- Ronald Dam: [as translated in the book Bike City Amsterdam, by F. Feddes and M. de Lange] The problems in De Pijp. The cars. It's impossible to put up with the cars any longer. There's no space left. Accidents kill thousands of people. The air is polluted. Everything is used to create parking lots. Why doesn't everyone go by bike?
- Ronald Dam: [translated from Dutch] But can the municipality really carry it out?
- Self - Architect: We have to try to bring into being a kind of foundation, or a housing association, which is going to manage De Pijp as a residential community.
- Ronald Dam: Now I'd like to come back to what you just said, you know, about selling it to the municipality, but before you can sell it, the squatters will have moved in.
- Self - Architect: [pondering] Before you can sell it, the squatters will have moved in... . Well, yes, that is, of course, it stems from the problem, you see, that there are far too few cheap houses, I think. And um, yes, we should to some extent, you see... It looks like a bloody hard question you're asking me!
- [pause]
- Self - Architect: So the fact that people want to live there after all says it all.
- Self - Pupil: [translated from Dutch] What is your opinion of De Pijp?
- Self - Alderman: It's not a very good district, I think.
- Self - Pupil: And what do you think of the houses?
- Self - Alderman: They are bad, in general. They are often too small, but some of them are okay, you could say.
- Self - Pupil: Mr. Goudriaan has also come up with a plan about the houses, that the houses that could be fixed up, are fixed up, and the ones that couldn't be fixed up, which had been completely neglected, get torn down. And the first floor is going to cost 20,000 guilders.
- Self - Alderman: Let's hope it can be done, then such a plan would be very good to improve houses a bit, in some spots everywhere around quarters like De Pijp. But that would be true of the city as a whole.
- Self - Pupil: But then you get a lot of rent increases.
- Self - Alderman: Well, but you also know we make a contribution to the rent, a housing allowance.