The extensive growth of urban tourism has influenced the living environment of urban citizens worldwide, which is among others due to changes in the range of commercial amenities. As a manifestation of this development, the existing supply of retail and hospitality services gradually changes from a focus on inhabitants to the tourist. As a result, the call for municipal intervention grows. However, little is known about the steerability of this development. In this article we therefore asses how tourism affects the range of commercial amenities in city streets, and what local policy responses are most suitable. The research builds on the concepts of tourism gentrification and different types of ‘policy-instrument fit’. Our case study of the city centre of Amsterdam, including a media and policy document analysis, as well as in-depth interviews with stakeholders, show that some problems caused by mass tourism require ‘hard’ forms of government control, while others require a ‘softer’ process approach, linking local parties to jointly improve a city street. The presented steering perspectives are not only relevant for the city of Amsterdam, but also for many other towns within, and beyond, the Netherlands, that have been struggling with the growth of tourism. The open attitude towards urban mass tourism has come up for discussion and urban (tourism) policy calls for reconsideration.

Not a few continental philosophers are engaged with the debate on democracy, community and tolerance but also globalization, migration and human rights. They do not demand interpretation to get stopped in order to make action possible, as Marx demanded; every political action should start from a critical interpretation of what political acting demands. The work of philosophers such as Agamben, Benhabib, Honig or Nancy is deeply characterized by the challenge of the numerous difficulties and dilemmas our thinking of the other is confronted with, since the stranger or the other discloses limits by contesting who or what we are. He questions and deconstructs the identity of a given, particular community. The limits of community, that’s what it’s all about.