Rats in Amsterdam ‘are symptomatic of inequality’
Rats are everywhere in Amsterdam; they move just as easily through the canal belt as through Nieuw-West. UvA PhD student Eline van Oosten follows these fellow city dwellers and investigates the relationship between the rat and social inequality in Amsterdam. Three questions to the UvA rat researcher.
They are everywhere in Amsterdam, but they are rarely loved: rats. Yet they have been permanent residents of Amsterdam for centuries - in social housing as well as in canal-side mansions. But what do these animals actually say about the city they live in? According to PhD student Eline van Oosten, rats are mirrors of urban inequality. She follows these shy city dwellers to find the social inequality of Amsterdam and shares the expectations of her research.
What does a rat say about inequality in the city?
“Rats themselves don’t cause inequality, but they can make inequality visible. They are actually symptomatic of inequality. Where rats occur, you often see other decay: broken sewers, poor maintenance or overflowing garbage containers. The rat is seen as a problem animal, but actually it is the rats that make problems in the city visible.”
“For example, it is already known to the Animal Pest Control Department of the GGD (Public Health Service) in Amsterdam that residents from neighborhoods with a relatively higher population, higher education level and higher income are more likely to report rats than residents from neighborhoods with generally lower socioeconomic status. The GGD animal pest control department typically receives many more reports from Oud-West or Zuid, and fewer from Nieuw-West, for example. Liveability measurements by the municipality in 2023 show that there was actually higher pest nuisance in Nieuw-West, but this is not reflected from the locations of reports. The suspicion here is that residents from neighborhoods with higher socioeconomic status are better able to find their way to the reporting system than residents from neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status. Another factor may be that in neighborhoods with relatively more social housing, residents are more likely to report rat nuisance to the housing corporation than to the municipality, which means that these reports are not immediately visible to the pest control department of the GGD. This difference in willingness to report can ultimately cause inequality because it affects the extent to which rat nuisances and their causes are identified and addressed.”
Why exactly do researchers choose the rat?
“The rat is an urban animal. The city is a perfect environment for the rat: there is a constant stream of food due to the waste people produce and hiding places can be found everywhere. The brown rat, the most common species in Amsterdam, is originally from Asia and has arrived in Amsterdam over the past centuries via, among other things, trading ships. The rat has been able to build a good life here because there are favorable conditions for the rat in Amsterdam; there is plenty of food and shelter.”
According to Van Oosten, most of the rats are in the green strip between the bike shed next to CREA and building J/K. “Every time I walk there, I see a rat. There are garbage cans where a constant stream of trash goes and the trash is compacted here as well. And so, this is the perfect place for rats.”
“Yet we know remarkably little about the life of the rat between our walls and under our streets in Amsterdam. Much is known about rats when it comes to animal experiments in laboratories, but actually we don’t know much about rat behavior in the city. Precisely because they are difficult to catch and track, I think the rat is a fun research topic.”
“With rats, I think I uncover the more subtle forms of social inequality. In my research, I do not look at demographic or statistical data that are already widely used to describe inequality. Nor do I focus solely on visible differences in infrastructure, such as the quality of sewage or waste disposal in different neighborhoods. By studying animals, I can find out the more hidden, complex ways inequality manifests itself in the city. For example, I expect that rats reveal how different interests are weighed - such as nature and animal welfare - and which social groups do or do not benefit from these choices. Thus, rats add a new, valuable dimension to understanding social inequality in the city.”
Why is Amsterdam the city for this research?
“In any big city you find rats but, in Amsterdam you find them everywhere, so to speak. They walk around in the canal belt just as much as in the Zuid-Oost district.”
“Amsterdam is an interesting case study because inequality in the city is not always immediately visible. The case study of Amsterdam will be compared to Rio de. In Rio, social inequality is more visible than in Amsterdam, as evidenced by the so-called “favelas”. Favelas are slums in Rio that are not always well connected to the city’s formal infrastructure, such as sewers. In Amsterdam you also have segregation between neighborhoods, only this separation seems to be less visible in our consciousness.”
“In addition, Amsterdam is an interesting case study because inequality here is influenced by multiple, sometimes conflicting interests surrounding rats - such as those of nature interests and animal welfare. Rat control is more complicated than it used to be. Especially in the Netherlands, laws around animal welfare have become more strict. For example, you are no longer allowed to use poison to kill rats. This measure was taken to limit the spread of harmful chemicals into the environment and prevent their negative effects on other animals. Instead, traps are set and the focus is on preventive measures such as better management of waste, and building interventions such as repairing sewer pipes and fixing subsidence in the ground. One other reason rats are no longer being killed is that the assumption that rats are disease spreaders has been largely debunked. Only a few people get sick from rats every year, and some of those infections are contracted abroad but not reported until they return home to the Netherlands.”
“The municipality of Amsterdam also believes that the rat contributes to the city’s biodiversity and ecology, which are now struggling with their rat approach because of this. Where rats used to be seen primarily as dangerous pests, that image is slowly beginning to tilt. Indeed, what used to be called pest management is now labeled “animal pest control” in the GGD where the emphasis is now rather on acceptable numbers and controlling pest pressure at a site. But rats still inflict damage by gnawing off cables or causing subsidence in the ground through their burrows. Control is now about what number of rats is acceptable in the city to strike a balance between ecological concerns and nuisance.”
