The prostitution "crackdown" in Amsterdam

Amsterdam said it would close nearly one-third of the 350 windows that prostitutes use in the city's notorious Red Light District, invoking a 2003 law that allows it to revoke the licenses of brothels when it suspects that they are being used for money laundering or other illegal financial activities. ''We're not knights on a morality crusade, and this is intended to target financial crime, not prostitution per se,'' the city spokesman, Martien Maten, told The Associated Press. The Netherlands legalized prostitution in 2000, but even before then, the Red Light District was tolerated and had become a tourist attraction.

Read this for a public choice interpretation, and here are some real Dutch facts. The real point is real estate. The red light district is in the oldest, most beautiful area of Amsterdam. In the last 20 years, it has changed from a mixed neighborhood to one almost exclusively peopled by the very well to do. They pay a fortune for those apartments and homes. The talk of cleaning up the neighborhood for the sake of the prostitutes and to lessen criminal behavior is simply a smokescreen. What they wish to do is to create a more up-scale neighborhood - it is gentrification pure and simple.
What is offensive in all this is that anyone who bought a home in that area knew what they were getting into - large crowds every night and all night long. It is to lessen this that the district is being “shrunk”. Less windows for the prostitutes - a more compact area for the tourists - less annoyance for the wealthy.
Prostitutes play the same role as gays and artists elsewhere? They move into a run down area, build it up, and along come the yuppies. It is not about anything more than that.