Until the second part of the nineteenth century, the city of Amsterdam was contained within what is now called its Historic City Centre (HCC). In 1870 225,000 inhabitants lived and worked in this area of 8 km2. Since then the concentration of people and jobs has increased to what has become the Amsterdam Urban Region. Along with this process of regional concentration, there was also a deconcentration of functions (particularly residential, but also industrial, wholesale and storage functions) from the historic part of the city. This deconcentration was partially due to the growing importance of department stores, shops, banks, public buildings, a railway station and hotels. Remarkably, this process of spatial restructuring largely took place without destroying the existing urban structure. In many cases, new modern buildings were constructed on reclaimed land or empty sites. But, more often, changes of land use took place by converting buildings to a different use. This process of spatial restructuring is still going on, and is increasingly affecting financial institutions and producer services. Many branch offices and even corporate headquarters are tending to relocate to the urban fringes or to the suburbs. The process of employment deconcentration has left behind many empty buildings in the HCC. Nowadays, these are increasingly likely to be converted into residential apartments. The speed of this process has recently alarmed the local government. There is growing evidence that the residential fonction is not just "filling the gaps" left behind, but that apartments are in fact more and more actively displacing office space. Contrary to these developments, the overall aim of local planning policies concerning the HCC is to maintain and even strengthen the leading position of this part of Amsterdam within the metropolitan structure: as a balanced centre of business and culture, but also as a historic as well as a residential centre. The HCC becoming more and more a residential district, however, poses considerable problems for local government. Therefore, the perspective of