for granted the presence of a favorable urban condition for casinos. In this chapter I argue that the dynamic of the interaction between the city and the casino is complex and highly relevant for an understanding of the appearance of a casino, and even for the nature of casino entertainment itself. I will analyze the significance of the urban environment for a casino in the case of the Nijmegen waterfront casino, opened in 1989. This case is particularly appropriate because it was the first casino in the Netherlands that was built as part of an “urban entertainment destination.” The Nijmegen waterfront therefore carries the features of John Hannigan’s Fantasy City. These features include a “themed” and “branded” environ- 84 | G A M B L I N G , S PA C E , A N D T I M E ment, which is part of the nighttime economy. This environment consists of a modular mix of commercial entertainment components that constitute a space of illusions and is isolated from the surrounding neighborhood. In Nijmegen the central theme of the waterfront concerned the simulation of a traditional cityscape, depicted in figure 4.1. It was regarded as important for the representation and branding of the city in the city-marketing strategies as they emerged in the late 1980s. The Nijmegen casino and the waterfront were (re)constructed in close interaction with each other. The process reflected wider changes in the casino industry as well as in urban development. In their interpretation and explanation of such inner-city developments, scholars have stressed various conditions , including the role of social movements,3 the need for specific urban redevelopment policies,4 and capitalist investments.5 In the case of the Nijmegen waterfront casino, a range of social, political, and economic forces should indeed be taken into account. What I will highlight, however, is not only the significance of these conditions but also the dynamics of development and the role played by specific groups and organizations in the construction of urban casino space.6 I am primarily concerned with the interactions and changing actor networks, including the casino company Holland Casino, present in this redevelopment project. My approach resembles sharon Zukin’s analysis in Loft Living, where she showed how students and artists started to make new use of the deteriorated buildings in the New York soHo district. With this they introduced a new mode of urban living, a trend that capitalist project developers subsequently adopted.7 I will show how the meaning of urban casino space changes together with the involvement of, and changing coalitions between, interested parties. Contemporary casino enterprises favor a certain cultural meaning of gambling. This is gambling as a form of entertainment and fun and counter criminal involvement and gambling excesses, or gambling purely for monetary gain. These meanings represent “symbolic boundaries” that are in part spatially constructed. Boundary construction refers to the processes of inclusion and exclusion of particular cultural forms and meanings of gambling and to the actor networks involved in its (re)production.8 In this respect boundaries will be conceived not only as material in space and time but, at the same time, as symbolic and normative. Boundaries...

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