297- Blood, Sweat and Tears (City of the Future, Part 2)

<p>The Bijlmermeer (or Bijlmer, for short) was built just outside of Amsterdam in the 1960s. It was designed by modernist architects to be a "city of the future" with its functions separated into distinct zones. To Modernists, it represented a vision of the city as a well-oiled machine Upon completion, it was a massive expanse of 31 concrete towers. There were 13,000 apartments, many of them unoccupied. Just sitting there, totally empty.</p> <p>Listen to Part 1 of this story <a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/bijlmer-city-future-part-1/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.</p> <p>In Part 2, we look at how the migration of tens of thousands of Surinamese Dutch began to give the empty place life where it wasn’t before and how a tragic accident kickstarted a redesign that managed to do what the Modernists neglected to do: listen to the people who live there.</p> <p><a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/?p=24071&amp;post_type=episode" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Blood, Sweat and Tears (City of the Future, Part 2)</a></p>