Amsterdam – Nour El-Din Amrani

The municipality of Amsterdam has decided to discontinue the "neighborhood budgets" system, which allowed residents to determine how funds were spent in their own neighborhoods. Mayor Femke Halsema informed the chairs of the district councils of this decision earlier this week.
Under the neighborhood budget system, Amsterdam residents could submit proposals for their neighborhoods and then have fellow residents vote on which projects to implement using municipal funds.
These proposals could include increasing green spaces, organizing youth activities, providing academic support classes for students, or initiatives to combat social isolation.
In 2025, 34,226 residents cast their votes, and 120 plans were selected. The previous year saw 46,342 voters and 240 selected plans. For comparison, in 2019, 31,743 residents voted, and 64 plans were selected.
In the financial report for 2027, presented on September 17, €3.3 million was allocated for neighborhood budgets and related systems, down from €6.6 million this year. These figures encompass other systems as well; the specific amount allocated exclusively to neighborhood budgets cannot be isolated from the overall budget figures.
District council chairs have asked Mayor Halsema what will happen to these funds now. They questioned whether there were alternative ways to support resident-led initiatives—beyond mere voting—that would allow financial resources to be used for neighborhood-specific goals, democratically involve citizens in deciding how project funds are allocated, and prevent unspent money from reverting to the general budget.
Neighborhood budgets are not mentioned in the coalition agreement between the "Pro Amsterdam" and "Democrats 66" (D66) parties. Amsterdam ultimately decided to discontinue these budgets; residents can no longer vote on the allocation of funds for their neighborhoods. This marked the abandonment of a key principle—previously championed by Geert Wassink of the Left party—of involving residents in decisions affecting their neighborhoods and granting them oversight of programs that directly impact them. A successful example of this had been the Eastern Slotermeer district—one of the poorest areas in Amsterdam’s New West borough—where residents helped shape social and cultural programs, including those focused on green spaces.
At the time, the budget amounted to approximately one million euros, which was utilized to implement goals defined by the residents of Eastern Slotermeer themselves.
The municipality had aimed to foster civic engagement and expand these initiatives to North and South Amsterdam—particularly in marginalized neighborhoods suffering from socioeconomic disparities—as part of an effort to counter the impoverishment affecting citizens in these districts, especially those of immigrant backgrounds. Specialists and observers of local affairs believe that these initiatives have failed to break the isolation imposed on citizens—particularly the youth—because the central municipality lacks a comprehensive strategy to combat impoverishment and the marginalization that also afflicts the elderly, despite the involvement of experts and talented individuals in these initiatives. Meanwhile, the Municipality of Amsterdam was compelled to go public to clarify and justify its decision to halt community-led neighborhood projects, following a report on the matter in the editorial of the Amsterdam-based newspaper *Het Parool*.